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AMAZING SOUNDS No.94 / November 10, 2000
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JOSEPH LOIBANT WITH HIS CD "SINE" UTILIZES PROGRESSIVE SEQUENCES
IN A PERSONAL, ORIGINAL WAY, WITH HIS LEGENDARY SYNTHESIZERS FULL
OF CREATIVE, DENSE SOUNDS.

http://www.amazings.com/mailorder.html

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====================

CONTENTS:

NEWS

THE ELECTRONIC MUSIC IN EASTERN EUROPE: Chapter 5: CZEH REPUBLIC /
SLOVAKIAN REPUBLIC (FORMERLY CZECHOSLOVAKIA)

REVIEWS:
JORGE RIESCO: "ISMAEL FLORITO" Fussion Discos
RUDY ADRIAN: "KINETIC FLOW" Groove
STEVE LA CERRA: "FLIGHT" North America Music
BARBARA MARKAY: "HEART LIKE A SONG" My Thing Music

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NEWS

NEW RELEASES / RE-RELEASES / DISTRIBUTIONS
(For more information and sound clips, use the links)

Klaus Schulze: "Angst/Mirage"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000I7FG/thesciencebookbo

David Lanz: "An Evening With David Lanz"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000I0R2/thesciencebookbo

Scott Wilkie: "More Than You Know"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004SQXZ/thesciencebookbo

Scott Wilkie: "Boundless"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000I0R3/thesciencebookbo

Don Ross: "Passion Session"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000I8V3/thesciencebookbo

Various Artists: "Japan The Spirit Of Water"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000I0GA/thesciencebookbo

The Danubians: "The Danubians"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004WF2K/thesciencebookbo

Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic: "Petrophonics"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004WF2L/thesciencebookbo

Djam Karet: "Reflections From The Firepool"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004WF2J/thesciencebookbo

Robin Spielberg: "Dreaming of Summer"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004W43Z/thesciencebookbo

====================

THE ELECTRONIC MUSIC IN EASTERN EUROPE
Chapter 5

It is impossible to attempt to compress the musical universe
enclosed behind the iron curtain by decades in a single mini-
series. A basic approach to the reality of the musical avantgarde
in each one of the multiple, rich cultures of this great unknown
which is Eastern Europe, nowadays in full development, would need
the making of a book. Therefore, this mini-series will only be a
brief vision, perforce incomplete, of this avantgarde style
sustained on cultures maybe as ancient or even more so than those
in the rest of Europe.

