Electronic Music: The Classic Recordings

Right now, the term "Electronic Music" seems to refer exclusively to music that has a rigid 4/4 rhythm and lots of filter sweeps and synth pads.   However, in an earlier era, composers who made "Electronic Music" had the freedom to transform sounds in multitudes of ways, and to experiment with form, texture, and collage.  For some perspective, you can read Stockhausen's "Advice to clever children"

However, there's also lots of nice electronic music that's more pop-oriented.  For some reviews, click here.

Images from Amazon.com, Forcedexposure.com, cdemusic.org, etc.

	Robert Ashley: Wolfman (Alga Marghen) This disc contains 4 pieces.  The first is "The Fox" from 1957, for voice and cut up piano sounds.  This sets the tone for the rest of the disc, we are in the presence of an "out-there" sensibility.  Next comes "The Wolfman", one of the essential live electronic works in an awesome 18-minute performance.  This is followed by "The Wolfman Tape", a 6-minute collage of very bizarre radio announcements and advertisements, best used as an accompaniment to your own performance of the 6-minute version of "Wolfman".  The disc concludes with the 43-minute soundtrack to "The Bottleman", consisting of electronic hums and an occasional mumble from Ashley.  Nice background music for something.
	Robert Ashley: Automatic Writing (Lovely Music)
	Milton Babbitt: Philomel (New World) Contains Philomel, one of the landmark recordings of electronic music, combining for the first time RCA synthesizer-school electronic music with concrete elements.
	David Behrman: Wave Train (Alga Marghen) A compilation of recordings from 1959-1968, including electro-acoustic classics Wave Train and Runthrough, and featuring Behrman, Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier, and Robert Ashley among the performers
	David Behrman: On the Other Ocean/Figures in a Clearing (Lovely Music)
	Luciano Berio/Bruno Maderna: Electronic Music (BV Haast) Contains three pieces by Berio and two by Maderna, incorporating many vocal sounds like you would expect from these crazy Italians.  Includes Thema-Omaggio a Joyce, a brief but indispensable piece, in the same league as Gesang der Junglinge.
	Harrison Birtwistle: The Mask of Orpheus (NMC)
	Konrad Boehmer: Acousmatrix (BV Haast)
	John Cage: The 25-Year Retrospective Concert (Wergo) Recorded 1958. This is a recording of the famous concert of Cage's music held at New York's Town Hall in 1958, with Cage, David Tudor, and Merce Cunningham among the performers.  This contains recordings of two of Cage's electronic works, Imaginary Landscape No. 1 and Williams Mix.  Imaginary Landscape No. 1 is one of the first pieces in the live electronic music category, incorporating recordings of test tones manipulated by adjusting the turntable speed (the version here was not performed live at the concert, but was recorded earlier and played on tape at the concert).  Williams Mix is a short but very dense tape composition employing a multitude of brief splices, and has been discussed in several books on electronic music.  For some reason, the audience at the concert did not like this piece, and you can hear them vocally express their disapproval.  Other works on this CD include First Construction in Metal, excerpts from the Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano, She Is Asleep, and the Concert for Piano and Orchestra.
	John Cage: Music for Merce Cunningham (Mode) This disc includes two indeterminate collaborative live electronic pieces, the nearly hour long Five Stone Wind (for clay pots, processed flute and violin, and live electronics) and the classic Cartridge Music.   The pieces are performed by Michael Pugliese, Takehisa Kosugi, and David Tudor.
	John Cage/David Tudor: Indeterminacy (Folkways) The recording that proves that indeterminacy as a compositional strategy can be fun.  Cage reads 90 approximately 1-minute long stories or anecdotes, accompanied by Tudor's chance-derived electronic sounds.  The stories are almost all entertaining or insightful, and the electronic sounds provide a constantly-changing accompaniment.
	John Chowning: Electronic Music (Wergo) This CD of innovative computer music and synthesis techniques must be reissued by Wergo RIGHT NOW.
