[CP 088 CD] Daniel Arfib; Musique Numérique

Creel Pone treatment of this Private-Press LP of late-70s spectral computer music by Daniel Arfib. Aside from Conrad Cummings’ review of the LP in the fall 1981 issue of Computer Music Journal, I’ve seen nary a mention of Mssr. Arfib’s early Digital Synthesis work, which seems something of a glaring omission in the historical annals given the particularly misted nature of these pieces, often utilizing an upgraded spec of Stockhausen’s rhythm-to-pitch methodologies & sharing something in common with Denis Smalley’s “Pulses of Time” - composed roughly around the same time. 

The bubbling, overloaded overtone-blobs & distant wind-creep & resonant jaw-harp-like attacks of “Voyelles d’Eveil” - based on interpolations of the harmonic series - start out the disc, making way for the considerable more noise-oriented - pitched, narrow-band noise, that is - “Le Souffle du Doux” - slow arcs of octave-doubled tones slide in & around morphing mathematically-proportioned drones. But the real clincher for me is the side-long “l’Approche de la Lumière” - starting out as a shifting morass of dissonant tone-combinations before a series of chugging, low-bit white-noise formations - not entirely dis-similar to the sort of crunchy bit-rate distortions emanating from beloved SN 76477 I.C. found in many Space Invaders-lineage console arcade games - pave the way for a full-volume explosion of rippling, panning harsh noise - seriously ; listen to this at a fair clip & tell me it doesn’t resemble certain factions of the contemporary chip-noise / circuit-bending wave.

Once again; an impossible-to-grip title, hidden in the back-closets of the early academic electronic sound-research sector made tangible thanks to Mr. C.P. P.C.’s tireless efforts.