Books and Recordings Catalogue

 
 

BR0036. Chris Hobbs, Sudoku 82.





New from Cold Blue.  Played by Bryan Pezzone; Produced by Jim Fox.

Here it is: a live Sudoku piece by Chris Hobbs.  Composed using Sudoku processes, realised using Apple’s lovely GarageBand, and transcribed for real piano.  Pezzone is overdubbed to produce eight distinct piano parts; this lovingly produced by Jim Fox (the guru of LA cool) to provide one of the most satisfyingly intimate performances you’ll hear.  Most recently Ken Smith wrote, in the North American edition of The Gramophone,

Some fifty years after John Cage and Lou Harrison looked eastward for musical inspiration, just how much their music has influenced subsequent generations is a matter of debate.  But...their mentality is still alive and well. 


Christopher Hobbs, a former Cardew student and founding member of the Scratch Orchestra, leans towards Cage’s corner, hauling the master’s ideas into the 21st century.  Where Cage himself drew chance determinacy literally from the roll of the dice, Hobbs finds his literally in Japanese number games.  His ‘sudoku’ pieces—125 by the composer’s count—take number sequences from the newspaper puzzles and online random number generators and uses them to structure his pre-determined sounds.


Sudoku 82, the first of these to be arranged for live performance ( heard here in a multitrack piano performance), is quiet and contemplative, though not strictly minimalist, since it draws on a full range of post-impressionistic tone colour.  Though its quiet intensity—not unlike the music of Morton Feldman—the piece changes one’s entire perception of time.  My watch said 20 minutes but it could have been anywhere from a moment to an hour (v. 87, no. 1053, p. A7).


This CD has been recommended as one of the perfect Christmas New Music CD gifts by Mark Swed at the Los Angeles Times:

But sooner or later, everyone will relish chill-out relief from the holiday madness. Christopher Hobbs’ dreamy but random “Sudoku 82” for eight pianos (all excellently played by Bryan Pezzone) is the perfect drug. Try it with eggnog.


It has also received a lot of airplay on the best radio stations.

Critical acclaim includes FdW on vital weekly:

Although you may [know] Hobbs for his involvement with the Scratch Orchestra, his record for Obscure Records, his work with early AMM, he also performed Satie's 'Vexations' with Gavin Bryars. In that respect you should hear this piece, number 82 from a series that he started in 2005, and already mounts up to 125 pieces. Its Satie-like music, light, sparse, spacious and seemingly doesn't go anywhere, simply because there is no need to go anywhere. A great work. One to play on [a] dark night....


and http://blog.monsieurdelire.com/2009/10/2009-10-22-gong-global-family.html:

Une idée simple, probablement plus complexe à mettre en œuvre qu’il n’y paraît: laisser un jeu de sudoku composer de la musique. C’est ce que fait Christopher Hobbs avec sa série “Sudoku”. Il décide de l’allure générale de la pièce (palette sonore, durée), mais laisse les chiffres placer notes et silences. Interprétée par Bryan Pezzone, Sudoku 82 est un doux et tendre solo de piano de 19 minutes. Un poème tonal mais déconstruit, aux fioritures étranges, à la logique absente, le genre de pièce qui génère sa propre atmosphère et qui pourrait se poursuivre éternellement. Néo-romantisme aléatoire? Non, tout simplement une œuvre posée qui s’inscrit parfaitement dans le canon de l’étiquette Cold Blue.


(A simple idea, probably more complex to realize than it may seem: let a sudoku compose music. That’s what Christopher Hobbs is doing with his “Sudoku” series: he pens down the basic elements of a piece (sounds, duration), then lets the numbers game put the notes and rests in place. Sudoku 82 is a quiet 19-minute piano solo performed by Bryan Pezzone. A deconstructed tone poem full of strange ornamentations, devoid of logic, the kind of piece that generates its own mood and could go on forever. Random neo-romanticism? No, it’s simply a quiet work that fits squarely within the canon of the Cold Blue label. And it’s beautiful.)