	Holger Czukay and Rolf Dammers: Canaxis (Spoon).  Recorded 1968. At least 15 years before Byrne and Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts caused such a stir, Holger Czukay recorded the classic Canaxis, also making use of sampled world music sounds, but without the controversy.  What could be the reasons for the lack of controversy?  Perhaps this is too underground (i. e. too few people know about it), or perhaps because Czukay uses only a few samples per piece (this disc contains two long pieces), or perhaps it is because there are no funk-dance rhythms.   Regardless of lack of controversy, this is still a great recording.  The first piece "Boat Woman Song", is centered around a recording of Vietnamese folk music, while the second piece "Canaxis" highlights a recording of Japanese Koto music.  The rest of the music is filled in by other world music loops, electronic backing riffs, and electronic effects.  It is as if Czukay took short segments of Stockhausen's Telemusik and made complete pieces out of them.  The disc is rounded out by the two-minute cool jazz exercise "Mellow Out" for guitar and baritone sax.
	Halim El-Dabh: Crossing the Electric Magnetic A collection of electronic works by this iconoclasitc Egyptian composer.  Includes Music for Wire Recorder from 1944 (pre-dating Schaeffer's earliest concrete pieces) and a large chunk of the electronic opera Leiyla Visitations.
	Tod Dockstader: Apocalypse and Quatermass (Starkland)
	Charles Dodge: Any Resemblance is Purely Coincidental (New Albion)
	Luc Ferrari: Acousmatrix (BV Haast) Includes two of his major audio-documentary pieces, Petite Symphonie and Heterozygote, a fun piece, Strathoven, which mixes Stravinsky and Beethoven samples, and Presque rien avec filles, the third piece in the Presque rien series, which can also be heard on the INA-GRM disc.
	Luc Ferrari: Presque Rien (INA-GRM) This disc collects together the entire Presque rien series of compositions.   All make use of ambient recordings, collaged and edited together with some spoken fragments and other electronic sounds subtly inserted into the mix.  These pieces later spawned a whole genre of electronic dance music called Ambient Techno.   Also includes Music Promenade, which features numerous tape edits of various and sundry music and sounds going in and out of sync with each other.
	Luc Ferrari: Tautologos (INA-GRM) Essential compilation of early tape pieces including Tautologos.
	Kenneth Gaburo: Tape Play (Pogus)
	Roberto Gerhard: Roberto Gerhard 3 (Montaigne) Includes Gerhard's 1st and 3rd symphonies, the latter of which (from 1960) incorporates a tape part throughout, which works very effectively.
	Brion Gysin: Brion Gysin (Perdition Plastics) This disc collects some of Gysin's tape experiments as well as some spoken-word.  The tape experiments use Gysin's voice as a sound source, sped up, slowed down, and cut up.  A primary document from one of the originals, what he did with his voice and a tape recorder is amazing and inspiring
	Jonathan Harvey: Bhakti (Montaigne)
	Jonathan Harvey: Mortuous plangos vivo vico (Sargasso) This CD is a mixture of electronic and acoustic music.  Includes the title cut, a major work and worthy successor to Gesang der Junglinge, and Ritual Melodies, a fascinating IRCAM-produkt which is an extensive exploration of timbral transformations.
	Pierre Henry: Les annees cinquante (Philips) This is a double CD set of Henry works from the 1950s.  Included are Le Microphone bien tempere, Haut-voltage, Spatiodynamisme and other works.  A must-have.
	Pierre Henry: Mouvement-Rythme-Etude (Philips)
	Pierre Henry: Apocalypse de Jean (Philips) This 2-disc set is an electronic oratorio based on the Book of Revelations.   Throughout, the text is spoken in French, sometimes straight, sometimes processed depending on what is being said.  Henry integrates concrete and synthesized sounds, opting for lean textures based on similar sound sources.  The work is divided into several parts, each of which is further divided into smaller parts.  Listen to this if you want to know how it's done.
