VA - Computer Music From Colgate + (2023)

January 2023; much like the sleeper-hit "New Directions In Music; Significant Contemporary Works For The Computer" ([CP 199.08 CD]; exactly 10 "Dots" back) this regional collection of "Academic" Digital Music research, centered around the studio at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY (just southeast of Syracuse) was issued a pair of LPs on Composer Dexter Morrill's Private "Redwood Records" imprint. What makes the studio especially interesting is that; unlike, say, MIT's CM research on largely Music-360-adjacent systems, Colgate's studio is centerpieced by a DCC (Digital Computer Corporation) PDP-10 which was kitted out with a "Four channel digital to analog converter designed and built by Joseph Zingeim."

The PDP-10 itself is a fascinating thing; notoriously used to lay the foundation of the ARPANET, its use in Art & Design in academic settings at larger institutions (such as the MIT AI-lab, Stanford's SAIL, Harvard's Aiken Computation Laboratory, etc.) is widely known, but as a platform for music it's largely undocumented (outside of, say, Laurie Barram's whole temporally-adjacent "Music Kludge" setup). The two compilations in question, featuring works from 1976-1979 by Composers Morrill, Bruce Pennycook, Timothy Sullivan, Frank Bennett, Robert Boyer, & Wesley Fuller, make a great argument for the whole DECsystem-10 platform, each starting from relative scratch w/r/t the basic frameworks and software/algorithms needed to yield such exquisite music.

In addition to the two 1980/81 LPs, this set includes the entirety of a Redwood Cassette of Morrill's Music (issued as "Computer Music Vol 2" ; to my knowledge there was never an early-mid-80s tape of Vol 1, although I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised!) with three additional pieces made in 1975 & 1982, respectively. Anyone with a high tolerance / low resistance for early, blocky mainframe Computer Music will instantly see the appeal of the proceedings herein.