[CP 288 CD] Arthur Custer; Found Objects

June 2023; returning to the source of so many early-mid-period C.P. triumphs, and after a long pause from said here's a C.P. replica edition of a further, particularly incredible Serenus-label outing by Composer Arthur Custer, masquerading as a regional "New Music" repertoire-volume, but turning out to be so much more.

Founded by Paul Kapp (if the last name rings a bell, it due to the work of his two brothers Jack and Dave who, respectively, founded Decca & Kapp, going on to release such canonic, C.P.-adjacent titles as "Music From Mathematics" & " Voice Of The Computer: New Musical Horizons" [see: CP 000.36 CD] & John Eaton's "Microtonal Fantasy" on the former, and of course both Silver Apples LPs & Gil Melle's "The Andromeda Strain" [see: CP 028 CD] on the latter), Serenus released dozens of "Calling-Card" -lineage LPs by regional Contemporary Composers, bringing out such inscrutable chesnuts as Heinz-Karl Gruber & George Engler's "The Inside Of The Outside /or The Outside Of The Inside" [see: CP 018 CD], "Trip' Tych: The Sound Paintings of Michael Lobel" [see: CP 107 CD], & "The Music Of John Watts, Volume 1" [see: CP 199.15 CD] in the process, all between 1964 & 1981. 

The five pieces in question here, all composed between 1967 & 1975 for, largely, solo instrumentalists and tape (four from the "The Music Of Arthur Custer - Vol. 3" LP, #SRS 12045 & one from the Dwight Peltzer "The Contemporary Piano Project Volume III" recital, #SRS 12071) are set up to baffle the performers (a veritable who's who of new music interpreters: Bert Turetzky, Dan Kobialka, Marj Shansky) via the carefully-assembled barrages of, largely, synthesizer (recorded at the University of Iowa) and bizarre in-situ foley & noise recordings, placing this unassuming, humble suite of music squarely in the C.P. pantheon.