Robert Ashley ~ Private Parts LP [Lovely, 1978] 320 kbps

A. The Park 21:32
B. The Backyard 23:56

Piano, Synthesizer [Polymoog], Clavinet ~ 'Blue' Gene Tyranny
Tabla ~ Kris
Voice ~ Robert Ashley

Recorded at The Recording Studio, Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College
[Oakland, California] July, 1977

'Centered around the mesmerizing voice of Robert Ashley, this early version [released on LP by Lovely Music in 1978] of The Park and The Backyard is a masterpiece in its simplicity of form and in the purity and intensity of its effect on the listener. These two pieces were later to become the opening and closing segments of the seven part opera for television, Perfect Lives. "When Private Parts first hit the scene, everyone I knew had 'The Park' memorized within a month and quoted from it constantly. Ashley's series of non-sequitur images, fusing into a picture so lifelike that it never quite added up, brought a mystery into music theater that smashed our previous conceptions of the genre." ~ Kyle Gann

Giordano Bruno comes to mind, whoever he is... 320 kbps :)

David Behrman ~ On the Other Ocean LP [Lovely Music, 1978]

A. On the Other Ocean 23:30

• Bassoon - Arthur Stidfole
• Engineer - "Blue" Gene Tyranny
• Flute - Maggi Payne

B. Figure in a Clearing 19:12

• Cello - David Gibson
• Engineer - Richard Lainhart

side A ~ rec. at Center for Contempo Music, Mills College [Oakland, Ca], Sept. 18, 1977
side B ~ rec. at the State University of New York at Albany, June 9, 1977

'In 1977, Behrman began to use a computer and homemade synthesizer to 'listen' to players and react to what they played. Figure in a Clearing and On the Other Ocean are his first pieces. Extremely sophisticated, yet extremely simple; totally committed to technology, and yet totally human, highly abstract, yet highly emotional. On the Other Ocean, drifts placidly on six pitches. Arthur Stidfole plays lush, sustained bassoon tones, Maggi Payne adds slow flute lines of great warmth, and a microcomputer, Kim-1, provides sustained electronic tones that respond automatically to the instrumentalists. Figure in a Clearing, moves somewhat more erratically on its six pitches. David Gibson's cello tones blend miraculously with the triangle waves of the computer's response, and man and machine seem finally and irrevocably joined.' ~ lovely press release

the unimaginative cover art almost betrays how encroyably fresh & tonally rich this rekordin is. if you slept on the previous behrman post, it comes highly recommended as well. notes