Label: Persistence Of Sound

貴重なアーリーエレクトロニクス作が音盤化!!英国初期の電子音楽家、コンピューター科学者として活動、1968年にヨーク大学電子音楽スタジオを設立し1996年まで同大学の音楽学部に勤務、そして何と言ってもあのアヴァン集団"Gentle Fire"の創設メンバーである偉人Richard Orton。生前、個人名義の音源は数枚しか残しておらず、本作は1968年~2004年までの未発表音源を纏めた初のアーカイヴ。オープンリールとコンタクトマイクを使用し、手動でテープヘッドの音を記録した摩訶不思議な最初期コンクレート[Kiss]、大量のソフトウェアを用い複雑な信号勝利を行った[Three Monoliths: No.1 The Hemlock Stone]等、名曲揃い。







Persistence of Sound celebrates the composer Richard Orton (1940–2013) with a selection of electroacoustic and computer music from across his career.

Orton is known for developing early electronic music in the UK, establishing the country’s first university-based electronic music studio, writing seminal texts on tape composition, then overseeing the transition from analogue tape to computer-aided composition.

In 1986 Orton introduced the UK’s first Music Technology course, and authored music software as co-founder of the influential Composers Desktop Project (CDP).

As a composer, Orton’s music often ranged beyond electroacoustic music – the focus of this album. He was a founding member of Gentle Fire – the electronic music ensemble including Hugh Davies and Graham Hearn – and of the Monteverdi Choir.

The earliest piece here is Kiss from 1968, using open reel tape machines and contact microphones, often pulling the recordings through the tape heads manually at varying speeds.

The most recent work on this album is its near title track, Three Monoliths: No.1 The Hemlock Stone, from 2004. This is the only piece on this collection to use tools developed by the CDP – a composers’ collective responsible for generating a vast collection of non-real time signal processing software.