Browse by Artist: PARMEGIANI, BERNARD

Artist:	PARMEGIANI, BERNARD
Title:	Jazzex
Label:	FRACTAL (FRANCE)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	FRAC 028CD

"This album is a collection of early works from the late 60's by the French electro-acoustic composer Bernard Parmegiani. Born in Paris (1927) and rich of a 'catalogue des oeuvres' of more than 60 pieces, including classics such as 'Violistries' 1965, 'La Roue Ferris' 1971, 'Pour en finir avec le pouvoir d'Orphée' 1971/72, 'De Natura Sonorum' 1974/75, the 4 pieces presented in this edition is a perfect exemple for discovering the unusual territories and the eclectism language of the composer : JazzEx for electronic tape and Jazz Quartet (Jean-Louis Chautemps : saxophone, Bernard Vitet : trompet, Charles Saudrais : drums, Gilbert Rovère : bass) create at the Festival de Royan in 1966. 'Pop Eclectic' 1969, is an electro-acoustic divertimento composed for the Peter Foldés movie. 'Du pop à l'âne' 1969, is a collage plunderphonics work. And 'Et après' 1973, is an electronic tango featuring Michel Portal on bandoneon. The present version is unreleased and was recorded live at the Festival Manca in 1996. Liner notes by Jean-Louis Chautemps." This is a new edition of the long deleted Plate Lunch release, Pop'eclectic.

Artist:	PARMEGIANI, BERNARD
Title:	Chants Magnétiques
Label:	FRACTAL (FRANCE)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	FRAC 180CD

"Here is a masterpiece of electronic music! French musician Bernard Parmegiani has composed Chants Magnetiques in 1974, one of the most sought-after Parmegiani albums -- a monster rarity which is almost impossible to find. This obscure album was composed around the same time as De Natura Sonorum during the mid-'70s, a particularly important and effervescent era for Bernard Parmegiani. Indeed, as if one can say that De Natura Sonorum is one of the best of Parmegiani's 'serious' works in terms of technics-sound-harmonic-tone, then there is no doubt that Chants Magnétiques is his chef-d'oeuvre on his 'dark side,' the 'Parmegiani's hidden face' that few people know nowadays. A collection of 10 united tracks under the title album name Chants Magnétiques/Magnetic Fields -- titled before Jean Michel Jarre's album -- and musically, in summary, more experimental, more organic, more spacey album in comparison to his famous INA-GRM works. This reissue on CD for the first time will rejoice all music lovers from Edgard Varèse, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Tod Dockstader to Musica Elettronica Viva, Nurse With Wound, Organum, Conrad Schnitzler. Official remastered edition from the original master tapes with the original cover sleeve."

Artist:	PARMEGIANI, BERNARD
Title:	La Creation du Monde
Label:	INA GRM (FRANCE)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	INA 1002

Repressed. INA GRM is a recording studio and label founded by Pierre Schaeffer in 1958 that has been central in the development, documentation and support of electronic/musique concrete/electroacoustic/acousmatic music ever since. Their LP series in the 70s was a true statement of artistry, and now they are heavily involved in issuing CDs of old & new classics. It is with great pleasure that we can offer this label for distribution; they've had a number of confusing relations with past distributors and the CDs have always been somewhat painful to obtain. This is a list of all CDs currently in print. If you're new to this field, check out Francois Bayle, Bernard Parmegiani or the Pierre Schaeffer box first, but just about every title has it's merits. All the CDs have fairly extensive liner notes, with French and English translations. On this first CD Parmegiani tries to acousmatically recreate "The Creation Of the World" -- starting with the Black Light of the pre-"Big Bang": "The absence of tonality that characterizes a good deal of sound material in 'Black Light' is due to the use of 'white' noises, that is to say sounds whose mass theoretically contains all the frequencies that can be accumulated statistically..." And then leading on to "The Metamorphosis Of the Void" & "The Sign Of Life." And so on. Parmegiani is one of our favorite of the French electroacoustic composers, his attention to sonic detail always a marvel to witness; recordings are few and far between. "What [Parmegiani's] compositions have in common is a strong emphasis on sounds produced by matter and sounds recorded from nature which he uses as a model. The concept of metamorphism which characterizes many of Parmegiani's works is expressed in his use of such elements as the ephemeral, the fleeting, the motions of air, the transparency or non-transparency of the space in which he arrays different levels of depth, the repetitive, the 'mirror effect'."

