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AMAZING SOUNDS
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No. 72
March 17, 1999
====================
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++++++++++ COMMERCIAL MESSAGE:

AT-MOOSS RECORDS PRESENT SEVERAL PRODUCTIONS OF SELECT INSTRUMENTAL
ELECTRONIC MUSIC THAT ARE AVAILABLE THROUGH THEIR VIRTUAL SHOP:

http://www.arrakis.es/~at-mooss
====================

CONTENTS:

NEWS

THE ELECTRONIC MUSIC IN EASTERN EUROPE Chapter 2. This mini-series
is a brief approach to the electronic music and innovative /
alternative styles in Eastern Europe.

REVIEWS:
WENDY LUCK: "THE ANCIENT KEY" Amosaya Records
VASCO MARTINS: "DANCAS DE CANCER" Melodie
SERENDIPITY: "ROBIN HOOD, MUSIC FOR AN ENGLISH OUTLAW" Mosaic
Music / New World
ISABELLE PASCALE GRANET: "SANCTITY" Liquid Light
BILLY?: "RHIZOME"
GALENTO: "BUS AND BACON" Dreamboat Music
LUIS PANIAGUA: "AMANECIO DE GOLPE" Pneuma
THE GREAT KAT: "BLOODY VIVALDI" Blood and Guts Music

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

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

NEWS

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

Bradley Sowash: "In The Moment"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000G5EQ/thesciencebookboA/

Hans Zimmer: "Millenium"
http://cdu2.cduniverse.com/asp/albuminfo.asp?lc=83616+46962&frm=lk_amazings/

Obsidian Butterfly (Various Artists): "Obsidian Butterfly"
http://cdu2.cduniverse.com/asp/albuminfo.asp?lc=2158+919&frm=lk_amazings/

Ernesto Diaz-Infante: "Itz'at:"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000G4PQ/thesciencebookboA/

Ernesto Diaz-Infante: "Tepeu"
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000G4PR/thesciencebookboA/

PRIX ARS ELECTRONICA 1999
In Austria every year the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation
organizes one of the most important festival / competition for
computer music and multimedia art. There are the following
categories:
Computer Animation. (independent productions from the fields
of art, science, etc.)
Visual Effects (commercial high-end productions from the
fields of film, advertising, entertainment, etc.)
Interactive Art (installations, performance, audience
participation, multimedia, telecommunications, etc.)
World Wide Web (e.g. web sites, MUD´s, MOO´s, online games
etc.)
Digital Music (e.g. computer music, digital artistic sound
creations, electronica, performances, soundspace projects, net
music, radio works, soundscapes, etc.)
More information here:
http://prixars.orf.at.

A part of the CD "Fearless" by Solitaire (Rudiger Gleisberg &
Elmar Schulte) has been used in the Hollywood Film "Blade". The
new album by Gleisberg is near to be released.

Dom F. Scab is working on a new composition. The Spanish
television channel TV3 (show "Hidrogen", devoted to New
Instrumental Music) have commissioned him to write the music for a
short documentary on the Pedraforca site in Catalonia. This
documentary is part of a series devoted to catalonian natural
parks.

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

THE ELECTRONIC MUSIC IN EASTERN EUROPE
By: JORGE MUNNSHE
Chapter 2
----------------------------------------

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.

