Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2003 3:43 pm PST
Post subject: SCREAM at Roy O. Disney (CalArts), 11/7/03


The latest concert by the Southern California Resource for Electro-Acoustic Music was presented up at CalArts and included a variety of heavy-hitting CalArts faculty and alumni.

First up was "City of History (1)" by Michael Pisaro. Taken from field recordings, Pisaro presented highlights of found sound in an enveloping blanket of silence, something like a set of cut-outs from snapshots arranged strategically on a velvet background. I found that using silence as a ground-benchmark tended to focus my attention on the sound figures in sharp relief, such as engine-revving and brake squeals, foot steps, radio/CD snippets, bird-twittering, etc.

That was followed by Bob Clendenen's "Music From Planet Trumpet: No. 5 (Version 2)" -- a pleasant and relatively short piece consisting of sustained flugelhorn sounds developed in context of light electronic drum tracks in a groove-like repetition, if not necessarily a constant pulse.

Next up was Peter Grenader's "Electrolux" -- an evolving series of medium-enveloped waves of complex textures, developing dramatically by adding sharper attacks, increasing density and expanding richness of frequency spectrum.

Anne LeBaron's "Blue Harp Studies 1 & 2" followed, with a palette of standard and extended-technique harp sounds, including some group improvisations in addition to solo samples, subsequently selected, sequenced and layered digitally. These two pieces combined a variety of colors and manipulations over bass-like groove-oriented textures, in a mood of whimsy and exploration.

SCREAM founder Barry Schrader continued with "Ground" which proceeds initially from a sort of Baroque passacaglia form -- a repeating cycle of a few chords, expressed in a masterful series of broadening variations of glistening texture and evolving envelopes.

David Rosenboom then brought out "Two Pieces for Analog Computer -- Music for Unstable Circuits (+ Drums)" revised in 1984 from works originally created in 1968, studies on the chaotic behavior of analog circuits creating ultra-high-overtone beat patterns from closely-matched fundamental tones, swirling in constrained-but-wild turbulence. The more recent revision places these electronic winds and explosions in context of a percussion part designed to "emphasize the rhythm of pulse wave patterns resulting from the complex circuit behavior" as Rosenboom describes it.

Closing the set was "Collage #2" by James Tenney, a soundtrack to a short film from 1965, "Viet Flakes" by Carolee Schneemann, an examination of still pictures from the Vietman War, filmed and collaged. Tenney's collage drew from popular songs of the day (96 Tears, Sonny, What the World Needs Now is Love Sweet Love, We Can Work It Out), classical (Bach and Mozart), and Asian folk and classical recordings, in a similarly fragmented collage to accompany the film, both powerful in the juxtaposition of fragments creating deeper associations and meaning.

This concert presented a wider variety of sound and form than most, underscoring the broad domain open to music in the present day, while also emphasizing the specific compositional choices made for each work in terms of both parameters and immediate selection within those subdomains.