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Jean-Claude Risset - Music From Computer

Recollection GRM

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Amazing, razor-sharp early synthesis and sound design projects from one of the masters... reissued -


This record, which features three major pieces – from the inaugural Computer Suite from Little Boy (1968) to the iconic Sud (1985) – provides a valuable overview of Jean-Claude Risset’s unique and innovative work and illustrates the close link sustained between his music and his research. Through his contributions to the development of computer music Jean-Claude Risset has been acknowledged as a pioneering figure in the landscape of technology-based music. Each in their own way, Sud, Mutations (1969) and Computer Suite from Little Boy are seminal works that marked the early days of synthetic sounds.

Sud (1985)
This work was commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture, from a project initiated by the GRM, where it was produced circa 1984-1985. The piece mainly uses sounds recorded in the Massif des Calanques, south of Marseille, as well as sounds synthesized via a computer (again in Marseille). These sounds were then treated via another computer at the GRM.
The natural and synthetic sounds are first presented separately. Along the piece, they increasingly merge, through mixing and processing. Thus real bird songs, as well as synthetic bird-like or insect-like sounds, have been spatialised. In the third movement, the filtering of birds' caws first appears as a colored echo, later as a genuine bird's "raga" using the defective scale. The origin of the many sounds deduced from the germinal material can be ascribed to a "family tree" displaying the sonic proliferation and resembling a rhizome. (J-C. R.)

Mutations(1977)
Piece for a two-tracks tape, computer-synthesized in 1968 at the Bell Laboratories. Commissioned by the GRM and premiered at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1970.
This work attempts to explore (particularly within the harmonic order) some of the possibilities offered by the computer to compose at the very level of sound - to compose sound itself, so to speak. The title refers to the gradual changes that occur throughout the piece, including the shift from a range of discontinuous heights to continuous frequency variations. (J-C. R.)

Computer Suite From Little Boy(1968)
This piece, composed in 1968, is one of the first significant works entirely produced via a computer: all sounds were synthesized using the MUSIC V program. The piece features several experiments on sounds synthesis I produced between 1964 and 1968, whilst working with Max Mathews at the Bell Laboratories. (J-C. R.)

Text by: Christian Zanési & François Bonnet.

Served in a beautiful full colour, embossed sleeve.
Contains printed sleeve inner.
Shrinkwrapped.

Cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.
Digital Transfer: Jonathan Fitoussi
Translations: Valérie Vivancos

Layout: Stephen O'Malley
Coordination GRM: Christian Zanési & François Bonnet

Executive Production: Peter Rehberg

TRACKLIST:
1.1. Sud (23:43)
2.1. Mutations (10:25)
2.2. Computer Suite From Little Boy: Flight & Countdown (4:27)
2.3. Computer Suite From Little Boy: Fall (2:50)
2.4. Computer Suite From Little Boy: Contra-Apotheosis (5:07)



Sud (1985) -Clips -



Mutations (1968) - Clips -



Computer Suite From Little Boy (1968) - Flight And Countdown / Fall



Computer Suite From Little Boy (1968) - Contra-Apotheosois