Recording of Annette Vande Gorne's Tao, 4ème élément: Métal. Tao is a four-movement work, inspired by Taoism. The four movements are Eau, Fea, Bois, Métal, and Terre. This recording only contains the fourth movement, Métal, in two different versions. These versions include the original 1983 version with electronics and percussion and the 1984 version with amplified zheng, percussion, and electronics.

Recording of Joris de Laet's Khene dimensioned II. This work is for magnetic tape, and uses sound recorded from the khaen, a mouth organ from Asia, used heavily in Laos. 6 instruments were used. There are four parts to this work.

Recording of James Dashow's In Winter Shine. This work was commissioned by the MIT Council on the Arts. This work has been separated into two tracks and is meant to be played "quartet-style" with each loudspeaker in the quadraphonic work thought of as a separate performer. The title of this work comes from a line in John Ashbery's poem "Litany".

Recording of José Augusto Mannis' Cyclone. The composer describes this work as a language of electroacoustic music in which what counts is the gesture of the sound. The movement of the composition is lively, vigorous and energetic, creating clear musical articulations.

Recording of Jukka Ruohomaki's Hommage à Winston Smith. This work is a recomposition of old sound materials made for am experimental short film. The film celebrates the year 1984, and it develops further the basic ideas of G. Orwell's novel: human beings are produced, exploited and destroyed according to the needs of society. The sounds have here undergone manifold processes, male voices being the main material.

Recording of Iancu Dumitrescu Motto : Opera Aperta. Ursa Mare is a music intimately linked to Orphic-incantatory thought and practice, conceived in the spirit of ancestral, intuitive, initiatory and magical music; its aesthetic, like that of some other works, is subordinated to an acousmatic. Through this technique of composition, which is also a mental technique, which effectively penetrates into the orphic space of a "substantiality of color", by discovering the design of a particular species of sounds, "diagonal sounds", which arise from the selective and elastic combination of certain natural harmonics, organized in "diagonal multisons." It is by the "diagonal," by a sensitive sound thought, that we succeeds in discovering the subtle connection between native (concrete) sound, classical instrumental sound, the sound of special instruments and electronic type sound, at the same time as performing a synth between the archaic (suggested by the echo of traditional Romanian and foreign instruments) and modern, within the same artistic thought.

Recording of John Michael Clarke's Soundings. This piece is an exploration of the sonic world of the cello hence the title "Soundings". The title relates to "resonances", the tape being a reflection of what the "live" cello is playing. This is because most tape sounds come from recorded cello sounds that were then processed in an electronic music studio. There are also some computer generated sounds in the middle part.

Recording of Joris De Laet's Khene Dimensioned II, composition for tape magnetic in which was used a material sound both concrete and electronic. The sounds recorded come from the "KHAEN", a mouth organ from Asia, especially Laos. The instrument is composed of 16 bamboo pipes. The sounds they produce are rich in harmonics and produce 16 different sounds. The composer had 6 instruments. No two are pitched the same. One of these Khaens was used as the basis for the whole work. The tone of his 16 sounds have been transformed into Herz. From this frequency data, a data matrix and served for the composition of numerical and material ratios for the composition of algorithms and for the control of an analog synthesizer by computer. The dimensions of the intervals of this popular Asian instrument dominate throughout the work for the realization of musical intentions. All the frequencies that are part of the electronic sound components are the same as the basic khaen scale. In this way, dense sound spectra are formed in relation to the internal harmony of the acoustic instrument. There are four parts. Each development is specific and in parametric relation with the intervals of the khaen.

Recording of Maggi Payne's Solar Wind. Solar Wind is an electronic piece based on synthesized audio representations of bow shock interactions of Saturn and Venus with the solar wind as observed by Voyager, Voyager-2 and the Pioneer-Venus Orbiter. The source tape was generously supplied by the project director of the plasma wave instrument, Fred Scarf, of TRW, for NASA. The plasma wave instrument detects phenomena associated with solar wind interactions in space. The instrument, placed aboard this spacecraft, gathers information and analyzes it using a sixteen-channel spectrum analyzer. The data is transmitted to Earth and drives a computer which controls the amplitude of a sixteen-voice music synthesizer. In some bow shock interactions the actual frequencies of the phenomena are replicated; in others, some frequency shifting was necessary. Time compression is set to a 480:1 ratio. The final sequence of the composition uses the source tape with minimal manipulation. The middle section of the piece (bow shock sequence) uses the source tape, but heavily modified. The remaining segments are loosely based on the source tape.

