‘Harry Smith’s early films, known as Films #1-5 , 7 and 10 or Early Abstractions (1950-52) (or “the batiked films” as Smith was later to refer to them) were mainly made with Smith’s own elaborate technique of painting directly onto 35mm film, using a batik-like technique utilizing stencils, tape, cutouts and layers of paint, dyes, ink and petroleum jelly. Smith’s early films were often made as a visual response to the great Jazz artists of the time such as Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk and Chet Baker. Later, Smith would screen this work in the nightclubs of San Francisco where these same musicians would in return create their music in response to the films. Smith’s working methods, enhanced by various intoxicants, are said to have been a form of Synesthesia, the phenomenon of overlapping senses, such as seeing sounds as colors and of images triggering internal sensations of sound. -- see link for more

PENELOPE originated as a music-theater monodrama, co-written by McLaughlin and Snider in 2007-2008 and commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Center. In the work, originally scored for alto/actor and string quartet, a woman’s husband appears at her door after an absence of twenty years, suffering from brain damage. A veteran of an unnamed war, he doesn’t know who he is and she doesn’t know who he’s become. While they wait together for his return to himself, she reads him the Odyssey, and in the journey of that book, she finds a way into her former husband’s memory and the terror and trauma of war. - bandcamp Parallels Odysseus' return to Ithaca disguised as a beggar after the Trojan war. Returns to Penelope who doesn't at first recognize him.

"Fendrix (aka Joscelin Dent-Pooley b: 1995) wrote the soundtrack for Poor Things..which is where I first heard his music. Born in Shropshire UK, he's a bit of a dark horse, plucked from the music scene surrounding The Windmill pub in Brixton by Greek movie director Yorgos Lanthimos to compose the music for his film. It's so good. Read more in an LA Times article via the link"

Bertran is a Catalan violin player and composer with an eclectic spirit. Classically trained at Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya. Attracted by the different acoustic possibilities of violin playing, she dived into very diverse musical worlds, learning by ear and self-learning styles such as: Mediterranean, Flamenco, Irish, Gypsy Jazz, Tango and Bluegrass music.

"Great arrangement with a petty great music video, too (see link) Antena is a French-Belgian synthpop trio whose first album Camino Del Sol in 1982 remains hugely influential. Subsequent Antena albums feature Isabelle Powaga, but not the others -- Penelope Fasy or Moiroud."

White (February 11, 1914 – September 5, 1969) grew up in the Jim Crow South. During the 1920s and 30s, he had a prolific output of recordings in genres including Piedmont blues, country blues, gospel, and social protest songs. In 1931, White moved to New York, and within a decade his fame had spread widely; his repertoire expanded to include urban blues, jazz, traditional folk songs, and political protest songs. close friend and confidante to President Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, White's anti-segregationist and international human rights political stance resulted in the right-wing McCarthyites assuming he was a Communist. From 1947 through the mid-1960s, White was caught up in the anti-Communist Red Scare and his career was damaged. One note: civil rights activist and musician Byran Rustin was one of the Carolinians for this recording

Philip Michael Ondaatje (b: 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer, essayist,[1] novelist, editor, and filmmaker. He is best known for “The English Patient” which was adapted into an award-winning film. This excerpt is an dip into his early & prolific life in poetry

"I first heard her on the soundtrack of an episode of The Young Pope. orn Nada Malanima on 17 November 1953 in Gabbro, Italy. This is a cut off her debut release."

In this extremely rare 1953 recording, Claude Monteux (flute), Harry Shulman (oboe, 1916--1971), Bernard Greenhouse (cello) and Sylvia Marlowe (harpsichord, 1908-1981) perform Johann Rosenmüller's Sonata No. 2 in E minor. From the LP issued in 1953 on the Esoteric label, catalogue number ES-517. Marlowe is incredibly prolific, with 83 studio albums to her name (see link)

"This from Eilish's study debut. Wiki writes: Within the dark and violent lyrics, Eilish aka Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell (b: 2001) sings from the perspective of a monster under someone's bed. Her vocals are subtle and treated with layers of vocal effects. Eilish wrote the song with its producer, Finneas O'Connell (who is her older brother). Eilish desired to hear her name at the beginning of this track... she texted rapper Calvin (known as Mehki Raine); he ultimately sent Eilish a phone recording for her to use. The singer discovered the rapper on social media due to him repeatedly tagging pictures of himself with the caption _Where's Billie at?_ on her Instagram comments. She decided to make him her acquaintance and the two soon became friends."

