Michael Snow – Musics For Piano, Whistling, Microphone And Tape Recorder – 2LP

Necessary, first ever vinyl reissue of a truly seminal double LP set originally appeared on the Chatham Square imprint in 1975. Canadian artist and film maker Michael Snow was originally a jazz pianist, and he has continued to be involved in music throughout his long career. He arranged for Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Sunny Murray, John Tchicai, Gary Peacock and his then neighbour Roswell Rudd to record the landmark improvised soundtrack to his film New York Eye And Ear Control (perhaps the first freely improvised recording ever), and has been improvising himself in his group CCMC for more than 30 years. Also a conceptual composer, Snow befriended both Steve Reich and Philip Glass in the late 60s and this double LP is a happy by-product of their association. “Falling Star ts”, which covers the entirety of the first LP, is a tape of a piano melody first played back at hyperspeed, then slower and slower until it becomes recognisable before transforming into a thunderous, quivering bass boom. Also included is an intentionally distorted, repetitive stride piano experiment and a whole side of whistling.

“During the years 1973 to 1978 I was represented by the Bykert Gallery in New York, which had the most prestigious stable of any gallery I have been associated with: Dorothea Rockburne, Chuck Close, Brice Barden, and other exhibited there. Klauss Kertess, one of the owners of the gallery, started a record company called Chatam Square, which issued the first Philip Glass recordings. In 1975, Kertess asked me if I would like to issue a recording of my own music.
I attempted to make an integration of the album jacket design, the label design for the two LPs, and the music itself.”

Song Cycle

Additional information