If you’re in America, the best way is to check for distributors via the Cold Blue website (look for CB0033).  We have a limited number of copies here at EMC Central, which will go for £7.50 (£8.25 inc. p&p in the UK).  Just ask us for Cold Blue Sudoku!


BR0035. Michael Parsons.  Piano Music 1993-2007.




....played by John Tilbury.


You can’t get any better than this.  Michael Parsons’ masterpieces of miniatures played by Britain’s greatest experimental pianist.  Barry Witherden, in The Wire (November 2009), wrote:

... it's the kind of music one feels more people would enjoy if only you could get them to listen to it without preconceptions. Every piece in this collection has an austere beauty and most of them have a stern calmness that facilitates concentration on the sounds and structures for their own sake...


Parsons's writing is part of a tradition that eschews the drama and machismo displayed in so much of the core piano literature; ...the music on this album is often fragile, frequently graceful, always thoughtful and intriguing.


So, what’s inside?


Contents: 

  1. BulletTriptych

  2. BulletFourth Bagatelle

  3. BulletJive

  4. BulletJive 2

  5. BulletOblique Pieces 1-10

  6. BulletKrapp Music

  7. BulletPiano Pieces August 2001, February 2002, May 2003


Recording engineer: Sebastian Lexer

Design: Trevor Clarke

Produced by Mathieu Copeland  

CD Number: MPCD0208 (69'40") 

Recorded in October 2008


Biography and notes:


Michael Parsons (b.1938) has been active as a composer and performer of experimental music since the 1960s.  He belongs to the generation of English musicians who have explored a wide range of radical alternatives to traditional and mainstream tendencies in new music. In 1969 he was co-founder with Cornelius Cardew and Howard Skempton of the Scratch Orchestra, and during the 1970s he was closely associated with visual artists of the Systems group. In common with the work of other English and American experimentalists, his music exemplifies an economical use of material, clarity of structure and an objective and exploratory approach to the actualities of sound and performance.


This selection of piano pieces represents an interplay of complementary tendencies, formal and informal, systematic and intuitive, reflecting a balance between ‘classical’ and ‘experimental’ attitudes to composition. Triptych (1993) uses a form of 12-note technique in which the harmonic and melodic material is combined with its own inversion, but without the expressionist gestures associated with classic European serialism.  The Oblique Pieces use predetermined pitch sequences, but are freely composed in terms of rhythm, dynamics and chord spacing. After the ‘tabula rasa’ of 1960s and 70s experimentalism, these pieces make reference to harmonic tendencies in early 20th century music, to the chromaticism and suspended tonality of early Schoenberg and Scriabin. The two Jives use syncopation and unresolved dissonance in a way which relates more specifically to jazz pianism (eg. Thelonious Monk).


The pieces dated between 2001 and 2003 are abstract and experimental, concerned more with the exploration of piano sonority than with linear continuity. They are written in unbarred space-time notation, specifying pitch content and sequence of events, but leaving many other aspects of the music to be decided by the performer.


Krapp Music is based on the play Krapp’s Last Tape by Samuel Beckett, which depicts

the writer listening to and commenting on his recorded diary entries of previous years. All the pitch material is derived from passages in the text by means of letter-to-pitch codes. Several layers of sound are recorded with different degrees of spatial resonance to suggest images corresponding with the relation between past and present in the play.


This piece was written for John Tilbury in 1999, for a programme in which he also performed the play itself.


John Tilbury (b.1936) is internationally renowned for his performances and recordings of keyboard music by Cage, Feldman, Wolff, Cardew, Howard Skempton, Terry Riley, Dave Smith and other English and American composers. He is widely acclaimed as an improviser, both as a soloist and as a member of the radical improvisation group AMM.


His authoritative biography Cornelius Cardew: A Life Unfinished was published in 2008. He has also gained recognition as an actor, particularly for his interpretations of Beckett and Pinter.


***


Just think, for once you can say, ‘That Krapp Music is really good!’ £10 + p&p


BR0034. Dave Smith.  Dave Smith plays Smith.



