{"title":"Alvin Lucier","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlvin Lucier was a composer, writer, and visual artist born on May 14, 1931 in Nashua, New Hampshire. He studied at Yale and Brandeis University and received a Fulbright Scholarship to spend two years in Rome. From 1962 to 1970, he taught at Brandeis where he conducted the Brandeis University Chamber Chorus dedicated to new music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLucier was a pioneer in various aspects of music composition and performance. His innovations included notating performers' physical gestures, utilizing brain waves in live performances, generating visual imagery through sound in vibrating media, and creating room acoustics for musical purposes. He extensively showcased his sound installations across the United States, Europe, and Asia while also contributing articles to books and periodicals. One of his notable works is the book \"Chambers,\" co-authored with Douglas Simon and published by Wesleyan University Press.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eArtists similar to Alvin Lucier include *Alvin Curran*, *Pauline Oliveros*, *Bernard Parmegiani*, *François Bayle*, *Robert Ashley*, *David Behrman*, *Vladimir Ussachevsky*, *Phill Niblock*, *Tod Dockstader*, *James Tenney*, *Morton Subotnick*, *Luc Ferrari*, *Morton Feldman*, Éliane Radigue', 'Ingram Marshall', 'Karlheinz Stockhausen\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"works-for-the-ever-present-orchestra-vol-ii","title":"Works For The Ever Present Orchestra Vol. II","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWorks for the Ever Present Orchestra Vol. II\u003c\/i\u003e continues Black Truffle’s documentation\nof the late work of legendary American experimental composer Alvin Lucier, who\nsadly passed away in 2021 at the age of 90. Like the first volume of the series, the\ntwo works recorded here were written for The Ever Present Orchestra, an ensemble\nfounded in Zürich in 2016 to perform Lucier’s work exclusively. At the core of the\nmusic Lucier wrote for the ensemble is the electric guitar, an instrument he began to\nexplore in 2013.\n\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Black Truffle","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50425328206155,"sku":"2054802","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/BLACKTRUFFLE109_2c0a277b_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726789194"},{"product_id":"criss-cross-hanover","title":"Criss Cross \/ Hanover","description":"\u003cp\u003eBlack Truffle is honoured to present the premier recordings of two recent works by legendary American experimental composer Alvin Lucier. A friend and contemporary of pioneers like Robert Ashley, David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, and Christian Wolff, Lucier has been crafting elegant explorations of the behavior of sound in physical space since the 1960s. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDemonstrating the restless creative drive of an artist now in his 80s, the two recent works presented here both feature the electric guitar, an instrument Lucier has just recently begun to explore. In \u003ci\u003eCriss-Cross\u003c\/i\u003e, Lucier’s first composition for electric guitars, two guitarists using e-bows sweep slowly up and down a single semitone, beginning at opposite ends of the pitch range. The piece is a model of simplicity, exemplifying Lucier’s desire not to ‘compose’ in the conventional sense, but rather to eliminate everything that ‘distracts from the acoustical unfolding of the idea’. In this immaculately controlled performance of \u003ci\u003eCriss-Cross\u003c\/i\u003e by Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O’Malley, (for whom the piece was written in 2013), a seemingly simple idea creates a rich array of sonic effects – not simply beating patterns, which gradually slow down as the two tones reach unison and accelerate as they move further apart, but also the remarkable phenomenon of sound waves spinning in elliptical patterns through space between the two guitar amps. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the comparatively lush \u003ci\u003eHanover\u003c\/i\u003e, Lucier draws inspiration from the beautiful photograph that provides the LP with its cover, an image of the Dartmouth Jazz Band taken in 1918 featuring Lucier’s father on violin. Using the instrumentation present in the photograph, Lucier creates an unearthly sound world of sliding tones from violin, alto and tenor saxophones, piano, vibraphone (bowed) and three electric guitars (which take the place of the banjos present in the photograph). Waves of slow glissandi create thick, complex beating patterns, gently punctuated by repeated single notes from the piano. The result is a piece that, like much of Lucier’s instrumental music, is simultaneously both unperturbably calm and constantly in motion. Stunning LP design by Stephen O’Malley including an inner sleeve with a portrait of Alvin Lucier by Kris Serafin. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Black Truffle","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50426061095243,"sku":"1026557","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/53880069-4b5a-44f2-b24d-84739d2be98f_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726799653"},{"product_id":"drumming-up-trouble","title":"Drumming Up Trouble","description":"\u003cp\u003eBlack Truffle is thrilled to announce \u003ci\u003eDrumming Up Trouble,\u003c\/i\u003e the first release of previously unissued music by Alvin Curran on the label.