To Outer Space, to Cyberspace. The online life of obsolete media.

"To Outer Space, to Cyberspace. The online life of obsolete media." I had the pleasure to curate a small online exhibition with a big title for the Museum of Post Digital Cultures. Featuring among many other things  two very different golden records, the photo archive from one of the earliest computer animation labs (previously featured here), the NASA etc., and the whole is sort of dedicated to Laurie Spiegel and Lillian Schwartz. I might add one or two things, and there will be a stream performance on March 4th featuring Synkie, the open source reinvention of an analog modular video synthesizer. 
Click here: http://www.postdigitalcultures.ch/current

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Bruno Spoerri studio visit

Bruno Spoerri (*1935) began experimenting with electronic devices 50 years ago (he mentions seeing Rolf Liebermann's piece "Les Echanges" at Expo 64 as an important moment of inspiration). First with simple, homemade effect machines, an Ondes Martenot and manipulated magnetic tapes, and later as one of the first musicians in Switzerland to own a big synthesizer system (an EMS Synthi-100) and use a computer. With a background in jazz - he has played and composed with successful jazz bands since the age of 17 - improvisation has always played a major role in his mu­sic, and as of the 1980s he began to speak of 'computer­assisted jazz'­. A trained psychologist, he was virtually self­taught as a musician and scholar of music technology. In the course of his career, Spoerri has not only given countless concerts and re­corded dozens of albums, but also forged a groundbreaking career in advertising, TV and film. Among other things, he was the inhouse composer and sound designer (before the term existed) of one of the first agencies for TV ads in Switzerland and composed the soundtracks for approx. 500 ads. Check this previous post for some of his TV ident soundtracks.

If you're a frequent reader of this blog, you know that I'm a big fan of Bruno Spoerri's work. I had the pleasure to work with him on several occasions, especially at the 2010 Shift Festival in Basel, where Bruno gave a concert and a talk and we showed a programme with film- and videoclips with his soundtracks. Here's some pictures from a recent visit at his Studio in Zurich.

After the Ondes Martenot (he had since 1965) came the EMS VCS-3 in 1970, and he still has it. He modified it: "I used a Pitch to Voltage Converter to control the VCS-3 with my Saxophone. I needed my hands to play the saxophone, so I added some sort of "presets". There are switches that gave me the approximate functionality of a Minimoog without the need to use the patch panel. I also added trimmers to the oscillators and filters with a 4-way switch, so I could change transpositions easily. I could e.g. play in a 3 voice polyphony and even reverse the voltage to play mirrored voices. But I had to control and re-tune the trimmers before each concert. Most of the time it worked, but sometimes it got horribly out of tune in the middle of a show."

The thing above the pitch to voltage converter and random generator is a home made unit to switch between the controllers saxophone, random generator and keyboard.

Bruno has a very well organised archive and has digitized most of his tapes. This is a page from the index of his archive of sounds and noises, showing recordings he made in factories for two of his great promotional records commissioned by the machine industry: Oederlin (iron foundry) and Lansing-Bagnall (fork lifts). The Lansing-Bagnall 7" was the first of Bruno's tracks popular among rare groove collectors.

Bruno is still experimenting with new technology, ever improving his unique "computer-assisted Jazz" setup. He creates/composes machines with software and hardware that leave room for improvisation (and chance). Here he showed me a composition that involves among other things Max/Msp (he's been an early adopter) a Buchla controller (not in the picture) an iPad - and a home made controller-ball inspired by Michel Waisvisz' "Hands" and Laetitia Sonami, as he told me.

Talking about Waisvisz brought us to the Crackle Box. Of course Bruno has one:

Some of Bruno Spoerri's electronic and experimental music is available through excellent compilations on Finders Keepers records. Some of his jazz band records were beautifully reissued by Sonorama.

Bruno is currently in a legal battle against Jay-Z and Timbaland because they used one of his compositions for the Lilith soundtrack from 1978 (with minimal modifications) for a track on Jay-Z's recent album without asking (he would have said yes and his phone number is on his website, would have been an easy thing). Read the story here. So, if you happen to know Jay-Z or Timbaland, please tell them to be so kind and give Bruno and Finders Keepers credits (and some decent money) for his work they re-used.

Previous Spoerri-related posts:
Irmin Schmidt (Can) and Bruno Spoerri about their collaboration
Exclusive Spoerri TV idents
Bruno's collaboration with artist Betha Sarasin
And in most of my mixes...

Mix: Sculptural Macramé

Here's an autumn mix for you. Questions and comments welcome as usual.

Download here.
Or listen on Mixcloud.

Sculptural Macramé - Dispokino mix October 2013 by Dispokino on Mixcloud

Bruno Spoerri - Music for Chinde verzelled 's Märli vom Geischt im Glas
Roj - Ludwig's Children
René Eespere - Okasroosike
Vashti Bunyan - Love Song
plastic moonrise - The Rapid Rain
Fred Jordan, Aston Munslow, Shropshire - Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight
Vote Robot - eo_xugod_
Frédéric Chanu - Prends le temps d'écouter
Pierre van Hauwe - Bolero
Tod Dockstader - Pond Dance
Les Baxter's Orchestra - The Left Arm of Buddha
Sais Salah Ahmed, Dahir Cali Jimale, Khaliif Osman Cabdi - Umuliso
Gábor Presser - Indulás a koncertre
Tündérkaszinó - A part alatt
Die Welttraumforscher - This Could Be the Greatest Love in Town
Brenda Ray - The Scream
Solfeggio Tones - Solfeggio 396 417 528 639