	Pierre Henry: Messe pour le Temps Present (Philips) This is a single-disc compilation containing the title track and EXCERPTS from other classic Henry works: La Reine Verte, Le Voyage, and Variations pour une porte et une soupir.  Messe pour le temps present is a collaboration between Henry and Michel Colombier, who provides 1960s Austin Powers music that is so cheesy that it somehow isn't cheesy.  On top of this Henry adds synthesizer sounds a la early Klaus Schulze.  Guaranteed fun at parties.  Of the other works, Le Voyage (based on the Tibetan book of the dead) is probably the best-known, and is a haunting ambient soundscape (the complete version can be heard on another $$$$ Philips CD with the equally famous Symphonie pour une homme seul, which is also available on the essential 3-CD $$$$ Pierre Schaeffer set.)  Variations on a door and a sigh is a fun work based on you guessed it the sound of a creaky door and a sigh.  All of Henry's work is very important for anyone involved in electronic music to hear, and it's too bad that you have to spend $25 per CD to hear it, especially when works or parts of works are repeated on several discs.  However, you get a picture of Henry's home studio, with stacks of tapes, an EMS synth, a few tape decks, and a stereo receiver.
	Pierre Henry: Une tour de Babel/Tokyo 2002 (Philips) These are two recent works by Henry.  Une tour de Babel (1999) is an hour-long multimovement work again demonstrating Henry's mastery of electronic and concrete techniques.  Tokyo 2002 (1998) is only 5 1/2 minutes and shows Henry flirting with electronic dance music ideas.
	Hans Werner Henze: Der Langwieriege Weg in die Wohnung des Natascha Ungeheuer (Deutsche Grammophon) Avant-Garde multimedia "show" features Brass Ensemble, Voices, Free Jazz group, and electronic tape.  A product of its time but actually a good piece and very fun to listen to.
	Hans Werner Henze: Tristan Preludes (Deutsche Grammophon) Tristan is a six movement work for piano, orchestra, and tape.  This 2-CD set also includes the non-electronic Piano Concerto No. 2.
	Gottfried Michael Koenig: The Electronic Works (BVHaast) A two-CD set of classic WDR Koln-style electronic music, mostly from the 1950s and 60s.  A marriage of  raw, powerful electronic sounds and sophisticated compositional strategies.  Includes Klangfiguren, Terminus I and II, and the Funktion Series.  Also includes the later, computer-generated Output.
	Gyorgy Ligeti: Artikulation/Glissandi (Wergo) Contains Ligeti's only electronic compositions, the well-known Artikulation and the lesser-known and aptly named Glissandi.  Also includes the non-electronic Continuum for harpsichord, Wind Quintet, and Volumina for organ.
	Alvin Lucier: Vespers and other Early Works (New World)
	Alvin Lucier: I Am Sitting in a Room (New Albion) A fascinating process composition where a tape of Lucier reading a prepared text is played back into a room over and over again, emphasizing the resonant frequencies of the room each time, until all that is left after 45 minutes is a hovering wave of strangely modulated sound.
	Bruno Maderna: Electronic Music (Stradivarius) Includes several of Maderna's tape works from the 50s, one of the first pieces for tape and live instruments (Musica su due dimensioni), and a couple of pieces with voice also found on the Berio/Maderna Acousmatrix CD (Le rire, Invenzione su una voce).
	Ivo Malec: Doppio Coro (INA-GRM) 2 CD set of electronic and acoustic compositions by this Croatian composer.
	Richard Maxfield/Harold Budd: The Oak of the Golden Dreams (New World) This disc contains four stunning electronic compositions by Richard Maxfield, each one employing different techniques, some purely electronic, others combinations of electronic and acoustic timbres, others using tape loops.  Compelling sounds wedded to strong musical ideas.  That's the first 20 minutes.  The remaining 40 minutes consist of two boring Harold Budd tracks, featuring a soloist (sax or synth) playing over a drone.  Don't be fooled by reading that one of the tracks was realized on a Buchla modular synth--it doesn't make any use at all of that synth's capabilities and could just as easily have been realized on an organ or monophonic preset synthesizer.
