https://arnolddreyblattmusic.bandcamp.com/album/music-from-the-resting-state

Some Fine Legacy is pleased to announce Arnold Dreyblatt’s Music from the Resting State. Though widely celebrated for the pioneering high-energy exploration of alternate tunings in his Orchestra of Excited Strings, Dreyblatt’s parallel work as an artist over the last forty years has received less attention in experimental music circles. This LP is drawn from a major installation work, The Resting State, exhibited at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein in 2019, in which Dreyblatt brought together sound, video, lighting and text to investigate the titular ‘resting state’ and the history of neuro-psychological research on it. This concept is used in neurological research to name a state in which the brain’s ‘default mode network’ is particularly active, occurring primarily when not engaged in specific tasks and studied by placing participants in low-stimulus environments and questioning them on their mental activity (or using other gauges of this, such as free association with word prompts).

Cognitive scientists have determined two alternating moments within this resting state: one in which memory and future ideation are dominant and one in which we are aware of the environment (and sometimes bored or restless). The states are thought to alternate roughly every 60 seconds. This pattern provided the temporal framework for Dreyblatt’s exhibition, which borrowed from scientific studies of the resting state an 800hz beep used to jolt participants awake for questioning. Heard at random intervals between 57 and 63 seconds, the beep cued an alternation between light and darkness in the exhibition space. Accompanying a script read by a female voice derived from scientific studies, the audio component of the installation was a delicate composition for electronics, heard here without text.

Produced at the renowned experimental music studio of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin and with the assistance of his long-term collaborator Konrad Sprenger, Music from the Resting State is chiefly composed of carefully tuned sine tones, gently overlapping in momentary harmonic interactions. Alongside these long tones are heard slowly pulsing bass frequencies and an occasional woosh of tuned resonance derived from Dreyblatt’s first purpose-built instrument, the ‘miniature princess pianoforte’. While consistent in its harmonic rhythm, density, and overall effect, the music is without exact repetition, seemingly static yet always in flux. At its irregular intervals, the 800hz beep intervenes to wake us from our contemplative immersion in the drifting tones. The resulting listening experience is a fascinating one: at each beep, we are momentarily jolted into close listening before the drifting formlessness of the music allows us to surrender again to a kind of daydream. As the piece elegantly unfolds across its forty minutes, it manages both to enchant immediately and to occasion an uncomfortable, radically self-reflective listening. 

released April 29, 2024
Some Fine Legacy SFL 009
Composed by Arnold Dreyblatt.
Post Production by Gregorio Garcia Karman, Studio für Elektroakustische Musik, Akademie der Künste, Berlin.
Audio Processing by Konrad Sprenger, Choose.
Mastereing by Joe Talia, Good Mixture, Melbourne.
Layout by Dirk Lebahn, Berlin.
Photo by Jens Ziehe.
Quote by Felicity Caillard, Daniel S. Margulies, 2011.
Text by Francis Plagne, Melbourne.

Music originally produced for the exhibition: "The Resting State", n.b.k. Neue Berliner Kunstverein, 2019.

Released: August 2023
Catalog # DC877

Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings

Side 1
Container 5:56
Shuffle Effect 5:34
Flight Path 7:01

Side 2
Auditoria 17:15

Arnold Dreyblatt: Excited Strings Bass
Joachim Schütz: Modified Electric Guitar,
Konrad Sprenger: Percussion, Computer-Controlled Multi-Channel Electric Guitar
Oren Ambarchi: Electric Guitar

Recordings:
September 11 & 12, 2019, “Atelier Claus”, Brussels. Recording Engineer: Christoph Albertijn
November 7, 2020, "Mouse on Mars Studio", Berlin. Recording Engineer: Constantin Carstens
Editing, Postproduction: Jörg Hiller, Choose Berlin, 2022
Additional Editing: Joachim Schütz
Mix, Mastering: Joe Talia, 2022
Thanks to Jan St. Werner, Andi Toma, Phillip Sollman, Musikfonds e.V. Berlin

Following several releases over the past decade of archival Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings material and collaborations with other ensembles, on labels including Black Truffle, Choice Records, Megafaun and Superior Viaduct, Drag City is excited as well to be able to introduce Resolve, the first release of new Excited Strings music from Arnold Dreyblatt since 2002.