CZEH REPUBLIC / SLOVAKIAN REPUBLIC (FORMERLY CZECHOSLOVAKIA)
The first name that easily comes to mind is that of the well
known musician Jan Hammer, who nevertheless had to develop his
career in the United States, and who is above all known thanks to
his Pop side.
With the political changes that ended up with the division of
Czechoslovakia into the Czeh and the Slovakian Republics, a very
important culture of new musics emerged. Although before that
happened, something was known about it, basically through the
Festival of New Music in Prague, and the scene of progressive Rock
that transcended abroad, the great variety and wealth of their new
musics has surprised the Western countries quite a lot. Some of
these artists enjoy international recognition.
Coming from the scholarly spheres, Rudolf Ruzicka, is a
composer who has combined the teaching of music with composition.
He is one of the many electronic pioneers unknown in the Western
countries. Already in 1965, he made music using a computer. He has
written numerous pieces for orchestra and synthesizers, and was
awarded several international prizes in 1970 and 1984. He has
published a book on the use of computers in artistic tasks. He
told me that at the time of its publication it was the only
existing book written in the Czeh language describing computer
composition in full detail.
Synthesist Otakar Olsanik could be considered as a completely
different case from Rudolf Ruzicka, as he comes from Rock, is
self-taught, and nevertheless he enjoys the same prestige as an
artist and pioneer. Furthermore, his life has been quite exciting
indeed. Meaningfully enough, he told me that he had no idea where
to start narrating me his life experiences. His education in
electronics served him to become one of the members of the first
Czeh band that used electric guitars (Electrofonic), which he
recorded several albums with, besides engaging in a variety of
tours in Czechoslovakia. Later, he left for the Scandinavian
countries as a guitarist for a Rock band, and he began his solo
career after building a studio with Norwegian technology. He
achieved a great success, as his music could be heard on an almost
daily basis. Nowadays he spends five months a year in Norway,
works with computers and samplers, and makes movie soundtracks,
even though from time to time he also composes a Pop song for his
wife Kamila, who is a singer. He has participated in the Austrian
festival of computer music and the interactive arts, Ars
Electronica. It was there where I knew about him for the first
time.
Born in 1955, Jan Jirasek studied piano and composition. Later
he also studied electroacoustic music, under Rudolf Ruzicka. He
explained me that after graduating, he suffered from a sort of
boycott on the part of the government, due to his political
opinions. As a consequence of this fact, the artistic recognition
of his music had to come to him exclusively from abroad, until he
could succeed in being taken out of this black list. His
activities range from the composition of movie soundtracks to the
research of new forms of music. The Institute of Technoculture in
Paris has released some of his studios. The Radio of Munich has
played concerts of music written by him. Since 1990 he has been
the director of the Experimental Studio of the Czeh-Slovakian
Radio, in Prague.
Elia Cmiral studied music at the Conservatory of Prague, and
settled in Sweden in 1979, where he studied electroacoustic music,
while at the same time he composed music for the Drama Theatre in
Stockholm. Later he made ballet music in Germany, the United
States and Sweden, as well as his first movie soundtracks,
advertising spots and documentaries. One of them was nominated at
the Festival of Cannes in 1988, and another one received Second
Prize at the Festival of Rotterdam in 1991.
Daniel Forro is a wonderful musician and composer, who studied
piano, flute, organ, and composition. Already in the 1980s, still
in the Communist Era, worked with a similar equipment to that of
any Western professional composer, and made music for ballet,
cinema, television, and advertising. His volume of work was
considerable. However, the area he was most interested in was that
of electronic music and the new musics in general. He had beeen
producing his works independently from the official institutions
in his country, which prevented him from distributing them in an
adequate manner. He was one of the very scarce independent Czeh
artists who worked as a professional before the Perestroyka. In
his compositions he already intended to embrace the most disparate
elements of European World Music, from Gregorian chants to the
most complex techniques of composition in the 20th. century, the
world folklore and some touches of Jazz and Rock. In my last
contact with him, this talented artist was finishing a book on
musical technology.
Jiri Stivin is a flutist and saxophonist who has worked with
artists from many countries and who used to lead his own band.
Guitarist Lubos Andrst has been involved with several
progressive rock bands. Martin Kratochvil was a pioneer of
electronic Jazz. Likewise, mention must be made of keyboardist
Emil Viklicky, guitarist Michal Pavlicek, the bands Progress-2,
Olympic and Bohemia, that used to make avantgarde music disliked
by the authorities, and the musicians Jiri Strohner, Jiri Hradec,
Pavel Kopecky and Michal Kocab.

(By: J. Munnshe)

If you wish to purchase any recordings by these artists you only
have to use the links:

Jan Hammer

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/69962/thesciencebookbo

Elia Cmiral

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/168414/thesciencebookbo

====================

REVIEWS:

JORGE RIESCO:
"ISMAEL FLORITO"
Fussion Discos
This album, with music by Jorge Riesco and texts by Ismael
Florito, is no doubt an act of creativity of an incredible
quality. With a first hearing the listener already perceives the
effort and the intentionality there are behind this project. In
successive hearings, the range of this CD appears in all its
greatness. Recited or sung poetry is fused in an almost magical
manner with musical poetry, thus creating a collection of
situations of real life transmuted, by means of the alchemy of
art, into wondrous surrealist landscapes of intense colors. The
electronic music by Riesco is the perfect basis on which these
situations can be painted. The vocals, female as well as male,
either reciting or singing, are ideal brushes to reflect the
emotional intensity of the texts by Florito. Riesco is the
performer of the music, and is accompanied, singing or reciting,
by: Manolo Botana, Mária Rial, Raúl Francés, Marta Quintana,
Fernando Valeiras and Carmen Quintana.
JORGE MUNNSHE