Recording of Lelio Camilleri's Comeclose and Sleepnow. The piece is made up of six sections. In each section are developed parts of the transformed text and are highlighted sentences or words of the poetry. All the sound material of the piece is composed only by the transformation of the recited text. "Comeclose and Sleepnow" is based on the namesake poetry by R. Mac Gough, recited by Stephen Montagne.

Recording of Jean-Baptiste Barriere's Chreode I. The title Chreode I serves here as a metaphor for a systematic and intersecting investigation of material and organization. At the same time, it is a generic title for a set of computer works, of which "Chreode I" is the first element. Although the materials are very elaborate, the attention in this piece is more specifically on the organization. This research on musical processes, their fields of action and their limits, was conceived as a strategy for approaching the musical territory, as it is renewed by the possibilities offered by the computer. A very general destination of this project was therefore to experience different types of organizations, and at a higher level to learn how to structure them in time and formally. The compositional structures as well as the scores were developed in the FORMES programming environment with the help of Pierre COINTE and Yves POTARD. The sound materials have been chosen to allow some type of control over the timbre, focused on a small number of very compositionally relevant parameters. Thus the work on the timbre is essentially based on the compression and the expansion of the formants or the spectral envelopes, this …

Recording of Denis Lorrain's Les Portes du Sombre Dis. Conceptually, this piece uses a single elementary sound with a symmetrical dynamic envelope. This elementary sound is activated in different duration scales: from a few minutes to a few milliseconds. In exploiting this range of durations, and controlling varied time densities of different sets of elementary sounds, one can cover a domain ranging from long pure sonorities to isolated punctual events, and encompassing more or less rough sounding noises as well as smooth continuous textures. The chronological evolution of the characteristics of the sets of elementary sounds (density, duration, timbre, intensity, pitch, spatialization) is distributed among three asynchronous parallel global cycles: two of minimal contrast, and one of maximal. This cyclical form enforces the freedom of choosing a starting/ending point for each performance of the piece; it also makes it possible, the elementary sound being symmetrical in time, to state "Les Portes du Sombre Dis" in one direction or the other. Computer programs were used in some stages of the compositional processes, to assist in the manipulation of multidimensional graphs and to find solutions to the problem of building cycles of controlled global contrast in such structures. After completion of this …

The title of the work comes from a word Nahuatl which literally means "burning water". Piece quickly explores a sound material frequently associated with maracas, harps, bamboos and a guitar. The live sound of the maracas comes from the traditional rhythmic patterns found in most traditional Latin American music, models that the performer is asked to combine with great dexterity to build wider and very complex rhythmic structures. These rhythmic structures are then confronted with passages of the same complexity on the tape, creating and developing ever more a "star" polyrythm that finally disintegrates. The path is then drawn for a traditional accompaniment game of maracas.

The kendang is a Javanese drum. In Javanese music, the drum sounds are onomatopoetic, that is they are duplications of spoken language. An appropriate kendang player, however, will always tend to enrich his sound repertoire by imitating arbitrary sounds of the environment. My composition Dialogue refers to this. First the computer-generated sounds are introduced in an onomatopoetic way and imitated by the kendang player. Then the computer sounds develop in a way as to move finally far beyond the expressive power of the kendang. The natural and the synthetic sounds enter in a heavy conflict leading to a climax. The contrast is, however, bridged eventually by fragments of the Javanese music "Subakastawa" in the tender Slendro-9 tuning. The piece was created at Utrecht Muziekcentrum on the 24th of January 1984 with the collaboration of the Javanese kendang player Supangah Rahayu (Paris).

Sequence Symbols exemplifies the composer's exploration of the concept of modulation spectra considered as inharmonic "harmonizations" or chords. The gradual transformation of basic note groups related by common tones provides the underlying pitch structure. Each group so derived in turn furnishes the intervals that are treated as generating dyads for the inharmonic chord-spectra. Chord-spectra can be enlarged by the simultaneous sounding of the chord with its transposition at a desired interval. In this way a variety of tension and release patterns are created by associating a specific interval with various kinds of chord spectra. Common frequency components between the chord-spectra provide a basis for hierarchical structuring of the materials generated by each note group and its possible interval transpositions. The general wavelike form of the piece (at times dramatic, ironic or static) corresponds to memoents of prominence by a note group or interval or their transpositions. On another level, the wavelike shape of the piece can be attributed to the interweaving of sections and their interruption of and by each other. The conception of the work varies from symphonic scale to inteimate chamber-music proportions - a formal combination that seems rather well-suited to music conceived in terms of digital sound …

Recording of Lárus Halldór Grímsson's Winter Romantic.