Resolve acts in dialogue with the minimalist inspirations of the first Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings release, 1982’s Nodal Excitation – in effect, looking beneath the hood of several Resolve acts in dialogue with the minimalist inspirations of the first Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings release, 1982’s Nodal Excitation – in effect, looking beneath the hood of several decades of progression, reviewing and renewing the revolutionary intent of their foundation credo.

The reference points, then as now, include La Monte Young, Tony Conrad and Phill Niblock, as well as Jim O’Rourke, whose support for Arnold’s music in the 1990s sparked new life. Konrad Sprenger, Joachim Schütz and Oren Ambarchi form the current Orchestra of Excited Strings, first initiated together with microtonal tuba-player Robin Hayward in Berlin in 2009 – but the story of Arnold Dreyblatt’s conception (a rhythmic drone played by Dreyblatt on a double-bass strung with piano wire, playing in concert with other stringed instruments performing in 20 unequal microtones per octave with a fixed fundamental dates back to the 1970s, when Arnold evolved his interests in media arts to include acoustic sound while studying under Young, Pauline Oliveros before forming his first Orchestra in 1979 (From 1980 he studied with Alvin Lucier at Wesleyan University where the second Orchestra was formed). Two years after Nodal Excitation was released on India Navigation, Arnold moved to Berlin, where the third Orchestra was formed. The release of Propellers In Love (1985, Künstlerhaus Bethanien/Stasch 1986 Hat Art, reissued 2017 by Superior Viaduct), the opera project “Who’s Who in Central and East Europe 1933” and the release of Animal Magnetism (2010, 1995 Tzadik) demonstrated further developments in his music. After dexter’s cigar arranged for Nodal Excitation's first reissue on CD, Arnold returned to the United States to lead a new iteration of The Orchestra, (performing at Tonic on a bill with Tony Conrad and Jim O’Rourke) preserved on the 2002’s The Adding Machine (Cantaloupe Music).

Each phase of Arnold’s music with The Orchestra of Excited Strings requires several overlapping periods of gestation. In the initial writing of the music, the expectation is that the musicians are there to allow the instruments to sound and resonate; later, in playing the music with the orchestra, free interaction among the players results in the fixing of additional parts in the final pieces. And so, each Orchestra brings their selves to the project. In the case of Resolve, each of the members, as composers, producers, DJs, and artists in their own right, brought their own unique angles. Konrad Sprenger (aka Jörg Hiller)’s treatments involved sine waves and a computer-controlled multi-channel electric guitar (as well as a relentless style behind the drum kit and overseeing the sound production), while Joachim Schütz’s individual conception of electronics and electric guitar and Oren Ambarchi’s undeniable innovations with signal path work together with Arnold’s "Excited Strings Bass" as magnetic component parts of Resolve.

Side one features three potent new compositions demonstrating the Orchestra’s unique feel – incorporating rhythmic accents that act as microbeats within Dreyblatt’s microtones, implying shuffling funk and metallic rock at times, yet never deviating from the driving intensity of the harmonic play. Side two is taken up by the piece “Auditoria”, in which Ambarchi and Sprenger’s production methodologies turn the Orchestra inside out, working expansively backwards through harmonic overtones to Dreyblatt’s original tempo in a mesmerizing spatial redistribution of the music.
- Rian Murphy for Drag City, 2023

TONY CONRAD / ARNOLD DREYBLATT/ JIM O’ROURKE
Tonic 19-01-2001

Black Truffle’s 100th release! BT100
Recorded: January 19, 2001 at Tonic, New York City
Live Sound by Dana Wachs
Concert Program Produced by David Weinstein
Mastered June 2022 at Steamroom Japan by Jim O'Rourke

Live trio photo by Hiroyuki Ito, Tonic, January 18, 2001
Design by Lasse Marhaug
Liner notes by Arnold Dreyblatt
Thanks to Jay Sanders and Andrew Lampert
Special thanks to Ted Conrad
Dedicated to Anthony Schmalz Conrad, 1940-2016

