TOD DOCKSTADER: Apocalypse

Tod Dockstader

Apocalypse

© 1993 Starkland (754702020223)

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This CD has been called "A must for electronic music lovers, since this is one of the backbones of modern experimental music" (Audioview), and Dockstader is now regarded as "a highly imaginative pioneer" (The Washington Post).

notes

Starkland's two Tod Dockstader CDs have led to the recognition of this pioneering genius as one of the finest electronic music composers yet to appear. The Washington Post calls Dockstader "one of the giants in the field," while Stereophile places his output "on a par with the best." These two CDs have been extensively praised. For example, The Wire wrote that "The obsessive care with which Starkland have compiled these extraordinary recordings should ensure that Dockstader will be remembered as the innovative, visionary figure he undoubtedly was."

Dockstader's second Starkland CD begins with the composer's pulsing, spatially-shifting Traveling Music. He explains that "Traveling Music was originally composed as a monaural piece... When I got the use of a two-track recorder, I used this piece, instead of doing a new work, so I could concentrate on teaching myself the techniques of placing sound in space (between speakers) and moving it through space – hence the title."

The eerie, otherworldly Luna Park has been described by one critic as "one of the finest works of electronic music I've ever heard" (Fanfare). Dockstader writes that "Luna is a very simple piece: three movements – fast/slow/fast – using few sound-materials. (People remember the laughter; one station broadcast it as 'Dockstader's Laughing Music' – but there actually isn't that much laughter in it.) I wanted it to be silly and sad and simple. The title comes from the old Luna Park at Coney Island... by the time I saw it, all that remained was a vast, rutted parking lot."

The CD's major work is the brooding, ominous Apocalypse. The composer details the disparate elements of this four-part masterpiece: "I wanted to do something heavier, thicker in texture, more unruly and alarming – a concrete Dies Irae. The slowed (creaking) doors and the cat-cry toy are central to it: they provided the threat and despair I wanted… The passage of Gregorian chant, in Part Two, was used as a vocalization of the door sounds – I'm always looking for sounds of different timbres that express the same emotion. The inclusion of Hitler (tape-echoed into gibberish) in the last part is from my Radio childhood, when I heard his broadcasts in the late thirties: I didn't understand a word, but the terrifying sound of it (made stranger by the shortwave phasing) stayed with me... The 'live' cat in Part Four sang one night outside our apartment window in the Village: I hung a mic out the window for most of the night, recording his arias."

Dockstader's extensive work creating Apocalypse generated additional worthwhile material that premiered on this CD. He explains: "Two Fragments from Apocalypse like the Two Moons of Quatermass, were 'thrown out' from the main work as it cooled and contracted (over a period of months of editing the mixes). Most 'outs' end up on the floor, in ankle-deep snarls of tape, and, at the end of the day, are gathered to The Lord (in a wastebasket). But, sometimes... they can stand alone as pieces."

The divergently moody Drone has this history: "I had collected recordings of racing cars in motion, because I liked the droning sound they made, the Doppler-effect of pitch-change (without timbral change) as they passed the microphone. To find an equivalent sound that would be 'playable' – more controllable – I recorded a lot of sustained tones on an acoustic guitar, 'Dopplering' them with tape-speed changes… in the process of working on it, the cars just drove away, though some of the guitar survived, along with the title. The musical impetus for the piece was Japanese court music, Gagaku, which I'd heard a lot of, and liked. I tried to combine that kind of sound with some violence – the violence I felt that was lurking, almost unheard, under the restraints of Gagaku. So the piece goes back and forth between drone and demolition, a kind of desert demolition-derby."

The CD concludes with the premiere recordings of Dockstader's last "organized sound" music. He writes: "Four Telemetry Tapes are the last pieces of true organized sound I did – though they're almost entirely 'electronic': three rewired audio test generators, played by twisting dials and knobs. The original idea came from recordings of early satellites, starting with Sputnik: the messages they sent back to earth, 'telemetry,' were, to my ears, in the form of loops, slowly and subtly changing over transmission times... almost every note had to be cut into shape, on tape: attacks, sustains, decays – my 'envelopes' were handmade with a razor blade and a steel straight-edge, and so much splicing tape that the original tape is often entirely white."

Tod Dockstader's musique concrete turns out to have a surprising relevance to music created decades later; he's been described as "one of the godfathers of Nurse With Wound, and a distant cousin of rap and techno" (Option). Craig Anderton writes that Dockstader was one of the few to master "the art of assembling tape-recorded sounds and painstakingly splicing, cutting, dubbing, manipulating and mixing to create final compositions," then adds: "If you think that sounds similar to the procedures used to create today's cutting-edge pop music, you're right."

Musicworks (Canada) concludes that both Starkland CDs serve as "an excellent document of the work of an unjustifiably neglected sound artist... [The works], in addition to being brilliant examples of tape music, are compelling listening experiences... vital and fascinating... inventive and powerful."

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