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LP
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BT 065LP
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Limited restock. Star Trap presents a selection of hitherto unreleased 1990s recordings from Arnold Dreyblatt and his Orchestra of Excited Strings. Following on from Black Truffle's wide-ranging archival Second Selection (2015), which presented a smorgasbord of unreleased material from between 1978 and 1989, Star Trap mines Dreyblatt's extensive archive of unheard recordings from the 1990s, uncovering six pieces performed by three different iterations of the Orchestra of Excited Strings. While Dreyblatt often performs in his ensembles on his signature Excited Strings Bass (a double bass strung with piano wire), here we find him in the composer's chair and behind the mixing desk, leading ensembles of modified percussion, string, and wind instruments. Four of the pieces make use of Dreyblatt's Dynamic Processing System (heard on a stunning pair of solo pieces for electric guitar featured on Second Selection), in which the opening and closing of digital noise gates are controlled by an external signal (in this case, a recording of faulty escalator). Rather than the relentless thudding rhythms of 1980s works like Nodal Excitations, the ensemble pieces here are closer to the propulsive, at times even funky rhythmic foundation of Dreyblatt's classic Animal Magnetism (Tzadik, 1995), but further enlivened by the unpredictable accents of the Dynamic Processing System. On "Escalator", a six-piece version of the Orchestra performs the notated stuttering rhythms and shifting accents of the gated escalator recordings, without the actual Dynamic Processing System being audible. On the remaining two pieces, composed for the tenth anniversary of the Orchestra of Excited Strings in Europe, Dreyblatt made use of algorithmic software to generate material. But far from austere exercises, these pieces are perhaps the most immediate of all, as the Orchestra exuberantly tears through a sequence of repeating rhythmic and melodic cells, dazzling the ear with the overtones generated by Dreyblatt's twenty-note microtonal scale. At times recalling aspects of the work of Peter Zummo or Arthur Russell's Instrumentals, but with a massive dose of sonic heft, this is music for both the mind and the body. Mastered and cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Design by Lasse Marhaug. Includes liner notes by Arnold Dreyblatt.
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LP
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DC 629LP
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2022 restock. "By the late '80s most of the burgeoning minimal underground had been forgotten, especially one amazing character, Arnold Dreyblatt. Dreyblatt only had one record, Nodal Excitation (on the mostly post-AACM jazz label India Navigation), before he packed and moved to Berlin, where he concentrated on his other activities, making only two more records over the next 10 years. But for those who caught the action, Arnold was the man. He was more rock that any of the others combined, and he was also the only one to really tap into that massive proto-minimal sound that Conrad had squelched out of his tin-contact mic violin in the early '60s. Indeed, in the early '70s after being in school in Buffalo, where Conrad taught, Dreyblatt moved into Manhattan to work for Young, where he witnessed first-hand, and listened first-ear to those legendary recordings of the Theatre of Eternal Music. He got interested in long string sounds, and bought a bass that he wired with piano wire. By hitting the strings instead of bowing them, Dreyblatt was able to get those ringing overtones, but he also had added something new: pure rhythm. Dreyblatt couldn't get the rock singles he'd grown up with out of him, and couldn't become the full-on new-music man that seemed to be a requirement in the '70s, and it wasn't until the '80s that the fence could be straddled, if not knocked over. It was time to start a band. In 1998, dexter's cigar were on the scene, excavating the valuable stuff from that semi-recent past for Nodal Excitation's first-ever appearance on CD. It brought it into a lot of new ears -- but times have changed and so have the ears. So what you have here is the first ever LP reissue of Arnold Dreyblatt's freshman record, a slice of minimal history that is STILL as potent now, if not more, as it was in '98 and '81 before it. It was a lighthouse that was aiming the wrong way when the tugboat came by, but now it's shining right in your face."
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CD
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IMPREC 323CD
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"Arnold Dreyblatt (b.1953) is an American composer who has studied with La Monte Young, Pauline Oliveros and Alvin Lucier. He is a member of the German Academy Of Art. He has released work on labels such as Table of the Elements, Cantaloupe, Tzadik, Hat Art and Dexter's Cigar. Turntable History is a recording of a 40-minute multi-channel sound composition which was conceived as part of an audio-visual installation installed in the circular vaulted brick space of a historical water container in Berlin in 2009. The original sound content is derived from recordings made by Arnold Dreyblatt of a Magnetic Resonance Imagining Scanner (Siemens Magnetom Symphony Maestro Class) in a radiological practice in Berlin. Dreyblatt was fortunate to gain rare permission to record this device in operation without patients being involved. A technician from Siemens manned the machine especially for these recordings, searching for software settings related to their resulting sonic output rather for scanning particular body areas. Dreyblatt treated the device as a giant Tesla coil, in which the alignment and resonances of a powerful magnetic field is gradually altered by rotating radio frequencies. Dreyblatt analyzed and deconstructed the original recordings and grouped the audio segments by pitch, rhythm and density. The resulting five-channel composition of harmonically resonating, pulsating signals, sounded within this voluminous reflective space (with long delay times) is wonderfully captured in this recording."
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CD
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DEX 015CD
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Reissue of a key minimalist masterwork. Dreyblatt's documentation in the past has been slim, with albums on Hat Art, Tzadik and Table of the Elements. This album features a 39 minute performance by Arnold's group known as The Orchestra of Excited Strings, recorded in 1981/82 Dreyblatt, Michael Hauenstein (bass violas with Excited Strings), Peter Phillips (Midget Upright Pianoforte), Kraig Hill (Portable Pipe Organ) & Greg Lewis (Hurdy Gurdy). "Dreyblatt only had one record Nodal Excitation (on the mostly post-AACM jazz label India Navigation), before he packed and moved to Berlin, were he concentrated on other activities, making only 2 more records over the next 10 years. But for those who caught the action, Arnold was the man. He was more rock than any of the other minimalists combined, and he was also the only one to really tap into that massive proto-minimal sound that Conrad had squelched out of his tin-contact mic violin in the early 60s. Indeed, in the early 70s, after being in school in Buffalo, where Conrad taught, Dreyblatt moved into Manhattan to work for LaMonte Young, where he witnessed first hand, and listened first-ear to those legendary recordings of the Theatre of Eternal Music. He got interest in long string sounds, and bought a bass that he wired with piano wire. By hitting the strings instead of bowing them, Dreyblatt was able to get those ringing overtones, but he also had added something new: pure rhythm...So what you have here is Dreyblatt's freshman record, a slice of minimal history that is as potent now, if not more, as it was then. It was a lighthouse that was aiming the wrong way when the tugboat came by, but now it's shining right in your face."
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