1. Cold Blue Music 
V.A. : Cold Blue (US,rec.1983-‘84,reiss.2002)****
This is one of the best compiled collections of music of various artists in general I've heard, for the recording sounds as if it’s one piece of music with enough variation and coherence in mood. It’s also a very good collection of small new music pieces. It has something filmic but also a breath of fresh air for its experimentation.
The Chas Smith track has a banjo note-repetition and pedal steel guitar, with like on the other compilation with some notes amplified, a rather minimal experimental ambient track. Ingram Marshall’s “Gradual Siciliano” with tremolo-driven romantic mandolin, piano and electronics is a pretty track. - This flows gently into the more experimental but in its own way also filmic track, with a heavy footstep-walk rhythm, “The Three Strange Angels” by Peter Garland, played by (or drummed in what seems the inside of the) piano, drum and bullroarer. Daniel Lentz “You can’t see the forest..Music,1971” is played by some speaker-drinkers with wine glasses (& mallets). This sounds like a conceptual almost dada work, half spoken word, half new music on glass instruments and what sounds like bowls, with their own harmonic pulse. (The speakers speak, drink and retune their glasses during the performance). This goes again very fluently into a marimba quartet piece by Michael Byran and into a moody contemporary piece by Jim Fox (lead piano, electric guitar textures and cello touches). This is followed by a piano piece by David Mahler, a piece which was originally not included on the earlier LP version of this album. This is followed by a nice small duet for speaking voices by Read Miller, called “weddings, funerals, and children who cannot sleep”, appearing and disappearing in its own murmuring occurrence. John Kuhlman plays a prepared electric guitar repetitive rhythm and sings over and into it, with some hardly recognisable dissolving-sounds-in-the-total of textured trombone sounds on “in this light”. This is followed by Rick Cox prepared electric guitar & second electric guitar piece, “Necessity”, like sonic vibrations of a refined prepared machine that seeks its life in it’s producing sounds. After that Michael Jon Fink recorded a celesta solo, with a filmic musical box like-theme driven mood. After this the ambient keyboards of Harold Budd can be heard, in duo with Eugene Bowen who plays the guitar synthesizer. We can recognise a tango melody which is slowed down to become almost unrecognisable and a new form. The last piece is the only older recording, a piano roll composition recorded in 1976 by James Tenny. It has a strange melodic dance-the-fingers-around one specific note, building up in rhythm, up to an almost absurd clustering degree within the increasing rhythm and around the same note, which still seems to be the one (e)s(c)ense in mind after the recording ended in silence.
A more than perfect album. Highly recommended.
PS. Harold Budd became more known for his ambient cooperations with Brian Eno, Ruben Garcia, etc..) and in the pop music territory. Most of these artists became also more known as American contemporary composers (Peter Garland for instance also had releases on labels like Tzadik,..) or as soloists.
2. Cold Blue MusicVA : The complete 10-inch series from Cold Blue
(US, rec.1980-1982,reiss.2003)*°°
The label Cold Blue’s first life (they re-established themselves a few years ago) was dedicated to Californian new music composers. They released a small series of 10-inch records, by 7 composers.
This is a 3CD reissue of these releases, and it gives a good introduction to them.
This is what is listed : Peter Garlands’ “Matachin dances” are very minimal compositions for two violins. Michael Jon Fink’s compositions by lead piano are almost over-minimal. Barney Child’s composition “Clay Music” is a quartet improvisation with a variety of flutes: space whistles, transverse flute, tuba flutes, small neck ocarinas, middle-sized ocarina’s, bass ocarina, pipes, Aztec Pipes, double pipes, triple pipes, or : all clay instruments. Especially duo combinations of tones are tried out, in a rather casual manner I must say, perhaps a bit too coincidentally it becomes disharmony at several moments. Read Miller has recorded two pieces of multi-voice spoken word pieces. They’re not abstract enough to convince me really. Chas Smith made a 10 inch with some pedal steel guitar playing and one track with 12-string dobro (= a metal body resonator vintage guitar). The more recognisable sounds and chords with the pedal steel guitar, combined with stretched echo evolution, sound much more convincing to me, compared to the more confusing melodic, concluding piece on “Nikko Wolverine”, where Chas had already developed a different direction. It’s interesting to hear this evolution. The 12 string dobro piece uses 2 layers of a simple melodic line in a minimalist loop. This is followed by two pieces by Rick Cox. These pieces, for prepared electric guitar, voice and clarinet start with prepared guitar only, with a fresh twinkling technique, caught up with the more normal and human sounds of clarinet and spoken word. The whole piece in all its forms recalls a very filmic world. No wonder he was asked ever since to work on various movie soundtracks scores. The piece also gets some slide guitar and reverb-like sounds near the end. Last pieces by Daniel Lentz use musical-choir-like voices, keyboards and “cascading echo systems”, boozing the voice arrangements into something which leans for me more towards new age effects, which is not particularly my cup of tea. The last included piece of his has his recognisable minimalist piano style. His contribution is the most mainstream of these included composers. No wonder he went to pop territories later.
The 3CD release has its moments, and still is a fine document. It might be preferable for best listening pleasure to refocus on each contribution. As a starter I prefer to recommend the other compilation, the “Cold Blue” release.
