{"title":"Suzanne Ciani","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSuzanne Ciani is an acclaimed artist known for her groundbreaking work in electronic music. Born in Indiana‎, she discovered her passion for music at a young age and taught herself to play the piano and read sheet music. During her time at Wellseley College, Suzanne explored both performance and composition while also developing a fascination with technology.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHer studies led her to meet influential figures in electronic music, including John Chowning, Max Matthews, and Don Buchla. Suzanne became captivated by synthesizers and spent years experimenting with these machines to create unique compositions. However, as the industry shifted towards simpler instruments that replicated traditional sounds, Suzanne returned to classical instrumentation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis shift resulted in Grammy-nominated albums such as \"Dream Suite,\" which showcased her mastery of piano and orchestra arrangements. Her commitment to blending classical elements with electronic influences can be heard in works like \"Pianissimo II\" and \"Turning.\" Suzanne's innovative approach has solidified her status as a pioneering artist within the realm of electronic music.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"improvisation-on-four-sequences","title":"Improvisation On Four Sequences","description":"\u003cp\u003eSuzanne Ciani’s \u003ci\u003eImprovisation On Four Sequences\u003c\/i\u003e somehow represents the complete history of electronic music, as the enthusiastic audience at Week- End Fest 2021 were lucky enough to experience.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom the awakening of American avant-garde music at the end of the 1960s, right through to the development of the electronic sound of the club scene in L.A. and New York. But above all it is the dialogue between artist and machine, which simply ends when the concert is over, that comes across. Laconicism, precision, sound sensitivity and the weight of a tradition that Ciani was instrumental in founding all come together. It is spectacular precisely because it is so unexciting.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Week-End Records","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50390020948299,"sku":"2164187","price":37.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50390020718923,"sku":"2045852","price":37.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/WE3_1ade3761_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726379856"},{"product_id":"lixiviation","title":"Lixiviation","description":"\u003cp\u003ethe american delia derbyshire of the atari generation. with a sonic portfolio that boasts commissions for the xenon classic pinball machine, the sounds for the meco star wars theme, the atari tv commercials and the electronic sound effects in the original 'stepford wives' film (amongst many others), the mutant electronic music cv of suzanne ciani is proof that in a 1970s commercial world of boys' toys, monopolised by a male dominated media industry, a woman's touch was the essential secret ingredient to successful sonic seduction. cutting her teeth providing self-initiated electronic music projects for art galleries, experimental film directors, pop record producers and proto-video nasties suzanne soon located to new york where she quickly became the first point of call for electronic music services in both the underground experimental fields and the commercial advertising worlds alike. counting names like vangelis and harald bode amongst her close friends suzanne and her ciani musica company became the testing ground for virtually any type of new developments in electronic and computerized music amassing an expansive vault of commercially unexposed electronic experiments which have remained untouched for over 30 years... until now. suzanne ciani's detailed and academic approach to music and electronics, coupled with an impeccable sense of timing and melody (and a good sense of humour), shines throughout this new collection of previously unreleased recordings. 'lixiviation' complies and recontextualises both secret music and commercial experiments of suzanne ciani made for microcosmic time slots and never previously documented on vinyl or cd. this is the first sneak peek of the early ciani metal music and non-pop that later went on see her nominated for multiple grammy awards for her later achievements which brought synthesiser music to the new age movement. available for the first time ever on cd and vinyl - this is the first in an ongoing series of suzanne ciani releases which will establish her in the consciousness the record buying public in the same way she is revered behind the scenes.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Label","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50410557636939,"sku":"347721","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/790cf97e-0cfa-48ae-a3ef-b54e10531463_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726644423"},{"product_id":"buchla-concerts-1975","title":"Buchla Concerts 1975","description":"\u003cp\u003eFinders Keepers invite you to witness the incredible first ever Buchla synthesiser concerts \/ demonstrations providing a distinctive feminine alternative to The Silver Apples Of The Moon if they had ever been presented in phonographic form. This is history in the remaking.