“Celebrating its one hundredth release, Black Truffle present a major archival discovery: a stunning document of the only performance by the trio of Tony Conrad, Arnold Dreyblatt, and Jim O'Rourke. Across a two-night program organized by David Weinstein at legendary New York experimental venue Tonic in January 2001, Conrad, Dreyblatt and O'Rourke presented individual projects before performing a collaborative set each night, the first with members of Dreyblatt's ensemble and the second the trio heard here. As Dreyblatt points out in the wonderfully informative and reflective liner notes written for this release, this was a collaboration across generations, reflecting the profound impact of Conrad's pioneering minimalism on Dreyblatt and O'Rourke. Both Dreyblatt and O'Rourke came to this collaboration armed with a deep appreciation of Conrad's music and the just intonation principles at its core, Dreyblatt having first encountered the incredible power of Conrad's precisely tuned violin chords during his tenure as an archivist for La Monte Young in 1975, while O'Rourke had performed with Conrad in various settings since the mid-1990s (as well as admiring, reissuing, and performing Dreyblatt's music). The flyer for the concert promised "massive, ecstatic, pulsating overtones", and the trio certainly delivered. From the moment this keening stream of bowed strings begins, it is clear, as Dreyblatt writes, that you are in "Tony's sonic universe", as massively amplified, slowly shifting combinations of precisely chosen pitches fill the room with complex beating patterns and ghostly difference tones. For more than twenty-five minutes, the music operates at a level of intensity comparable to classic recordings such as Conrad's Four Violins, until the texture thins out slightly in the performance's final quarter, allowing for the listener's first recognition of the individual voices that make up this enormous, overwhelming harmonic edifice.”

Black Truffle is thrilled to continue its program of archival releases from Arnold Dreyblatt with a recently unearthed concert recording from Dreyblatt and Paul Panhuysen’s “Duo Geloso”. While isolated examples of Dreyblatt’s collaboration with the legendary Dutch multi-media artist appeared on the CD reissue of Propellers in Love and Black Truffle’s wide-ranging archival Second Selection, this is the first release to document the variety and playfulness of the concerts that Duo Geloso performed throughout Europe in 1987-88. Both working across sonic and visual forms, fascinated by numerical relationship and the infinite complexity of string harmonics, Dreyblatt and Panhuysen had a natural affinity for each other’s work, strengthened through Dreyblatt’s many visits to Het Apollohuis, the important experimental art space Panhuysen helped to found in Eindhoven. However, as René van Peer suggests in the liner notes enclosed within this release, Dreyblatt and Panhuysen took very different approaches to these shared interests; the wonderful energy of these Duo Geloso performances results from the meeting of Dreyblatt’s more austere, compositional process with Panhuysen’s spontaneity.

Recorded at a concert at Het Apollohuis in December 1987 (a series of beautiful photographs of which adorn the LP’s packaging), each of the six pieces presented here is distinctive in terms of instrumentation and performance approach. Using electric guitar and bass tuned by Dreyblatt and played using E-Bow and Panhuysen’s motorised plectrums, the opening ‘Razorburg’ moves slowly through a long series of held notes with a madly insistent tremolo that crosses Dick Dale with a mechanised take on the layered guitars of Günter Schickert. The same pair of instruments returns on ‘Duo for Guitars’, where the mechanised attacks dissolve into a harmonic wash, reminiscent of the machine guitar work of fellow Het Apollohuis alumni Remko Scha. On ‘Love Call’, the guitars and bass are accompanied by Panhuysen’s distant warbled vocals, familiar to Maciunas Ensemble listeners. On the remarkable ‘Synsonic Batterie’, Panhuysen begins proceedings with a solo barrage of electronic percussion on the Synsonics Drum Machine (a simple drum synthesiser produced by the toy manufacturer Mattell), joined eventually by Dreyblatt performing his signature percussive natural harmonics on pedal steel guitar. When Panhuysen adds his bird whistle to the mix, the performance becomes the perfect exemplar of the Duo Geloso’s unique mix of studious close listening and subtle absurdity.

Presented in a gatefold sleeve with archival photos and illuminating liner notes from René van Peer.

