ANTS RECORDS

Hugh Davies was one of the masters of contemporary

experimental music. His tireless search for musical invention

and his historical accuracy led him to explore different fields

in music. This one is a selection of his lesser known

electronic pieces, that he choose to represent his own

approach to the matter.

Now that he’s not more with us this collection remains as an

outstanding picture of his creativity in music. In the broader

sense, as he was used to do.

“When I began my musical career in the mid-1960s I thought

of myself as a composer with a strong interest in what was

then known as electronic music, especially live electronic

music. My early work with live electronics soon led me to

what has become the main focus of my creative activities,

inventing and performing on new, usually amplified

instruments. Because I have been primarily involved in live

performance I have composed comparatively little taped

electronic music, even though, in addition to my small home

studio, I had free access to a university studio for 25 years

(modest for the first 15 years, and then well-equipped). This

album contains my most substantial compositions in the

medium, for prerecorded tape or CD. With the exception of

the opening section of Vision, which was included on the

cover CD of an issue of Avant magazine, none of these works

has previously been recorded commercially.(...)

The original versions of four of these five electronic

compositions had a theatrical connection. (...)

Natural Images (1976) and Tapestries (1982-83) were both

commissioned by small British modern dance companies (...).

Vision (1987) is an expansion of the tape sections of my dance

theatre composition I Have a Dream (1984-85), and similar

material is used in the only work without a theatrical link,

Celeritas (1987). From Trees and Rocks (2002) has a rather

different origin, having been commissioned as one of five

sonic museum-guides for an exhibition in Cologne, at which

individual visitors walked around the galleries wearing

headphones, creating their own interactions between the

selected sonic guide and the works of art on display.” (Hugh

Davies)

track list

1) Celeritas 8'37"

2) Natural Images 12'46"

3) Tapeestries 8'26"

4) From Trees And Rocks 9'48”

5) Vision 17'00”

released 03/12/2005