	Ilhan Mimaroglu/Freddie Hubbard: Sing Me a Song of Songmy (Atlantic) Electro-Acoustic antiwar cantata featuring tape and Freddie Hubbard's jazz group.
	Gordon Mumma: Studio Retrospect (Lovely Music)
	Gordon Mumma: Live Electronic Music (Tzadik)
	Tristan Murail: Compositeurs d'aujourd'hui (Ades) This disc contains 3 compositions, each exploring aspects of timbral spectra.   Serendib is for orchestra alone.  L'esprit des dunes incoporates samples of Mongolian and Tibetan singing.  Desintegrations is the standout piece, a virtuosic exploration of timbre and spectra for instruments and tape.  Performed by Ensemble Intercontemporain conducted by David Robertson.
	Luigi Nono: La fabbrica illuminata/Ricorda ti hanno fatto in Auschwitz (Wergo)
	Luigi Nono: Como una ola de fuerza y luz, Epitaffio 1 & 3 (Berlin) Como una ola de fuerza y luz is one of the most awesome pieces of twentieth century music.  Nono works with a similar tone cluster language as Ligeti or Xenakis, but adds his own touches (constant tape accompaniment, solo piano and voice parts).   This piece adds a direct emotional instensity that is not present in some of Ligeti's or Xenakis' music (whose application of sound-mass textures is more based on musical or acoustic criteria).  The Epitaffios are earlier pieces, showing a strong Schoenberg/Webern influence.
	Luigi Nono: Das atmende Klarsein, ...sofferte onde serene..., Con Luigi Dallapiccola (Col Legno). A recording of a concert devoted to Luigi Nono.  This combines three of his works for acoustic and electronic forces, although it must be said that Nono's use of electronics is very subtle and not in-your-face like Stockhausen. Das atmende Klarsein is for chorus, bass flute, and electronics (tape and live processing), and it is the stand-out piece.  The pace is glacial, the harmonies medieval, and the electronics subtle.  It alternates episodes between flute and chorus, with varying barely noticeable degress of electronic processing, and concludes with an improvised duo for flute and tape.  ...sofferte onde serene... is for piano and tape (the tape consisting of piano sounds), and Con Luigi Dallapiccola is for percussion ensemble and live electronics.  All in all a valuable collection of Nono's chamber pieces.
	Luigi Nono: Luigi Nono 3 (Montaigne).  This disc contains two works for chamber ensemble with electronic modifications, Guai ai gelidi mostri and Omaggio a Gyorgy Kurtag.  The instrumentation is voice, tuba, clarinets, and strings, the sounds modified in Nono's typically subtle way.  Both are late period works, emphasizing slow moving sounds on the threshold of audibility.  A word of warning--Guai ai gelidi mostri is mostly quiet, but there are several sections where it suddenly becomes very loud and piercing.  A very icy kind of music that will definitely transport you somewhere else than where you are now.
	Luigi Nono: Quando Stanno Morendo (Ricordi) Contains three late-period Nono works featuring instruments with live electronic modifications: A Pierre, Quando Stanno Morendo Diario Polacco 2, and Post-Praeludium per Donau.

	Pauline Oliveros: Electronic Works (Paradigm) Contains two long, delay based drone tracks, including the famous I of IV, and the shorter tape piece Bye Bye Butterfly, incorporating a sample from Puccini's opera (before it was illegal to sample anything, of course).  If you like industrial music, you need to hear this, because this is where it came from whether industrial musicians know it or not.
