Stockhausen's 75th
Miles Davis, Frank Zappa, Bjork and the Aphex Twin are a few of the musicians who have been influenced by the pioneering German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, who turned 75 today. Electronic music still borrows liberally from the clanks, vaccum-cleaner hums, pops, blips and thuds of Kontakte (1959-60), while Gesang der Juenglinge (1956), which features a young boy's voice set against an alien soundscape (the often disembodied words are from the Book of Daniel), remains a startling and beautiful piece nearly a half-century after it first blew the tops off the heads of its listeners.
My own fave's Mantra, an extended work for two pianos, the sounds of which are transformed by ring modulators. I'm also partial to Hymnen, a sprawling collage of national anthems, electronic wash, shortwave radio sounds and fragments of speech. You've already heard the abbreviated version -- it's called "Revolution #9" by the Beatles. But it's all good. It's also not easy to find -- Stockhausen ditched the recording industry years ago, so now you have to send a check off to his personal label in Kuerten, Germany. Well, there's also file-sharing -- shhhh, you didn't hear me say that...
8:06:56 PM 
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