Tracklisting:

Razorburg
High Life
The Louisiana Purchase
Synsonic Batterie
Duo for Guitars
Love Call

Available from these fine distributors:
USA – Forced Exposure www.forcedexposure.com
Europe – Kompakt www.kompakt.fm/labels/black_truffle

LP, Black Truffle Records BT065, Release Date: June 19, 2020
Distributed by Kompakt.FM

Side A
1 Escalator 9:07
2 The System 8:33
3 Star Trap 6:50

Side B
1 Booster Electorate 3:16
2 Lapse 8:47
3 Standing Tonalities 13:05

Escalator, Lapse, Standing Tonalities
Recorded July 29, 1997, Theaterspektakel Zürich by Steffan Rietzentahler
The Orchestra of Excited Strings: Pierre Berthet: Percussion; Werner Durand: Saxophone; Drums; Rob Gutowski: Trombone; Jason Kahn: Cimbalom; Dirk Lebahn: Excited Strings Bass; Hurdy Gurdy; Silvia Ocougne: Modified Electric Guitar

The System, Booster Electorate
Recorded April 8th, 1993, Gallery Bernau, Bernau b. Berlin by Arnold Dreyblatt
The Orchestra of Excited Strings: Pierre Berthet: Percussion; Arnold Dreyblatt: Electric Lapsteel Guitars and Dynamic Processing System, Midi Sampler; Silvia Ocougne: Modified Electric Guitar; Jan Schade: Cello, Tuba

Star Trap
Recorded Dec 25, 1991, Great Zeiss Planetarium, Berlin by Christian Venghaus
The Orchestra of Excited Strings: Pierre Berthet: Percussion; Werner Durand, Saxophone; Dirk Lebahn: Electric Lapsteel Guitars and Dynamic Processing System; Chico Mello: Violin; Silvia Ocougne: Modified Electric Guitar; Jan Schade: Cello

Audio Editing: Konrad Sprenger & Arnold Dreyblatt
Mastering & Vinyl Cut: Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering Berlin
Cover Photo: Live Performance of Star Trap, Great Zeiss Planetarium, 1991; Light Beam Installation and photo by Folke Hanfeld
Back Cover Photo: Joseph Somogyi
Record Labels: Augendiagnose und Kurpfuschertum, Dr. S. Seligmann, Hermann Bardorf Verlag, 1910
Cover Design: Lasse Marhaug
Liner Notes: Arnold Dreyblatt

These recordings represent three differing yet interrelated music projects spanning the 1990’s in Berlin, a period in which I did not perform with the ensemble and remained at the mixing desk. Many of the musicians heard here have performed with me for many years: Dirk Lebahn and Jan Schade were in my first European ensemble in Berlin in the early 1980’s and appeared on Propellers in Love (1985). I began working intensively with the Belgian musician Pierre Berthet when living in Liege in the late 1980’s. Brazilian musicians Silvia Ocoungne and composer Chico Mello – as well as German composer/performer Werner Durand all joined the ensemble for performances of my hypertext Opera Who’s Who in Central & East Europe 1933 in 1991 and later appeared on Animal Magnetism (1995). American musicians Jason Kahn and Rob Gutowski also performed with the Orchestra of Excited Strings in the 1990’s.
All tracks with the exception of Lapse and Standing Tonalities were composed – and in most cases performed with the Dynamic Processing System which I began developing in the 1980’s – first as a solo work (Luftmenschen) commissioned by Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria (1988) and appearing on Second Selection (2015) and later for my duo project with percussionist Pierre Berthet entitled End Correction (1988-89). This system involved the utilization of a “key” signal which controls the “opening” and “closing” of an envelope window comprising live performance audio. In the 1980’s I recorded the infinitely variable train-like rhythms of a faulty escalator on the Rue Ansbach in Brussels just for this purpose. This rhythmic control signal would “gate” the live performance on various homemade electric string instruments. The original control recording as well as the gated and the un-gated “strings” were simultaneously audible during performance. I first began working with analog Noise Gates but later graduated to the Drawmer M500 Dynamics Processor with which I could digitally store sequences of threshold settings and eventually expanded the system to include other digital devices.
In the early 90’s I integrated this Dynamic Processing System within a live ensemble framework. In 1991 I created the multimedia performance project Star Trap involving text, music and light at the Great Zeiss Planetarium in East Berlin. I wrote instrumental parts for the members of The Orchestra of Excited Strings to be performed in interaction with the gating system. The System and Booster Electorate were commissioned in 1993 by the Gallery Bernau near Berlin. The ensemble was enhanced by tuned samples controlled by the midi output of the Drawmer M500 Dynamics Processor.
Escalator was originally a commission from the Bang On A Can All-Stars in 1995, later appearing on Renegade Heaven (2000). The instrumental scores were based on the gated rhythms of the escalator recordings and were notated for piano, prepared electric guitar and trombone, later adding layers of percussion, saxophone and Excited Strings bass. In 1986 I re-worked the composition for my own ensemble. In Escalator, the Dynamic Processing System itself is not audible.
Lapse and Standing Tonalities were originally composed for a program of anniversary concerts celebrating 10 Years Orchestra of Excited Strings in Europe, which took place at Podewil in Berlin in 1995. Both works were composed using the extraordinary algorithmic software M, originally launched in 1987.
All compositions are performed in the Dreyblatt Tuning System based on the harmonic series. - Arnold Dreyblatt