\n\nThis record represents a musical revolution, a scientific benchmark and a trophy in the cabinet of counter culture creativity. This record is a triumphant yardstick in the synthesiser space race and the untold story of the first woman on the proverbial moon. While pondering the early accolades of this record it's daunting to learn that this record was in fact not a record at all... It was a manifesto and a gateway to a new world, that somehow never quite opened. If the unfamiliar, modernistic, melodic, pulses, tones and harmonics found on this 1975 live presentation \/ grant application \/ educational demonstration had been placed in a phonographic context alongside the promoted work of Morton Subotnick, Walter Carlos or Tomita then the name Suzanne Ciani and her influence would have already radically changed the shape, sound and gender of our record collections. Hopefully there is still chance.\n\nIn short, Suzanne was a self-imposed twenty-year-old employee of the Buchla modular synthesiser company, San Francisco's neck and neck contender to New York's Moog. Buchla was run by a community of festival freaks and academic acid eaters whose roots in new age lifestyles and the reinvention of art and music replaced the business acumen enjoyed by its likeminded East Coasters. In the eyes of the consumer the creative refusal to adopt rudimentary facets like a piano keyboard controller rendered the Buchla synthesiser the more obscure stubborn sister of the synth marathon, steering these incredible units away from the mainstream into the homes and studios of free music aficionados, art house composers and die-hard revolutionaries. Championed and semi-showcased by composer Morton Subotnick on his albums The Bull and Silver Apples Of The Moon, Buchla's versatility began to open the minds of a new generation, but the high-end design features and no-compromise modus operandi was often confused with incompatibility and, in the pulsating shadow of Moog's marketing, the revolution would not be televised nor patronised. Suzanne Ciani, as one of the very few female composers on the frontline (and also providing the back line) did not lose faith.\n\nThese \"concerts\" are the epitome of rare music technology historic documents, performed by a real musician whose skills and academic education in classical composition already outweighed her male synthesiser contemporaries of twice her age. At the very start of her fragile career these recordings are nothing short of sacrificial ode to her mentor and machine, sonic pickets of the revolution and love letters to an absolutely genuine vision of and 'alternative' musical future. In denouncing her own precocious polymathmatic past in a bid to persuade the world to sing from a new hymn sheet, Suzanne Ciani created a bi-product of never before heard music that would render the pigeon holes 'ambient' and 'futuristic' utterly inadequate. Providing nothing short of an entirely different feminine take on the experimental \"records\" of Morton Subotnick and proving to a small, judgmental audience and jury the true versatility of one of the most radical and idiosyncratic musical instruments of the 20th century. These recordings have not been heard since then.\n\nThe importance of these genuinely lost pieces of electronic musics puzzle almost eclipses the glaring detail of Suzanne's gender as a distinct minority in an almost exclusively male dominated, faceless, coldly scientific landscape. Those familiar with Suzanne's work, a vast vault of previously unpublished \"non-records\", will already know how the creative politics in her art of \"being\" simultaneously reshaped the worlds of synth design, advertising and film composition before anyone had even dropped a stylus in her groove. Needless to say this record, finally commanding the archival format of choice, courtesy of the Ciani and Finders Keepers longstanding unison, was not the last \"first\" with which this hugely important composer would gift society, and the future of a wide range of exciting evolving creative disciplines.\n\nYou have found a holy grail of electronic music and a female musical pioneer who was too proactive to take the trophies. With the light of Buchla and Ciani's initial flame Finders Keepers continues to take a torch through the vaults of this lesser-celebrated music legacy shining a beam on these \"non-records\" that evaded the limelight for almost half a century. You can't write history when you are too busy making it. With fresh ink in the bottomless well, let's start at the beginning. Again. You, are invited!\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finders Keepers","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50417250271563,"sku":"2205213","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50417250074955,"sku":"400658","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/ec5421bc-b5a9-4ad9-ba44-0d3ddb242bd5_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726723427"},{"product_id":"buchla-concert-at-galeria-bonino-new-york-april-1974","title":"Buchla Concert At Galeria Bonino New York April 1974","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe very first Buchla synthesiser performance by revolutionary composer Suzanne Ciani finally makes its fifty year journey from its switch-on New York art gallery to its long deserved and discerning global phonographic audience.