  1. BulletDave Smith has been writing groups of pieces and individual pieces for piano to fit an entire concert for some years.  He calls this sort of music Piano Concerts.  His first Piano Concert is a series of pieces meditating on Latin American and other popular styles.  Several of these appear on this recording.  There's also his On the virtues of flowers and other cool stuff.  If you like postmodern British experimental piano music, then this is a fine addition to any collection.  You might want to read more about Dave's Piano Concerts on the EMC Blog.  £10 plus p & p.


EMC104. Christopher Hobbs Sudoku Music.



  1. BulletThe EMC's gone Sudoku mad!  Chris Hobbs' long-awaited new release, a double CD of Suduko pieces, is out in time for all those winter gift-giving occasions.  Ten pieces for £10! Two hours of lovely Sudoku pieces.  Can you afford not to be without it?  For more information see the catalogue.  Or you can go to Chris Hobbs' MySpace page.  Chris is getting a steady stream of kudos and friend requests.  He's thrilled, so keep in touch!


There's a review of Sudoku Music on The Wire Magazine in the January issue.  Julian Cowley compares Hobbs' approach to that of Oulipo (Ouvroir de littérature potentielle, the French movement started by Raymond Queneau for potential literature), which used found sources to provide the basis or form for an art work.  He notes that Hobbs's use of sudoku puzzles for the overall shape of the pieces, and his use of Apple Mac's GarageBand loops do not constitute a complete abnegation of responsibility:


  1. To assume that this sampled and synthesized music is impersonal would be as misguided as to assume that work by Oulipo writers such as Georges Perec or Italo Calvino doesn't bear their own personal imprint.  This is not self-expression though, but experimental music by Christopher Hobbs.  Very good it sounds, too.


So, intelligent and a good sound - what's not to like?


Chris Hobbs has been obsessed for the last two years with Sudokus - the addictive puzzle game that's taken over most newspapers' games pages, especially here in Britain.  Chris was especially interested in the hexadecimal (16 x 16) letter-and-number game known in the Independent newspaper as 'super', and in other places as 'mega' sudoku.


But rather than just sitting around wasting his time playing these sudokus, Hobbs, one of the pioneers of British minimalism known as systems music, decided to use the results to generate pieces.  Hence Sudoku Music.


Chris has set these sudoku pieces using the Apple program Garageband, its basic home electronic music application.  You may have heard some of these loops in television programmes before.  Chris's use of Apple's basic program (rather than their more professional Logic Pro is part of his ethic as a postmodern experimental composer, in which great music can be made on cheap and cheerful sound sources. 


Now, Chris has recorded Sudoku Music on a double CD - two hours of Sodoku-derived systems pieces (ten in all).  Sudoku Music includes these ripping titles:

  1. BulletSudoku 21 (8.35)

  2. BulletSudoku 14 (13:49)

  3. BulletSudoku 10 (18:21)

  4. BulletSudoku 34 (15:48)

  5. BulletThe Power (10:12)

  6. BulletSudoku 5 (17:38)

  7. BulletSudoku 33 (16:16)

  8. BulletSudoku 8 (7:26)

  9. BulletSudoku 35 (8:46)

  10. BulletSudoku 32 (13:37)


We've put a few samples on EMC Sounds.  Soon you, too, will know them as 'the one with the drums', 'the one with the bells', 'the piano one', and so on.  Just like Friends!  Yours for £10 + p & p.

  1. Bop 'til you drop with Sudoku Music!

  2. Every home should have Sudoku music!

  3. Don't leave home without Sudoku music!



EMC103. Erik Satie. Le fils de étoiles.



  1. BulletCD recording by Christopher Hobbs of Satie's longest piece.  Liner notes by the esteemed Satie scholar Robert Orledge.  In 1989 Chris did the first performance of this piece in its entirety (the three Preludes which begin each act are well known and often played) for London Hall recordings.  Since then, Chris has made a critical edition of this work (available as PN0031 here at the EMC) and it is this edition which informs the performance on the CD.  Have you ever wished that Satie's music would go on forever?  Well, this one does, for a little longer than an hour of statuesque beauty.  £10 + p & p.  The score is on sale for £12.50 and the CD for £10 but if you order both together we will give you a £2.50 discount. For more details contact us at questions**experimentalmusic.co.uk (for **, substitute @ ).