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCollecting works recorded between 2018-2021 and a side-long epic dating back to the early 80s, as the title suggests, \u003ci\u003eDrumming Up Trouble\u003c\/i\u003e focuses on a hitherto almost unknown aspect of Curran’s encyclopaedic and omnivorous musical world: his experiments with sampled and synthesised percussion. As Curran’s wonderful, wildly sweeping liner notes make clear, his fascination with drumming belongs to the radical investigation of music’s fundamental elements that has marked his output since the beginnings of MEV, who aimed (as he says in a recent interview) to return ‘in some collective way to a non-existent start time in the history of human music’. Whatever kind of music our proto-human ancestors played, he writes, ‘drums were front and centre in the mix. Drums rule!’\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn a paradox typical of Curran’s approach, \u003ci\u003eDrumming Up Trouble\u003c\/i\u003e interrogates this most ancient dimension of music with contemporary technology. On the first side, we hear recent pieces performed using the sampling software and full-size MIDI keyboard setup Curran has refined since the 1980s. Two of them are wild real- time improvisations, primarily utilising an enormous bank of hip-hop samples. Building from polyrhythmic layers of drum machine fragments to wild cacophonies of clashing vocal samples, scratching, and frantic pitch shifting, these energetic and at times hilarious pieces occupy a space somewhere between John Oswald’s Plunderphonics, Pat Thomas and Matt Wand in the Tony Oxley Quartet, and the propulsive Kudoro\/Grime fusion of Lisbon’s Príncipe label. They are improvisations are accompanied by two austere, minimal compositions realised in collaboration with Angelo Maria Farro: ‘End Zone’ for orchestral bass drum and high oscillator, and ‘Rollings’, where a snare roll is gradually stretched and filtered by digital means into ‘floating electronic gossamer’.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe incredible breadth of Curran’s output makes it pretty unlikely that a listener familiar with his work would be surprised to find it branching out in a new direction. But no degree of familiarity with his work can really prepare for side B’s epic and bizarre ‘Field it More’. It’s perhaps best to let the maestro describe this unhinged and infectious offering in his own words: ‘It features an 8 bar funky minimal riff à la James Brown, played on synth and an-out-of-tune piano, synced to a pre-paid patch on the Roland drum machine. Over this is laid a heavily processed track of the voices of dancer Yoshiko Chuma and movie-maker Jacob Burckhardt discussing an upcoming performance of theirs at the Venice film festival, capped by a track of my playing an increasingly out of control blues over the top of all of the above’. Only Pekka Airaksinen’s Buddhas of the Golden Light comes to mind as a reference point that might even vaguely compare to this wild home-brew of drum-machine funk, mad improvisation and squelching electronics, which eventually dissolved into a massive, layered cluster. Ancient and modern, synthetic and human, hysterical and rigorous, Drumming up Trouble is 100% Curran.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Black Truffle","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50466083832139,"sku":"1161990","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/ca5917c6-1ef1-469c-a8d0-f1d45d3ff475_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727304470"},{"product_id":"one-arm-bandits","title":"One Arm Bandits","description":"\u003cp\u003eOne Arm Bandits is an hour-long piece in four parts, scored for four cellists. The cellists play only open strings, thus using only their right arms, never fingering the strings with the left hand. Recorded in Alvin Lucier's dining room, this work features cellists Tyler J. Borden, Laura Cetilia, Charles Curtis and Judith Hamann. Lucier oversaw and produced the recording and approved the final takes. One Arm Bandits was an important project for Alvin Lucier. The idea for the piece goes back to conversations we first had in 2007 about the relationship between bow direction changes and shifts in phase. In the summer of 2015, we worked these ideas out in long sessions with Judith Hamann and T. J. Borden in New York, and the resulting piece received its first performances in Graz and Zürich in 2016. Alvin thought of One Arm Bandits as a radical statement, I think primarily in view of the severe reduction in material – even in the context of his music – and the physical restraint required in performance. The unusually long duration attests to Alvin's recognition that an expansion of scale was required in order to magnify acoustical details of such subtlety.in November 2021 Alvin saw proofs for the CD artwork. He passed away at the age of 90 on December 1, before he could see the album in its final form. Work with Alvin was always joyful, stimulating, and surprising. We dedicate this recording to the continuing spirit of this remarkable musician and friend. Charles Curtis\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Important","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50774606971211,"sku":"2055839","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/One_Arm_Bandits_8ad0676b_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1730955891"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/alvin-lucier.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}