Still Lives, by Alvin Lucier

Still Lives

by Alvin Lucier

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	1.	Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators 16:31
	2.	On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon 11:46
	3.	Still Lives I. Sunlight Diamond 02:37
	4.	Still Lives II. Hammock 02:40
	5.	Still Lives III. Barbecue Grill 04:54
	6.	Still Lives IV. Lamp Shade 02:38
	7.	Still Lives V. Two Floor Tiles 03:03
	8.	Still Lives VI. Ferns 03:25
	9.	Still Lives VII. Bread Knife 02:50
	10.	Still Lives VIII. Chopsticks 02:52

about

Three works for pure waves and instruments from Alvin Lucier.

Lucier has pioneered in many areas of music composition and performance, including the notation of performers' physical gestures, the use of brain waves in live performance, the generation of visual imagery by sound in vibrating media, and the evocation of room acoustics for musical purposes. His recent works include a series of sound installations and works for solo instruments, chamber ensembles, and orchestra in which, by means of close tunings with pure tones, sound waves are caused to spin through space.

"I count Alvin Lucier's Still Lives among the most beautiful recordings I've ever heard. Like Janácek, Lucier's art stands alone despite the air of detached cool it shares with Lovely Music's catalog. Lucier's deceptively simple aesthetic is in fact delightfully complex in the manner in which it reveals horizons. In this release, the composer has purely acoustic sounds (single piano tones, less often chords, and briefly, koto) interacting with electronically created, similarly uncomplicated sounds. The magic -- and I choose that word carefully -- occurs in the mingling. Lucier takes his time, and so should the listener. I can think of little music better suited to the recording medium. The disc's eponym, in eight parts, serves as a showpiece for the varieties of soul-touching experience Lucier's seemingly perfunctory systems permit. The composer's good notes tell the story. Particular congratulations to Tom Hamilton (a fine composer in his own right) for a wonderfully intimate sound." --Mike Silverton, "Golden Ear Awards 2002", The Absolute Sound (Mike Silverton is the editor of LaFolia.com)

credits

released May 11, 2001

Personnel: Marilyn Nonken - piano on Music for Piano with Slow Sweep Pure Wave Oscillators
Ryuko Mizutani - koto on "On the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon"
Joseph Kubera - piano on Still Lives

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Alvin Lucier Middletown, Connecticut

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