Artist:	PARMEGIANI, BERNARD
Title:	Violostries
Label:	INA GRM (FRANCE)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$32.00
Catalog #:	INA 1012/13

Finally reissued, with new artwork; this has been the most in-demand electroacoustic CD for the past few years. Parmegiani is one the electroacoustic superstars of the INA GRM universe, and along with various Bayle titles this is a great place to start with the label. This amazing double CD is broken up into 2 parts: the first disc consists of old-style tape-splicing electroacoustic material, dating from 1963 to 1976 ("Violostries," "Pour en Finir avec le Pourvoir d'Orphee" & "Dedans-Dehors"). The 2nd disc represents post-computer acousmatic music, with works from 1986 to 1991 ("Rouge-Mort:" "Thanatos," "Exercisme 3" & "Le Present Compose"). All are thoroughly soaked with the intuitive power of brain-scanning sonic properties, tones fade and explode with stunning neuronic intensity. "Exercisme 3" features "a sort of interface enabling natural sounds or analogical synthetic sounds to release digitally synthesized sounds. Such and such a series of impulsions releases virtually aleatoric, and sometimes very varied, repetitions of digital sounds. These repetitions are often very 'dense' and take us to the limits of continual sound phenomena, thus making these 'factory sounds' lose their instrumental 'soul.' Thus, we suddenly swing from one domain to another, from the instrumental to the electroacoustic, from a language we understand, to an 'unknown language.'"

Artist:	PARMEGIANI, BERNARD
Title:	La Mémoire Des Sons
Label:	INA GRM (FRANCE)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	INA 2019

AKA The Memory of Sounds. Features 3 works: "Capture Éphémère" (1967); "Sons-jeu" (1987); "La Mémoire des Sons" (2001). "Excepting some rare mixed pieces, Paremegiani's works as a whole take the form of music for 'fixedsounds', coming within the scope of the immense repertoire of electro-acoustic music. From his training in the art of mime and his experience as a sound engineer, Parmegiani has retained a taste for a hand-to-hand approach (sound/embodiment, as we could be tempted to say) with various sound mate-rials which he has developed throughout markedly diverse works." RE: "Capture Éphémère": "The beating of terror-stricken wings, gliding ascents, rockets, dull explosions: the fission of the fine powder of the sound is then recovered, in layers of 'captured', beating time: impossible stases of reso-nance ('fleeting' by their very nature ...) which however persist, beating out their miraculous cohesion: a magical effect even today: proof that it is not due to technique. Or: a sequence of utter loss, waste: an accumulation as Schaeffer would have said ('reiteration abounding in brief elements'; 'like a shower of stones dispersing'...), having the fluidity of a waterfall, with one hundred thousand elements interwoven in discontinuity, 'eccentric', generous, suffocating... Or: this furious vibration, which in its steep ascent, is imbued with a triumphant appearance of tireless virtuosity... And so many intimately interwoven composite sequences, as they advance, hurtling through space (and the Russian mountains ...) with seemingly inexhaustible energy; and marked several times, just before a silence, by the same small elegant asterisk. However, all of this (deafening volubility) is finally calmed by a short coda: where a movement to reduce and rarefy particles splits this mass in extremis into an ethereal shower of sparks, having the effect of a prolonged pause." -- Jean-Christophe Thomas.

