Christian Marclay & Günter Müller - Live Improvisations (1994)

"All live improvisations should be this much fun. This live date between turntablist and electronic weirdmeister Christian Marclay and percussionist and electronics tinkerer Günter Müller is what the art of improvisation is supposed to be: fun, continually compelling textually, and inspired. While many intellectuals have made wild pronouncements about Marclay and his art -- and it is art, make no mistake -- writing all sorts of blather about how he strips the adult century bare by his cutting up of vinyl records and pasting them together with parts from other vinyl records, they never seem to mention that these sound collages of his are charming, very human, and quite often intentionally hilarious. When Marclay is paired with a mischievous percussionist like Müller, anything can happen and always does. Here, swathes of "beautiful music" from the likes of the Bert Kamphert Singers and Orchestra are layered against throbbing drum machines and slamming garbage can lids. There are snippets from the Wizard of Oz recordings, laid in swathes against thundering tom toms and shimmering cymbals, and then scratched against backwards recordings of "Diddy Wah Diddy" done by a bubblegum teen choir as sheets of glass shatter and the sounds of John Wayne movie gunshots punctuate the mix. Yeah, yeah. Marclay and Müller may sift through the detritus of dead cultural artifacts to make something new, but it's not to make a political statement -- it's because it sounds cool as hell". Thom Jurek, All Music Guide

01. Piñata

02. Dea ex machina

03. Pfiff
04. Sunny-side up
05. Sore Eros
06. Je ne vous oblierai jamais
07. The ransom note
08. Dreh-moment
09. Love gasoline
10. Vitalium
11. A rose is a rose is a rose...
12. Rififi
13. Arrivederci

Günter Müller: drums, electronics
Christian Marclay: turntables, records

Recorded live in France, Germany and Switzerland 1992-1993.
Design and collages by Christian Marclay. Type design by Tom Recchion.

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Tom Recchion - Chaotica (1996)

This album, recorded in 85-86, played with tape loops, prerecorded records and cassettes, and keyboards, is really interesting. The first piece is completely abstract, while songs like "Flying Weather" use instrumental samples, looped, that come from much larger songs. This is all really well done, especially since they are all live improvisations, and were not edited after they were created. He gives special thanks to Esquivel, and there are definitely some influences running amok around this music. Pieces like "Space Ship" and many others sound like many tape collagists (such as People Like Us and The Bran Flakes), because they use what sounds like odd little scraps from old records, except there are no vocal samples, and it's slower and experimental. Lots of this stuff is very inspired, like the sad, powerful, Godspeed-esque "Enormos Horses," "The Perpetual Motion Clock," which like a labyrinth of music, and "Chaotica," the squiggly, crashy mixture of sounds that closes it off. Mix elements of People Like Us, Rainer Buerk, Esquivel, Matthew Ostrowski, some maraschino cherries, and possibly Philip Glass… this is what you get.

1. Doomed Ships
2. Flying Weather
3. Free Of Ice
4. Ships At Sea
5. Final Fattening
6. Last Breath
7. Is It A Baldwin
8. Drinking Doctor
9. Mindless Dread
10. Space Ship
11. Floating
12. Complex Shape In The Sky
13. Body Of Fish
14. Enormous Horses
15. Worlds That Fly Round And Round The Sun
16. Perpetual Motion Clock
17. Musaphonic
18. Cara Mia
19. Out Of The Dunes
20. Smaller Pulse
21. Chaotica

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