Philippino composer Jose Maceda began his musical career as a concert pianist in the 1930's, and followed with a PhD in ethnomusicology in 1968, joining the faculty of the University of the Philippines and amassing the largest collection of indigenous Philippino music and languages in the world. His love for and knowledge of his country's traditional music informed his work heavily when he started composing during the 1960's. Having also been exposed to 20th century masters Varese and Xenakis, he melded the two seemingly disparate traditions in many-layered works that often involved large numbers of players.

"Ugnayan (music for 20 radio stations)" consists of twenty separate 51-minute tracks, each to be played back on a different radio station. The idea was then to have everyone in Manila tune in to a different radio station so that all of the tracks would play back simultaneously, each from a different source. That this ambitious project came to be is impressive enough, never mind the fact that it was under-written and backed by the Marcos regime.

What we are presented with on this disc is a stereo mix of the original tracks, recorded by Maceda and a small group in 1973, using mostly traditional Philippine instruments. Masses of layered percussion and wind sounds build up in short passages and are supplanted by new ones. There's an abundance of bamboo sound, either struck or blown, and a lot of harmonic information happening. Density and volume rise and fall quite naturally, which is surprising given the nature of the recordings.

This piece (and Maceda's work in general) is important because it attempts to bring together elements of traditional folk music and "avant-garde" composition, and they do it in the public arena. These are not just dusty academic endeavors, they were and are lively examples of other ways that music and sound can be integrated into everyday life.