Recording of Stephen Montague's Tigida Pipa. Commissioned by Elms Concerts for Singcircle, with funds provided by the Arts Council of Great Britain. Tigida Pipa was composed in Ghent, Belgium, and completed in London in January, 1983, but revised several times until 1989. The text consists of invented words and percussive sounds whose inherent rhythmic structure propels the work at breakneck speed through a rondo of sonic adventures.

"Comeclose and sleepnow" is based on the homonymous poem by R. Mac Gough, recited by Stephen Montagne. The piece is composed in six sections. In each section are developed parts of the converted text and are highlighted phrases or words of poetry. All the sound material of the piece was composed solely by transforming the recited text.

Within Time Mark (commissioned by percussionist Kathleen Kastner), are specific considerations including a continuum of timbre - thus providing for an integration of electroacoustic and live sounds without the loss of individuality, and spatial disposition - wherein the location from which sounds emanate within the host performance space is also a parameter for composition. Originally realized in 1983 with concrete and modular voltage-controlled synthesis techniques (including much analog tape editing), the electroacoustic portion of the composition was reworked to reduce the inherent analog tape hiss and was then digitally re-recorded in 2000.

Solar Wind is an electronic piece based on synthesized audio representations of bow shock interactions of Saturn and Venus with the solar wind as observed by Voyager, Voyager-2 and the Pioneer-Venus Orbiter. The source tape was generously supplied by the project director of the plasma wave instrument, Fred Scarf, of TRW, for NASA. The plasma wave instrument detects phenomena associated with solar wind interactions in space. The instrument, placed aboard this spacecraft, gathers information and analyzes it using a sixteen-channel spectrum analyzer. The data is transmitted to Earth and drives a computer which controls the amplitude of a sixteen-voice music synthesizer. In some bow shock interactions the actual frequencies of the phenomena are replicated; in others, some frequency shifting was necessary. Time compression is set to a 480:1 ratio. The final sequence of the composition uses the source tape with minimal manipulation. The middle section of the piece (bow shock sequence) uses the source tape, but heavily modified. The remaining segments are loosely based on the source tape.

The Lamentation of Attio was composed by Vincent McDermott at the Laboratory of Sonology in Utrecht. This multi-media piece is based on classical Latin poetry by C. Valerius Catullus. The text tells the story of Attis who was emasculated to join the worship of Cibelle. When he complains about what he has become, Cibelle sends his lions after him for eternity.

Jean-Baptiste Barrière: "Chréode " is a borrowed term from morphology and biology (from the Greek "cre" it is necessary," and "Odos" path: Necessary path). It is used here as a metaphor for a systematic and intersecting investigation of the material and the organization. It is about my time of a generic title for a set of computer works, of which "Chréode I " is the first element. Although the materials are very worked, the attention in this piece carries more specialty on the organization. "Chréode i " is the first step towards a grammar of processes that I would like to attempt to elaborate. This research on musical processes, their fields of action and their limits, has been thought as a strategy of approach to the musical territory, as it is found revolutionary by the possibilities offered by the computer. A very general destination for this project was experimenting with different types of organizations, and a higher level of learning about the time structures formally. The compositional structures as well as partitions have been elaborated in the programming environment forms with the help of Pierre Coine and Yves Knob. The material sound has been chosen to allow a certain type …

Fantasies for Soprano Saxophone and Tape was written in 1983 for saxophonist Kenneth Fischer. It is dedicated to him and to the memory of Peter Tod Lewis. The music commemorates Lewis' wit and taste for the unexpected. Each movement addresses a different facet of his rich personality. The first movement, "Imminence," is a tongue-in-cheek serial work, involving grotesque tape sounds and robust counterpoint between the tape and the saxophone, resolving to an uncertain and hazy cadence. The second movement, "Remember," is a gentle recollection of Lewis' warmth, punctuated by a cry of grief at the end. The final movement, "Homage (Little Birds)," is a rollicking juxtaposition of the classic and the popular in 20th century music. The lyricism of the saxophone music is violated repeatedly and finally squelched by the tape's jolly violence, spiced by quotations from contemporary rock and roll. With the exceptions of the "rock" quotations, all of the analog tape sounds were created using complex concrete manipulation of loops of gong, cymbal, and almglock attacks. The work was realized in the Electronic Music Studio of the University of Georgia.

Recording of Andréa Libretti's Frammento da "Ho".