Tod Dockstader is one of the all-time great figures in the world of musique concréte composition, with his "organized sound" works from the 1960s being amongst the most radical ever coneived -- in league with Schaeffer, Henry, Stockhausen, and Varese. Aerial is a rare new work in the realm of shortwave radio, from one of America's most experimental composers. This release is the first (Volume 1) in a three-part series.
"I've written before of my interest in shortwave radio. When I was very young, people got most of their entertainment from radio. They called it 'playing the radio,' as if it were a musical instrument. That's what I've tried to do in this piece. About this time, a few people encouraged me to look into using a computer for this work. I'd never used one, but I saw it would allow me to keep my mixes digital -- no more transfer losses. So, at the end of 2001, I got a computer and an editing program for it, and spent what seemed a long time learning it. I began selecting mixes and loading them into the computer in late March 2002. Out of the 580, I selected 90 'best' mixes -- eventually reduced to 59, the ones included on the CDs. Finally, in assembling the CDs, I followed David Myers' suggestion to allow each piece to flow into the next -- making a continuous journey to the end." Tod Dockstader, 14 September 2003 |