Description
Reissue notes
When the 1985 cassette edition of The Way I See It finally sold out in 2011 and a free download format was suggested, I faced the dilemma of the works still being available but in a totally inappropriate context (the text refers to cassette media 54 times), or letting the works go out of print despite strong email demand. Releasing another cassette edition would be too costly and cumbersome.
At the time of writing the works (1984), I was hearing a diverse discourse on the role of the listener and the supposed ‘finished realisation’ of a recorded work, even among my peers which had been centred around the Clifton Hill Community Music Centre. Musicians from other musical disciplines also had differing opinions. I personally surprised myself by admitting that I was able to concentrate and enjoy recorded music to a fine level whilst ironing clothes, with the ironing board positioned at centre stereo field. Probably not what many composers envisage from the recording studio!
Music machines of the rotating T-arm type started to appear in my work from about 1983. Their earliest recorded form features on NMATAPES2 (1983). Their simplicity and their beautiful randomness greatly appealed to me. By the time of recording these works, the processes of sound selection and their placement in the circular field were well honed.
“You’ve Got The Option” (originally Side 2) features a text, cymbals, twelve dessert bowls, two half-speed toy accordions, and an electronic pulse made by connecting the line-out from an old Geloso mixer back into a microphone input. I might have gone down the road leading to the no-input mixer skills of today, but I liked the visual/kinetic thing too much!
Ernie Althoff
June 2011
