GRISTLEISM - Throbbing Gristle-Inspired Sound Toy/Looping Device!

Gristleism  (5.0 out of 5 stars)

"An Odd Thing, January 2, 2010

By C. Pilkington 'Music Enthusiast'" 
((Review found on Amazon.com)):

I've enjoyed ambient music for quite awhile, and artists like Brian Eno are truly inspiring; even more in present times. His philosophy is that good ambient music should be something that is poignant when both focused on, or placed in the background.

I stumbled on this little wonder after reading quite a bit about the Buddha Machines that FM3 introduced to the world several years ago. This is an offshoot of that product, and instead of containing blissful, soothing tones, Gristleism carries some very creepy and overall strange sounds originally created by Throbbing Gristle. For weird people like me, it's a very interesting little gadget.

Before I continue, I have the red Gristleism; there are at least two other color choices at the moment, I just happened to pick the red one. Every Gristleism has a very simple plastic design: it has a volume adjuster (which also doubles as an on/off switch), a loop selector button, and a pitch/tempo shifting wheel; all located on top of this small, square device. The speaker is located on the front of the unit, and takes up most of the front. The Gristleism runs on 2 AA batteries, and has a unique design that fills the back of the toy. Even the box it comes shipped in has an ornate, but effective, design. That's the whole thing in a nutshell! 

Now, how is this supposed to be interesting, you ask? Well, the Gristleism contains 13 loops; all ranging in length. You can use the pitch/tempo shifter and really bend each loop into something entirely different; thus, the lasting power of this toy seems to be quite large. You can play with it for just a few minutes, and get a good grasp on what the thing is capable of. But, if you dive into it over time, you'll realize that there's a lot you can do with it.

Now, when I get on the computer, sometimes I will just set up the Gristleism, and let it play in the background. It enhances your environment without being too much of a distraction (unless you set the volume really high). The Buddha Machines are obviously much better for this purpose, but I like the dark contrast the Gristleism has to the light of the Buddha Machines. If you have several devices, of either the Buddha or Gristleism variety, there's even more fun to be had.

Industrial Music (A Condensed History)

Read the full post by [gay til death] on Industrial Music For Industrial People - The Something Awful Forums...



"...Industrial music is a widely varied style of music which today doesn't really have a common thread other than it sounds 'dark', originally it was experimental, confrontational, abrasive, and vulgar. Started in the late 60s and early 70s by radical 'post-hippie' artists in England (COUM Transmissions, later becoming Throbbing Gristle) and San Francisco (Monte Cazazza, who collaborated with Throbbing Gristle and it's members for many years)), it spread through out the UK and Europe without making a huge impact in the US until the 80s (save for a few artists and mainly in San Francisco with Monte Cazazza, who coined the term Industrial Music, and Boyd Rice).

In the late 60s there was COUM Transmissions, a radical artist collective. The two most important members were Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanny Tutti. These two along with Peter Christopherson (aka "Sleazy", and Chris Carter they made up the musical aspect of COUM Transmissions. Eventually COUM became Throbbing Gristle. Every Throbbing Gristle show was recorded and eventually released on cassette on their label Industrial Records. These dudes had a huge impact on the experimental music scene in the UK, US and Europe. Like minded individuals and copy cats popped up and a scene was born.

For the next 30 years industrial expanded and evolved (or devolved in some cases), ranging from pop music masquerading as something 'dark' or 'sinister', to some of the most vulgar and abrasive music out there. After Throbbing Gristle broke up and went their separate ways, many said Industrial had died, and thus retroactively we call anything after the TG break up post-industrial (I have to say I don't like this term, it stinks of something made up on Wikipedia or some forum 20 years after the fact).

So! From this point we have a huge amount of music to explore, since dozens of sub-genres have sprung up since TG's last performance. Most notably we have neo-folk, power electronics, electro-industrial, EBM, dark ambient, death industrial, rhythmic noise, darkwave, and minimal wave. This isn't inclusive at all, and a few are debatable, but genre semantics is for nerds.


To get you all started, here are some important releases with a lil blurb about them.


70s:
Throbbing Gristle - 20 Jazz Funk Greats
Probably their most accessible, if you can call it that. After seven years of chaotic improvised life performances their sound by this point had been channeled and was more 'musical'. Closest thing to this really is Kraftwerk, especially Autobahn, but maybe because both those albums came into my life at the same time.

