VA - Music By Computers (1969/2023)

February 2023; one of the longest-in-the-works titles in Creel Pone history has been this set, covering the four flexi-disc records originally issued in the back "pocket" of the 1969 titular book, co-edited by Harmonic-Tone Generator Inventor James Beauchamp & "Second-Order Cybernetics" Pioneer Heinz Von Forester (architect of the "Doomsday Equation" & proponent of eschatology, in general). I fortuitously came across a fairly thrashed copy in the upper wings of Avenue Victor Hugo Books on Newbury (R.I.P.; both to the shop & the street) during my first month of embarking on a Computer Music/Synthesis Degree in the early 90s & vowed to include it in the program... but it took until now (30 years later!) for archival-quality copies of the records to surface & cross the C.P. Framleiðsluskrifborð & the rest is (now, finally) history.

Unlike many of the formative "Golden Age" texts around then-nascent Digital-Synthesis Techniques & their accompanying music elements (usually a stray beep or two; each taking around 2 months of offline rendering to synthesize) I was instantly taken aback by the actual music on these records... in this way the set is similar to the 1972 "Sounds From... EMS Synthi" flexi (as featured on Creelpolation 2.2, [CP 113-2 CD]) in that the folks doing the hard math/patch-detail just happened to also be fully invested Composers, and as such the music itself is quite good, and extremely varied.

Alongside the familiar names (Herbert Brün, J.K. Randall, Lejaren Hiller, & Gerald Strang; all four fresh off of their appearances in/on the epoch-defining, Jasia Reichardt -curated "Cybernetic Serendipity Music" ICA exhibition/record the year prior) are a couple of names that warrant deeper investigation: namely the editor James Beauchamp himself (who rarely appeared on record) & Arthur Roberts (not a peep aside from the four, frankly, incredible pieces herein, each easily a Webern miniature's worth of timbral/formal investigation & hyper detail).

This C.P. replica edition shows the lovely blue knit/laid finish of the library cover shrouded by the (tangled, frayed) dust jacket of the original 90s copy; inside has the details for each piece/demonstration/recording cribbed from throughout the book laid out across two panel w/ detail of the flexis themselves. Essential 60s Digital Music research, unlocked.