Various Artists

An Anthology Of Noise & Electronic Music Volume 1

Label: Sub Rosa Country: Belgium

"Subtitled: First A-Chronology 1921-2001. At last, the Sub Rosa label issues the highly-acclaimed Anthology Of Noise & Electronic Music collection on vinyl -- 3LPs housed in a luxurious triple gatefold sleeve. Containing early and contemporary classics as well as pieces that had never been heard before.

Volume 1 begins in the 1920s with the Russolo brothers, and examines each decade in turn -- Varése, Cage, Schaeffer, Xenakis, the great pioneers crafting the first traces of a music that was markedly revolutionary: electronic music, created from nothing and an artifice without boundary that was to be entirely invented. Whereas composers such as Stockhausen, Berio and Pousseur had come from Serialism and began making electronic music as a continuation of their work with traditional instruments, others such as Boehmer and Oliveros immediately began composing using electronic bases.

There were those who invented new methods, like Schaeffer and musique concrete, others were outsiders, revolutionaries and visionaries like Xenakis and Cage, and still others who derived their sound from Dadaism, the complex forms of free-jazz, John Coltrane, the acoustic and electronic improvisation scene, alternative rock, psychedelic and industrial music, the German Krautrock wave of the 1970s, and so on. The contemporary generation of electronic musicians on volume 1 are DJs, reinventors of drones, painters and sculptors using sound as a process, and maverick software creators. An absolute must for anyone interested in the roots and history of electronic music, now in a beautiful deluxe triple vinyl package including liner notes. Other artists include: Walter Ruttmann, Gordon Mumma, Angus Maclise, Tony Conrad, Philip Jeck, Otomo Yoshihide and Martin Tétreault, Survival Research Laboratories, Einsteurzende Neubauten, Nam June Paik, Sonic Youth, DJ Spooky, and Ryoji Ikeda."