RUSSIA
Edward Artemiev is a colossus. He has been doing electronic
music for over 30 years. A mixture of a hippie, intellectual, and
artist, he has drunk from the fountains of scholarly classical
music and the most avant-garde Rock. His music has progressed from
the polarity of both trends up to a fusion of world music within
the bosom of electronics, exploring streams that range from cosmic
music to unclassifiable sonic experiences. He is the author of
about a hundred and fifty TV and movie soundtracks. He composed
the cantata of the Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980, for a
symphonic orchestra, choirs, a Rock band and synthesizer; a very
unorthodox daring for those times and country. In 1989 he composed
a work for the Bicentennial of the French Revolution, commissioned
by the organisers of the Festival of Electronic Music in Bourges.
Some of his best known works are: "The Seven Gates into the World
of Satori", "Mood-Pictures", "The Warmth of the Earth",
"Peregrini", and of course his movie soundtracks for the films of
Andrei Tarkovski (on whose memorial he composed a special theme),
as well as those of Andrei Konchalovski and Nikita Mikhalkov. He
alternates his studio work periods with frequent trips to the
international festivals where he is invited as a guest artist.
During the Perestroyka he received some political criticism,
mainly from other musicians, due to the fact that any artist
receiving a certain official recognition in the Communist Era was
regarded as a suspect of sympathising with this regime, a fact
that after the fall of communism was taken advantage of on the
part of envious, unscrupulous people who hated the fact that he
was the most prestigious electronic musician in his country, as
well as one of the earliest pioneers in the world. These
criticisms have no sense at all, since Edward Artemiev has
received honors in several countries which cannot be considered
communist in the least, as for instance the United States, and he
has also been appointed for a variety of important posts, as for
example one in the International Confederation of Electroacoustic
Music, of the UNESCO. On the other hand, as soon as the political
situation in Russia made it possible for the full freedom of
movement of its citizens, Artemiev was one of the first to leave,
settling in California, where he began to compose soundtracks for
the movie industry in Hollywood. Nowadays he continues to have a
house in Moscow, yet he spends much of his time abroad.
Artemiy Artemiev, the son of Edward Artemiev, is another
composer with a noteworthy work in the field of electronic music.
Born in 1966, his activities are tightly related to the cinema
industry, television and theatre. Since 1989, he has composed the
music for over 60 Russian productions (television, theatre,
radio...). He began his career as a keyboardist for several Moscow
rock bands. In 1987 he started to experiment with sound as well as
the possibilities offered by synthesizers, samplers and computers.
In 1996 he began to produce the television programme
"Electroshock", devoted to electronic music, electroacoustics,
experimental and avantgarde. In 1997 he became a member of the
Russian Association of Electroacoustic Music. Also in 1997,
together with his friend the producer and film director Vladimir
Krupnitskiy, he founded the label Electroshock Records. He was
one of the participants in the 1997 edition of the Electroacoustic
Music Festival in Bourges, held from May 30 to June 8 in France.
Anton Batagov combines his activity as a composer with that of
a piano performer. In the latter capacity, the one that has made
him most popular indeed, his concerts have tended towards
avantgarde music near to New Age or Minimalist styles. He has been
one of the earliest Russian pianist to divulge the works of Philip
Glass, Steve Reich and Morton Feldmann in his country.
Boris DeArt is a composer from Moscow with a background of a
scholarly classical education as well as Jazz, which he is
currently complementing with his studies as a sound engineer. He
is very well regarded. Listening to his enigmatic music, the first
thing the listener becomes aware of is the complete cultural
isolation the Eastern European artists used to be educated in.
Their music has nothing similar at all to what has been going on
in the Western countries. It looks as if a different evolution had
taken place starting from the orchestral music of the 1930s.
Nevertheless, he uses the same Japanese synthesizers available to
any Western musician. Guitarist Oleg Ivanin sometimes colaborates
with him.
Another Moscow-based musician is Mijail Chekalin, colloquially
described by his colleagues as "the man who always keeps borrowing
for a night the synthesizers belonging to others". Chekalin
develops his main musical activity in setting music to exhibitions
of avantgarde painters, yet he has also released some albums.
Uri Kassyanik is a very peculiar artist, quite difficult to
classify. Although most of his work belongs to the field of New
Music and that of Electroacoustics, he has also explored such
styles as Jazz, Cosmic Music, and numerous experimental paths.
The most remarkable trait in the artistic approach utilized by
Kassyanik in his musical activity is the great importance he
attaches to improvisation. There are many artists who improvise
and release their improvisations more or less redone. However,
with respect to Kassyanik, this trait reaches an unprecedented
degree. He conceives his musical production as an almost
exclusively improvising exercise, up to a point that he defends
the idea that, at least as far as he is concerned, improvisation
surpasses the possibilities of the pieces elaborated in the
traditional method of composition. Kassyanik even utilizes the
definition of "improphonies" to differentiate his improvised works
from conventional symphonies.
Vladimir Martinov has combined the most ancient with the most
modern, in a career initiated in the late 1960s. Having studied
the piano and composition at the conservatory of Moscow, he soon
placed himself in the sphere of musical avantgarde, participating
in festivals and similar events. Interested in the ethnic musics,
he travelled a lot so as to contact firsthand the folklores from
various regions. In 1973 he began to work in electronic music. Two
years later he led the rock band Outpost, and at the same time he
released a series of European polyphonic music series of the
fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, later followed by other works
of reconstruction or re-creation, such as his "Missa Russica"
(1992) based on the Russian musical liturgy of a thousand years
ago.
Igor Len was the keyboardist of the band Nikolay Kopernik, and
collaborated with the orchestral-Rock macroconcerts by Edward
Artemiev. In the early 1990s he became known at a more
international level thanks to his first solo album, devoted to
Russian poet Arseniy Tarkovski and to his son Andrei (the well
known movie maker). The music by Igor Len, based on the guitar and
synthesizers, can be classified as New Age, with a touch of
Russian Vangelis on a mystic plane.