	Bernard Parmegiani: Pop Eclectic (Plate Lunch).  Recorded 1966-1973. This disc contains four stunning musique concrete pieces.  The first two are from the 1960s and make use of a variety of found sources: classical music, jazz, pop.   You can have fun spotting snippets of Stravinsky, Bartok, Pink Floyd, Mothers, and The Doors.   The third piece is a manipulation of a performance by a French free jazz group, and the final piece combines electronic sounds with the Argentinian bandoneon.   Parmegiani mostly employs collage techniques, and only occasionally modifies the sounds with filters or ring modulation (at least in a really noticeable way).
	Bernard Parmegiani: Parmegiani (INA-GRM) This is a two disc set, disc one containing pieces from the 1960s and 70s (the scissors age), and disc two containing pieces from the 1980s and 1990s (the mouse age).  The pieces on both discs feature electronic sounds heavily with concrete sources being less prominent.  The exception is the first piece, "Violostries", which consists entirely of edited and processed violin sounds.   The booklet includes a highly instructive photo of Parmegiani's home studio, which everyone can compare to their own home studios.
	Bernard Parmegiani: De Natura Sonorum (INA-GRM) This fascinating composition is an in-depth study of attacks and resonances, and all the ways the relationships between them can be altered or distorted.  Mostly electronic sounds, with a few concrete and instrument sounds as well.  If you listen real carefully you can hear the same Doors sample that he used in his Pop Eclectic piece.
	Bernard Parmegiani: La Creation du Monde (INA-GRM)
	Henri Pousseur: Acousmatrix (BV Haast) Includes three compositions.  The most famous is Scambi, a virtuosic exercise in timbre-shaping using only white noise as its sound source.   Also includes Trois visages de liege, a concrete piece incorporating altered bell sounds and voices, recalling some of Ferrari's documentary-style works.   The last 40 minutes is Paraboles-mix, a live mix of several tapes of electronic sounds, compositionally formless but fun to listen to if you like electronic sounds.
	Steve Reich: The Early Works (Nonesuch). This disc brings together several of Reich's early, important phase works.  That is, an identical musical element will be played simultaneously, with one slowly getting out of phase with the other, producing all kinds of different sound patterns.  This is done with tape on the classic Come Out and It's Gonna Rain, with two pianos on Piano Phase, and with hand claps on Clapping Music.  Come Out uses a looped phrase of spoken voice "Come Out to show them", which when subjected to the phase technique creates all kinds of rhythmic and timbral patterns discernible underneath the main phrase.  It's Gonna Rain uses the same technique, using a single phrase in its first part, and a much longer series of loops on the second.  These are both fundamental electronic music compositions and deserve to be heard by anyone doing loop-based electronic music.   Piano Phase does the same thing with pianos, which seems like an incredibly difficult thing to do.  Different accent patterns emerge, new melodic lines appear, and unusual build-ups of sound can be detected in between the main pitches.
	Terry Riley: Music from The Gift (Organ of Corti).  Recorded early 1960s. This is the long-awaited reissue of Riley's early tape-loop works.  Music for the Gift is a collaboration between Riley and the Chet Baker group, where the latter is subjected to various tape loop manipulations.  Bird of Paradise is a stunning multi-movement piece using snippets of what sounds sounds like R & B or pop recordings and putting them through the tape loop feedback distortion matrix.   This piece, recorded in 1965, basically sets the standard for state of the art tape loop music in 2000.  Mescaline Mix is a haunting tape collage of vocal sounds and jazz piano riffs.  Concert for Two Pianos and Five Tape Recorders is a concert recording of a brief performance piece featuring Riley and La Monte Young playing the piano innards accompanied by pre-recorded tape sounds, complete with bemused announcer and unhappy audience.  Time to rewrite all the music history books.
	Terry Riley: You're Nogood (Organ of Corti)
	Jean-Claude Risset: Jean-Claude Risset (Wergo) Yet another essential Wergo CD of electronic music that is nearly impossible to find.
