[CP 012-062 CD] Tod Dockstader; Electronic [SBH 3073], Electronic [SBH 3082]

Recent claims made re: Dockstader’s absence from the public eye since releasing his Owl-label LPs in the late 60s & his "Comeback" in the 90s are somewhat off: in 1979, "Electronic [SBH 3073" and another “companion” volume, "Electronic [SBH 3082]" were offered as part of the extensive Boosey & Hawkes library music catalogue.

Consisting of 46 separate sound-queues made by mr. Dockstader for production & licensed use, this sounds like no other Dockstader recording you’ve heard; personally, I think it’s amazing and way ahead of its time, but I could understand if others out there are a bit befuddled by the music on the LPs in question. mostly short (<2 minute) rhythmic / melody-oriented modular-synth studies coming across like a paleozoic Aphex Twin - and i know people often say “X sounds like Aphex Twin” as that’s the sole reference point they have in discussing contemporary experimental electronic music; give me the benefit of the doubt - but this really does sound like “AFX” -era Aphex Twin; quite a bit, staggeringly so given the 15-odd-year divide between the two sensibilities. 

Sure, there are a couple of “Fat Brass Synth-Fanfares for Sci-Fi” queues, but for every one of those there’s a drifting filtered white-noise beast or high-resonance/Q oscillating beat with crazy atonal triplet-feel melodies that just hits home. Definitely one for the completists - Dockstader fans are known for not resting until they’ve heard every sound carefully “Organised” by the master - although there’s enough here for casual Early-Electronic music fans alike. If anything, this would be a great Creel Pone to bridge the gap between fans of contemporary melodic / “Into Depeche Mode?” Electronic Dance Music that find all of the cold, emotionally-distant abstract Concrète that I’m always going on about here a bit daunting.

This 2011 "Fifth Anniversary" edition includes both titles rendered across two separate discs, with a single "gatefold" booklet replicating the art spec & labels of both LPs.