Collapsing Rock, Pop & Noise

4	Musique Concrete 2	Listening examples include: David Fenshawe; Paul Schutze; John Zorn; Loop Orchestra; Bilting/Karkowski; Tackhead
	Landscaping Sonority	Ethnic environments; cinematic effects; acoustic versus digital; DJs & mixer

CONTINUING TRANSFORMATIONS

While being sited at a certain historical juncture where postwar culture and industry facilitated the spread and definition of the magnetic tape medium, Musique Concrete is still today an important conceptual marker for the dynamic relationships between Sound and Music. Sound, the recording of sound effects, and manifold ways of appreciating and reading sound now constitute the sonic world of the everyday, and from this total sonorum or 'world of sound' many composers create music by effectively 'landscaping sonority'.
 
EXAMPLES
 
ETHNIC ENVIRONMENTS

David Fenshawe - AFRICAN SANCTUS (1973)
A seminal piece of Anglophile anthropology which serves as a peculiarly British phenomenon: tracking down the elusive 'African-ness' and capturing it. Fenshawe's marriage of field recordings from the African continent and his composition for orchestra, ensemble and choir is based on a fusion of all beliefs into the one belief, hence the one 'world music'. The interface between live English music and recorded African music is the means for realizing this project.

Paul Schutze - LOSS & THE HAND LENS (1990)
A good example of expanded, open-ended layerings between field recordings (in this case from Tunisia) and studio composition. This piece is divided into 3 distinct sections, wherein elements from each overlap the succeeding section. Note the spatial effects of the music which appears as a radio, then as a full recording; note also the play between musicalized percussion (Schutze's and Tunisia) and the more abstract percussive textures at the end of the piece.
 
CINEMATIC EFFECTS

John Zorn - SPILLANE (1987)
Zorn has done much work exploring the strangely evocative 'cinematic' quality which music generates. He has done formal homages to the work of Godard and Morricone. In this piece, he recreates a film noir world by combining iconic sound effects, musical stylizations. Most importantly he explores a variety of ways in which the musical becomes sonic (eg. the rumbling trombones = the sound of the chaotic city) and the sonic becomes musical.

Steve Moore - THE THRESHOLD OF LIBERTY (1985)
A different cinematic effect is explored here - one which draws upon less iconic but nonetheless clear emotional triggers which film composers have exploited widely throughout this century. The main theme - as evidenced by the title - is 'liberty', and the loops and tape fragments of orchestral recordings recreate stylistic and imaginary apparitions of the theme.

The Loop Orchestra - SUSPENSE (1990)
A highly iconic piece, this is based on exploiting the nature of tape loops as being a neumonic device which is forever on the verge of 'becoming something' - though of course it never can become anything but itself. A variety of signs and cliches of suspense film music are fragmented and left to endlessly build up - always generating suspense but never granting any resolution.
 
ACOUSTIC VERSUS DIGITAL

A-Soma & Eve Libertine - A MISCELLANY OF DISPLACEMENTS(1989)
A piece composed entirely of natural environmental sounds. Rudimentary processing ensures that an atmospheric tactility is always present: air, water, earth, etc. Such textures are important in electro-acoustic pieces of this kind, as the clear impression one gets of the textures (how 'tactile' they appear) are part of the psychological involvement of the listener, whereby s/he can feel to be transported to an virtual aural location comprised of actual aural textures.

Bilting/Karkowski - HE VAN HE (1988)
Diametrically opposed to the above piece, this is a good example of high-end digital processing, with very sophisticated voice creation using solely digital synthesis. Note the strange effect - typical of much computer-generated music - where a definite 'tactility' is present, though there is a perceptual confusion between a pseudo-acoustic quality generated by digital effects.
 
DJS & MIXERS

Royal House - CAN YOU PARTY? (1988)
Producer Todd Terry produced many underground club hits in the late 80s, working with a very simplistic set up of drum machine, bass synth and around 8 samples at a time. The quality was often lo-fi, but through his approach to rhythmic construction of limited samples and the aural quality of the overall sound, he defined a clear sub-genre of House music. Listen to this piece and note the extreme reduction employed in the composition.

Tackhead - NOW WHAT? (1985)
Producer Adrian Sherwood here uses a millisecond sample loop to create a subsonic drone which he uses to actively 'destroy' the analogue/electronic nature of the rest of the music track. This piece is a clear demonstration of how the digital and the analogue interact with each other. Typical of Sherwood's hard political stance (the song is a symbolic treatise against military mercenaries) he uses this sound to symbolize the effect of an imperialist ray gun which decimates a peaceful terrain.