Vortex: Henry Jacobs++ 1959 electronic psych Folkways

$

248

Highlights of Vortex-- Henry Jacobs: Chan (195x for tape); Logos (195x for tape); Rhythm Study #8 (195x for tape); Electronic Kabuki Mambo (195x for tape) / David Talcott: Trilogy (195x for tape); Loop Number 3 (195x for tape) / William Loughborough: For The Big Horn (195x for tape) / Gordon Longfellow: Notes on the History of A World Part 3 (195x for tape); 350-2 (195x for tape)




label & cat. no.:
Folkways FSS 6301 pressed in:
USA date:
1959 format:
LP condition:
Vinyl: vg (plays well, has some light scuffs, and a small pressing imperfection mark causes a few light ticks on side 1)
Cover: ex description:
Mega-rare original lp of electronic music from the legendary multimedia theater happenings which took place at the Morrison Planetarium in San Francisco during the late 1950s. Vortex was a series of events founded by sound artist/experimental DJ Henry Jacobs and filmmaker Jordan Belson in association with Berkely radio station KPFA and the California Academy of Sciences, presenting "a new form of theatre based on the combination of electronics, optics and architecture." Its soundtrack consisted of musique concrete made by Jacobs along with a host of obscure local composers, ethnic field recordings, and avant garde works by composers such as Toru Takemitsu, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio, while a room-filling light show entranced the audience, and 40 speakers rotated around them creating "a whirlpool of sound." The stunning early tape music compositions on this lp incorporate field recordings, percussive tape loops, primitive delay systems and filters, and processed sounds derived from diverse sources including voices, tablas, flutes, guitars, Hatian drums, bells, piano strings, car engines, and pots and pans. All in all, an essential artifact of obscure early American musique concrete! Includes insert.

artist info from album notes etc.:
Jacobs is an early electronic composer, pioneering radio artist/experimental DJ at Berkeley's legendary KPFA (home of Charles Amirkhanian), ethnic/folk music researcher, multimedia theater artist who organized the Vortex happenings with Jordan Belson (where he mixed early electronic music by composers like Toru Takemitsu, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio on a 40-speaker system, originating the concept of surround sound), and satirist who worked with Lenny Bruce under various personas including Shorty Petterstein; he collaborated with Alan Watts (he's currently co-curator of the Alan Watts archive), members of Harry Partch's ensemble, and Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto, released albums on Folkways and World Pacific, had friendships with Mongo Santamaria and Ken Nordine, as a poet associated with members of the beat poetry movement (William S Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Rexroth), worked with George Lucas on sound design for THX 1138, and is credited with launching the first US radio program of world folk music. William Loughborough was an electrical engineer and percussionist; he performed as part of Chet Baker's band, invented several new percussion devices and "the world's largest horn speaker," and helped Harry Partch design his microtonal instruments. Longfellow worked for the Ampex Corporation, maker of the tape recorders used to create the earliest electronic music, and was influenced by Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening. Talcott was an electrician, Theremin-builder, and Harry Partch associate; he also worked as a radio producer at KPFA. This lp should be of interest to fans of early electronic composers like Tod Dockstader, Jon Appleton, Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry, INA-GRM, Luc Ferrari, Francois Bayle, Francois Bernard Mache, Ivo Malec, John Cage, Christian Marclay, Bernard Parmegiani, Rune Lindblad, Henk Badings, Dick Raaijmakers, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, Edgard Varese, Raymond Scott, Herbert Eimert, Jim Fassett, Iannis Xenakis, and Bruce Haack. Check out my other items for more avant garde/experimental, early electronic/electroacoustic, audiophile, 20th century classical, soundtracks, poetry/spoken word, space age pop, and artist records. US Shipping - Media Mail is $5.00 for 1-2 single records, then $0.65 for each additional; Priority Mail is also available but pricing depends on zipcode (you can check eBay's calculated shipping price at the bottom of this page); other expedited shipping options and insurance are all available on request. Combine multiple items to save on shipping.
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