BR0033.  Walter and Horace Cardew, Stephen Moore.  Chioma Sings Tales of Danny Dark.



  1. BulletCD recording: music by Horace and Walter Cardew and Stephen Moore, lyrics by Stephen Moore.  Musicians: Laura Pooley, soprano voice; Dai Pritchard, woodwinds and trumpet; Horace Cardew, tenor saxophone and clarinets; Mick Foster, baritone saxophone and clarinets; Walter Cardew, guitar and percussion; Matthew Dungey, keyboards and voice.  The authors explain this recording as follows:

  2. 'Chioma Sings Tales of Danny Dark' is a suite of pieces describing a story of loss - the inescapable loss of innocence. Danny Dark's world is uncompromising; it offers few chances to escape. When it does these chances must be seized without turning back or are forever lost. His world is harsh and hopeless, but true. The songs are based around real events, although the language is sometimes surreal. The compositions are mostly constructed using a collage technique - texture added, bits bolted on here and there, mixing improvisation, composition, electronics and acoustic instruments.

  3. Really nice sound quality; professionally produced.  We like it, especially the price, which the Cardews asked us to set!  £7 + p & p.


BR0032.  Paul Dunmall and Bruce Coates.  19 Years Later.



  1. BulletCD improvisation by these two British free improvisation players.  The nineteen years in the title is the length of time since the last time the players worked together (there's a lovely picture inside of Paul Dunmall and our mate Bruce playing then - and Bruce was only 13!).  This time they've chosen soprano saxes for the two pieces on the CD.  High and pretty - great for those Steve Lacy and Lol Coxhill fans out there.  £10 + p & p.


EMC102. Promenade Theatre Orchestra. The Orangery: October 1 1972.



  1. Bullet‘The Promenade Theatre Orchestra's version of Carolina Moon is proving a hit with the man in the street’ (John Walters, The Guardian).

  2. BulletThis archive recording is launched in honour of the concert's thirtieth anniversary, by the legendary PTO.  The PTO was a group comprising John White, Chris Hobbs, Hugh Shrapnel, and Alec Hill: all composers and performers who wrote fine, funny systemic music for reed organs and toy pianos (although they also wrote for wind instruments and percussion).  The Orangery Concert was the last by the PTO in Britain and shows the Orchestra at the height of its powers.  Julian Cowley said in The Wire (February 2003):

  3. Inspired by Erik Satie's graceful and funny deflation of grandiosity, the percussive glow of Balinese gamelan and, closer to home, the tradition of change-ringing with handbells, their compositions were unassuming and direct in their appeal, yet infused with a quirky charm that still holds the attention 30 years on.

  4. BulletThis CD was recorded by Bryn Harris, who provides a cool account of the recording and of his mastering (in conjunction with Music Now) from the original tape.  Includes short notes by all the composer/performers.  £10 + p & p.  For more information, see Who Are the PTO?


BR0027. Michael Parsons.  Piano Music 1977-96.



  1. BulletWe are pleased to re-issue Michael Parsons' Piano Music 1977-1996, a comprehensive collection of pieces performed by the composer. They exhibit the typical qualities of his music; economy of material, clarity of structure and an objective approach to the actualities of sound and performance. This is an important document in British Experimental Music, and EMC are proud to be able to distribute it.  £10 + p & p.


EMC101.  Christopher Hobbs. Fifty in Two Thousand.



  1. BulletThe first of EMC's own recordings, Fifty in Two Thousand is a 75-minute systemic piece for piano, prepared piano, electronic keyboard and percussion, coming to you in plain EMC purple livery.  £10 p & p.

