Contained in the archives are a handful of 7" vinyl records. Here is one which features compositions by Pierre Schaeffer, Iannis Xenakis, and Luc Ferrari (showing front and back of sleeve):
The collection contains a few others, which were apparently issued as accompanying material to numbers of the "Gravesaner Blatter", a periodical focused on experimental and electronic music. Here are examples of a few discs published by Hermann Scherchen's "Experimentalstudio Gravesano" in Switzerland, covering techincal processes of electronic music, works by Pierre Schaeffer, and examples of filter experiments:
Unfortunately, some of the discs are showing signs of warping, or in one case, chipping.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Vinyl included
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5 comments:
You write very well.
Hi Nick,
Greetings from New Haven! I just discovered this blog and I'm delighted to see all these lovely artifacts.
If memory serves right, UC Berkeley has a complete collection of the Gravesano Blätter. I remember digging through those ages ago looking for Xenakis' critical essay on serial composition and stumbling across an essay by Schaeffer called "Note on Time Relations." I wish I had the wherewithal to have made a recording of the sounds that accompanied Schaeffer's article from the very disc you photographed. (Yale's got an incomplete series of the GB, so I may still be in luck!)
But, I did record one very strange disc that accompanied the Gravesano Blätter, a disc entitled, "Akustische Kuriosa." That title was too good to pass up. It's filled with strange animal sounds: jackals barking, termites chewing through a plank of wood recorded with a contact mic, frogs, etc. I even wrote a piece based on one of the recordings!
Best wishes,
Brian
Hi Brian,
Good to hear from you..."Akustische Kuriosa" sounds fantastic!
Thanks for this info on the "Gravesano Blatter"; that's great to know. It would be great if this material might be re-issued digitally in the future.
Best, /Nick
I would just like to inform you that I have spend a lot of time making a complete index of the content of the Gravesaner Blätter and made mp3's of all (but one) of the gramophone records. I was extremely lucky to add this collection to my archive, and thought I should share this.
http://www.keestazelaar.com/gravesaner.html
all the best, Kees Tazelaar
Kees,
Thanks very much for sharing this resource - wonderful! /Nick
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