Category: {music}

Music

Who designed Vertigo #6360 620?

autobahn1.jpg

Autobahn by Kraftwerk; Vertigo #6360 620.

Colin Buttimer was in touch last week to let me know he’d copied my Barney Bubbles post (with my permission) to his excellent new site, Hard Format, which is devoted to the art of music design. In the intro to that piece he repeats something he’d mentioned to me earlier, namely his belief that Barney Bubbles designed the UK release of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn album in 1974. I thought this unlikely at first but the more I’ve been thinking about it the more possible it seems. So here’s a quick run through the evidence in the hope that someone out there may have more information to either confirm or deny the theory.

Continue reading “Who designed Vertigo #6360 620?”

Brian Eno: Imaginary Landscapes

eno2.jpg

From Eonism back to Eno with Imaginary Landscapes, a 40-minute documentary from 1989, directed by Duncan Ward and Gabriella Cardazzo. As usual it’s good to see BE discussing his ideas about music and art although I’d have preferred less of the atmosphere shots and more talk. The film is available to view in a streaming version here.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Thursday Afternoon by Brian Eno
• Moonlight in Glory
• Tiger Mountain Strategies
• Generative culture
• My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Metronomes

metronomes.jpg

An automated performance of György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes at Ubuweb.

Since its world premiere in the Netherlands in 1963, Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes has been very rarely performed in public. The complicated scenographic staging, the detailed preparation by hand, the need for around ten technicians to activate more or less simultaneously the 100 metronomes, makes the demand for performances limited. Thirty-two years after the premiere, the sculptor and installation artist Gilles Lacombe heard a recording of the work. Impressed, he decided to invent a machine able to perform the piece automatically. After six months, he set up this ingenious device. Ever since, Poème symphonique can be performed accurately, at any time, and in public. Please understand that at its world premiere in 1963, the concert was filmed by Dutch television. On that night, after the final tick-tock of the metronome, there was a heavy silence, followed by booing, screaming, and threats. The concert was never broadcast.

manray.jpg

And while we’re on the subject, let’s not forget Man Ray’s Object to be Destroyed (1923) (aka Indestructible Object). Richard Cork looked at its origin and meaning for the Tate magazine.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The Avant Garde Project