Wednesday, May 18, 2016

İlhan Mimaroğlu: Wings of the Delirious Demon and Other Electronic Works

This 1972 album was the solo debut of Turkish-American musique concrete pioneer İlhan Mimaroğlu. I heard his work for the first time on the 1966 Electronic Music various artists LP with the eye-burning cover that’s no doubt caught your eye in used LP bins all over America. Mimaroğlu was a composer who studied under Ussachevsky at Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, and released a number of LPs and CDs of his own work, all now sadly too scarce for the average crate-digger to stumble over. He ran his own label, Finnadar, active from 1972-1989 and distributed by Atlantic, which was a home for work from the likes of Cage, Schoenberg, Stockhausen, Rzewski, and Varese. Like any self-respecting surrealist I love musique concrète – it’s as close as we’ll get to eavesdropping on talk radio from other planets – and Mimaroğlu’s work is strong stuff, fast-paced and strongly political.

Wings of the Delirious Demon
Anacolutha: Encounter and Episode II
Interlude II
Prelude No. 8
Provocations
White Cockatoo
Hyperboles
Album audio & artwork

DISCLAIMER: To the best of my knowledge, this work is out of print and not available for purchase in any format. If you are the artist and are planning a reissue, please let me know and I’ll remove it from the blog. Also please get in touch if you’ve lost your art &/or sound masters and would like to talk with me about my restoration work.

Thursday, May 12, 2016

Georges Montalba [Anton LaVey]: Fantasy in Pipe Organ and Percussion

Now it's "Georges" with an S - and the S is for Stereo! Anton LaVey once again performs under a vaguely European pseudonym in this 1958 LP of popular classics for pipe organ and percussion.

Danse Macabre
Mazurka from Masquerade
March Fantasy
Theme from Scheherazade
Ritual Fire Dance
Polovtsian Dances

Album audio & artwork

DISCLAIMER: To the best of my knowledge, this work is out of print and not available for purchase in any format. If you are the artist and are planning a reissue, please let me know and I’ll remove it from the blog. Also please get in touch if you’ve lost your art &/or sound masters and would like to talk with me about my restoration work.

George Montalba [Anton LaVey]: Pipe Organ Favorites

From 1958, in glorious mono high fidelity, it's popular favorites on the pipe organ as played by internationally renowned organist George Montalba (actually a pseudonymn for everyone's favorite ex-carnie prankster and Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey!)

Waltz of the Flowers
Aura-Lee
Anitra's Dance
Melody in F
Stars Fell on Alabama
The Secret
Diane
Put the Moon Back in the Sky
Charmaine
Evening Star
Washington Post March

Album audio & artwork

DISCLAIMER: To the best of my knowledge, this work is out of print and not available for purchase in any format. If you are the artist and are planning a reissue, please let me know and I’ll remove it from the blog. Also please get in touch if you’ve lost your art &/or sound masters and would like to talk with me about my restoration work.

Saki: Tobermory and Other Stories, Read By Keith Baxter

Three short stories by Saki, read by Keith Baxter, probably best known to American audiences for playing Prince Hal opposite Orson Welles' Falstaff in Chimes at Midnight. Brilliant black comedy from the author who, as far as I'm concerned, invented the genre for English audiences. You're definitely advised to score a copy of Saki's complete short stories - and for good measure you should get Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, wherein Dahl took the tattoo gimmick from Saki's story "The Background" and ran it down to a much nastier conclusion.

Tobermory
The Background
Reginald on Besetting Sins

Album audio & artwork

DISCLAIMER: To the best of my knowledge, this work is out of print and not available for purchase in any format. If you are the artist and are planning a reissue, please let me know and I’ll remove it from the blog. Also please get in touch if you’ve lost your art &/or sound masters and would like to talk with me about my restoration work.