Imaginary

Visual Arts

Jean-Paul Laurens, The Old Scientist, or The Alchemist

Music: Composers, artists, and major works

Alvin Lucier experimented with sound, emphasizing snails-pace changes in oscillations and other musical components. “His experimental music was rooted in the physics of sound and might yield unpredictable results — in one instance a Beatles song emanating from a teapot.” He explained aspects of his technique in an album entitled “Music in a Sitting Room” (1981) (45’). To derive the most from his music, listen with concentrated attention.

• “Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators XL” (1990) (approx. 40-65’)
• “Music on a Long Thin Wire” (1980) (approx. 75’)
• “Navigations” album (2021) (57’)

“William Basinski is an experimental composer, sound sculptor, and video artist based in Los Angeles, California. He is a relentless experimentalist obsessed with reel-to-reel tape decks, splicing tape and spindling it. His musical signature is evidenced, interestingly enough, by deeply emotional sounds filled with multiple tones, drones, textures, and shades that are as hauntingly beautiful as they are somber.” “His melancholy soundscapes explore the temporal nature of life, resounding with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time.” Though less experimental and less challenging than Lucier’s work, Basinski’s many albums also invite and reward intense and focused listening.

• “. . . on reflection . . .” (2022) (42’)
• “Lamentations” (2020) (58’)
• “On Time Out of Time” (2019) (49’)
• “Selva Oscura” (2018) (39’)
• “A Shadow in Time” (2017) (43’), consisting of “For David Robert Jones” and “A Shadow in Time”
• “Cascade” (2015) (40’)
• “Nocturnes” (2013) (69’)
• “Vivian & Ondine” (2009) (45’)
• “92982” (2009) (63’)
• “Variations: A Movement in Chrome Perspective” (2008) (119’)
• “Untitled 1-3” (2008) (78’)
• “Shortwavemusic” (2007) (59’)
• “El Camino Real” (2007) (50’)
• “Silent Night” (2004) (60’)
• “Melancholia” (2003) (47’)
• “A Red Score in Tile” (2003) (45’)
• “The Disintegration Loops” (2001, 2002, 2008, 2011) (354’)
• “The River” (2001) (94’)
• “Watermusic” (2001) (60’)

Other albums:

• Third Coast Percission, “Quartered” (2020) (25'): “Quartered is a percussion quartet for live ensemble or for playback as a four-way sound installation. The instrumentation includes glass bottles, wood planks, ceramic tiles, metal pipes, electric toothbrushes, and resonant metallic instruments called sixxen. When performed live, each performer receives a headphone feed of one of four distinct metronomes. The independent clocks relate to one another differently throughout the piece, sometimes maintaining a proportionate relationship, and at other times flexing and contracting to dictate phasing events. Sustained, "irrational" composite rhythms sometimes result, as the metronomes/performers play all together in the same tempo but out of synch with one another.”