PROBES #28

Curated and produced by Chris Cutler.

In the late nineteenth century two facts conspired to change the face of music: the collapse of common practice tonality (which overturned the certainties underpinning the world of art music), and the invention of a revolutionary new form of memory, sound recording (which redefined and greatly empowered the world of popular music).

A tidal wave of probes and experiments into new musical resources and new organisational practices ploughed through both disciplines, bringing parts of each onto shared terrain before rolling on to underpin a new aesthetics able to follow sound and its manipulations beyond the narrow confines of ‘music’. This series tries analytically to trace and explain these developments, and to show how, and why, both musical and post-musical genres take the forms they do. 

In PROBES #28, as new musical resources continue to expand we follow the incorporation into new works of saws, sandpaper and power tools, artisans and knitting machines – and go on to investigate the repurposing of radios and gramophones as musical resources.

Playlist

01 Gregorio Paniagua, ‘Anakrousis’, 1978
02 Field recording
03 Douglas Henderson, ‘Music for 100 Carpenters’ (excerpts), 2009
04 Leroy Anderson, ‘Sandpaper Ballet’ (excerpts), 1954
05 Saw
06 Jack Nitzsche, ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Opening Theme’ (excerpt), 1975
07 amiina. ‘Seoul’ (excerpt), 2007
08 Johann Sebastian Bach, ‘Toccata and Fugue in D Minor’ (excerpt), 1685- 1750, arr. Phillips, 1998
09 The Captains of Industry, (excerpts), 1975
10 Ivan Palacký, ‘In the Knitting Mood’ (excerpt), 2007
11 Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, ‘Trouser Press’ (excerpt), 1968
12 Field recording
13 Stefan Wolpe, dada event (reconstruction) (excerpt), 1920
14 Ottorino Respighi, ‘The Pines of Rome’ (excerpt), 1924
15 Paul Hindemith, ‘Trickaufnahmen’ (excerpt), 1930
16 John Cage, ‘Imaginary Landscape No. 1’ (excerpt), 1939
17 John Cage, ‘Credo in Us’ (excerpt), 1942
18 John Cage, ‘Cartridge Music’ (excerpt), 1960
19 Pierre Schaeffer, ‘Étude aux chemins de fer’ (excerpts), 1948
20 Milan Knížák, ‘Composition No. 2’, ‘Composition No. 1’, ‘Composition No. 3’ (excerpts), 1979
21 Christian Marclay, ‘Martin Denny’ (excerpt), 1987
22 Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, ‘The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel’ (excerpts), 1981
23 Example
24 DJ Qbert, Mix Master Mike and DJ Apollo at the DMC World Championship final, 1992 (excerpt)
25 Nicole Lizée, ‘RPM: for Large Ensemble and Solo Turntablist’ (excerpts), 1999
26 Gabriel Prokofiev ‘Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra’ (excerpt), 2007
27 Karlheinz Stockhausen, ‘Kurzwellen’ (excerpt), 1968]
28 Footsteps 
29 AMM, ‘Later During a Flaming Riviera Sunset’ (excerpts), 1966
30 The Animals, ‘We Gotta Get Outta This Place’ (excerpt), 1965 
31 Gregorio Paniagua, ‘Anakrousis’, 1978