Various Artists, New Music for Electronic and Recorded Media: Women in Electronic Music – 1977″, United States, 1750 Arch, S-7165, vinyl LP (1977)
News that Italian label Blume is reissuing this album on vinyl in October 2024 will surely thrill TSP readers who are fans of artists like Laurie Anderson (who has two tracks featured on the album), Ruth Anderson, Annea Lockwood, Laurie Spiegel and Pauline Oliveros, all of whom might have been obscure composers and musicians back in 1977 but who have either since become famous in their own right or at least acknowledged as significant pioneers and innovators by their peers and students. The original album also included two relatively unknown composers in Johanna Beyer (1888 – 1944) and Megan Roberts, of whom only Beyer has an entry on Wikipedia. “New Music …” surely presents as a significant document of experimental music, not only because it showcases artists who would eventually become well known, but also because it demonstrates what was being done and what was able to be done in experimental and electronic music in the late 1970s, and shows that women composers were active in that sphere and moreover were carving out their own niches as sonic explorers.
The compilation leads off with Beyer’s “Music of the Spheres”, performed by the Electric Weasel Ensemble: originally composed by Beyer in 1938, this is a very minimalist and sparse work, yet highly atmospheric, even spooky, in its tones which are at times fragile yet enduring, and even managing a bit of humour and whimsy in parts. This is followed by an excerpt of Annea Lockwood”s “World Rhythms” which mixes layers of nature-based found sound recordings into a powerfully evocative soundscape. Pauline Oliveros’s “Bye Bye Butterfly” is a shrill discombobulating drone piece that whacks a recording of an opera singer into oblivion: this was Oliveros’s way of saying goodbye to Western music traditions of the past, and with them the restrictive and discriminatory attitudes towards women. Laurie Spiegel’s “Appalachian Grove I” (excerpt) is a very sprightly minimal electronic improvisation composed on computer, and as such an early example of real-time music composition and performance on a digital logic system. “I Could Sit Here All Day” by Megan Roberts is a full-on screaming, wailing song accompanied by a relentless, even oppressive drumming rhythm and (later in the song) rubbery electronic effects.
After hearing Roberts’s track, I really wasn’t sure if I needed to hear the rest of the album as this is the one track that sells the entire album: “I Could Sit Here All Day” is a singular work that captures all the frustrations Roberts and others like her must have felt as composers and songwriters working in a world supposedly open to creativity and innovation but still favouring men and their interests and assumptions. Anyway, let’s continue … by contrast to Roberts, Ruth Anderson’s “Points” is a serene piece constructed from sine waves, and the last two tracks “New York Social Life” and “Time to Go”, both by Laurie Anderson, are short performance-art pieces based around intimate personal anecdotes and meditations, the latter featuring Anderson’s violin playing.
Several tracks presented here are important works in their respective composers’ oeuvres and listeners not familiar with some of the featured composers can use those tracks as introductions to those artists’ other work. There is a tremendous variety of ideas as well as of sounds and approaches to music making on this album, all of them bold and very fresh, and I can imagine that when the Blume reissue comes out, it will sell very quickly so interested readers should start saving their pennies and put in their orders!
The front cover artwork image featured with this post is of the Blume reissue.