AKA George Alexander Aberle (born April 15, 1908 – died March 4, 1995) was an American songwriter and recording artist of the 1940s-1960s, best known for his song Nature Boy (think Nat King Cole). His lifestyle in California was influential on the hippie movement. He was known to friends simply as ahbe. Living a bucolic life from at least the 1940s, he traveled in sandals and wore shoulder-length hair and beard, and white robes. He camped out below the first L in the Hollywood Sign above Los Angeles and studied Asian mysticism. He slept outdoors with his family and ate vegetables, fruit, and nuts. He claimed to live on $3 per week. This coincided with King Cole's recording topping the charts, and Ahbez was featured on the cover of leading magazines & newspaper columns across the world (see link, hit translate button). Ahbez was born in Brooklyn, New York to Jewish father George Philip Aberle and English mother Margaret Annie (Mason) Aberle. He spent his early years in the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum of New York. He then traveled in an Orphan Train, was adopted in 1917 by a family in Chanute, Kansas, and raised under the name George McGrew - wiki

As one of the world’s most versatile and highly respected accordionists, Klucevsek has performed and/or recorded with Laurie Anderson, Bang On A Can, Brave Combo, Anthony Braxton, Anthony Coleman, Dave Douglas, Renée Fleming, Bill Frisell, Robin Holcomb, Phillip Johnston, the Kronos Quartet, Natalie Merchant, Pauline Oliveros, Estelle Parsons, Present Music, Relâche, and Zeitgeist. After retiring from performing in late 2018, Klucevsek wrote much of the music for this new album.Klucevsek continues his tradition of writing “the world’s most abnormal ‘normal’ music” (Village Voice), wherein instantly appealing and seemingly simple pieces surreptitiously employ unusual and imaginative arrangements. - bandcamp

On Feb 24, 1984, Lucia Berlin was recorded reading her short stories for The Poetry Center, one of her rare readings documented on video. The audience, from sonic and brief on-camera evidence, features a full house of friends among scattered students at Newspace, New College of California, on Valencia Street, San Francisco. Here, she delivers two incredibly compressed little chef-d’ouevres: “The Pony Bar, Oakland” and “My Jockey.” Berlin reads here a total of not even two pages. “There are certain perfect particular sounds.” (text adapted from _For Mnemosyne_

"Frost (b: 1964) is from San Antonio, TX. She describes her music as _pensive countrified psychedelia_.This is the title cut from her 2nd of 4 studio releases. "

"This experimental EP features Michael Levy's evocation of the lost music of ancient Egypt, performed on the archaic Ugandan Adungu arched harp - virtually identical in construction to the ancient Egyptian Shoulder Harp of the 18th Dynasty, c.1300 BCE - coinciding with the Armana Period featured in this video & the worship of the Aten by Pharoah Akhenaten. "

"From Hawley's streaming series, Legion. Russo (b: 1969) is also a founding member of acoustic rock band Low Stars. He's worked as a composer & performer on many soundtracks. He's married to Nina Gordon of the Chicago based band Veruca Salt. Gordon got a BA in art history from Tufts. "

"Hako Yamasaki returns with another drinking album. She always had songs among the depressive nature of her work that would lighten the mood (Change Of Pace off Tobimasu for instance). It wasn't until her fourth album, _____, that this really veered into pop tendencies, and only on the final track really. Here on Human Nature, that sound is refined wonderfully to coincide with Hako's staple melancholy nature. It's really some of her best vocal work yet. The opening track has this wonderful 80s sounding guitar picking up the slack when she isn't singing, and boy she can sing as loud and beautiful as ever. In fact this album has the most guitar wankery of her work thus far, your mileage may vary on how much you enjoy that. Purple Flowers recalls Gypsy Rose off of Indigo Poetry with its groovyness. The title track may be the standout for most, taking the groove sound of Purple Flowers and going for a real dancing track. Three Flowers recalls Lullaby from Tobimasu, but even more longing and forlorn. Kokoro Dake Aishite goes all out: Piano, strings, guitar, and Hako Yamasaki sounding her most exhausted yet, bordering on crying. Eloquent, powerful. It's one of the best Hako tracks I've heard so far. - Youtube (whitedude877)"

Founded in 1976 at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal by Jean Laurendeau, the Ensemble seeks to familiarize audiences throughout the world, and particularly in North America, with the Ondes Martenot, or Martenot waves, or ondes musicales (_musical waves_). It is an early electronic musical instrument played with a keyboard or by moving a ring along a wire, creating _wavering_ sounds similar to a Theremin. A player of the ondes Martenot is called an ondist. It was invented in 1928 by the French cellist Maurice Martenot, a cross between and organ and a Theremin. Martenot had been a radio operator during World War I, and developed the ondes Martenot in an attempt to replicate the accidental overlaps of tones between military radio oscillators. The Ensemble continues today its activities most often in the formation of wave quartet comprised of musicians Jean Laurendeau, Johanne Goyette, Lucie Filteau, Marie Bernard, Serge Gratton. Their intention is to be an open ensemble where works composed not only for quartets but also for the most diverse formations are interpreted. - wiki See link for more detail on how it's played.