	Jean-Claude Risset: Risset (INA-GRM) This CD of essential computer works like Mutations and Sud will hopefully be easier to find than the Wergo disc.
	Pierre Schaeffer: L'oeuvre Musicale (EMF/INA-GRM).  Recorded 1948-1988. This 3-CD set collects all of Schaeffer's musique concrete compositions, from the early set of Etudes to his later work in the 1970s.  Some pieces are in their original versions, some in versions revised by Schaeffer, Parmegiani, and Bayle, and some in both the original and revised versions.  Also included is Pierre Henry's 40-minute arrangement of Orpheus, based on their collaboration from the 1950s, and Schaeffer and Henry's famous Symphonie pour une homme seul.  All of the pieces are based on pre-recorded acoustic sounds, with the exception of a Le fertile triedre, which is based on synthesizer sounds (and which is less interesting than the pure concrete pieces).  Schaeffer's work with collages and loops, in addition to being great in their own right, are invaluable examples of the roots of modern day electronic and concrete music.  A number of informative essays are included in the booklet as well.
	Laurie Spiegel: Obsolete Systems (EMF).
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Electronic Works (Stockhausen-Verlag) Includes Gesang der Junglinge, Kontakte (Electronic Version), Studies I and II, and Etude.
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Mikrophonie I and Mikrophone II/Telemusik (Stockhausen-Verlag). Telemusik is the first of Stockhausen's tape collages, the second and final one being Hymnen.  It incorporates sounds of several world music traditions, including Gagaku and Gamelan, and "intermodulates these with each other and with electronic sounds.  Mikrophonie I and II are pioneering works of live electronic music, the former featuring tam-tam processed by potentiometers and filters, the second for ring-modulated chorus.
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Mixtur (Stockhausen-Verlag)  Mixtur is for a chamber ensemble where all the instruments are miked and processed with ring modulators.
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Hymnen (Stockhausen-Verlag) Hymnen is a seriously humbling experience for anyone who has composed electronic music.  The range of timbres, the imaginative integration of found and electronic sounds, and the massive time-scale stand as an example of what can be achieved in this medium.  If you only order one CD from Stockhausen-Verlag, this is the one to get, no kidding.
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Sirius (Stockhausen-Verlag) This cantata based on zodiac symbols is for soprano, bass, trumpet, and bassett horn, continuously accompanied by a tape using mainly EMS-synthi sounds.  A precursor to the Licht series.
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Kontakte/Zyklus/Refrain (Koch).  Recorded 1988. This disc combines 3 of Stockhausen's early compositions, Kontakte for tape, piano, and percussion, Zyklus for percussion, and Refrain for percussion and piano.  The standout piece here is Kontakte, a major work of the 20th century and one of the cornerstones of electronic composition.  Zyklus is present in two versions, one forwards and rightside up and the other backwards and upside down (that is, the score can be read in either direction).  Refrain is a short, mellow piece interesting for making the instrumentalists do vocal interjections, a foreshadowing of Stockhausen's later interest in eastern ritual.
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Prozession, Spiral/Pole, Kurzwellen (Stockhausen-Verlag) These CDs feature compositions utilizing Stockhausen's semi-improvised +/- method of composition.  Electronic sounds from shortwave radios, elektronium, elektrochord mit synthesizer, filters and potentiometers abound.
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Aus den Sieben Tagen (Stockhausen-Verlag) 7-CD Box set containing all of the Intuitive text pieces that comprise Aus den Sieben Tagen.  Groove to the sounds of the Elektrochord and Elektronium mit Synthesizer, Tam-Tam mit filters und potentiometers, and Stockhausen mit hammer und nails.