Throbbing Gristle - Mission of Dead Souls
Their last live performance, historically important.

Throbbing Gristle - Heathen Earth
My favorite release by them probably, I believe it may be a bootleg but I'm not sure.

Cabaret Voltaire - Extended Play
One of their earlier releases, cold, minimal, lots of weird home made sounds and cut up tape loops. They would become more musical as they went on, by the mid 80s they had become synth pop (don't be put off, The Crackdown, their first synthpop release is amazing) and by the 90s were making IDM. Each one of their releases up to Code are great.

Cabaret Voltaire - The Mix-Up
One of the best industrial full lengths of the era

SPK - Factory/Retard/Slogun 7'
The best of their early singles. Before moving into less musical territory (and way before the electro rap single), they were essentially a post punk band, but jesus christ are they harsh here. This thing is ridiculously ahead of its time.

Come - Rampton
Mainly important due to its members and the label Come Org that was started to put these out. Included William Bennett (of Whitehouse), Daniel Miller (of the Normal, and founder of Mute Records), and JG Thirlwell (of Foetus). Comparable to the Residents I guess, weird rock music deconstructed.



80s:
christ there is so much here I'll just give a select few, most importantly the former members of TGs new pursuits.

Psychic TV - Force the Hand of Chance
After TG broke up Genesis P-Orrdige and Sleazy came together with Alex Fergusson of Alternative TV and some other people and formed the band/cult/art collective/whatever Temple ov Thee Psychic Youth and the band Psychic TV. This release is one of my all time favorite albums, mixing straight forward pop songs (like really poppy, string sections and lots of pizzicato) and psychedelic industrial, this is one of the more bizarre albums I've heard. I can't imagine buying this in 1982 after only knowing Genesis from his work in Throbbing Gristle.

Chris & Cosey - Techno Primitiv
Chris Carter and Cosey Fanny Tutti were the other half of TG, their secret relationship being partly responsible for the breakup in the first place. Minimal synth pop, with some of Cosey's cornet playing shown off! Their first 3 or 4 releases are all I've explored, so I can't give you a definite rec here.

Coil - Horse Rotovator
Made up of Sleazy and a Throbbing Gristle groupie, Jhonn Balance, and formed while both were in Psychic TV. Horse Rotovator is their best 80s album, but their first three full lengths, Scatology, Horse Rotovator, and Loves Secret Domain are all excellent. Paussolini's Death (Ostia) is the best track here.



There are so many albums that I could recommend from here it would take days to complete this post. So lets start the discussion! Lets avoid the NIN and KMFDM and Rammstein chat though, looking to expand people's horizon here or just circle jerk about your favorite MB tape



Some youtube links:

an awkward Whitehouse performance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRbWvLKWS1k

the BEST Whitehouse track, well not best, but I'm really enjoying their output from the last few years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGNKgah948s

probably the most seen Throbbing Gristle video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8klW9trVTQ

SPK - Slogun, amazingly ahead of its time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZWmYEUoweg

Cabaret Voltaire - Do The Mussolini (Head kick)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxsYrfKf_pc

DAF - Tanz Der Mussolini, early EBM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwAJXV070OY

Laibach - Geburt Einer Nation, a Queen cover I believe, classical Martial Indsutrial
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YE_j0xIsJA

Les Joyaux De La Princesse, excellent group, combining ambient, martial industrial, marching songs, french pop from the 40s and 30s into a a great atmosphere. mostly focusing on the Nazi occupation of France
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pqNK4pQbVY ..."


** [click here] to read or add to the whole thread...

Rhythm and Noise - Naut Humon - Z'EV

Where South San Francisco ends, desolation begins. In November 1980, flyers began appearing on neighborhood telephone poles announcing an upcoming Rhythm & Noise show. "Crisis Data Transfer," the poster promised. No location was given, but a recorded phone message provided detailed directions to "The Compound."

