A review by Ken Hollings
Back in the early 1970s, the EMS Synthi 100 was an electric behemoth in whose wake it
was a good idea not to get caught. Not so much a synthesizer as a very expensive way
of filling an entire room with dials and pushpins, ittransformed a studio into a
workshop and the production of electronic music into an assembly-line effort. The BBC
Radiophonic Workshop had one, and so too did the music department of lndiana University
at South Bend, where composers Barton and Priscilla McLean were eager to explore its
possibilities. Unfortunately, a budgeting shortfall meant that in 1974 the great beast had
to be returned. lndiana University's loss turned out to be a
considerable gain for the husband-and-wife team, forcing them to come up with a more
flexible approach to the production process, adding their own home studio equipment to the
sequencers and tape machines left behind when the Synthi 100 went back in its box.
Lighter, albeit more limited, systems had to be used in conjunction with tape manipulations of
acoustic sounds, and the results are telling when seen from today's perspective.
Where the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, still stuck with their own monster, lost some of the
freshness and invention of their early work, Barton and Priscilla McLean created works of
extraordinary depth and complexity. Aside from presenting live electroacoustic concerts as
The McLean Mix from 1973 onwards, their solo studio works from this period included
Priscilla's epic three-part Invisible Chariots, realised between 1975 and 1977, and Barton's
single-movement Song Of Nahuatlfrom 1976. Both are included on Electronic Landscapes,
the first comprehensive overview of their electronic work on CD.
Balancing them are two more recent works dating from 2001: Barton's Journey On A Long
String, in which the harmonics of a double bass are putthrough a series of bold digital
transfigurations, and Priscilla's Angels Of Delirium, a work whose subtle elaborations
match those of Invisible Chariots. Providing a pivot to the entire collection is Barton's more
pastoral Valley Of Lost Dreams, created in the late 1980s using basic sampling equipment,
harmonisers and a Macintosh Plus boasting an awesome 512k RAM. A highly evocative work,
inspired by the rural vistas of upstate New York, it harkens back to the sounds of a simpler
preindustrial age when RAM was still the name for a male sheep, eloquently revealing
just how much you can achieve with very little.
collection of mid-70s-through-the-contemporary-era music from this zonked
husband-wife duo, known for their myriad records on folkways (in fact this
reissues all of the covetable "mclean : electro-symphonic landscapes" lp)
and cri. this material was mainly recorded at the electronic music center
at the university of indiana south bend using their synthi 100 (yep, same
beast we heard on the melbourne creel pone - same synth which i believe
jack dangers now owns.) the digital-age pieces tacked on to the end of the
disc aren't as crippling as you'd think (priscilla's 2001 "angels of
delirium," takes a page from the joan labarbara handbook; barton's "journey
on a long string," works arco-bass timbres to some inspired effect...) but
obviously the gold is in the 70s material...
another vital set of the early electronic madness done up in typical em
fashion, including a 24-page color booklet with tons of photos and just
about every piece of information you'll ever need to know about the pair.
well done.
www.panpot.ca/reviews/renderAlbumReview.php?id=89
Barton and Priscilla McLean
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Electronic Landscapes (EM Records)
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Exploring interactions with inner and outer space.
How do we interpret the spaces of Earth, the mind and the heavens and what
is our relationship to these spheres? On Electronic Landscapes, a
compilation of works composed by husband and wife Barton and Priscilla
McLean from 1975 to 2001, these questions drive the music, which explores
our interactions with inner and outer space. While both are responsible
for creating sounds on all pieces, they are marked by stylistic
differences between compositions because of their individual approaches to
space.
Barton's focus rests mainly on the natural world as both concept and
specific environment. On "Song of the Nahuatl" the sound of nature
pervades in the form of gentle drones, while showy melodic elements come
quickly and intensely, only to recede with the natural hum overtaking
them. "Valley of the Lost Dreams" was inspired by gazing off his porch in
rural New York State and captures his knowledge of that place and its
evolution from calm forest to active settlement and back again with
similar gentle tones interrupted by chorused voices and fierce melodies.
Priscilla, however, gazes both upwards on "Invisible Chariots" and inwards
on "Angels of Delirium". Her compositions are marked by extreme contrasts
right from the opening seconds of the disc Æ on "Invisible Chariots" when
a metal bar scraping a piano string has been processed to explode
violently and recede over thirty seconds. Jarring synthesizers and samples
lie next to near-silence and the explosive sounds evoke the idea of divine
vision and hallucination contrasting Barton's pastoral concepts of Earth.
