Customer Reviews
ohm - By: d.a.p., 08 Apr 2008 
an incredible package with lots of information & some brillaint early electronic music examples & studies.
If you have tons of money & have been into electronic music from the very start their are probably still going to be suprises here for you!
This package is an incredle purchase even simply as a refernce product. Their are people here that i hear & definatly am going to learn more about & study. People like Tod Dockstader of whom i probably would have not come across without this guide for instance
a huge recommendation to anyone with an ear towards the avant garde.
a huge recommendation to anyone with ears also!
Incredible electronic anthology - By: D. Barlass, 13 Jan 2006 Having always been a fan of electronic music I was fascinated by this amazing collection which stretches as far back as 1948! Much of what's on offer here demonstrates the origins of all modern electronic music. This is the some of the first electronic music ever i.e. music that was the product of new electronic technologies & the experiments that were carried out using this. As such much of what's on offer sounds quite challenging even today & much of the work stands up as post modern artwork as much as it does as music. Then you have some wonderful electronic musical pieces were the artists involved have used the new technologies as instruments intended to replace real instruments used by bands & orchestras. These pieces sound incredible even now but they must have sounded extraordinary back when they were first produced as the sounds used to create the music would never have been heard before!
Each & every track is accompanied by a short written passage containedin the superb booklet that comes as part of this package. Reading these passages often reveals some details about how each track came about as well as information about the artist/s involved & the year the track was made. Reading this only makes the material even more fascinating & engaging. The booklet also features an excellent foreword by Brian Eno. As well as this there are plenty of interesting quotes from other key figuresin early electronic music & also background information on important & groundbreaking electronic organisations such as the EMF (Electronic Music Foundation) & instruments, such as the Theramin (written by Bob Moog). All of these pieces are quite short & you can't help thinking that the booklet would make a fascinating & very worthwhile complete book title. As it is it's a superb part of this collection & adds greatly to the worth of the whole package.
In addition to the 3 audio CD's you also get a DVD. This opens with a discussion about the theramin featuring Bob Moog + a performance by theramin virtuoso Clara Rockmore. This DVD contains plenty of rare & unseen footage & at almost 2hrs 30mins for me makes the asking price worth it alone. But as part of this package it really is the icing on the cake. As for the actual packaging it really is something else - It's a work of artin itself & it's the kind of packaging that makes you glad you still actually buy music on CD as opposed to simply downloading it for use on your MP3 player! To do so would be nothing short of a crime when such an effort has been made to present this workin such a superb way.
Overall then I'd say this is an incredible & completely essential package for electronic music fans as well as fans of the history of all modern music. This anthology certainly represents a significant part of that history. It's difficult to judge this on mere musical content alone - It's engaging, endlessly fascinating & often quite challenging but it more than achieves what it sets out to do which is to represent some of the origins of electronic based music & demonstrare how the techniques involved began to revolutionise modern music. One of the most interesting, fascinating & important releases your ever going to buy as a fan of electronic music.
weird explorations of the strange - By: ICB, 16 Dec 2005 Anyone who likes their music (and experimental 'sounds') to be explorations rather than predictable & has a liking of electronic music should check out this cd set. I bought a copy of the first edition (with no DVD) on the strength that i like steve reich & he was featured here. there was virtually no one else i'd heard of. So it came as a revelation to find the album truly captivating. there are too many artists list but they range from Luc Ferrari's recordings of soundsin a villagein France to Holger Czulkay's use of tapes & music to weird electronic sound scapes like those from the movie The Forbidden Planet & even a peice called 'music on a long thin peice of wire' which is exactly as described & is a drone peice that is mesmerising.
Some of the peices will challange the ear & the mind, some with are curiosities were you have to remind yourself that these were fresh new soundsin the brave new world of electronics that beganin the post war years. other peices stand the test of time & are truly original & ahead of their time (check out Dockstader & Oliveros' use of taped samplesin their work).
Purchasing the album was a starting place for me to go hunting down the strange & wonderul work of many of these artists whose work is rarely predictable, which is what makes it so exciting. As a potted history of this genre it is indispensible & I highly recommend it.
A cautionary note to those of you who own the first edition: the DVDin this edition is rather patchy at best, featuring only a few actual performances, the rest being bits of interviews & a some avant garde videos. So it's intersting t a point but don't feel the need to rush out & get this edition unless you are a completist. or weak. or both. like me.