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith this previously unheard vinyl pressing, Finders Keepers Records are proud to present an archival project of ‘art music’ that not only redefines musical history but lays genuine claim to the overused buzzwords such as pioneering, maverick, experimental, groundbreaking and esoteric, while questioning social politics and the evolution of music technology as we have come to understand it. To describe Italian-American composer Suzanne Ciani’s resurrected Buchla concert records as genuine gamechangers would be a gross understatement. These records represent a musical revolution, an artistic revelation, a scientific benchmark and a trophy in the cabinet of counterculture creativity. This sonic installation album, alongside her recently liberated WBAI\/Phill Niblock 1975 sessions, are triumphant yardsticks in the synthesiser space race and the untold story of the first woman on the proverbial musical moon. While pondering the early accolades attached to these golden era New York recordings it’s daunting to learn that these records were in fact not even records at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat exists on this disc now was a manifesto and a one-time gateway to a new world, which somehow was only partially pushed ajar. Captured here is a genuine live act exploring new territories with a fully performable music instrument. If the unfamiliar, modernistic, melodic pulses, tones and harmonics found on these 1970’s artistic gallery collaborations\/ live presentations (then soon to be followed by academic grant applications and educational demonstrations) had been placed in a phonographic context alongside the widely marketed work of Morton Subotnick, Walter Carlos or Tomita, then the name Suzanne Ciani and her infectious influence would have already radically changed the shape, sound and gender of our record.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith the light of Buchla and Ciani’s initial flame Finders Keepers continues the journey through the vaults of this increasingly celebrated music legacy, illuminating these ‘non-records’ that evaded the limelight for almost half a century. You can’t write history when you are too busy making it. With fresh ink in the bottomless well, let’s start at the beginning. Again\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finders Keepers","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50417250500939,"sku":"2205214","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/suzanne-ciani-bonino-min-jpg_b7bbd93b_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726723448"},{"product_id":"voices-of-packaged-souls","title":"Voices Of Packaged Souls","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"voices of packaged souls\" was the first album recorded by suzanne ciani, originally pressed up as a private edition of just 50 copies and now available in this limited run of just 1000 housed in screenprinted silver foil sleeves faithful to the original pressing. this original limited gift \/ art-artifact is officially the rarest tangible recording of ciani's music who is now recognised in the press as 'the delia derbyshire of the atari generation\" on account of her groundbreaking developments in the commercial evolution of synthesizer music as one of a small number of female composers in the field. inspired by her studies and meetings with electronic pioneers don buchla, john chowning and max matthews, 'voices of packaged souls' was created during the night shift at radio station kpfa where she had free run of the tape machines between midnight and 6am and presents an eerie array of altered vocals introducing ghostly, tape-manipulated radiophonics of a very personal and exploratory quality. for even the passing electronic music enthusiast, the early work of the bbc's delia derbyshire should instantly spring to mind, but it's the odd juxtapositions of intros such as 'sound an eye tearing' with a baby's ga-ga's, to the ecstatic noise on 'sound of a nose peeling' or the salaciously sensual coos, giggles and whispers of 'sound of a lighted window' which distinguish this work from that of her buttoned-up british counterpart.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Label","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50436765483339,"sku":"352851","price":29.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/0d0c8162-dbc6-49e4-ae22-a42d85b5aa1b_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726921428"},{"product_id":"help-help-the-globolinks","title":"Help, Help, The Globolinks!","description":"\u003cp\u003eAs faithful guardians of the Ciani Musica Inc. studio vault Finders Keepers Records twist the key and return to their collaborative series of previously unreleased music from one of the most important and influential composers in the history of multi-disciplinary electronic music. This electronic soundtrack for an operatic, ecological, scholastic, science fiction theatre production for children of all ages not only further reveals Suzanne’s vibrant and versatile skills as an experimental musician and narrative sound designer but also highlights her European heritage - working to the script of Milanese librettist Gian Carlo Menotti and a cast of forward-thinking fellow Italian-American creatives (including Giorgio Armani and Fiorucci in the wardrobe department). Originally written and performed in 1968, and gaining worldwide acclaim throughout the 1970s, Gian Carlo Menotti would update and revise his play for the turn of the 80s which called for a new approach to the music and sound effects - all of which would make their world premier in New York high school theatres in April of 1980. