The Sound Pool

The Sound Pool dates from the first, wildest manifestation of Musica Elettronica Viva (MEV), a multi-headed hydra that included composers Fredrick Rzewski and Alvin Curran, free jazz saxophonist Steve Lacy, and many others. Based in Rome, they were a more anarchic and unpredictable proposition than peers like AMM (with whom they shared a split LP, Live Electronic Music Improvised, in 1970), clearly informed by the countercultural ideas of the time: student protest, happenings, hippie-dom. The Sound Pool sits alongside works like “Spacecraft” as one of their wildest recordings, its incipient mayhem, all wild, declamatory voices and floods of clanking, tapping percussion, disrupted by brass and wind instruments that yowl like mating calls.