mike71 was right about the original musique concrète composers (Schaeffer and Henry) using shellac records to construct their first works in the genre. They had fairly specialised and customised equipment for it too: multiple variable speed turntables feeding through a mixing board, among others. (They were associated with RTF, which helped.) That’s to say there were people who experimented with this technology quite a long time ago, and it doesn’t hurt to look into what they did. It is, however, significant that, as soon as the technology became reliable, they moved en masse into working with tape.
For what these ladies are trying, i.e., real time performance, tape editing won’t cut it, obviously, but a mixer sure would. Heck, bring all the vinyl they’re going to use onto disc and mix it in real time through a DAW or similar. Want to put pieces together as if they were glued? Try crosscutting between tracks with a rectangle-wave LFO at 33-1/3 Hz and vary the duty cycle to taste. Improvisation of this sort is going to provide enough of the unexpected: what they want to get rid of is the inadvertent.
Or at least they need more control over what kinds of inadvertent happen, and (in my opinion) more selectivity about what’s worth keeping and what isn’t.
I like the visual/performance aspect here though… and the look of the object. The sound is interesting, but I’m a visual/performance person. The video, object, etc could become as important as the sound and that might be a bit more stunning. Not that I don’t like spooky layered sounds. Hard to tell a bit though. Is it just me or was the sound quality pretty bad?
Hehehe! If they have that kind of control and selectivity, then it isn’t inadvertent, is it?
Perhaps, but I don’t think you want to stint on any part of the work in a performance piece. If the visual part is weak, the piece is weak. If the music is weak, the piece is weak. When they’re both strong and working in harness, the piece is somewhat more than the sum of its parts.
This particular work is a bit ambiguous, and doesn’t necessarily gain through that. Is it a performance piece? Then it is only really workable on video or in a small hall where everyone can see (not necessarily a bad thing, but a bit limiting in performance). Is it just a new instrument? Then they have their work cut out for them mastering the materials.
