UbuWeb: Electronic Music Resources

Long the go-to resource for devotees of experimental art, UbuWeb recently added this new section devoted to the documentary history of electronic music. The collection will focus on the older history of the genre, with an emphasis on technology as opposed to aesthetic debates. As curators Michael Johnson and Matthew Wellins admirably state, 

Most previous treatments of electronic music have tended to shy away from the details of the medium itself. In hopes of rendering the subject palatable they have removed much of its flavor, for it is precisely within the box, teeming with currents, where the true beauty resides - the other side of the panel.

There is already much there—including a trove of patents by early 20th-century German inventor (and subject of one of my dissertation chapters) Jörg Mager. But perhaps the most impressive items on offer there are the lovingly scanned seven issues of the rare journal Electronic Music Review, edited by Reynold Weidenaar and Robert Moog and published from 1967 to 1968. Though I’ve not yet looked through them, they look to be packed with writings by both known and obscure figures of the period. The double issue 2/3 is especially important, consisting of an exhaustive catalog of every known electroacoustic composition created worldwide up to that point, compiled by noted British organologist and instrument-builder Hugh Davies. Hats off to UbuWeb for this major contribution.

July 07, 2011, 4:47pm