Album Notes

From A to Z offers ten enticing selections of compelling, engaging electroacoustic music. It’s a specially priced compilation that’s an excellent introduction to the Starkland label. The diverse music ranges from Tod Dockstader’s powerful musique concrète to the digitally sampled bovine vocalizing in Phillip Bimstein’s udderly charming portrait of a Utah farmer.

The CD opens with three excerpts from Starkland’s two Dockstader CDs (“Quatermass” and “Apocalypse”), both widely praised in over 25 highly positive reviews.

Bimstein’s piece (from his “Garland Hirschi’s Cows” Starkland cd) combines comments from both Utah farmer Garland Hirschi and his cows, in a delightfully mooving work that has triggered hundreds of calls to radio stations. Paul Dresher’s Underground (from his “Casa Vecchia” Starkland cd) uses a custom-built multi-track tape loop system that starts with a few simple synthesizer sounds and creates a lovely, layered, languidly flowing composite.

Joseph Kasinskas creates refreshingly straightforward, often ritualistic music. The Rider, for marimba, gongs and digital echo, is part of a large theater work, Demeter’s Lament. Techno whiz Joseph Lukasik syncs multiple synthesizers and samplers to create the richly atmospheric Utamaro’s Dreams.

The “funny, inventive and talented” (Village Voice) Pamela Z blends extended vocal techniques and delay units with riveting, and sometimes humorous, results. This CD has her hauntingly personal In Tymes of Olde and the dark, harp-accompanied Obsession. Both pieces appear on Z’s solo “A Delay is Better” Starkland CD. Charles Amirkhanian’s Vers Les Anges (from his “Walking Tune” Starkland CD) merges sampled sounds, related to the extraordinary life of Nicholas Slonimsky, into a mysteriously evocative collage.