The Compound sits among a grim terrain of decaying housing, abandoned warehouses, electrified chain-link fences and packs of wild dogs. It was R&N's first show. Upon arrival, walkie-talkie-wielding attendants drove our cars away, leaving us to warm our hands at scattered timer fires. The scheduled showtime came and went and still we waited and shivered in the damp Bay air. Finally, a huge steel grate door was raised and we entered into billowing smoke and ten channels of surround-sound. The interior was banked with video screens of all sizes and enough sound equipment with which to construct a small village, most of it with that homemade hacker's look to it. "Vaudeo" they called it: video narratives set to live and manipulated soundscapes. The music screeched, droned, undulated, and even, on occasion, harmonized -- always with some semblance of a beat. Rhythm & Noise -- a well-named ensemble. The Compound is scarier than ever now that crack kings control the territory. The video screens are gone and the cavernous interior is jammed with hanging steel drums, hollow tubes, huge springs, wires -- wires everywhere -- and a baby grand piano. A control tower houses an intimidating array of sound equipment -- analog, digital, sampling, synthesizing, hybridizing, mixing boards, keyboards. A Mac II waits in the wings.

Naut Humon, quintessential sound traffic controller began my tour slamming his arm down on a keyboard and manipulating the sustained sound for two roller-coaster minutes. Then he layered digitalized samples into an oscillating techno swamp. Synthesizers added electronic pterodactyls to the mix. Past sessions with percussionists, singers, and other musicians were called up to lend texture and spark. Finally this work in progress, "Running on Radar," treated the ears to soundwaves come full circle: noise tamed into post-modern lyricism. Naut Humon is the thread tying R&N together through the years. Z'ev, Nik Fault, Rex Probe, Michael Belfer, Comfort Control, and Diamanda Galas have been collaborators, but Humon is Rhythm and Noise:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...In the early '70s Z'EV entered the picture. He was working with all these metal assemblages. He'd tune these racks of scrap until they were welded sculptures with sound functions. I'd quit Cal Arts so I could invest my money in equipment. We formed a group called Cellar M to combine live percussion with electronic manipulation. We did some good work, but dissonance wasn't hip yet." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Q: How fully did you work out the pieces you performed with Z'ev?
A: There were definite flight plans, but they had room for spontaneous combustion.
Q: When did Rhythm & Noise emerge as a distinct entity?
A: In 1976, Nik Fault, Rex Probe, and I began a heavy period of research and development. We sold a lot of what we had and began to build most of our equipment. We started to develop The Compound, though we didn't actually perform until 1980. The punk/industrial movement was strong by that time, so we got some recognition, but people still couldn't understand it emotionally. At least not the way they could understand Led Zeppelin or whatever else they were used to listening to.
Q: You hadn't recorded anything yet?
A: Right. That's where Throbbing Gristle had an edge. They had a product. We had always avoided that. It wasn't until 1984 that the Residents convince us to record on their label Ralph Records.
Q: Is it possible to point to any roots for your music?
A: Our roots are more in timbre than in rock 'n' roll. We were definitely aware of people like Stockhausen and Xenakis. I listened to Hendrix, but the thing that was interesting was that he was adding noise to the blues and making it popular. I saw a bridge between Hendrix and Stockhausen. The challenge was to understand noise in an emotional manner.
Q: What distinctions do you make between live and recorded versions of your pieces?
A: Live performance should be different from what you experience in your living room. On the one hand, you have to create links to the past, to what is familiar, but live music should offer a sense of involvement, of immediacy, of surprise. It fascinates me how many rules you can break.
Q: You've talked about the concept of "dissonant convergence."
A: These are not necessarily contrary terms. R&N is realizing-embracing more mass harmonic structure because we are working to understand the harmonic of noise as well as the dissonance. The question is, do dissonant sounds form harmonics or a larger dissonance? You have the effect and the after-effect. Each sound becomes a memory capsule that you place in your own spectrum. It meshes with each subsequent sound. You determine its esthetic. One man's noise is another man's poison. Another question is, do you always need a beat, a rhythm, a pulse to make the relationship with the timbre, to make it speak to you or to the masses? It's hard to break out of pop shells. People don't understand things that aren't part of their existing paradigms. They want to be able to hum it, to remember it from high school days. I like how hip-hop is played through jam boxes so loud that distortion becomes part of the esthetic. In Cairo, the muezzin chants through loudspeakers so tinny and loud that noise becomes part of the prayer. And boom cars -- it's no longer, "My Cadillac is bigger than yours," now it's, "My noise is bigger than yours because I have five woofers." It's an intentional misuse of the technology. It proves that attitude depends on how you listen. You might like the music you hear while inside a club, but it might sound like noise if you live across the alley. We sound like noise to a lot of people."

