VA - Musical Offering: Soviet Composers Perform Their Works on the ANS Synthesizer

Cold Spring

VA - Musical Offering: Soviet Composers Perform Their Works on the ANS Synthesizer

"Available on CD for the first time, Soviet composers perform their works on the legendary ANS synthesizer. Recorded in 1971, Musical Offering is six tracks (42 mins) of experiments on the unique machine by: Eduard Artemiev (two tracks), Oleg Buloshkin, Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov, and Alfred Schnittke. Musical Offering demonstrates a "musical" machine unlike any other and has long fascinated cutting-edge, modern electronic composers, notably Coil and The Anti Group Communications (TAGC)/Clock DVA, that have both released recordings utilizing the ANS. Try to imagine a score sounding by itself without a conductor; an orchestra without musical instruments. This magic is possible by using the musical ANS synthesizer. Created by Soviet scientist Evgeny Murzin over the course of 20 years, ANS is an instrument with which a composer can not only create but also draw their music without notes. You can see the twinkling of different lamps, the rotation of grooved glass discs... The drawings on the glass are "sounding notes". To listen to the drawn picture, press the button and a wonderful transformation will begin. Inside the ANS are five rotating glass discs with 144 tones printed (by hand) on each one. Light is projected through the discs and onto photovoltaic cellbank which converts the light into electricity and sends signals to the ANS's amplifiers and bandpass filters. The ANS can generate 720 tones this way and, unlike a human musician, play them all at the same time. Murzin dedicated his photoelectronic apparatus to Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, hence the name ANS. Scriabin, the creator of the "Poem of Ecstasy", and a famous explorer of synesthesia, used in his works a highly chromatic, new type of harmonic style designed to express his beliefs, views and wishes. These tracks have only ever been available on an LP pressed by the state-run Soviet Union label Melodiya over 30 years ago. Soviet music lovers will already know recordings made on ANS from Tarkovsky's films Solaris, The Mirror, and Stalker, Konchalovsky's film Siberiade, and others. Digipak with the new artwork by Abby Helasdottir, complimenting the ANS process perfectly. Officially licensed from Russian state label, Melodiya." - Cold Spring Records.

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After nearly a decade of false starts, multiple game plans veering off the rails, and a handful of shattered hopes and/or dreams, the odyssey is finally complete—the new Fusetron site is here.

This is the first phase of a multipart rollout that will span the next few months: the currently browsable stock includes miscellaneous new releases from the past 8+ months (we have a lot of catching up to do), plus approximately a third of our backstock. Note that we’ve reduced/slashed prices on many titles and will continue to do so in order to make room for new stock. We’ll also be expanding / tweaking / improving / debugging the site itself (for example, we still have work to do on the automated international postage system, not to mention the inevitable inventory discrepancies that come with transferring an ancient and massive database to a new system).

Over the next few months, as we take inventory, clean house, and delve into our storage, we will be uploading thousands of additional items, gradually, on a near-daily basis. This will include the majority of the LPs, as well as many titles, in all formats, once thought long-gone. Many currently “sold out” items are likely to resurface.

Finally, once our general backstock is up (probably in the next two or three months) we’ll begin making our extensive stockpile of rarities available online for the first time: tons of random out-of-print titles, "deadstock," warehouse finds, secondhand collectibles, etc., accumulated over the past few decades.

Frequent/returning customers will be getting early access to these items. Details to follow on how this will work (a priority mailing list? a 'frequent flyer'-like program?), but it will not be based on dollars spent. We want to reward those who consistently support us, especially in the discogs marketplace era (to those who show up trying to poach five copies of a one-off rarity, and nothing else, ever… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

So—we suggest you take some time to dig through the site—even we’ve been surprised by what’s been turning up, and there’s much more to come.
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