Iannis Xenakis: Chamber Music, 1955-1990

Of Greek ancestry, born in Romania, a resistance fighter in Greece who suffered a terrible injury to his face including the loss of an eye and an exile in France for over a half-century from the late 1940s until his death in 2001, Iannis Xenakis first became an architect working under the renowned Le Corbusier.  It was not until he was in his Thirties that Xenakis became a composer and, when he did, he shook the so-called classical (serious) music world with his emphasis on mathematical modeling (not unlike Harry Partch and his monophony, Xenakis hearkened back to ancient Greek mathematical musical concepts from the likes of Pythagoras) and computer programming to create some of the most challenging and startling pieces one will ever hear.  His "stochastic" approach involves, perhaps not unlike John Cage's use of the I-Ching, choosing notes randomly through the programming by computer.

For a listener, that challenge includes letting go of the idea that melody is essential to hearing music and for this untutored fan, the key is to take the advice of jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler and his trumpeter brother Donald and try to follow the sound not the notes, while also observing the absolute foundation of music conveyed by Edgard Varése, who suggested that it is simply "organized sound."

This double-disc set issued in 1991 by the German public broadcasting entity, WDR, provides almost all of the composer's smaller ensemble work, and it is beautifully played by the Arditti String Quartet, formed by violinist Irvine Arditti and devoted to modern music as it approaches its 50th anniversary next year, and the late pianist Claude Helffer, also a resistance fighter in his native France during the war.  Notes by Harry Halbreich explain Xenakis' approaches to music and math, the stochastic method of composition and explanations of the fifteen pieces.

Intense and complex as Xenakis' music can be, one of the great virtues of this set is that it provides a good deal of variety as there are the string quartet, including with piano, and string trio pieces, but also solo works for piano, violoncello, viola, and violin.  Even if there are complicated processes like "arborescenses," dealing with melody in a new way; the "sieve," or a mathematical way to select notes from a random selection through computer programming; as well as using "non-octave scales," where scales repeat beyond an octave, letting the sound take you into a world of incredible dynamic range and deep exploration of pitch can be very rewarding and a true ear-opening experience.

Agents with False Memories

For over 45 years, Richard H. Kirk made some of the most distinctive and idiosyncratic music in the so-called "electronic" genre, beginning in his teens with the embryonic Cabaret Voltaire, experimenting with primitive sequencers, processers, synthesizers, drum machines and tape along with guitar, wind instruments, bass and other more traditional instruments.  Over roughly twenty years, CV which originally included Christopher Watson, whose environmental recordings have been featured here, as well as Stephen Mallinder, who continues making great music today, evolved from harsh, uncompromising "industrial" sounds to more accessible recordings (including a brief major label period in the late 80s) to a final phase, in the first half of the Nineties, that was a balance between experimentation and accessibility.

After Mallinder moved to Australia by the mid-1990s, Kirk, who'd launched some great side projects like Sandoz and Sweet Exorcist, entered into an incredibly fertile period, including recordings under his own name and a dizzying array of aliases (Electronic Eye, Nitrogen, Orchestra Terrestrial, Dark Magus, Al-Jabr, Blacworld and a great many others that were generally one-offs for individual songs or on compilations like the fantastic Step, Write, Run double-disc of works under his Alphaphone label).

One of the more interesting of his releases during this era was 1996's Agents with False Memories, issued by Ash International, a label run by Mike Harding, co-owner, with Jon Wozencroft, of Touch, which put out many albums by Kirk and Watson.  The single, 53-minute long track might be considered a close kin to "Project 80," the mind-blowing long-form piece from Cabaret Voltaire's The Conversation (1994) that was the last album until Kirk resurrected the name and released the very strong Shadow of Fear in 2020.  In turn, they might well be descendants of his 1982 solo work, "Dead Relatives."

Agents with False Memories is a compelling wash of electronic programming and percussion accompanying a great many samples of found sounds, including an interview with Orson Welles, a visit to Kirk's hometown of Sheffield, England by an American evangelist calling forth the Holy Spirit, a quote from President George H.W. Bush, a discussion on the technical innovations of the racist 1915 film The Birth of a Nation, expositions by scientists and a great deal else.  On the heels of "Project 80," the piece is a standout in a very long career with a great deal of diversity in it.

While Ash International's description referenced the album as a soundtrack for a film of the same name by Oregon-based Guy van Stratten, this was a little joke by the label and Kirk as van Stratten was the name of a Welles character from the 1955 film, Mr. Arkadin.  Kirk was fascinated by Welles, as found, just with a couple of examples, Cabaret Voltaire's take on the theme from A Touch of Evil and Kirk's "Sons of Harry Lime" as rendered by Orchestra Terrestrial on his Intone label's Unreleased Projects, Volume 3.

Kirk's death in September 2021 at age 65 ended the incredible career of a phenomenally productive creator, who left, for those who enjoy his work, an amazing legacy spanning six decades.  The exhaustive discography concluded, just months before his passing, with the final Cabaret Voltaire albums, BN9Drone and Dekadrone, that were further explorations in long-form music.  For those with adventurous tastes in "electronic music," Kirk's many albums are worth pursuing and hearing, with Agents with False Memories a definite highlight.