Though the music here was created throughout the United States Æ from
Indiana to Texas to New York -- using a wide variety of electronics, it is
the personal style of each composer that marks the work. "Electronic
Landscapes" is highly evocative of movie soundtracks like La Planète
Sauvage from the early days of synthesis and it showcases groundbreaking
work by an idiosyncratic and fascinating couple informed by the nascent
stages of popular electronic music.
The cover art by Gary Pyle is a visual representation of "Song of the
Nahuatl" derived from the musical content.
www.emrecords.net
Alexander Buckiewicz-Smith
From www.terrascope.co.uk/Reviews/Rumbles_March07.htm
Barton and Priscilla McLean wind up this sprawl into the workings of the
EM label with their OEElectronic LandscapesÆ CD, a comprehensive,
seven-year retrospective of their purely electronic works. Barton, a
lecturer at Indiana University, and his wife PriscillaÆs first forays into
performing and composition began with OEThe McLean MixÆ in 1974, where they
played to enthusiastic audiences in search of the Ænew thingÆ throughout
their home state. OEThe Dance of DawnÆ / OESpiralsÆ LP on CRI documents this
period. OESong of the NahuatlÆ and OEInvisible ChariotsÆ, recorded five
years later, are the earliest pieces included here, and originally came
out as the OEElectro-Symphonic LandscapesÆ LP (on Folkways) in 1979. These
now archetypal plastic sound waves, like wind gusting through a forest of
ice crystals or a multitude of chiming grandfather clocks recorded
underwater, are often redolent of OEZeitÆ and OECyborgÆ, and see the duo
using the mammoth (packinÆ 22 oscillators!), ARP 2000s and slice OEnÆ
splice sleights of hand involving actions such as bouncing steak knives
off of violin strings. Out there stuff with suspenseful pacing and
strictly Forbidden Planet reverberations that seems to place their oeuvre
out on the very furthest limb from their contemporaries. Certainly
OEValley of Lost DreamsÆ fits this bill, its digitized samplings of
childrenÆs voices putting a slight Basil Kirchin-like feel to the
proceedings. OEJourney on a Long StringÆ and OEAngels of DeleriumÆ (both
from 2001) position themselves into a more contemporary compositional
framework, where the stringed victims Æ double bass and violin
respectively Æ are either surrounded by hinge-creak and machine hum or are
just accompanied by twanged microphone leads and bowed polystyrene. Now,
just how was that done? Everyone in the studio must have had their teeth
on edge Æ such dedication! HereÆs a disc that throws much needed
torchlight on the early career path of two unjustly neglected artists, and
neatly complements the Creshevsky and Rosenbloom reissues of last year.
More pioneering electronic music unearthed by Japan's EM Records (previous
releases include discs by Barton Smith, David Rosenboom, and Noah
Creshevsky). This time, it's Barton and Priscilla McLean. A husband and
wife team, but no Sonny and Cher here!! This duo performed live as the
"McLean Mix", and were responsible for a bunch of sought-after Folkways
LPs in their time, including 1979's "Electro-Symphonic Landscapes" (all
the tracks from which are found here). The cover of this cd is an
adaptation of the cover of that LP, the artwork actually being the
graphical score for Barton's "Song Of The Nahuatl" (it's interesting to
note that while the McLeans worked together, they didn't collaborate
compositionally it seems -- half the tracks here are by the Mr. and half
by the Mrs.). The McLeans got their start together in electronic
composition in academia, at the University of Indiana, South Bend, 'round
about 1973, when the Music Department there brought in a huge EMS
Synthi-100 synthesizer and Synthi-256 sequencer. Hours of tape-splicing
creativity would ensue! That mega-synthesizer was later repossessed (!) so
the McLeans turned to musique concrete techniques (bouncing steak knives
on violin strings, metal bars on piano strings, that sort of thing) to
source their sounds, combined with the output of what electronic equipment
they were able to access. Much of this disc, tracks dating back to 1975,
feature this sort of laborious processing of sound. And the results are
fantastic! Reminds us a bit of the classic Forbidden Planet soundtrack by
Louis and Bebe Barron, another husband and wife team who preceded the
McLeans in the annals of electronic music... In addition to the vintage
'70s stuff here, there's a couple tracks of some newer material from the
digital age... which holds up quite well, actually! Keening drones,
mysterious pulses, psychedelic bleepage -- yep, way better than Sonny n'
Cher!
EM has graciously provided both English and Japanese liner notes, so the
22 page cd booklet makes good reading for anyone curious about the
McLeans' musical methodology, as well as providing cool graphics and
intriguing photos to ponder.
MPEG Stream: PRISCILLA MCLEAN "Voices Of The Invisible"
MPEG Stream: BARTON MCLEAN "Song Of The Nahuatl"