RUDY ADRIAN:
"KINETIC FLOW"
Groove
In this album the listener will find seven themes, six of which
are different pieces or sequencer sketches. The fifth theme of the
CD, however, constitutes the soundtrack created by the author for
the Planetarium at the Otago Museum, which develops thirteen
intense minutes of ethereal music, whose cosmic textures take the
listener to a brief yet intense space voyage throughout the Solar
system, evoking starscapes of a mysterious beauty.
EMMA DORS

If you wish to purchase any recordings by this artist you only
have to use this link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004S62M/thesciencebookbo

STEVE LA CERRA:
"FLIGHT"
North America Music
This is the second album by Steve La Cerra in the field of the New
Age/Space Music. The artist explores in a greater depth the world
of music without fixed boundaries, a path he had started to tread
with his first album in the New Age genre, "One Step At A Time".
The music, at times with a very marked rhythm and certain touches
of pop, at other times becomes relaxing, meditative, dreamy, even
cosmic. Steve also shows his expertise as an engineer and
producer, and has collaborated with other well-known artists, such
as Alan Parsons or Phil Ramone, to mention but a few. His music
has been labelled as "New Age with an Attitude", as with it the
artist expresses his ideas with conviction and strength, traits
these which give his music a peculiar air, where poetic harmonies
are intertwined with elaborate soundscapes with a remarkable
visual effect, together with a powerful musical technique. The
result is a colourful tapestry of soundscapes that will no doubt
appeal to the lovers of this musical genre, while at the same time
aiming at a wider audience.
MONTSE ANDREU

If you wish to purchase this recording you only have to use this
link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000K507/thesciencebookbo

If you wish to purchase any recordings by this artist you only
have to use this link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/200676/thesciencebookbo

BARBARA MARKAY:
"HEART LIKE A SONG"
My Thing Music
Singer and song-writer Barbara Markay presents here her new album,
an album where the audience can find ten themes as a homage to
Sathya Sai Baba, whose evocative Latin rhythms are blended with
jazz and pop traits, thus creating an inspired harmony between the
earthly and the spiritual worlds. Through her lyrics and her warm
vocals, the artist leads us to an inner universe of poetry, love
and lively rhythms, ethereal atmospheres and relaxing peace. This
is indeed an interesting album for those listeners who like this
kind of music.
SIMONETTA VALLI

If you wish to purchase this recording you only have to use this
link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004R7R7/thesciencebookbo

If you wish to purchase any recordings by this artist you only
have to use this link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/100793/thesciencebookbo

====================

We are preparing an international directory of record companies,
artists, festivals, radio shows, zines, webs, journalists,
associations, and other organizations & people working in the
field of electronic music, Ambient, New Instrumental,
Experimental, World Music, and so on. The inserts are free. The
persons or firms wishing to be included can send us a file of no
more than 600 words with the data they consider as being of
interest (contact addresses - snail mail, telephone number, fax,
email, URL... -) and an explanatory text on their activities in
English) to: amazings@...

We are also preparing an encyclopaedia of composers of electronic
music. The artists wishing to be included can send us a biography
(with a list of works and contact address if they wish to) of no
more than 900 words, in English, to amazings@.... Inserts
are free.

The persons or firms having a page in internet related in some way
to the alternative musics can communicate the URL, as well as a
brief description of its contents, to webmaster@..., and
we will set a link from our web to theirs (The insert of a link in
our web is free whenever it is corresponded with a similar link
from their web to our web)

====================

Our warmest greetings for our readers and until the next edition
of Amazing Sounds.

====================

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