The Bruno Spoerri track is the intro for a Swiss fairy tale record. The René Eespere song comes from the fantastic Estonian Teeme Muusikat series I got to know through several posts on toys and techniques. All tracks come from vinyl records except the wonderful electronic poems of Catherine Norris (plastic moonrise) and the mathematic melodies of Solfeggio Tones which I found on Soundcloud. Frédéric Chanu's Prends le temps d'écouter was made in a Freinet school. Tom Gagnaire from the Shapes and Colors blog had the wonderfully insane idea to make a reissue of this 7" of music composed and played by children. Well, since you read this blog you probably don't find the idea insane at all and you should order the record through the Tona Serenad label. There's more to come, I'll keep you posted. While you're at it, you should also order the Welttraumforscher's This Could Be the Greatest Love in Town (originally released on cassette in 1987) on 7" that was recently released in the context of the Welttraumforscher retrospective and book I organised.

Die Welttraumforscher: exhibition, book, LP, 7"

When the Welttraumforscher* set out on 14 July 1981 no one could have realized that their journey would not be over soon. For more than thirty years now, Swiss Christian Pfluger(*1963) has been working on drawings, texts and songs for the fascinating universe of the imaginary trio, which is well populated with characters like Leguan Rätselmann (Iguana Puzzleman) or Kip Eulenmeister (Kip Owlmaster) and his astronauts of the spirit. In the course of that journey, among other things, over 35 music cassettes, LPs and CDs have been released, with music that the Welttraumforscher themselves call “Bretzelberg Pop” and “Space Folklore”. I think many of the approx. 400 songs the Welttraumforscher published are number one hits on faraway planets.

I have been fascinated by this cosmos for a long time and now I had the pleasure to curate the first big retrospective exhibition of the Welttraumforscher and edit the first monograph.
The exhibition takes place at Kunsthaus Langenthal in Switzerland until November 10th. Many of the drawings, sketches and archive bits have never been exhibited before.
There will be one of the rare Welttraumforscher concerts and a talk with Christian Pfluger on November 8th.

The bilingual (German/English) book “The World Dream Researchers. Songs, Signs, Explorations” is published by Traversion. There's also a special edition with a vinyl 7” single «This Could be the Greatest Love in Town/Mira II».
Content: Christian Pfluger in conversation with Raffael Dörig and Michael Hiltbrunner. Sebastian Reier (B-Music, Golden Pudel Club) “Space Folklore. Cosmic Music, or the Cosmos of the Welttraumforscher”, German/English (including translations of song lyrics), 50 images, 96 pages.
CHF 36.–/ EUR 28.–, special edition with 7” CHF 42.– / EUR 33.–
Get it directly from the publisher, via your local bookstore or through amazon.

At the same time, the fine people of A Tree In A Field Records and Planam have published the second of a series of beautiful LP issues of early Welttraumforscher cassette tapes. They also sell the back catalogue of die Welttraumforscher (online soon, I think) i.e. the original LPs and CDs that are still in stock.

*"World Dream Researchers" or "Space Explorers" (the German name Welttraumforscher is a play on the term Weltraum = space / Welt Traum = World Dream)


A previous Dispokino-post on the Welttraumforscher with some songs can be found here.
If you understand German, please visit the Welttraumforscher's own encyclopedia on their website. 150 Welttraumforscher related terms explained.


Inside the book:

Promo sheet for the first cassette "Herzschlag Erde", 1981

Cover of "die singende Sternlaterne", Cassette, 1983 (now rereleased on LP)

Cover of unpublished zine supplement to 1983 cassette "Reise nach Bretzelberg"

drawing from the "Bretzelberger Bilderbogen" series (1984-2002)

drawing from the "Bretzelberger Bilderbogen" series (1984-2002)

Promo sheet for the first LP, 1989

LP sleeve "Folklore des Weltalls", 1989

CD cover "Sideria" 1995

Drawing from the "Grosser Bilderbogen" series (2002-now; 50x70cm)

Drawing from the "Grosser Bilderbogen" series (2002-now; 50x70cm)

Leguan Rätselmann's cone house, sketch 1996

From "8 Tage unter Planeten", 1981

Post 100 * Mix * Fauna Grotesque *

This seems to be post 100 of this little blog. Time for a long overdue new mix of mine.
Listen on Mixcloud or get it here.

Fauna Grotesque - Dispokino mix March 2013 by Dispokino on Mixcloud

Benjamin und Gäste - For Myriam
Peter Michael Hamel - Nada
Jerusalem In My Heart - Yudaghdegh El-ra3ey Walal-Ghanam
Clara Mondshine - Caesar in Kamerun
Syzygys - Fauna Grotesque
Jacno & Elli - Anne cherchait l'amour
Art of Noise - Snapshot
Christian Oestreicher - Boléro
Λένα Πλάτωνος - Tικ Tακ Ή Aurorina Selene (Ωρορίνα Σελένε)
E. Allen/F. Reidy - Highway Patrol
Die Welttraumforscher - Konstruiert aus Sonnenschein
Emanuele Calanduccio- Le due Sicilie
Shusha - Banafsheh
Jorge Autuori Trio - Temarisa
The Machines - Moonbug
Piet Janssens Beat Band -  Der Strom der Zeit
Moebius - im wedding
The Sammy Burdson Group - Galactic Impulses
Cindy Kallet - We Rigged Our Ship