“Star Trap presents a selection of hitherto unreleased 1990s recordings from Arnold Dreyblatt and his Orchestra of Excited Strings. Following on from Black Truffle’s wide-ranging archival Second Selection (2015), which presented a smorgasbord of unreleased material from between 1978 and 1989, Star Trap mines Dreyblatt’s extensive archive of unheard recordings from the 1990s, uncovering six pieces performed by three different iterations of the Orchestra of Excited Strings.
While Dreyblatt often performs in his ensembles on his signature Excited Strings Bass (a double bass strung with piano wire), here we find him in the composer’s chair and behind the mixing desk, leading ensembles of modified percussion, string, and wind instruments. Four of the pieces make use of Dreyblatt’s Dynamic Processing System (heard on a stunning pair of solo pieces for electric guitar featured on Second Selection), in which the opening and closing of digital noise gates are controlled by an external signal (in this case, a recording of faulty escalator). Rather than the relentless thudding rhythms of 1980s works like Nodal Excitations, the ensemble pieces hear are closer to the propulsive, at times even funky rhythmic foundation of Dreyblatt’s classic Animal Magnetism (Tzadik, 1995), but further enlivened by the unpredictable accents of the Dynamic Processing System.
On ‘Escalator’, a six-piece version of the Orchestra performs the notated stuttering rhythms and shifting accents of the gated escalator recordings, without the actual Dynamic Processing System being audible. On the remaining two pieces, composed for the tenth anniversary of the Orchestra of Excited Strings in Europe, Dreyblatt made use of algorithmic software to generate material.  But far from austere exercises, these pieces are perhaps the most immediate of all, as the Orchestra exuberantly tears through a sequence of repeating rhythmic and melodic cells, dazzling the ear with the overtones generated by Dreyblatt’s twenty-note microtonal scale. At times recalling aspects of the work of Peter Zummo or Arthur Russell’s Instrumentals, but with a massive dose of sonic heft, this is music for both the mind and the body.” - Black Truffel

n.b.k. Concert 72-75

Documentation of the event Das Fest.50 - on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein on July 14, 2019 at n.b.k.

72
John Bock
Performance
16:43 min

73
Adda Kaleh aka Alexandra Pirici
Concert
33:24 min

74
Luci Lippard
Concert
25:52 min

75
Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings (Jörg Hiller, Oren Ambarchi and Joachim Schütz)
Concert
51:30 min

Performances und Konzerte Herausgegeben von Marius Babias
4 DVDs, 02:07 h, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein 2019

ISBN
978-3-89424-958-8

Double LP Vinyl Set, Black Truffle

"Second Selection presents eleven pieces selected by Oren Ambarchi from Dreyblatt's extensive archive of previously unreleased recordings. Recorded in beautifully varying fidelity between 1978 and 1989, the pieces range from solo works to documents of various iterations of Dreyblatt's long running Orchestra of Excited Strings.Presented as a high-spec gatefold double LP with archival liner notes including contemporaneous selections from Dreyblatt's notebooks and an early conversation between Dreyblatt and Phil Niblock. Black Truffle is honored to present a major collection of archival recordings by seminal minimalist composer, performer, instrument builder and visual artist Arnold Dreyblatt. Following on from the archival compilation Choice (Choose Records, 2013), Second Selection presents eleven pieces selected by Oren Ambarchi from Dreyblatt's extensive archive of previously unreleased recordings. Recorded in beautifully varying fidelity between 1978 and 1989, the pieces range from solo works to documents of various iterations of Dreyblatt's long running Orchestra of Excited Strings. The ensemble pieces here possess the singular, hypnotic quality of Dreyblatt's vintage work, underpinning the shimmering overtones of his self-devised twenty note microtonal scale with primordial, thudding rhythms that undergo surprising but economical shifts in group dynamics and sonic density. Like the court music of some imaginary ancient civilization, this music unfolds unhurriedly, relinquishing traditional melodic and harmonic movement in favor of a single-minded search for the world of sound inherent in a single string.'

