Songs and Views of the Magnetic Garden
Encyclopedia
Songs and Views of the Magnetic Garden (1975/Catalyst 09026-61823-2 1993) is an album
"performed, synthesized, recorded, and mixed by Alvin Curran
." Liner notes by Tim Page
and Alvin Curran.
Curran says that he was encouraged by then recent solo works by Terry Riley
, La Monte Young
, Charlemagne Palestine
, and Simone Forti
, while AllMusic says the album recalls early electronic work involving tape loop
s, echo
, and feedback
, and resembles composers Riley, Pauline Oliveros
, and Steve Reich
.
The title will also be found as Songs and Views from the Magnetic Garden.
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
"performed, synthesized, recorded, and mixed by Alvin Curran
Alvin Curran
Composer Alvin Curran , is the co-founder, with Frederic Rzewski and Richard Teitelbaum, of Musica Elettronica Viva, and a former student of Elliott Carter. Curran's music often makes use of electronics and environmental found sounds....
." Liner notes by Tim Page
Tim Page (music critic)
Tim Page is a writer, editor, music critic, producer and professor. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic for the Washington Post and also played an essential role in the revival of American author Dawn Powell.-Career:Page grew up in Storrs, Connecticut, where his father, Ellis B...
and Alvin Curran.
- "This lush musical landscape, Alvin Curran's first multi-mediaMultimediaMultimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
solo work, intertwines singing and synthesizer, droneDrone (music)In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. The word drone is also used to refer to any part of a musical instrument that is just used to produce such an effect.-A musical effect:A drone...
s and overtoneOvertoneAn overtone is any frequency higher than the fundamental frequency of a sound. The fundamental and the overtones together are called partials. Harmonics are partials whose frequencies are whole number multiples of the fundamental These overlapping terms are variously used when discussing the...
s, bellBell (instrument)A bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...
s, gamelanGamelanA gamelan is a musical ensemble from Indonesia, typically from the islands of Bali or Java, featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings. Vocalists may also be included....
s, and sounds of nature—a unique tapestry of sound that eloquently introduces a fanciful and original American composer."
Curran says that he was encouraged by then recent solo works by Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, La Monte Young
La Monte Young
La Monte Thornton Young is an American avant-garde composer, musician, and artist.Young is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. His works have been included among the most important and radical post-World War II avant-garde, experimental, and contemporary music. Young is...
, Charlemagne Palestine
Charlemagne Palestine
Charlemagne Palestine is an American minimalist composer, performer, and visual artist...
, and Simone Forti
Simone Forti
Simone Forti , a postmodern American choreographer and musician, was born in Italy but moved to the United States at a young age. Throughout her career she became known for a style of dancing and choreography that was largely based on basic everyday movements, such as games and children's...
, while AllMusic says the album recalls early electronic work involving tape loop
Tape loop
In music, tape loops are loops of prerecorded magnetic tape used to create repetitive, rhythmic musical patterns or dense layers of sound. Contemporary composers such as Steve Reich and Karlheinz Stockhausen used tape loops to create phase patterns and rhythms...
s, echo
Echo (phenomenon)
In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound, arriving at the listener some time after the direct sound. Typical examples are the echo produced by the bottom of a well, by a building, or by the walls of an enclosed room and an empty room. A true echo is a single...
, and feedback
Audio feedback
Audio feedback is a special kind of positive feedback which occurs when a sound loop exists between an audio input and an audio output...
, and resembles composers Riley, Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....
, and Steve Reich
Steve Reich
Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich is an American composer who together with La Monte Young, Terry Riley, and Philip Glass is a pioneering composer of minimal music...
.
- "Curran interweaves the sounds of singing, nature, bells, gamelans, and synthesizers into what Page calls 'New AgeNew AgeThe New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
with brains...he's one composer who can actually organize noise to the point that it becomes music.'"
- "Hearing his mid-1970s assemblages Songs And Views Of The Magnetic Garden or Fiori Chiah Fiori Oscuri is like peering for the first time into Joseph CornellJoseph CornellJoseph Cornell was an American artist and sculptor, one of the pioneers and most celebrated exponents of assemblage...
's boxed collageCollageA collage is a work of formal art, primarily in the visual arts, made from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole....
s."
- "Alvin Curran's 'Songs and Views of the Magnetic Garden' was a simmering stew of "found" soundsFound artThe term found art—more commonly found object or readymade—describes art created from undisguised, but often modified, objects that are not normally considered art, often because they already have a non-art function...
and minimalism."
The title will also be found as Songs and Views from the Magnetic Garden.
Track listing
- From a Room on the Piazza - WindWindWind is the flow of gases on a large scale. On Earth, wind consists of the bulk movement of air. In outer space, solar wind is the movement of gases or charged particles from the sun through space, while planetary wind is the outgassing of light chemical elements from a planet's atmosphere into space...
, high-tension wires, swallowSwallowThe swallows and martins are a group of passerine birds in the family Hirundinidae which are characterised by their adaptation to aerial feeding...
s, percussionPercussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
, "molimo" (MbutiMbutiMbuti or Bambuti are one of several indigenous pygmy groups in the Congo region of Africa. Their languages belong to the Central Sudanic and also to Bantu languages.-Overview:...
trumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
) - Crystal Aires - Voice, ring modulator, glass chimeChime (bell instrument)A carillon-like instrument with fewer than 23 bells is called a chime.American chimes usually have one to one and a half diatonic octaves. Many chimes play an automated piece of music. Prior to 1900, chime bells typically lacked dynamic variation and the inner tuning required to permit the use of...
s, water glugger, beeBeeBees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...
s - Walked the Way Home - jaw harpJew's harpThe Jew's harp, jaw harp, mouth harp, Ozark harp, trump or juice harp, is thought to be one of the oldest musical instruments in the world; a musician apparently playing it can be seen in a Chinese drawing from the 4th century BC...
, synthesizerSynthesizerA synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
, flugelhornFlugelhornThe flugelhorn is a brass instrument resembling a trumpet but with a wider, conical bore. Some consider it to be a member of the saxhorn family developed by Adolphe Sax ; however, other historians assert that it derives from the valve bugle designed by Michael Saurle , Munich 1832 , thus...
, dogDogThe domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
s - Gli Scariolanti - Italian folksong sung by Margherita Berietti
- On My Satin Harp - VCS3 synthesizer, kalimbaThumb pianoThe thumb piano is an African musical instrument, a type of plucked idiophone common throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.-Description:Each note of a kalimba, mbira, etc. is a separate idiophone, and in orchestral terms, the instrument as a whole belongs in the bar percussion family...
, sounds of the seaSeaA sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean... - At Harmony Ranch - Whirling plastic tubesTube (fluid conveyance)A tube, or tubing, is a long hollow cylinder used to convey fluids .The terms "pipe" and "tube" are almost interchangeable, although minor distinctions exist — generally, a tube has tighter engineering requirements than a pipe. Both pipe and tube imply a level of rigidity and permanence,...
[or hosesHose (tubing)A hose is a hollow tube designed to carry fluids from one location to another. Hoses are also sometimes called pipes , or more generally tubing...
], peepersSpring PeeperThe Spring Peeper is a small chorus frog widespread throughout the eastern USA and Canada.-Subspecies:There are two subspecies of the Spring Peeper, the Northern and the Southern Spring Peeper . The Northern is similar to the Southern except for a strong dark marking on the Southern frog's belly...
(frogs), "Guido" the dog