Re: Moo.

[Chris Chovit <cho@gomez.jpl.nasa.gov>]

Hey, I appreciate the reccomendations for musics that use looping.  I'm
always interested in hearing new stuff.  Here's a couple of the key albums
that got me into the loops:

Ash Ra -- Inventions for Electric Guitar:
Most of the Ash Ra (and Manuel Gottshing's solo stuff) uses looping -- it
has a Tangerine Dream - like quality, but is much more guitar-oriented
(esp. Inventions for E.G.).  He gets really sweet guitar tones (I think he
mainly used a Gibson SG) and has some nice anolog key textures.  And
considering this one is from ~1971 (I think), he was surely one of the
pioneers of looping.  I'm not sure if he actually used looping devices,
though.  He might have just multitracked it, but the music is quite
repetitive.  If you like this one, try "Blackouts", "Walking the Desert",
and Gottshing's "Dream & Desire"

Steve Reich - Music for 16 Musicians:
I'm sure many of you put this album on a pedastal.  And even though the
entire piece (~an hour long?) is entirely performed, Reich's use of
repetition vs. change is remarkable.  He often employs a technique of
bringing in a repeating melody, one note at time (and not necessarily in
order), repeating each step 4 times, until the whole meoldy is there, then
takes away one note at a time until the melody is gone.  This, all the
while other melodies are being formed and taken away.  He'll have several
meoldies going on at once, entertwining with each other, and at different
"phases" of their compositional "lifetime".   Reich's "Music for Mallet
Instruments" really moves me too.

Enjoy!

- Chris

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Chris Chovit
cho@gomez.jpl.nasa.gov
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