"Thigh smack. Avowal. Warm. Sweetheart. Ah, lure! Alluring. A jumping rose on satiny breast of satin, rose of Castile. Trilling, trilling: Idolores. Peep!"
As I clumsily sketched out the Ulyssian-esque chanting into my notebook, I knew in that moment why Luciano Berio’s album was going to keep me up until the break of dawn. Electronic Music III is forthright and dizzying. The greatest sound-poem ever recorded onto tape? A sound phenomena: the system of arbitrary symbols, through which we give a certain form to our own way of being in the world.
Cathy Berberian and Güngör Bozkurt propel their voices into a spiraling hypnotic yop, at the summit's edge. Trace amounts of tape fuzz and ethereal mumurs. It was as if I was back in the womb. The bellowing of each and every vocal incantation mirrored Flynn & Smith's instrumentations.
To inhabit Luciano Berio's compositions would entail that the listener has fully surrendered to the chamber of his darkest euphonious desires. Who could have predicted that his work would inspire such bewildering hymns on record. A passage in time.
A labyrinth of hallucinogenic soundscapes. Recognized as not just avant garde, but a clear path to enlightenment so meticulously paved within the precious timeline of our music history. 1958 was just the right year for Electronic Music III to be released, as it was the dawn of the Space Age. Perhaps these were abstract longings for planet Venus? Launched into orbit.
Electro-acoustical possibilities; text broken down into sound families. Groups of words, syllables…organized in a scale of vocal colors. Rhapsodies and modulating patterns for the transformation of sound. How does an album completely take over ones life, and unexpectedly so? The plentiful octaves of our youth, and the acceptance of our own mortality. A record that reminds us of who we are.
Electronic Music III/ Tender fragmented compositions. Utterly indescribable and wildly melancholy.
Luciano Berio THEMA (Omaggio a Joyce), Jacob Druckman ANIMUS I, Ilhan Mimaroglu - Piano Music for Performer and Composer [Six Preludes for Magnetic Tape]. Poem by Orhan Veli Kanik. Andre Smith – Trombonist. George Flynn – Pianist. Voice – Cathy Berberian. Voice – Güngör Bozkurt