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Aus den Sieben Tagen (Harmonia Mundi) If you can't find it within yourself to spend the $$$ for the 7-CD set, this single CD is a perfectly respectable alternative.  Although credited to Musique Vivante under the direction of Diego Masson, closer inspection reveals that the performers are most of the Stockhausen ensemble of the period (this was recorded in 1969) augmented by a few French free jazz musicians.  Stockhausen is there on filters and potentiometers, adding to the authenticity.  They perform two selections from the cycle, and although there are no shortwave radios, the results are quite accomplished and representative of the classical free improv style of the late 1960s.
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Mantra (Stockhausen-Verlag; New Albion) A continuous 70-minute work for two pianos and ring modulators, this initiated Stockhausen's "melodic" period.
	Karlheinz Stockhousen: Oktophonie (Stockhausen-Verlag) This CD contains the electronic component from Dienstag aus Licht.
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Elektronische Musik mit Tonszenen vom Freitag aus Licht (Stockhausen-Verlag)
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Mittwochs-Gruss (Stockhausen-Verlag)
	Karlheinz Stockhausen: Europa-Gruss/Komet/Stop und Start/Two Couples (Stockhausen-Verlag)
	Morton Subotnick: Silver Apples of the Moon/The Wild Bull (Wergo). Two classic works from the late 1960s realized on the Buchla synthesizer.   Subotnick puts this instrument through its paces, demonstrating the flexibility of voltage control.  It's amazing how few works there are that actually make full use of modular voltage controlled synthesizers.  It's one thing to come up with neat sounds, it's something else to compose an actual piece of music that uses these sounds.  (And it's yet another thing to come up with a musical piece that's good).  Subotnick succeeds on all three counts here.
	Morton Subotnick: Touch/Jacob's Room (Wergo). Touch is another Buchla synthesizer piece from the same time period as The Wild Bull and Silver Apples of the Moon, and is a worthy successor to those two.  Jacob's Room is a later piece, featuring a sung and spoken text performed by Joan LaBarbera, cello, and fast-moving electronic melodies.
	James Tenney: Selected Works 1961-1969 (New World). This disc collects several of Tenney's (mostly) computer music pieces from the 1960s when he worked at Bell Labs.  The disc begins with an earlier piece, the musique concrete classic Collage #1 (Blue Suede) which is a fantastic cut up of the king's classic song.  This is followed by several purely electronic pieces composed using a computer to both compose the piece and to produce the sounds.  These pieces have a strange, almost organic quality to them, sounding in a way like sentient life forms.  There is also a piece for player piano using the same computer generated composing process (similar to Xenakis' stochastic music).  The disc concludes with two minimalistic conceptual pieces, Fabric for Che and For Ann (Rising).   The first is a continuous stream of rising, falling, and colliding sounds; the second is the classic that gives the impression of a continuously rising tone for 11 minutes.
	David Tudor: Rainforest (Mode)
	David Tudor: Three Compositions for Live Electronics (Lovely Music). Collaborations between Tudor and, on two of the cuts Takehisa Kosugi on voice or violin (which sounds strangely like Jimi Hendrix).  Tudor sticks to his methodology of using the simplest of electronic gadgets, your humble guitar stomp-box, wired in incredibly complex arrays, where everyone else of his stature would use only the most high-end, computer systems like IRCAM's 4X.  The three pieces, all around 20 minutes, are concerned with subjecting single sounds (voice, or pulses) to the various processes and feedback loops of the stomp-box matrix.
	Vladimir Ussachevksy: Electronic Music (CRI) This CD contains a number of Ussachevsky's classic tape pieces, including the moving Wireless Fantasy.  Also included is a piece for chorus and tape and a lengthy purely choral piece that will be of limited interest to electronic music fans.
	Trevor Wishart: Red Bird (EMF)
	Charles Wuorinen: Time's Encomium (Tzadik) Very interesting 30-minute long piece composed on the RCA synthesizer.  It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1970, so it's gotta be good.
	Edgard Varese: The Complete Recordings (Decca) Finally all of Varese's works are brought together in a single collection.  This contains two undisputed classics of early tape-based electronic music, Deserts for orchestra and tape, and Poeme Electronique.   This is what you listen to when you want to know how it's done.