Artist:	PARMEGIANI, BERNARD
Title:	L'eil ecoute
Label:	INA GRM (FRANCE)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	INA 2026

New 2004 Parmegiani release, featuring: "L'oeil Ecoute" (1970), "La Roue Ferris" (1971), "Especes d'espace" (2002-2003). "Excepting some mixed pieces, his work as a whole takes the form of music for 'fixed sound', coming within the scope of the immense repertoire of electro-acoustic music. In 1971, he made a video film based on the music in 'L'Oeil ecoute', featuring visual imagery processed through a synthesizer. We only need listen to the opening of 'L'Oeil ecoute', a sustained swirl and flurry, emerging as a wave about to break, which we only just manage to glimpse at its approach, just like this train which we take a full speed, surging forward headlong at the opening of the piece. At the very outset, on the one hand, everything is given in a single act, the music is already moving forward; and on the other, the ghostly realm into which it takes us is already amply filled out. We note that the large arbitrary breaks in tone Parmegiani achieves in 'L'Oeil ecoute' and indeed throughout all his musical compositions, arise as searching encounters. As such, they are gestures deriving from the sculptor himself. The blocks used are very imposing and the matter extremely dense..."

Artist:	PARMEGIANI, BERNARD
Title:	Plain-Temps
Label:	INA GRM (FRANCE)
Format:	CD
Price:	$19.00
Catalog #:	INA 2027

2006 release, presenting 3 versions of "Plain-Temps". Classic new work from the most important INA GRM composer. The first part of the suite, "Le Present Compose" is from 1991, recorded here in 2006. "The second part is "Entre-Temps" from 1992. "The gradual slowing down of the tick-tock sound of a penduluum with which the this piece opens provides us with not only the most symbolic but also the most illusory image of the passing of time. This is followed by by a constantly changing continuum, apparently homogenous and harmonious yet ultimately fragile. In the ever wider intervals that open up between these carefully-timed happenings, soundscapes appear. These resemble certain image-memories of everyday events, some close, some distant." -- Parmegiani. Part three is "Plain Temps", from 1993, recorded in 2006.

Artist:	PARMEGIANI, BERNARD
Title:	Sonare
Label:	INA GRM (FRANCE)
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	INA 5203

One 25 minute piece, from 1996. A State/CIRM commissioned work. "There is already music... of an Italian an character in this title! Sonare: l love this word because it is Italian and because upon hearing it, music simply springs forth from within it. For each of the 5 movements, I have chosen a pseudo-instrumental or synthesis sound which I sense will allow me to bring out its very essence to develop it until it is within the deepest levels of the soul, if the soul can at all be rendered accessible to such acoustic resonance!!! I had to imagine the most suitable interplay to bring out such 'intrinsic resonance'. Now of course, no interplay can be genuine unless certain freedoms are present within or inherent to it, the rule being that such an interplay should remain musical whilst the sounds, 'in a real context' become linked to or opposed to each other. No combat, just interplay for its own sake, for itself alone, and at the same time, changes in contour, an opening or closing in the tone, range, patterns of rhythm, as if the work were a living being in itself which these creations in sound so often closely resemble, these same creations in sound, intended firstly for our ears but not only for our ears." -- Parmegiani.

Artist:	PARMEGIANI, BERNARD
Title:	L'Oeuvre Musicale en 12 CD
Label:	INA GRM (FRANCE)
Format:	12CD
Price:	$100.00
Catalog #:	INA 6000/11

Incredible complete works boxset. "33 compositions from 1964 to 2007 with a 92-page booklet in French and English. The best way to enter into the world of Bernard Parmegiani, French composer of musique concrète, member of the GRM group." CD1: 'Violostries,' 'Jazzex,' 'L'instant mobile,' 'Capture éphémère.' CD2: 'Bidule en ré,' 'Pop'eclectic,' 'Du pop à l'âne,' 'Ponomatopées,' 'Musico Picassa,' 'Et après...' CD3: 'L'oeil écoute,' 'Pour en finir avec le pouvoir d'Orphée,' 'La roue ferris.' CD4: 'Enfer.' CD5: 'De natura sonorum.' CD6: 'Dedans-dehors,' 'La table des matières,' 'Des mots et des sons.' CD7: 'La création du monde.' CD8: 'Exercismes.' CD9: 'Litaniques,' 'Rouge mort: Thanatos,' 'E pericoloso sporgersi.' CD10: 'Trilogie plain temps.' CD11: 'Sonare,' 'Sons-Jeux,' 'La mémoire des sons.' CD12: 'Immer/Sounds,' 'Espèces d'espaces,' 'Au gré du souffle, le son s'envole,' 'Rêveries.'

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