[MP3]: Rhythm & Noise - Remembrance
[MP3]: Z'EV: "The Invisible Man - Selection 2-18-78"

||||

SPK - Interview [Chainsaw #11, 1981]

SURGICAL PENIS KLINIK

This interview took place after their set at a Final Solution gig in Heaven, Charing Cross, supporting Throbbing Gristle and A Certain Ratio [23.12.80].

Heaven is normally a meat-market gay disco and it must rank as the most sordid venue I have ever been to - I'll certainly have doubts about going there again. It was unbearably hot, smoky and very dark towards the end of the evening it was literally impossible to see from one side of the hall to another. Decor (and background music) rather over-the-top disco. All in all, probably just about sordid enough for a Throbbing Gristle/SPK gig.

Incidentally a couple of years ago this. place used to be called the Global Village and had occasional gigs then too - the last time I saw the Users was in there. My, how it's changed.

I first became interested in Surgical Penis Klinik when their single "Meat Processing Section" came out in the summer last year (although it was recorded in their native Australia in 1979). This was in fact their second EP, the first (No More/Contact/Germanik) was released on their own label Side Effects Records early in 1979.

Tonight their set was quite an experience, to say the least. It is probably best described as an all-out attack on your senses. First, there was the sheer volume of sound - the constant low-frequency noises that were played at deafeningly loud volume. The sound itself - deliberately loud so as to cause distortion - more like the "Slogan" side of Meat Processing Section than the "Factory" side, but always with the booming low frequency noises in the background, that were missing on the records. The ligbts and the strobes were pointed straight at the AUDIENCE and not the group...

Current line-up:
Operator - Synth/Tapes/Rhythms
Mr Clean - Production engineer
Wilkins - Guitar/Bass

Genesis P-Orridge told me once that this group were the most deranged group that he'd ever come across. After seeing their set, and doing this interview, I almost agree...

Charlie: How long have SPK been going?
Operator: First started in January 1979 I think, but the first time we played together was June l979 and that was with me, a psychiatric nurse, a guy called Nehil who was a mental patient - schizophrenic, and two punk guys we got to help us, who left soon after to become pop stars.
Charlie: Who with?
Operator: They've got a group of their own in Australia called Secret Secret who are just making a lot of money in the clubs.
Charlie: Are you all Australian?
Operator: No. Wilkins is English, comes from Bristol, and Mr Clean and I don't come from anywhere in particular. We consider ourselves stateless.
Charlie: You were born in Australia, weren't you?
Operator: That's not necessarily true. But don't push it. That's an assumption that we wish to maintain.
Charlie: How many copies did you make of your first single?
Operator: We did two EP's in Australia - three tracks on each - and we made 500 copies of the first one and 500 of the second one, and then we had to do a re-release of 500. Then I came to England on my way to France, to live there - and Genesis of TG wrote to us and said he wanted to do a re-release in England of the second one, so we said yes. The second one has three tracks on the original - the third track was a throwaway which was fucked up after I left and re-mixed by the psycho guy, before he killed himself.
Charlie: He killed himself?
Operator: Yes... and actually recently we had another guitarist who killed himself, so that's why the group's so unstable all the time.
Charlie: Why did they kill themselves?
Operator: Don't know. They didn't tell me. They didn't leave me anything in their wills either, which is annoying.
Charlie: Who writes the lyrics? The words of some of your songs on the first single are a bit over the top.
Operator: Those lyrics were written mainly by Nehil who was the Schizophrenic, but we were working in collaboration all the time. I handled the music, he handled the lyrics. But all the lyrics are over the top. It's just that some of them are sung in German so they'd be over the top to a German, I suppose.
Charlie: There's no point in going over the top in a foreign language.
Operator: Why not?
Charlie: It doesn't seem over the top then.
Operator: But lyrics function as a dictatorial device - if you've got a set of lyrics, they'll tell you what they mean. You've then got no choice about any particular meaning in the piece of sound. So if you write lyrics in German, bad German at that because I can't speak any German, then the audience is free to take whatever meaning they want to from whatever the sound is.
Charlie: Your microphone was very distorted tonight. Was that intentional?
Operator: No, not particularly, but you can't help it when you've got that much noise going on. You can't get a good mix on a mike like that. Plus I'm shouting quite a lot in German because I like the language - it's a little fetish of mine.
Charlie: When you sing in German do you understand exactly what you're singing?
Operator: They're translated from an English idea, but they're usually cut up afterwards, so they probably don't mean anything to a German person either.
Charlie: So do you ever wan to play in Germany?
Operator: I have had thoughts about going to Dusseldorf because that's where DAF and Pyrolator are working, but I'm not sure whether I like their stuff anymore, I just don't like England all that much.
Charlie: Then why are you here?
Operator: I don't like places with any characteristics, I'd like a place that didn't have any characteristics, so I wouldn't feel oppressed by any particular culture, or anything like that. I'm not expecting to find anything, though.
Charlie: It's probably freer here than most places, though.
Operator: It depends what you mean by free. A lot of the things we're doing now are about information overload. For example tonight there was a tape which you probably couldn't hear properly because of the distortion, it was a compilation of chemical warfare and side-effects of psychotropic drugs which is an indication that if we're all excited about chemical warfare, it in effect started in mental hospitals in 1952, with people subjected to it all the time. Another case is a cut-up between several porno loops, hard core and the soft core that you get on advertisements, so we packed them all together, which is the state that you have in the so-called free society. You're just bombarded with shit all the time. And that's what we're saying. We're not trying to dictate any particular set of lyrics to anybody at all.

