[CP 169 CD] Aminadav Aloni; Once
Ah, nice to see that we've finally arrived at this particular title - one of my own suggestions for inclusion in the Creel Pone Replication Program, veto'ed by several of the cabal's core members until, apparently, attitudes about it changed - albeit 5 years later.
The soundtrack to a seldom-seen 1974 art film by Mort Hellig - featuring a total cast of 3, playing "Creation," "Humanity," and "Destruction," respectively - Israeli Composer Aminadav Aloni's peculiar, minimal Electronic Music cues come from a more compositional bent than much of the era's Synthetic dabblings. Over the course of 8 song-length segments of hand-played melodic refrain, a certain mood is established of laissez-faire, devil-may-care-ish-ness that is, frankly, quite welcome - segments bordering on pure drone / timbral exploration suddenly give way to more melodic & thematic events that belie the music's function.
I can't really compare this to much - certainly one of the reasons I nominated it in the first place - but I am reminded in spots of the similarly hand-played nature of the "Sound Paintings" LP by fellow C.P. "Graduate" Michael Lobel & even parts of White Noise's David Vorhaus' score to Saul Bass' impeccable "Phase IV" aren't that far away. There's a certain mawkishness to some of the cues that, sure, borders on Mickey-Mousing - I haven't seen the film, but I envision "Prancing" as being one of the key tenets - but then a sudden gust of atonal VCLFO'ed sparkle ala Douglas Leedy will come in & allay my fears. Only the lightest of Concrète elements come to the fore on occasion - surf on the beach, some rather orgiastic moaning - but otherwise it's pure Synthetic bliss.
Yet another fascinating glimpse into the "Secret" history of electronic music; we're way off the radar-screen here & thanks to the C.P. massive we now have a glimpse into another uniquely personal modus.