ANTS RECORDS

Seven electronic compositions from the end of the sixties

plus one instrumental piece from 1983. This is the content of

the new CD by Albert Mayr that “ants” is proud to present.

Experimentations from near 40 years ago sounding so

“contemporary”, today more than ever.

“In the fifties and sixties of the past century electro-acoustic

music was a very élitist affair; professional equipment was

expensive, not easy to find and could be afforded - in

sufficient quantity to build a full-scale studio - only by

institutions such as universities or broadcasting corporations.

Access to those hieratic places was rather difficult if you did

not belong to one of the contemporary music 'Churches' that

were influential at the time.

This led several composers to put up a small private studio.

This was the case for the studio S 2F M, created in Florence

by Pietro Grossi.

Since the beginning a small group of collaborators (including

myself) worked with Grossi in the S 2F M; we all were

fascinated by the new sound world and Grossi's radicalism. In

fact, through the work with him my attitude toward music (in

the widest sense) changed profoundly.” (Albert Mayr)

“The work in the S 2F M studio was of high rigour, with the

resulting sound structures presented in their brut condition,

without any concession to taste or to smoothing out the

edges, because the essential thing was to experience the

new sound world, to experiment with it.

Albert Mayr’s Proposte Sonore, realized between 1966 and

1969 - partly with the Battimenti materials created earlier by

Pietro Grossi in the Florentine studio -, are certainly a

beautiful example of this line of work. Proposals of new

elements to be integrated in the puzzle; Proposte (proposals),

and not Studies or Exercises and not even Compositions,

presented with the doubts of a listener who is eager to find

out what will happen, and not with the presumption and the

certainties of those who want rather to find than to seek. A

listener who tries to understand and mainly to perceive how

‘the sounds coming from the machine stay together’. It is, on

the one hand, this pioneer aspect, and, on the other, the

freshness of the results that create the interest and pleasure

one proves when listening to these pieces.” (Giuseppe

Furghieri)

track list

1) PROPOSTA SONORA I 6'12"

2) PROPOSTA SONORA IV 6'11"

3) PROPOSTA SONORA V 7'32"

4) PROPOSTA SONORA VII 8'00"

5) PROPOSTA SONORA X 3'44"

6) AN OLD LADY'S WALLPAPER 5'10"

7) PROPOSTA SONORA XIII 10'13"

8) ABENDGRUN 5'43"

released 17/02/2005