	Iannis Xenakis: Electronic Music (EMF). An essential CD of Xenakis' electronic works, this disc reissues the entirety of the Nonesuch Electro-Acoustic Music disc, and adds two later pieces.  The contents are Diamorphoses, Orient-Occident, Bohor, and Concret P-H from the Nonesuch disc, and Habiki Hana Ma and S.709.  The first four are all classics of musique concrete, generated from the simplest of sounds (smouldering charcoal, wrist bracelets).  The highlight is the monumental 20-minute Bohor, a milestone of ambient-industrial music.  Habiki Hana Ma is from the 70s and uses orchestral sounds as its base material.  The latest piece is the computer-generated S.709 from 1994, which in a word is amazing.
	Iannis Xenakis: Persepolis

	Iannis Xenakis: La Legende d'Eer (Montaigne).  Recorded 1977-1978. La Legende d'Eer is a continuous 45 minute electronic music composition.  The sounds are primarily computer-generated, although there are portions where the sampled sounds of African mbira can be heard.  A lot of territory is covered, beginning with discrete high-pitched sounds, moving into fine explorations of timbre and degrees of noise, and then moving into an extended center section with more dense and noisy sounds.   At several times the computer generated sounds resemble a swarm of huge insects.   The piece ends with a return to the high-pitched sounds of the beginning.  A must for electronic music aficionados and Xenakis fans everywhere.
	Iannis Xenakis: Pour la Paix (Fractal)
	Iannis Xenakis: Kraanerg (Asphodel)
	Frank Zappa: Civilization Phaze III (Barking Pumpkin) Zappa's last completed work, this is the ultimate realization of the Synclavier methodology that Zappa almost exclusively explored in his last years.   Compositionally, this goes way beyond earlier synclavier works like Jazz from Hell.  Pieces range from miniatures to 15 and 18 minute extended works.   All instrumental except for the spoken interludes that link each track.
	Various Artists: Cologne WDR (BvHaast) Essential compilation of early (1952-1958) Cologne School Elektronische Musik (using electronic timbres to create serialized music, with no concrete or found sound elements).  The pieces radiate a raw, exciting energy.  Compositions by Eimert, Pousseur, Koenig, Ligeti, Evangelisti, and Brun among others.
	Various Artists: Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center (New World) A compilation of works composed at the CPEMC.  Included are classics like Dodge's Earth's Magnetic Field, Davidovsky's Synchronisms No. 5 for percussion and tape, and Ingram Marshall's Cortez, an astounding piece derived entirely from a single spoken syllable.
	Various Artists: Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Center (Columbia Masterworks) My only regret in life is that I traded in this LP long ago before I fully developed an appreciation for electronic music in all its forms.  Currently none of the works on this disc are available on CD, but let us devote all our efforts to making these pieces readily available again.  Includes Babbitt's Composition for Synthesizer, Arel's Stereo Electronic Music No. 1, Luening's Gargoyles, El-Dabh's Leiyla and the Poet, among others.
	Various Artists: Pioneers of Electronic Music (CRI) Featuring works by Ussachevsky, Luening, and others realized at the Columbia Princeton studio.  Yet another essential electronic music disc that is currently not available.  Includes a number of Ussachevsky and Luening's early classics like Sonic Contours, Incantation, Low Speed, Fantasy in Space, Invention in Twelve Tones, as well as later pieces like Arel's Stereo Electronic Music No. 2.
	Various Artists: CCMIX Paris (Mode) A 2-CD compilation of works mostly composed using the UPIC system developed by Iannis Xenakis.  Includes the first work composed with this system, Xenakis' Mycenae Alpha, as well as works by Risset, Teruggi, Estrada, and Pape.  Also includes non-UPIC pieces like Xenakis' Polytope de Cluny and two brief but very fine pieces by Curtis Roads, Purity and Sonal Atoms.