The Voder by Homer Dudley (Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey) was the first device that could generate continuous human speech electronically. The flowing composition of the many speech sounds had to be done manually in realtime on a special keyboard. In 1939, Alden P. Armagnac wrote in _Popular Science_ about this speaking device: _He hasn't any mouth, lungs, or larynx—but he talks a blue streak. His name is Pedro the Voder, and you may see him in action at the New York and San Francisco world's fairs. His creation from vacuum tubes and electrical circuits, by Bell Telephone Laboratories engineers, crowns centuries of effort to duplicate the human voice. To manufacture Pedro's conversation, his operator employs a keyboard like that of an old-fashioned parlor organ. Thirteen black and white keys, fingered one or more at a time, produce all the vowels and consonants of speech. Another key regulates the loudness of the synthetic voice, which comes from a loudspeaker. A foot pedal varies the inflection meanwhile, so that the same sentence may state a fact or ask a question. About a year's practice enables an operator to make Pedro talk glibly._ - YouTube (MonoThyratron)

"This percussive arrangement by the progressive new band assembled by big-band-era arrangers Eddie Sauter and Bill Finegan borrowed its melody from Henry Clay Work's 1862 tune _Kingdom Coming (And The Year Of Jubilo). - Youtube (see link for more) My teacher & mentor Ray Shiner played in the reed section of the band. Over time, he transcribed pretty much the whole Sauter Finnegan book, and we played many of their charts (including this one) at SUNY Potsdam/Crane School of Music, which Shiner led.. You can see Shiner at the start of this video, just to the left of Bill Finnegan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87bIc6Vls1c&ab_channel=ToucheTurtle When Shiner died, he left all the charts to my friend & soul brother Joe Carello, a fantastic reed player who lives in Syracuse NY and carries the music on with various ensembles he plays with. "

Cugat (1900-1990) born Francisco de Asís Javier Cugat Mingall de Bru y Deulofeu in Girona, Catalonia, Spain, was a musician and bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. He took his band to New York City 1931 for the opening of the Waldorf–Astorial. The group served as resident orchestra before and after WW I. Cugat owned and operated the Mexican restaurant Casa Cugat in West Hollywood. The restaurant was frequented by Hollywood celebrities and featured two singing guitarists who would visit each table and play diners' favorite songs upon request. The restaurant began operations in the 1940s and closed in 1986. - wiki

"Maria do Carmo Carvalho Rebelo de Andrade (born 20 August 1984, in Lisbon), better known as Carminho, is a Portuguese fado and popular music singer. She comes from a family of musicians, since her mother, Teresa Siqueira, was a famous fado singer. She is considered one of the most talented and innovative fado singers of her generation. The first of her 6 studio releases dates to 2009. This is her latest. "

Opening with the back-story to her poem occasioned by a visit to Olympia, Washington, Diane Wakoski reads _The Bouquet,_ relating the tale of what she calls _...a common housewife who rose above her nature.” This is the middle poem bracketed by two longer poems that she reads October 2, 1974, sharing the stage at the San Francisco Museum of Art (pre-SFMOMA, at its former Van Ness Avenue location), with Judy Grahn.

"This is a is a song written by Tim Buckley (1947-1975), a poem by his writing partner Larry Beckett. Pat Boone was the first to release a recording of the song when it was featured on his 1969 album Departure, predating Buckley's album. However, the song has become perhaps Buckley's most famous due to a number of artists covering the song after his death in 1975, notably the British ensemble This Mortal Coil in 1983. As for Buckley's rendering, In the spring and summer of 1968, he and his band began a series of recording sessions for what-would then have been the follow-up to his 1967 album Goodbye And Hello. The direction for this particular album evolved midstream, and the initial session recordings were, for the most part, set aside. While two tracks from these various 1968 sessions did end up being used on his 1968 album Happy Sad, the remainder of the recordings ended up not being used on anything at all. The complete sessions themselves seem to have disappeared, but the best of them had been set aside on compilation reels which were filed away decades ago, forgotten until their discovery a few years back. - Youtube (SpaceOdyssee0)"

After his father’s death, Harnetty inherited his tools, radios, speakers, a typewriter, and a workbench. Harnetty began to think of the objects as conduits between past and present, living and dead. He began to ask: are there sonic traces of a person embedded in these collected, repaired, and loved objects? And do the objects have their own agency, which we can activate and listen to? The Workbench was commissioned by The Johnstone Fund for New Music, for the Unheard-Of Ensemble. It was also supported with a Funds for Artists Award from the Greater Columbus Arts Council. - bandcamp