| Strange To Your Ears: The Fabulous World Of Sound with Jim Fassett |
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| label & cat. no.:
Columbia ML 4938 | pressed in:
USA | date:
1953 | format:
LP |
| condition:
Vinyl: vg+ (minor scuffs)
Cover: ex (amazingly intact for its age with just a few small wrinkles and a stamp on back) | description:
Excellent and scarce lp exploring the weird and wacky side of early electronic tape manipulations/musique concrete, presenting an array of sped-up, slowed-down, reversed, cut-up, and montaged found sounds. This is the rarely-seen pre-6-eye label first pressing. Fassett (of Symphony Of The Birds fame) narrates this demonstration of the then-astounding capabilities of the newly invented magnetic tape recorder, using a whimsical approach to introduce listeners to the territory pioneered by more serious academic composers like Pierre Henry, Vladimir Ussachevsky, Otto Luening, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Fassett shows how familiar sounds can be made to oddly sound like totally different ones, how multiple sounds from disparate locations can be collaged together to create utterly alien soundscapes, and how entire universes of sound can be derived from the most unlikely sources, with several truly bizarre moments (perhaps the most hilarious being when he attempts to pronounce his name backwards in order to hear what it sounds like when played in reverse). But beneath the novelty surface of this recording, Fassett is actually making a revolutionary statement about how we hear, joining with avant garde contemporaries like John Cage in radically calling for a new appreciation of sound as music and music as sound (the liner notes by High Fidelity Magazine editor John M. Conly name-drop Edgard Varese, Pierre Boulez, and Pierre Schaeffer). This album's content was originally a radio documentary that Fassett produced with engineer Mortimer Goldberg. It is highly recommended as a fascinating period document, as a trove of sound effects, and as a beautiful specimen of outsider musique concrete.
artist info from album notes:
Fassett was the director of CBS Radio, a radio show host, music critic, audiophile, and early magnetic tape experimentalist who in the 1950s released several novelty musique concrete recordings which are recommended for those interested in Jean-Jacques Perrey, Bruce Haack, Raymond Scott, Luc Ferrari, Tony Schwartz, Andre Popp, etc. |
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International Shipping - 1 12" lp to Europe/UK/Scandinavia/Asia/Australia is $15.00 for First Class Airmail; to Canada is $8.71 for First Class Airmail; to Mexico is $12.53 for First Class Airmail; other international destinations vary, please email for a quote. 7" records will cost less; heavy box sets will cost more. Insured Priority Airmail with tracking and other expedited methods are also available but pricing depends on destination country and will be calculated after auction closes (or you can email me with your address for a quote). Combine multiple items to save on shipping; I can hold paid records to be combined with a future purchase if desired. Note: I can also offer international buyers the slow but super-cheap M-Bag bulk airmail rate for orders of 8 or more lps; to most destinations this costs $40.00 flat rate for up to 16 lps, a huge per-record savings over standard rates for smaller parcels! Feel free to email with any shipping questions. | | Payment - I accept Paypal (which allows for fastest possible shipment). Please email with any payment questions. If you are paying by Paypal and have won multiple items, please use a single Paypal payment. I will send an invoice email to all winners shortly after my auctions close, and another email after payment has been received to confirm item shipment. | | Packing - I pack professionally and with the utmost care drawn from years of experience trading vinyl internationally. I use new record mailers from Cameron Packaging (which I have determined are the best and most protective) reinforced with cardboard inserts and bubble wrap padding. All records are shipped with poly plastic sleeves. All packages are completely sealed with strong packing tape covering all openings. Unless requested, no paper invoice is included in the package, both to save trees and to avoid customs difficulties. If you'd like your package done any differently, just let me know. | | Other Info - Feel free to email me if you have any questions (need more info, want more pictures, etc.); you can use the 'ask seller a question' link above. Records are visually graded unless otherwise noted; my condition rating scale is M (sealed) / NM (unplayed) / EX (barely used) / VG (some evident wear from prior use but no major flaws) / G (major flaws). All included album inserts are pictured in the listing; what you see is what you get, if I know an insert is missing I will mention it in the description. Satisfaction guaranteed; if you have any problems with your order please contact me directly. | | Enter your email to join the |  | |
| | This item description is (c)opyright 2009 keymap records; please contact keymap records for permission before reproducing any text. |
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