PAULINE OLIVEROS

Early Electronic Works 1959-66

Colour 2LP

Boomkat Product Review:

Knockout collection of Pauline Oliveros' early electronic Works cataloguing her contribution to the tape and electronic music of the late 1950s and 1960s through a systematic exploration of sounds and techniques, including electronics (oscillators, tape recorders, buchla box series 100), but also found objects (soup ladles, table knife) and voice. Properly visceral, exploratory, vital recordings available on vinyl for the first time.

The music oliveros produced in the latter part of her life, for which she is best known, primarily focused on pieces for accordion (particularly those which she herself performed) and her contributions to contemporary composition through the creation of the Deep Listening Center, her approach to improvisation, and her numerous and varied collaborations including those with John Cage, Morton Subotnick, Terry Riley, Sonic Youth, Erold, and Andrew Deutsch.

These early pieces, however, provide invaluable exposition; highlighting material Oliveros composed at the university of Toronto and Mills college, but also at home using consumer grade tape recorders, cardboard tubes to filter sounds, walls for resonance and a bathtub for reverberation. They demonstrate her power of invention and ability to make something out of little more than objects around her, making an important contribution to the emerging electronic and tape scene of the late 1950’s. As she explains:

"My work with electronic music began in 1959. My first tape piece was an ambitious four channel work called Time Perspectives (1959). The piece was made by recording small sounds from objects resonated on a wooden wall and changing the tape speed. I used cardboard tubes as filters by inserting the microphone into the tube and recording sources through the tubes. I used my bath tub as a reverberation chamber.”

Anyone interested in the history of electronic music, Oliveros, or indeed the evolution of sound technique will find a huge amount to immerse themselves in here; a huge recommendation.

Colour 2LP (4)

One-off silver vinyl 2LP pressing of 400 copies, mastered at Le Laboratoire Central, Brussels.

Play All Colour 2LP (4)

Boomkat Product Review:

Anyone interested in the history of electronic music, Oliveros, or indeed the evolution of sound technique will find a huge amount to immerse themselves in here; a huge recommendation.