Charlie: So what kind of a place would you want to live in?
Operator: We'll all end up living eventually inside the head. A head without a world. I have no material needs at all - I live on £5 a week. In London that is some achievement, so they tell me.
Charlie: Do you ever get bored?
Operator: Never. You only get bored if you're expecting something better. And there isn't anything better, everything's the same.
Charlie: Isn't that a negative attitude? I get bored sometimes.
Operator: You must be looking for something. You must have your highs. I think I'm a pluralist to the extent that as much diversity is the best thing. It's categorisation, lines and so on that you get in the music scene in London which kill you. I can contradict myself one second after I've said something, because consistency is just another closed way of thinking.
Charlie: Doesn't consistency mean that you know what you're talking about?
Operator: Consistency generally means sticking to a set line, for example Marxist or left wing line, left wing / right wing - it's all the same - everybody's realising that now.
Charlie: Well I believe in some things and not in others.
Operator: Noem Chomsky, who's a really left wing linguist just signed a manifesto of the Fascist party in France saying that they should be allowed to continue. Because he says it's the only way it'll be controllable - there's no point in trying to stamp it out, that's the way to go about things. That's the way I think.
Charlie: Allowing any party to exist doesn't necessarily mean that you agree with what they are saying.
Operator: Exactly. That's why I wouldn't follow either opinion. One day I'd say that not allowing it to happen is OK. You can't make a decision either way. On any subject. It might help to fill in a bit of background here on why I think this way - it comes from experience in mental hospitals where no decision is ever right. For a schizophrenic person, for example, there's nothing you can do or say to a schizophrenic person that will help them, and being silent doesn't help them either. So what do you do
Charlie: What experience have you had with schizophrenic patients?
Operator: In general... I worked with a lot of alcoholics... senile dementia... manic depressive psychosis... schizophrenia... Schizophrenics are quite interesting. It's a series of superimposed masks with no personality behind - all they can do is switch from one to the other. They're not happy with any of them - they're unhappy with any of them. It's just a series of options - they don't believe in any one of them, they don't think any one of them is better than the other - they don't have anything behind it to stabilize on.
Charlie: Do you identify with them in any way?
Operator: Yes. There is considerable biological evidence that there is an entire schizophrenic system in everybody which surfaces more dramatically in some than in others. Yes, I think most people are schizophrenic to a certain extent. Not the classic split personality bullshit, but in the sense that at times the overcoating devices, the rationalities just break down and they'll go haywire - go crazy. One of our songs is called Retard, about a guy who just went crazy-killed somebody - no motive, nothing at all. He's spent thirty-five years in a mental hospital, paying for it. They couldn't have let him out though, he might have done it again. It's these dilemmas, no-win situations which intrigue me. That's what our music's about.
Charlie: So what are you intending to do now, as a group?
Operator: We'd like to do another gig, on our own, cos we were fucked around a lot tonight. When we were playing, in what position, and all this sort of thing - in other words we were shoved to side and they forgot about us. Not that I mind - I just don't like feeling some asshole's pushing me around. I didn't complain, or anything like that, but I'd rather control it myself.
Charlie: Where would you want to play?
Operator: Interesting venues, hopefully. Not the Marquee, or that sort of stuff. I'm looking into... they've started to rent out the old World War Two underground shelters under London. There's a huge network of them. I'd like to play down there, and if anybody got tired they could wander off and have a look. Some are run by the GLC, some by the police. They're useful for storage, mostly. But anywhere that comes up, I'm willing to play. I got approached by a guy tonight waning to put us on a compilation album of futurism, like Eric Random and Naked Lunch and stuff... I don't want to be labelled as futurist, just like I don't want to be labelled with Industrial.
Charlie: So you won't be doing anything more with Industrial?
Operator: I don't think so, no. It's a mutual agreement, we don't want to lump everything together - we want to diversify.
Charlie: Why did you release that second single on Industrial?
Operator: Publicity really. I couldn't afford to do it . It's not money, I think I made £15 out of the whole thing, even though they didn't have any pressing charges. We sold quite a few but I never saw any money - but that doesn't bother me because it was only to get a name.
Charlie: It didn't get much publicity in the music press.
Operator: It only got mentioned in Sounds - one line, it didn't get mentioned in the NME or Melody Maker, possibly because they had their big strike at exactly the time it was released.
Charlie: Would you have wanted more mentions?
Operator: Oh no, not really. It's a very difficult situation where you're trying to stay underground but still get a few people to know you. It's a situation where you say you want exactly 5000 people, no more and no less, any more and you're selling yourself and any less and you're wasting your time. It's difficult, cos you've got to tread that line all the time.
Charlie: So what about the future?
Operator: It depends on everybody else really. I'd like to diversify and do video, and maybe do some soundtracks for the video, I'm also writing two books, one on music, one on words - it's a hybrid of philosophy and fiction. Just on different types of thought, rather than the narrow ones we're restricted to at the moment. I like violent change, convulsive thought... ripping from one thing to another so nobody can tie you down and say "You are this, you are that", so if you gave me this interview tomorrow I'd probably tell you something completely different.

