Musica Elettronica Viva - Spacecraft vinyl lp (due to size and weight, this price for the USA only. Outside of the USA, the price will be adjusted as needed)
SKU
05- WELLE 104LP
Alvin Curran - kalimba (mbira thumb piano mounted on a ten-litre Agip motor oil can), electronics (contact microphones), trumpet (amplified), voice
Frederic Rzewski - performer (amplified glass plate with attached springs), electronics (contact microphones)
Allan Bryant - synthesizer (homemade from electronic organ parts)
Richard Teitelbaum - synthesizer (modular Moog), electronics (contact microphones), voice
Ivan Vandor - tenor saxophone
Carol Plantamura - voice
“Musica Elettronica Viva, or MEV for short, was formed in 1966 in Rome by Allan Bryant, Alvin Curran, Jon Phetteplace, Carol Plantamura, Frederic Rzweski, Richard Teitelbaum, and Ivan Vandor. From the very beginning the group was based on musical freedom and the shunning of convention. Using contact microphones to record and manipulate sound wherever it could be found -- from box springs to vibrators -- and improvisationally combining those recordings with tenor sax, homemade synths and the very first Moog to trek cross the Atlantic, MEV made some of the most imaginative and abrasive sounds of the time.
Recorded in live performance at the Academy of Arts (Akademie der Künste) in Berlin on October 5, 1967, Spacecraft is made up of a single piece of the same name -- a slow building, jarring and disquieting work that reveals the entire MEV ethos in its lone half hour.
As group member Alvin Curran put it, "the music could go anywhere, gliding into self-regenerating unity or lurching into irrevocable chaos -- both were valuable goals. In the general euphoria of the times, MEV thought it had re-invented music; in any case it had certainly rediscovered it."
- LabelOur Swimmer
- UPC769791973657