Browse by Artist: SONDHEIM, ALAN

Artist:	SONDHEIM, ALAN
Title:	Ritual-All-7-70
Label:	ESP-DISK
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	ESPDISK 1048CD

"Alan Sondheim was the young, exuberant leader of a pack of improvisers in their communal loft in Providence, Rhode Island. Undaunted by attempts to categorize electronic music as the province of academic tinkerers, a cold, unfriendly realm, with its own authorities, and audiences and mystique, they plunged fearlessly, joyously and unselfconsciously into the medium, discovering a new way to express their ideas. Their ESP CDs, ESP 1048, Ritual all 7-70 and ESP 1082, T'Other Little Tune, merge free improvisation and electronic instrumentation. New digipak format." "Ritual All 7-70 is a curious collection of short improvisations by the multi-instrumentalist Alan Sondheim -- who plays, among others, koto, English horn, electric and acoustic guitars, and various percussion and reed instruments -- and a bassist, percussionist (doubling on tabla and bongos), and drummer, with the wordless vocals of Ruth Ann Hutchinson echoing the horn lines and occasionally spiraling off into the ether on their own. Although they largely sound like live improvisations by a full band, the fact that Sondheim plays the majority of the instruments by himself suggests that these pieces were painstakingly overdubbed. Although Sondheim's 1968 follow-up, T'Other Little Tune, is a largely electronic effort with quite a bit of pioneering synthesizer and oscillator work, this album is much more traditional in its sound and format. Some of these short pieces -- all of them given numbers between 770 and 782 for titles, except for the almost traditional-sounding 'June' -- recall John Cage's occasionally harsh '40s and '50s vintage work, when randomness and indeterminacy were the primary focus of his composing method, while the more overtly jazz-oriented works, like the fascinating '780' (which features a rat-a-tat rhythm that may be of electronic or found-sound origin), are more in tune with the usual ESP ethos." - Stewart Mason, All Music Guide.

Artist:	SONDHEIM, ALAN
Title:	SKI/NN
Label:	FIRE MUSEUM
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.00
Catalog #:	FM 007CD

"A recording of solo acoustic guitar and alpine zither songs, this release will delight those familiar with his early Riverboat and ESP Disc recordings as well as the audience for experimental solo guitar -- while creating an audience for experimental solo alpine zither! On this release, Alan performs on the 1927 martin tenor guitar, 19th century parlour guitar, 1920s prime alpine zither and 1860s elegie alpine zither. Dan Wharburton of Paris Transatlantic said of the reissue of The Songs: 'an endearingly ramshackle melting pot of free jazz, blues and folk (if Eugene Chadbourne later described his work as 'free improvised country & western bebop' then this is 'free improvised Hawaiian flamenco gospel blues music theatre). Its influence resonates (indirectly, one imagines, unless there are more copies of the original vinyl in circulation than I imagine) in the free folk of today's New Weird America scene.' Now listeners have the opportunity to hear for themselves the present day song form manifestations of this overlooked creative master."

Previous Page Index of Artists Next Page