Published on
April 14, 2020
Category
News
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Spanning minimalism, animal sounds, and healing synth and trombone compositions.
Smithsonian Folkways is continuing its vinyl reissue series with the release of three experimental and avant-garde albums from its back catalogue, this May.
Read more: The haunting beauty of plunderphonics, field recordings and sonic art
The reissues include The Entourage Music & Theatre Ensemble’s 1976 album The Neptune Collection, experimental electronic composer Ann McMillan’s 1979 LP Gateway Summer Sound: Abstracted Animal And Other Sounds, and Craig Kupka’s 1982 album Crystals: New Music for Relaxation 2.
The Neptune Collection was recorded in the mid ’70s, and sees The Entourage Music & Theatre Ensemble traversing between jazz and folk.
For Gateway Summer Sound, McMillan fused the sounds of the natural world – including frogs, insects and field recordings from New York’s Gateway National Recreation Area – with gongs, bells and a harpsichord.
Finally, Kupka’s Crystals: New Music for Relaxation 2, with its gentle compositions for trombone and synth, was “intended as an aid for meditation, a guided journey inward towards self-discovery,” explains Smithsonian Folkways.
All three albums will be released on the 22nd May.
Head here to pre-order The Neptune Collection, here to pre-order Gateway Summer Sound: Abstracted Animal and Other Sounds, and here to pre-order Crystals: New Music for Relaxation 2; check out the artwork and tracklist below.
The Neptune Collection
Side A
1. Neptune Rising
2. Druid Dance
3. Euphoric Bells
4. King’s Birdcage
5. Nature Spirites
Side B
1. Incantation for the Death of Self
2. Days
3. Space Needle Suicide
4. Tar Box Poltergeist
Gateway Summer Sound: Abstracted Animal and Other Sounds
Side A
1. Amber ’75
2. Syrinx
3. Episode
Side B
1. Gateway Summer Sound
2. Gong Song
Crystals: New Music for Relaxation 2
Side A
1. Trombones of Lithia
Side B
1. Crystals