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finders Keepers","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50496101974347,"sku":"1015247","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/1bc943ec-da01-4911-9a5a-296f2dae2a68_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727717015"},{"product_id":"flowers-of-evil-1","title":"Flowers Of Evil","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn her varied career that would combine art gallery installations, major film soundtrackings and commissions for Atari, Suzanne Ciani’s earliest experiments remain some of her most challenging, beguiling and timeless... \u003ci\u003eFlowers Of Evil\u003c\/i\u003e ticks all the above boxes and flicks switches that would power-up a new uncharted universe of her own musical modernité. Finders Keepers present the first-ever release of these vital archive recordings.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInspired by the Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs Du Mal, specifically the poem \u003ci\u003eÉlévation\u003c\/i\u003e, its 4-tracks feature a recital of the poem accompanied by Ciani on the Buchla. Ciani initially used her own voice in the recordings, before enlisting a French student to recite \u003ci\u003eÉlévation\u003c\/i\u003e in French.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finders Keepers","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50498409759051,"sku":"1063887","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/d259e03a-00a4-43f0-997c-264b5d9d0f6f_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727747302"},{"product_id":"frkwys-volume-13-sunergy-expanded","title":"FRKWYS Volume 13 - Sunergy (Expanded)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eSunergy\u003c\/i\u003e brings together synthesists Suzanne Ciani and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith for the thirteenth installment of FRKWYS, RVNG Intl.’s intergenerational collaboration series. Revisited and expanded for a radiant, radical 2023 edition, the Pacific Coast’s panorama provides the place and head space for a musical appreciation and consideration of the ocean’s life-giving form, vast and volatile with change.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFortuitously (as is the freaky way), Smith and Ciani were discovered to be neighbors in their small coastal community in Northern California. The two had become close friends, bonding over their experience as women musicians and, more unusually, their shared passion for the Buchla synthesizer. The music of Sunergy embraces this kinship, with Ciani and Smith respectively performing on the Buchla 200 E and the Buchla Music Easel, two modern configurations of the innovative instrument developed in the ‘60s by Don Buchla. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSunergy was recorded in 2015 in the home where Ciani has now lived for the last three decades. Her living room overlooks the Pacific Ocean from a cliffside perch, creating an idyllic, inspired setting for music making. Setting up their synthesizers side-by- side, Ciani and Smith took turns keeping time and freely improvising for the album sessions. As a complete piece, \u003ci\u003eSunergy\u003c\/i\u003e is shaped by slow, pulsing forms and sinuous, melodic sequences that conjure both an oceanic world and the unlimited sound made possible by modular processing. Eight years on from their meeting and recording, these sublime, expansive synergies still retain their potent transportative power.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSince its initial release in 2016, \u003cb\u003eSunergy \u003c\/b\u003ehas become a touchstone in both artist’s catalogs, marking a return to Buchla form for Ciani (who at the time had not released a new synthesizer recording in forty years), and a transformative moment for Smith, whose breakthrough instrumental album Ears was released the same year. Ciani has since toured globally, dazzling audiences with live Buchla improvisations in the vein of those heard on these recordings, and Smith has solidified her place on the vanguard of electronic pop.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNow, after years of being out of print, Suzanne Ciani and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s Sunergy is re-released as an expanded LP, containing the previously CD and digital only bonus track “Retrograde.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rvng Intl","offers":[{"title":"Blue LP","offer_id":50507219206475,"sku":"2013908","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/a1204910426_10_77e76fd6_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727842782"},{"product_id":"xenon","title":"Xenon","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst-ever release of Suzanne Ciani’s groundbreaking musical effects for\u003ci\u003e Xenon\u003c\/i\u003e, in their isolated form, for the first time ever heard outside of the confines of the machine which recently earned the composer her own induction to the Pinball Expo Hall Of Fame. Xenon bumper blue vinyl 7\" singel in die-cut 7' sleeve\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Finders Keepers","offers":[{"title":"Blue | 7\"","offer_id":50513420714315,"sku":"1119393","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/4af9abe8-1f29-4f94-a63f-d48c133452d5_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727931269"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_508f0389_thumbnail_4096_367ba1ec-4af4-4e7f-becc-4f333857269c.jpg?v=1726379830","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/suzanne-ciani.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}