squarepusher Tod Dockstader

This is my attempt at making a serious music thread.

I don't know how much interest watmm has in early electronic music/musique concrete, but I think this guy deserves some appreciation.

His best known pieces are probably 'Quatermass' and 'Apocalypse', which were released in the 60s, but his recent output, like 'Aerial' and his collaborations with David Lee Myers are also excellent. He makes some of the most atmospheric, alien-sounding music I've heard, and he's influenced younger generations of musicians (I know Squarepusher has mentioned him in interviews).

http://dockstader.info/

there's a music player on the website that's got clips of pretty much everything he's ever done, for anyone that's interested, but I think really you need to hear the pieces as a whole.

Any fans?

i prefer.. kid baltan

..

yeah, Dick Raaijmakers is also awesome.

fuck it, let's just turn this into a general early-electronic music appreciation thread.

The Apocalypse/Luna Park CD is excellent, I particularly like 'Apocalypse part 3', it's got this really unsettling sound at the start (sounds like a cross between an animal and person moaning)- definitely try to get hold of it. You'll recognise some bits - 'Travelling Music' uses parts of number 8 from Eight Electronic Pieces.

Thanks for the recommendation, haven't heard of Douglas Lilbum before, I'll check him out.

i am not any kind of expert on this guy, but what i have heard i've liked. The one on my ipod is a creel pone reissue of an early album. it's great. The Ariel series is great too.

  Stoppit said:

http://dockstader.info/

 

there's a music player on the website that's got clips of pretty much everything he's ever done

omg, i would like so much more early electronic music if they were all smart enough to figure out how to do this.

aerial is good. no deep thoughts.

what is some good xenakis along the lines of concret ph or hibiki-hana-ma?

http://www.avantgardeproject.org/archive.htm <- this might be relevant too

Stoppits jib runs this show for sure.

And yes I am a fan, however I actually have nothing productive to post, but I'm kool with helping a brother along with a bump.

  Hanratty said:

i am not any kind of expert on this guy, but what i have heard i've liked. The one on my ipod is a creel pone reissue of an early album. it's great. The Ariel series is great too.

The Creel Pones are excellent, different to anything else he's done (they were originally library music LPs, so they are designed for television use). They work really well as albums, though.

  spraaaa said:

what is some good xenakis along the lines of concret ph or hibiki-hana-ma?

Unfortunately, I can't really help you out here. I haven't got much by Xenakis, other than a few pieces on the Ina Grm Archives box. He's someone that I've been meaning to investigate further

  abusivegeorge said:

Stoppits jib runs this show for sure.

 

And yes I am a fan, however I actually have nothing productive to post, but I'm kool with helping a brother along with a bump.

Cheers bro.

  ieafs said:

and it's lilbuRN if you want to look him up :smiling: soundscapes with lake and river is another thing of his i really like... i think it was the last piece of music he ever made actually just before he retired.

 

hahaha, I typed Lilbum..that would be a stupid name....

I will definitely check this out, thanks!

  spraaaa said:

what is some good xenakis along the lines of concret ph or hibiki-hana-ma?

Check out all of his tape compositions, stuff like Diamorphoses, Analogique B, Persepolis, Orient-Occident, and Polytope de Cluny

3rding the Creel Pone recs, those are awesome.

Been meaning to check this guy out for ages. Will look into getting some of the releases mentioned here.

soo,, his later material (pond, aerials .. bijou) are worth checking?..

Definitely. I think the Aerial albums, in particular, are some of his best work. Check out the tracks 'Myst' and 'Pulse' (two of my favourites) from Aerial #1; they should give you an idea of what to expect.

1979:

those two are my favs ...from him

not dockstader but the last track on this is really good, 15 mins of freaky/trippy fm stuff like stria or the background of parhelic triangle, the rest of it is a little cheesy though.

ps thanks dan will check those out

  ieafs said:

aerial is much more 'ambient' and droney than the other things i've heard from him though. not really 'ambient', but not in the same super-dynamic musique concrete style as things like quatermass or eight electronic pieces. haven't heard bijiou or pond yet, but from a few interviews i've read about pond it seems to be much the same process as the aerials

I agree, Aerial has got more of an ambient/drone sound to it. There is still a lot going on in the tracks, but it tends to be subtler, hidden in the background.

Pond and Bijou are a cross between this style and more traditional musique concrete, i'd say. Pond is probably closer to aerial, with longer tracks based on field recordings (of ponds, suprisingly). Bijou is made from film samples; snatches of dialogue, sound effects etc, and has shorter, choppier tracks generally.

  ieafs said:

the creel pone ones are those reissue library music type things right? i think i've seen some of their other ones mentioned somewhere. is that from when he did educational films after quitting the uh, organized-sound business?

Yeah, the creel pone CDs are reproductions of the original Boosey & Hawkes library music LPs, originally released in '79 and '81. (see xy_politics' post for cover art). I don't really know what he was doing for most of the 70s and 80s, but Boosey and Hawkes commissioned him to make a series of general purpose pieces that could be used on tv and in films; so you've got the descriptions alongside the titles, such as 'ethereal', 'pulsating' and 'scientific/industrial'. They are very different to anything else Dockstader has done.

Quote from mimaroglumusic(Keith Fullerton Whitman's record shop):

'dockstader was so incredibly ahead of the curve on this (these) record(s), it's hard to fathom... contemporary sensibilities and almost proto-idm-ish figures abundant throughout.'

http://www.mimaroglumusicsales.com/artists...dockstader.html

probably the best place to buy creel pones from, if you're interested; also got some of the other releases, and audio samples from Pond & Bijou