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

ALBERT GIMENEZ
The composer and guitarist Albert Giménez began his musical career
in the '70s. He was a member of the bands Suck Electronic,
Macromassa and Neuronium. In 1979 he turned from electric to
classical guitar, releasing during the following years different
records with his own compositions for soloist acoustic guitar, and
playing in numerous concert tours. In 1995 he returned to electric
guitar so as to continue his research in the new electronic
frontiers that this instrument has to offer.
Read our article-interview about Albert Gimenez:
http://www.amazings.com/articles/article0042.html

CDs by Albert Gimenez available at Amazing Sounds:
"MOSDUM" $15.56 or 13.13 euros or 2100 pesetas
"ZIV" $15.56 or 13.13 euros or 2100 pesetas
Orders:
sales@...

EUROPE Postage Costs:
1 CD: 4.75 euros or $5.63 or 760 pesetas
2 or 3 CDs: 6.97 euros or $8.26 or 1115 pesetas
4 or 5 or 6 CDs: 10.09 euros or $11.96 or 1615 pesetas
3 weeks for delivery

AMERICA Postage Costs:
1 CD: $7.93 or 6.69 euros or 1070 pesetas
2 or 3 CDs: $12.37 or 10.44 euros or 1670 pesetas
4 or 5 or 6 CDs: $22.22 or 18.75 euros or 3000 pesetas
4 weeks for delivery

ASIA AND OCEANIA Postage Costs:
1 CD: $9.70 or 8.19 euros or 1310 pesetas
2 or 3 CDs: $15.63 or 13.19 euros or 2110 pesetas
4 or 5 or 6 CDs: $30.33 or 25.59 euros or 4095 pesetas
5 weeks for delivery

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For orders under $50.00, we prefer you to send the money on cash
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check, you may do it (adding $10.00 for bank charges)

If you send us a check in our currency (pesetas or euros), you
don't need to pay us that extra charge. Pay 135 pesetas in place
of every dollar, or 0.84 euros in place of every dollar.

For payments in other currency, ask for an estimate.

Make check payable to Mr. Jorge Munje.

The postal address is:
Jorge Munje
Amazing Sounds (C/O Manuel Montes)
P.O. Box 764
08220 Tarrasa, Barcelona
SPAIN

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

REVIEWS:

WENDY LUCK:
"THE ANCIENT KEY"
Amosaya Records
This album includes 14 pieces played by Wendy Luck at the flutes.
It was recorded inside the Great Pyramid in Egypt and contain all
natural acoustics; no studio effects were added. Wendy Luck sat
cross-legged in the King's Chamber, surrounded by softly burning
candles, and created "The Ancient Key". According to the artist:
"I had never experienced music in this way. It was a magical and
spiritual experience. The acoustics were simply incredible and the
history of these places was very inspiring. The music just flowed
out of me". The compositions are of a meditative character, with
some melodic symphonic passages, others within the jazz wave, some
entering World Music, and the presence of elements typical of New
Music and other styles.
H.JORDAN

VASCO MARTINS:
"DANCAS DE CANCER"
Melodie
The style of this album is within Classical Music, although with
certain, very innovative, and very personal elements of the
artist. There are some passages of majestic orchestral music
resembling the kind of music typical of the Hollywood adventure
movie soundtracks, other passages near to New Instrumental Music
and still others with touches of World Music, the melody being
always the protagonist. The music is played by the symphonic
orchestra Futurs-Musiques (about 60 musicians), conducted by Denis
Gautheyrie. A general trait of the album is the fact that the
music happens to be very intense, vital, as if reflecting strong
emotions. In a few words, an impressive work that will like the
aficionados to Classical and New Instrumental Music.
V.GUIOL

SERENDIPITY:
"ROBIN HOOD, MUSIC FOR AN ENGLISH OUTLAW"
Mosaic Music / New World
This album gathers a rich variety of traditional English songs.
This is one of the first recordings of the music written over the
last 800 years which was inspired by the legends of Robin Hood's
amazing life. The earliest pieces date back to the 13th century
(tracks 14-18). Serendipity is a versatile international ensemble
of singers, instrumentalists and actors who aim to bring to life
the music of the past in new and exciting ways. The group is
directed by Simon Heighes and features performers from England,
Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Oceania and America. This is no doubt
a fascinating album, accompanied by a magnificient cover, which
take us into the mysteries of fantastic legends.
M.CIRIGNOLA

You can find more information about New World label here:
http://www.newworldmusic.com

ISABELLE PASCALE GRANET:
"SANCTITY"
Liquid Light
Well wrapped into convincing arrangements and a perfect sonority,
Isabelle Pascale Granet offers us 8 themes of a tremendously
intimate nature, having ethereal textures, typical of the
atmospheric Pop the artist practises. Sensual melodies, perfectly
intertwined, both with respect to the music and the lyrics, follow
one another without ups and downs. It is pleasant to listen to and
will no doubt appeal to the lovers of Atmospheric Pop, and most
especially to those who enjoy the first compositions by Enigma.
A.HINOJOSA

