Browse by Artist: WISHART, TREVOR

Artist:	WISHART, TREVOR
Title:	Red Bird
Label:	ELECTRONIC MUSIC FOUNDATION
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	EMF 022CD

"Extremely great reissue of the previously-semi-available-but-not-so-for-quite-a-l ong-time October Music CD (which itself was a reissue of the 1977 LP on Wishart's own Yes imprint, along with the piece 'Anticredos' for 6 voices, from an LP on Hyperion, 1982). Recent developments in Wishart's street cred (contributing to Or Some Computer Music Issue One, being name-dropped by Richie Devine on several occasions, Aphex Twin's use of CDP) seem to suddenly make Trevor... relevant to a younger set of listeners. Which is not entirely a bad thing (mind you). 'Red Bird' is for electronic sounds, where 'vocal sounds are changed into metallic hammers, a book slammed closed becomes a slammed door ... A vast array of recorded sounds shift and slowly morph into other sounds, and the effect is magical'. Rumours abound of this being the piece specified in Stapleton's'list' (adorning the fold of the Chance Meeting LP), NOT the 'Beach Singularity/Menagerie' set reissued by the seemingly 95% 'list'-fueled Paradigm reissue program (not surprising seeing the contained seminal vox-murk, sonic transformations, primalcy, etc... influentially evident in Nurse With Wound titles from just later). An amazing document, this. Completely essential." -- Hrvatski.

Artist:	WISHART, TREVOR
Title:	Voiceprints
Label:	ELECTRONIC MUSIC FOUNDATION
Format:	CD
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	EMF 029CD

"Master composer Trevor Wishart shapes recordings of the human voice into a majestic, sonic extravaganza. With satire, sympathy, and his extraordinary talent with sound, Wishart gives us an audio panorama of the world today through the voices of many different people, famous and unknown. You'll hear the voice of Margaret Thatcher as a political cartoon, a touching portrait of Princess Diana, the powerful resonance of Martin Luther King's well-known words, the crackly voice of Neil Armstrong, the zany musicality of Elvis Presley, the playful sounds of Wishart's young daughter's voice, and the touching story of an 80-year-old woman's dream. Tongues of Fire, the final work on the CD, is a masterpiece. It is a complex extended composition that explores the human condition through the transformation of the human voice. In a spectacular display of skill in performing audio transformations, Wishart bases a major work of sounds and textures on a few utterings. This disc is an important moment in the history of electronic music."

Artist:	WISHART, TREVOR
Title:	Tongues Of Fire
Label:	OTP (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$12.50
Catalog #:	OTP 001

A 25-minute CD EP from 1994. by this renowned UK tape/voice/concrete composer. "Explores our human aspirations and absurdities, through the musical transformation of the human voice. The slightly angry, disgruntled, comic mutterings with which the piece begins are the source of all the sounds, which appear in it: sounds suggesting drums, water, metallic resonances, fireworks, or entirely imaginary materials or events, all generated through processes of sound-transformation on the computer. 'Tongues of Fire' uses the whole range of sound-processing and sound-texturing tools available on the computer. Many new and non-standard techniques are used, such as constructive distortion (e.g. spectral tracing, waveset distortion) and sound-shredding."

Artist:	WISHART, TREVOR
Title:	Beach Singularity
Label:	PARADIGM (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	PD 003CD

"With no national record labels and very few electronic music studios to support this music, the UK has always lagged behind its counterparts in both the US and throughout east and west Europe. Trevor started releasing his own music in 1970 and continues to do so to this day. Much of this CD was originally privately released in 1979. Whilst other British maverick composers (Nyman, Bryars, Cardew, etc.) chose to stay out of the electronic music studio, Wishart and a very few others, (principally Harvey, Souster and Smalley) took the plunge. The amount of electro acoustic music coming out of Britain at this time was limited to the work of these dedicated composers. This CD comprised a complete reissue of the original LP with an additional 4 'Menagerie' pieces added to the 6 on the original release, plus an improvised solo vocal piece recorded at the old Recommended Records shop in 1991." "Menagerie" is an outstanding series of short tape works to accompany small performance art assembles when performed (reproduced in the CD booklet here). "Beach Singularity" is a strange excerpt from a day-long performance on the British seaside in 1977, featuring Wishart (tapes, vocals), Lyn Dobson (sax), Melvyn Poore (tuba), Poppy Holden (vocals), Robin Coombes (clarinet), etc. "...as an audience gathered their music developed a bizarre twist, with additional sound effects, tape collage and electronics provided by prerecorded cassettes played through a portable loudspeaker system. At certain periods, various kinds of experimental music, from free improvisation to pure tape pieces were played at the centre of the maze."

Artist:	WISHART, TREVOR
Title:	Journey Into Space
Label:	PARADIGM (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	PD 018CD

"York University's music department houses one of the UK's first ever electronic music studios, and during the early seventies it was a hotbed of creative activity. Much of the released output from the studio at this time revolved around the work of the dynamic composer Trevor Wishart. Journey Into Space was his first release, composed between 1970 and 72, and was privately pressed (shortly before the formation of YES records), as two separate LP's in 1973. (The CD cover amalgamates the 2 original designs). Along with other early private releases of experimental music in the UK (ie the LP of sound poems by Cobbing/Jandl, or the LP of musique concrète by Desmond Leslie), this record is also a total anomaly in the canon of British experimental music and has little to do with the current, or even subsequent work by Wishart. The vast length of this piece has many different styles. There are acoustic sections, mostly of junk and toys (bike bells, squeeze horns, bottles, metal tubes, combs etc.) as well as flute and brass sections that are used as raw material. There are also sections of everyday field recordings, scraps of NASA Apollo transmissions, as well as plenty of multitracking, editing, vocal acrobatics and musique concrète. Among the 48 participants credited on the original sleeve are a whole roster of York University alumni including nearly all the artists who were showcased on the soon to be released 3LP box set Electronic Music From York, along with other noteworthy students as diverse as Steve Beresford, Jonty Harrison, Roger Marsh, Dominic Muldowney, Bernard Rands and Jan Steele. The co-operative spirit of York's music and drama departments, plus the raw enthusiasm and open attitude of the participants involved in the project gave this music an immediacy, similar to the later LAFMS scene."

Artist:	WISHART, TREVOR
Title:	Machine
Label:	PARADIGM (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	PD 025CD

"Although Machine was completed in 1971, it was not released until 1973, shortly after the release of his Journey Into Space. Machine is therefore the first major composition by Trevor Wishart. It was composed at York University and was originally issued on vinyl as 3 sides of a highly adventurous 3LP box set called Electronic Music From York, on the University's own record label. In common with Journey Into Space (also on Paradigm Discs), Machine makes use of a large number of volunteer contributors, mostly from the student body at York. With this recording, however, there are no instruments used. Instead, the music of Machine is made up entirely from a combination of spoken text, carefully directed improvising choirs that take their lead from pre-recorded factory sounds. These are extensively mixed and edited with yet more collected machine sounds and other sources of musique concrète, as well as occasional use of basic electronic sources. The scale of this work, and the degree of preparation involved in scoring it, seems to have more resonances with the world of theater or film rather than tape composition. Much of Wishart's early work involved the use of musicians and artists being directed to perform in new ways, outside of their usual remit. A combination of late '60s openness, detailed scores that provide frameworks for improvisation and slavish editing have resulted in an incomparable sound work. With a continuous playing time of one hour, the wild and previously unexplored terrain covered by this pioneering work of British experimental music moves in turn through the full range of possible audio landscapes from the oceanic calm of the doldrums to earsplitting factory mayhem."

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