I didn't do the interview again, so I'll never know now whether that is true. Anyway Surgical Penis Klinik gigs are very thin on the ground to say the least - this was the only one they've done in England so far - so the best way to find out what they're like is to listen to their "Meat Processing Section" single which is still available on Industrial. I prefer the "Factory" side, which I still consider to be one of the best things to be released in 1980. Operator prefers the other side "Slogan" which is probably nearer the live sound.

======================================
Postscript. I went round to operator's place in Vauxhall a couple of weeks after the gig/interview... The group did not want pictures of them to be published, as one of their primary aims is to discourage identification with the star and other heroic images, and promotion of self-importance in individuals... They have shaosen three images, one for each of them. Fourth member 'Tone Generator' rejoining the group from Australia at the time of press.

Chainsaw 11, February 1981

A History of Electronic Music Pioneers [Part 1: 1750-1930]

[Note: the following text is an excerpt from an essay by David Dunn, which was written for a catalog that accompanied the exhibition: 'Pioneers of Electronic Art', held in Austria, 1992]

...One of the earliest documented musical instruments based upon electronic principles was the Clavecin Electrique, designed by the Jesuit priest Jean-Baptiste Delaborde in France, 1759. The device used a keyboard control based upon simple electrostatic principles.

The spirit of invention which immediately preceded the turn of this century was synchronous with a cultural enthusiasm about the new technologies that was unprecedented. Individuals such as Bell, Edison, and Tesla became culture heroes who ushered in an ideology of industrial progress founded upon the power of harnessed electricity. Amongst this assemblage of inventor industrialists was Dr. Thaddeus Cahill, inventor of the electric typewriter, designer and builder of the first musical synthesizer and, by default, originator of industrial muzak. While a few attempts to build electronic musical instruments were made in the late 19th century by Elisha Gray, Ernst Lorenz, and William Duddell, they were fairly tentative or simply the curious byproducts of other research into electrical phenomena. One exception was the musical instrument called the Choralcelo built in the United States by Melvin L. Severy and George B. Sinclair between 1888 and 1908. Cahill's invention, the Telharmonium, however, remains the most ambitious attempt to construct a viable electronic musical instrument ever conceived.