BILLY?:
"RHIZOME"
This compact gathers a collection of experimental electronic
pieces by the Japanese band called "Billy?". This group is formed
by Yukinori Kikuti, Hirokazu Takagi, Kazuya Isigami and Tadasi
Usami. During the 22 short themes that constitute this release, we
can hear traits from styles like Trance, Industrial and
Minimalism, perfectly fused. The music is very original. In an
oneiric atmosphere, elements of sonic collage are intertwined with
Industrial noises and other elements more difficult to place.
E. KOGLER

GALENTO:
"BUS AND BACON"
Dreamboat Music
The style of this release could be defined as Industrial Jazz. The
compositions flow along different avantgarde aspects of Techno,
Industrial and Jazz, in a blend of sonic colors of a difficult
description. The music is like urban folk. Most of the pieces
possess rhythms that, not quite coming to be too fast, provide
this album with a dynamic character. The sonic personality of the
instruments utilized maintains a suggestive ambiguity between
acoustic and electronic.
A.HINOJOSA

LUIS PANIAGUA:
"AMANECIO DE GOLPE"
Pneuma
Luis Paniagua is no doubt one of the most sophisticated flagmen of
the New Instrumental Music currently being created, and one of
those musicians that know how to prove best that there are no
stylistic barriers for the instruments. In this soundtrack for the
film directed by Carlos Azpurua, the composer offers us his
mastery at creating a work full of beauty and mystery, with
melodies that in some occasions tend to be of an emotive
romanticism, while in other instances they have an enigmatic, or
even a dark air. There are passages or themes that get near to
Classical music, and others near to Pop. Some others enter within
symphonic Space Music. Touches of World Music are also present,
and even come to have a leading role in different parts of the
release. In a few words, this is one of the recordings that takes
New Instrumental Music to its highest reaches.
J. MUNNSHE

LUIS PANIAGUA
The Spanish composer Luis Paniagua, born in 1957, began his
musical career in the '70s. He was a member of the band Atrium
Musicae (devoted to ancient music) from 1972 to 1982. From 1974 to
1980, he was studying sitar, deeply attracted by this Indian
classical instrument. He began a solo career as a composer in
1982. Paniagua has also composed some movie and theatre
soundtracks.
Essential recordings:
ORIENTE-OCCIDENTE
DE MAGICO ACUERDO
NEPTUNO
PLANEO
LA BOLSA O LA VIDA
MUY FRAGIL
ARBOL DE CENIZAS
SOLTANDO AMARRAS
AMANECIO DE GOLPE

THE GREAT KAT:
"BLOODY VIVALDI"
Blood and Guts Music
Having a classical background specialized in the violin and the
guitar, the Great Kat has however followed a radically different
path: that of heavy-metal. Two of the four short titles contained
in this compact disc are versions that the artist has done of
Classical works: Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" (Chamber Orchestra
and full Metal band), and Sarasate's "Carmen Fantasy" (electric
guitars). "Torture Chamber" and "Blood" are truly shocking pieces.
The electric guitar sounds louder and louder, in a dark crescendo,
and the voice of the artist makes the listener's hairs stand on
end. The aggresive lyrics that portray the ultraviolent character
of the Great Kat's music are a remarkable element.
A.HINOJOSA

THE GREAT KAT
Born Katherine Thomas in Swindon, England, The Great Kat began her
classical music education at the age of seven on piano, and at
nine on the violin in Long Island, NY, USA. After winning numerous
competitions, Kat won a full scholarship to The Juilliard School
in New York City at the age of fifteen where she graduated with
honors. Kat has toured internationally as a classical violin
soloist. After realizing that "classical music is dead", the Great
Kat discovered heavy-metal and brought her classical virtuosity to
the guitar, becoming one of the world's fastest guitarists and one
of the few composers to combine classical music with heavy-metal.
Essential recordings:
WORSHIP ME OR DIE!
BEETHOVEN ON SPEED
GUITAR GODDESS
BLOODY VIVALDI

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

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.

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

For further information about this newsletter and back issues:

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You can access all the contents in Amazing Sounds from the first
articles to the hottest news in our web organized as a directory,
in HTML format, with photos, and with hundreds of links:

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Amazing Sounds is a professional electronic magazine free for the
readers. It is financed only by means of its sponsors. The firms
wishing to insert commercial advertisements in these pages can
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Recording companies, artists and other professionals of the
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team of journalists at:
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