Three new works for pure waves and instruments. Lucier has pioneered in many areas of music composition and performance, including the notation of performers physical gestures, the use of brain waves in live performance, the generation of visual imagery by sound in vibrating media, and the evocation of room acoustics for musical purposes. His recent works include a series of sound installations and works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra in which, by means of close tunings with pure tones, sound waves are caused to spin through space.
"I count Alvin Luciers Still Lives among the most beautiful
recordings Ive ever heard. Like Janácek, Luciers art stands
alone despite the air of detached cool it shares with Lovely Musics catalog.
(Few labels hew to an aesthetic line so tenaciously as Lovely. Mimi Johnson,
the woman in charge, is married to Robert Ashley, whose operas set the tone
for a significant aspect of "downtown" style.) Luciers deceptively
simple aesthetic is in fact delightfully complex in the manner in which it reveals
horizons. In this release, the composer has purely acoustic sounds (single piano
tones, less often chords, and briefly, koto) interacting with electronically
created, similarly uncomplicated sounds. The magic and I choose that
word carefully occurs in the mingling. Lucier takes his time, and so
should the listener. I can think of little music better suited to the recording
medium. The discs eponym, in eight parts, serves as a showpiece for the
varieties of soul-touching experience Luciers seemingly perfunctory systems
permit. The composers good notes tell the story. Particular congratulations
to Tom Hamilton (a fine composer in his own right) for a wonderfully intimate
sound."
Mike Silverton,
"Golden Ear Awards 2002", The Absolute Sound
(Mike Silverton is the editor of LaFolia.com)
Track Listing:
1. Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators (16:31), Marilyn
Nonken, piano
2. "On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon" (11:46),
Ryuko Mizutani, koto
3. Still Lives (25:10),
Joseph Kubera, piano
CD 5012
7-4529-55012-2-0
List Price: $16.99
Lovely Price: $15.00