Working against incredible technical difficulties, Cahill succeeded in 1900 to construct the first prototype of the Telharmonium and by 1906, a fairly complete realization of his vision. This electro-mechanical device consisted of 145 rheotome/ alternators capable of producing five octaves of variable harmonic content in imitation of orchestral tone colors. Its principal of operation consisted of what we now refer to as additive synthesis and was controlled from two touch-sensitive keyboards capable of timbral, amplitude and other articulatory selections. Since Cahill's machine was invented before electronic amplification was available he had to build alternators that produced more than 10,000 watts. As a result the instrument was quite immense, weighing approximately 200 tons. When it was shipped from Holyoke, Massachusetts to New York City, over thirty railroad flatcars were enlisted in the effort.

While Cahill's initial intention was simply to realize a truly sophisticated electronic instrument that could perform traditional repertoire, he quickly pursued its industrial application in a plan to provide direct music to homes and offices as the strategy to fund its construction. He founded the New York Electric Music Company with this intent and began to supply real-time performances of popular classics to subscribers over telephone lines. Ultimately the business failed due to insurmountable technical and legal difficulties, ceasing operations in 1911.

The Telharmonium and its inventor represent one of the most spectacular examples of one side of a recurrent dialectic which we will see demonstrated repeatedly throughout the 20th century history of the artistic use of electronic technology. Cahill personifies the industrial ideology of invention which seeks to imitate more efficiently the status quo. Such an ideology desires to summarize existent knowledge through a new technology and thereby provide a marketable representation of current reality. In contrast to this view, the modernist ideology evolved to assert an anti-representationist use of technology which sought to expand human perception through the acquisition of new technical means. It desired to seek the unknown as new phenomenological and experiential understandings which shattered models of the so-called "real".

The modernist agenda is brilliantly summarized by the following quote by Hugo Ball:

"It is true that for us art is not an end in itself, we have lost too many of our illusions for that. Art is for us an occasion for social criticism, and for real understanding of the age we live in...Dada was not a school of artists, but an alarm signal against declining values, routine and speculations, a desperate appeal, on behalf of all forms of art, for a creative basis on which to build a new and universal consciousness of art."

Many composers at the beginning of this century dreamed of new electronic technologies that could expand the palette of sound and tunings of which music and musical instruments then consisted. Their interest was not to use the emerging electronic potential to imitate existent forms, but rather to go beyond what was already known. In the same year that Cahill finalized the Telharmonium and moved it to New York City, the composer Ferruccio Busoni wrote his Entwurf einer neuen Asthetik der Tonkunst ('Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music') wherein he proposed the necessity for an expansion of the chromatic scale and new (possibly electrical) instruments to realize it. Many composers embraced this idea and began to conceptualize what such a music should consist of. In the following year, the Australian composer Percy Grainger was already convinced that his concept of 'Free Music' could only be realized through use of electro-mechanical devices.

By 1908 the Futurist Manifesto was published and the modernist ideology began its artists' revolt against existent social and cultural values. In 1913 Luigi Russolo wrote The Art of Noise, declaring that the "evolution of music is paralleled by the multiplication of the machine". By the end of that year, Russolo and Ugo Piatti had constructed an orchestra of electro-mechanical noise instruments (Intonarumori) capable of realizing their vision of a sound art which shattered the musical status quo. Russolo desired to create a sound based art form out of the noise of modern life. His noise intoning devices presented their array of "howlers, boomers, cracklers, scrapers, exploders, buzzers, gurglers, and whistles" to bewildered audiences in Italy, London, and finally Paris in 1921, where he gained the attention of Varese and Stravinsky. Soon after this concert the instruments were apparently only used commercially for generating sound effects and were abandoned by Russolo in 1930.

tag(s): early electronic music ~ Telharmonium ~ Futurist Manifesto