Weber, Reinhold – “Elektronische Musik ” – [Red Lounge Records]

Two long compositions from the late 1960s, by this German pioneer of electronic music, influenced early on by the work of Stockhausen, among others. Pre-packaged synthesizers didn???t exist yet, so Weber made his sounds with hand-made combinations of oscillators, filters, modulators, tone generators, tape effects, and the like. Track 1, ???Sch??pfung???, alternates short, seemingly random sections of abstract electronica with deadpan German narration by actor Kurt M??ller-Graf. It would be interesting to know what he???s saying; does it relate to the electronic sounds, or is it a bunch of random thoughts? I much prefer the second track, ???Musica Mundana 1969???, which uses the same types of sounds as in the first track, but takes the time to develop them into a coherent composition, and it all hangs together pretty well. The material on this CD does seem a bit primitive by today???s sonic standards, but we have to remember these sounds were made 40 years ago and were pretty radical at the time.