Suzanne Ciani – Buchla Concerts 1975

Description

Finders Keepers invite you to witness these incredible earl Buchla synthesiser concerts/demonstrationsproviding a distinctive feminine alternative to The Silver Apples Of The Moon if they had ever beenpresented in phonographic form. This is history in the remaking.

This spring Finders Keepers Records are proud to release an archival project that not only redefines musicalhistory but boasts genuine claim to the overused buzzwords such as pioneering, maverick, experimental,groundbreaking and esoteric, while questioning social politics and the evolution of music technology asweve come to understand it. To describe this records as a game-changer is an understatement.

This record represents a musical revolution, a scientific benchmark and a trophy in the cabinet of counterculture creativity. This record is a triumphant yardstick in the synthesiser space race and the untold storyof the first woman on the proverbial moon. While pondering the early accolades of this record its dauntingto learn that this record was in fact not a record at all… It was a manifesto and a gateway to a new world,that somehow never quite opened. If the unfamiliar, modernistic, melodic, pulses, tones and harmonicsfound on this 1975 live presentation/grant application/educational demonstration had been placed in aphonographic context alongside the promoted work of Morton Subotnick, Walter Carlos or Tomita thenthe name Suzanne Ciani and her influence would have already radically changed the shape, sound andgender of our record collections. Hopefully there is still chance.

In short, Suzanne was a self-imposed twenty-year-old employee of the Buchla modular synthesisercompany, San Franciscos neck and neck contender to New Yorks Moog. Buchla was run by a communityof festival freaks and academic acid eaters whose roots in new age lifestyles and the reinvention of artand music replaced the business acumen enjoyed by its likeminded East Coasters. In the eyes of theconsumer the creative refusal to adopt rudimentary facets like a piano keyboard controller rendered theBuchla synthesiser the more obscure stubborn sister of the synth marathon, steering these incredible unitsaway from the mainstream into the homes and studios of free music aficionados, art house composersand die-hard revolutionaries. Championed and semi-showcased by composer Morton Subotnick on hisalbums The Bull and Silver Apples Of The Moon, Buchlas versatility began to open the minds of a newgeneration, but the high-end design features and no-compromise modus operandi was often confused
with incompatibility and, in the pulsating shadow of Moogs marketing, the revolution would not betelevised nor patronised. Suzanne Ciani, as one of the very few female composers on the frontline (andalso providing the back line) did not lose faith.
These concerts are the epitome of rare music technology historic documents, performed by a realmusician whose skills and academic education in classical composition already outweighed her malesynthesiser contemporaries of twice her age. At the very start of her fragile career these recordings arenothing short of sacrificial ode to her mentor and machine, sonic pickets of the revolution and love lettersto an absolutely genuine vision of and alternative musical future. In denouncing her own precociouspolymathmatic past in a bid to persuade the world to sing from a new hymn sheet, Suzanne Ciani createda bi-product of never before heard music that would render the pigeon holes ambient and futuristicutterly inadequate. Providing nothing short of an entirely different feminine take on the experimentalrecords of Morton Subotnick and proving to a small, judgmental audience and jury the true versatility of
one of the most radical and idiosyncratic musical instruments of the 20th century. These recordings havenot been heard since then.

The importance of these genuinely lost pieces of electronic musics puzzle almost eclipses the glaring detail of Suzannes gender as a distinct minority in an almost exclusively male dominated, faceless, coldly scientific landscape. Those familiar with Suzannes work, a vast vault of previously unpublished non-records, will already know how the creative politics in her art of being simultaneously reshaped the worlds of synth design, advertising and film composition before anyone had even dropped a stylus in her groove. Needless to say this record, finally commanding the archival format of choice, courtesy of the Ciani and Finders Keepers longstanding unison, was not the last first with which this hugely important composer would gift society, and the future of a wide range of exciting evolving creative disciplines. You have found a holy grail of electronic music and a female musical pioneer who was too proactive totake the trophies. With the light of Buchla and Cianis initial flame Finders Keepers continues to take atorch through the vaults of this lesser-celebrated music legacy shining a beam on these non-recordsthat evaded the limelight for almost half a century. You cant write history when you are too busy makingit. With fresh ink in the bottomless well, lets start at the beginning. Again. You, are invited!

Tracklist:

1. Concert At WBAI Free Music Store

2. Concert At Phill Niblock’s Loft