Reverberations: Tape & Electronic Music 1961-1970 cover

Reverberations: Tape & Electronic Music 1961-1970

Recorded
1961-1970
Released

This 12-CD set documents Oliveros’ earliest years working in the realm of electronics and tape, when those mediums were quite new and the field seemed wide open. It begins with a piece done in her home studio, and continues with work created at the San Francisco Tape Music Center, the University of Toronto, Mills College, and the UC San Diego Electronic Music Studio. The pings and swoops, bursts of static and sudden lurches from one speaker to another both put this music in the same lineage as Xenakis and others working in various academic situations at the time (because nobody else could afford the wildly expensive, room-filling equipment) but also prefigure noisicians like Merzbow and even the digital glitches of Oval. But Oliveros had a lightheartedness that some — okay, lots — of her peers lacked, and that shows up in track titles like “The Day I Disconnected the Erase Head and Forgot to Reconnect It” and “A Little Noise in the System.”

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Silver Ladders cover

Silver Ladders

Mary Lattimore
Mandance cover

Mandance

Ronald Shannon Jackson & the Decoding Society
Philip Cohran & the Artistic Heritage Ensemble cover

Philip Cohran & the Artistic Heritage Ensemble

Philip Cohran & the Artistic Heritage Ensemble
Bone Machine cover

Bone Machine

Tom Waits
Saturn Sings cover

Saturn Sings

Mary Halvorson Quintet
Continuation cover

Continuation

Collocutor
Once Was Not cover

Once Was Not

Cryptopsy
Symphonie Of Flowers cover

Symphonie Of Flowers

William Hooker
Théâtre Garonne, 2008 cover

Théâtre Garonne, 2008

David S. Ware New Quartet
Sun on Sand cover

Sun on Sand

Joshua Redman, Brooklyn Rider, Patrick Zimmerli
The End of Fear cover

The End of Fear

Tarbaby
By The Fire cover

By The Fire

Thurston Moore