  2. BulletJulian Cowley in Wire Magazine said:

  3. Far from the ‘forbidding, hermetic’ piece implied by his commentary, this quietly alluring music possesses the seemingly incidental beauty that can arise in music composed under self-enforced constraints.  It does lean, as Hobbs remarks, ‘toward the meditative and uneventful’, but the games it plays with time are constantly diverting.  The electronic keyboard sounds at one moment like chiming clocks, at others like a giant toy piano.  The percussion rings out potentially interminable patterns.  The piano lilts and muses, illuminated by the glow of decaying notes.  These elements are dovetailed expertly, following those preconceived procedures, and by the piece's end another potential hour and a quarter has taken on its singular shape.

  4. John Walters wrote in The Guardian:

  5. English experimental music has been simmering away quietly for more than three decades. The movement, which is associated with characters such as John Tilbury and Cornelius Cardew, plus many offshoots such as the Portsmouth Sinfonia, was enshrined in Michael Nyman's 1974 book, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond. What emerged tended to involve non-musicians and professional players working together, a more democratic relationship with the audience and messy happenstance.


  7. And though the music is avant garde, with a stubborn streak, it is rarely ugly. It has a take-it-or-leave-it quality, both unsettling and calming; its influence upon ambient music has been enormous. Many of the experimentalists have continued in their subversive, gentlemanly way: John White, Howard Skempton, Michael Parsons, Gavin Bryars and Dr Christopher Hobbs, who has just released Fifty in Two Thousand (Experimental Music Catalogue). Hobbs was the teenage student who studied with Cardew and played with AMM, the Scratch Orchestra and the Promenade Theatre Orchestra (PTO). The PTO made music on toy pianos, reed organs and small percussion - a flyer once boasted: ‘NO noisy electronics... All musical material guaranteed through-composed. NO hit-or-miss improvisation’.


  9. Fifty in Two Thousand is a 75-minute epic comprising 50 sections of equal duration, scored for five different combinations of two instruments - all played live by Hobbs. The work moves between quiet repetitive phrases for prepared piano and percussion to busy, Gamelan-like motifs for piano and digital synthesizer. The timbres are seductive and easy on the ear; the music's presentation in 90-second chunks means that ‘the listener never has to deal with one kind of material for too long’ as Hobbs writes in his liner note.


  11. It is not to be mistaken for meandering, quasi-improvised chilling; the rigour of Hobbs's compositional approach gives the piece substance and purpose, and an arithmetical structure you find in the best work of Peter Greenaway and Louis Andriessen.


BR0024.  Cornelius Cardew Memorial Concert.



  1. BulletThe original LP of the concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, 16 May 1982.  Impetus records, IMP28204, 1985.  The EMC has received a very, very limited number of these now-rare LPs.  This historic recordings features many of Cardews colleagues and friends (the performer list reads like a Who's Who of British experimental music) performing many of his greatest works: Treatise, Paragraph 1 of The Great Learning, ‘The Turtledove’ from 3 Bourgeois Songs, Thälmann Variations, Croppy Boy, and We Sing For the Future (take note that we have scores for some of these pieces: see the EMC Catalogue.  We've only got 8 left, and once they're gone, they're gone.  £30 + p & p.


BR0004. Virginia Anderson. British Experimental Music: Cornelius Cardew and His Contemporaries.

  1. Bullet 1983: thesis, 287 pp. Facsimile of the original typescript thesis, comb-bound. £20 + p & p.

  2. BulletA well-regarded and much-cited history of the classic years of experimentalism.  The original was the most popular interlibrary loan item from the University of Redlands until it was stolen in the early 1990s and the current facsimile is proving equally popular. An interesting and valuable companion piece to Michael Nyman's Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond.

  3. BulletSo popular that it's gone!  Coming soon, Virginia Anderson, Experimental Music in Britain.  Here’s a mocked-up title page.  It won’t end up like this, but hey, what the heck....




If you are interested in any of the above, e-mail questions**experimentalmusic.co.uk (for the **, substitute @) for postage costs. Payment is by snail-mail via cheque or electronically by Paypal; please specify whether you would like a faster or slower delivery of your goods. Because of fluctuating exchange rates, do e-mail us for current prices in any other currency than UK sterling, although we do recommend sterling payments as the most economical way of paying.