"Historic recordings of late 70's/early 80's computer aided improvisations, helmed by this relatively unknown engineer/composer, a protege of David Tudor's (Tudor supervised Bartlett's thesis project at Mills College in 1968). Featured soloists; George Lewis (a good reference point, as Bartlett's computer processing evokes the work of Richard Teitlebaum, who did many a similar project w/ Lewis -- documented on such labels as Hat Art and Black Lion -- who in turn spawned his own variation, documented on Voyager, his disc on Avant), Frances-Marie Uitti (recently hyped Euro-improvisor, whose two-bow technique leaves many baffled w/ ripe textural possibilities), and Peter Hannan. Some prime period-blat from aged Buchla synthesizers (another Mills genius) and some from more contemporary tone generators. 'Burning Water' is the real life-opus here; 23 minutes of black-box gurgle (unaccompanied by humans) that intone the cosmic beyond via cheap arpeggiation (sort of like Ligeti's Continuum for Harspichord, only entirely electronic). A heartily worthwhile venture into electronic music's dark past/grey area."
- samples -
Tracklist
1 Hexachords 11:33
Recorder [Soprano] ? Peter Hannan
2 Erats 17:42
Engineer [Recording] ? Iain MacanultyTrombone ? George Lewis
3 Burning Water 22:57
Computer [Kim-1], Electronics [Black Box], Synthesizer [Buchla 200 Modules] ? Martin Bartlett
4 Etats 15:04
Cello ? Frances-Marie Uitti
Recorded At ? Western Front, Vancouver
Recorded At ? De Ijsbreker
Credits
Design, Artwork By [Cover Collage] ? Ellen Fullman
Electronics [Live], Computer [Interactive Programs], Composed By ? Martin Bartlett
Executive Producer ? Herb Levy
Liner Notes ? Matt Rogalsky
Mastered By ? Tom Stiles
Photography [All Color Images] ? Martin Barlett
Photography [Black & White Portrait] ? Chick Rice
Notes
Track 1 recorded 6 March 1986, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, recording engineer unknown.
Track 2 recorded 27 June 1988, Western Front, Vancouver, BC.
Track 3 recorded 1979, SFU Electronic Music Studio, Burnaby, BC.
Track 4 recorded 23 May 1987, De Ijsbreker, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, recording engineer unknown.
Burning Water is heard in the composer's two-track mixdown of a preferred live-in-studio multi-channel recording. All other tracks are from concert recordings and contain a few audible artifacts of the live performance ambience.