There is much to wonder over here for the Dreyblatt connoisseur, including variants of pieces found on classics such as Nodal Excitations and Propellers in Love. But Second Selection also unearths some elements of Dreyblatt's work that have gone undocumented until now, including an incredible pair of solo pieces for modified electric guitar and electronics performed in Europe in 1988. The second of these, 'Luftmenschen II', has to be heard to be believed, consisting of 15 minutes of insistent and frenetic rhythmic irregularity sourced to multiple electric guitars run through a digital noise gate controlled by a recording of malfunctioning escalators. Second Selection is presented as a high-spec gatefold double LP with archival liner notes including contemporaneous selections from Dreyblatt's notebooks and an early conversation between Dreyblatt and Phil Niblock. This is both a gold mine for long-term fans and an ideal introduction for those still awaiting initiation into Dreyblatt's rapturous science of the string. These are stunning examples of one of the most unique and fully realized sound-worlds of contemporary music; as Dreyblatt always recommends, they are best experienced at maximum volume!" - BLACK TRUFFLE

1 Lucky Stryke
2 Harmonics
3 Dronetones
4 Nodal Excitation
5 Damping Influence
6 Bebop Pump
7 The Odd Fellows
8 Luftmenschen I
9 Strike Out
10 Hilife
11 Luftmenschen II

Black Truffel >>>

Northern Spy, LP and CD
Arnold Dreyblatt and Megafaun
Arnold Dreyblatt - Excited String Bass, Phillip Cook - Banjo, Modified Electric Guitar, Moog Lap Steel, Bradley Cook - Electric Bass, Acoustic Guitar, Mandolin, Joseph Westerland - Percussion, Electric Guitar
Recorded and Brian Haran and Jim Bob Aiken at Pinebox Recording, Graham, NC, 2012 ; Mixed and Mastered by Jim Bob Aiken

1. Recurrence Plot
2. Home Hat Placement
3. Edge Observation
4. Radiator 

"The meeting of composer Arnold Dreyblattand psych-folk trio Megafaun shouldn't be seen as unlikely just because it's cross-generational, or even (arguably) cross-genre. Such categorizations have to be set aside before taking in theirAppalachian Excitation. Born in New York in 1953, Dreyblatt came up under such lauded experimental groundbreakers as Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros and La Monte Young, obtaining a Master's degree in composition from Wesleyan University. Now based in Berlin, where he is active as a visual artist and as a composer. His music is based on his own vocabulary of pulse and self-designed instrumentation. The North Carolina by way of Wisconsin trio Megafaun (comprised of brothers Brad and Phil Cook and Joe Westerlund) has been working since 1997, when the three met at the H.O.R.D.E. festival. After a decade of crafting their sound, Westerlund contacted Jeff Hunt, owner of the Table of the Elements label, looking to get in touch with Dreyblatt, whose work all three admired. The following year they were able to schedule a week long residency at Salem Art Works in the mountains of upstate New York, where Dreyblatt taught them the just intonation tuning system he'd developed as well as some of the instruments he'd devised. They presented Dreyblatt's compositions at the 2008 Wire Festival in Chicago and concerts in Boston and NYC. Busy schedules kept them from working together again until the 2012 Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh, North Carolina, just a stretch of mountains south from where they'd developed their joint sound. Excited about the performance, they booked the Pinebox Recording studio in Graham, N.C. to lay down the tracks that make upAppalachian Excitation. They connected again last February to play the Ecstatic Music Festival in New York City. The album was recorded live in the studio with no click track and minimal separation, a new experience for the men of Megafaun. It's 'the most rewarding way to record,' said Joe Westerlund. 'This record with Arnold marks a step towards Megafaun becoming more of a live-in-the-studio recording band, a more traditional and time-tested method.' Speaking from the stage at Merkin Concert Hall during their Ecstatic Music appearance last year, Dreyblatt said such genre transcending collaborations wouldn't have been possible several decades ago. 'We are no longer one-dimensional people,' he announced. Experience the dimensions of Appalachian groove and time-honored minimalism anew with Dreyblatt and Megafaun." - Northern Spy

Northern Spy Records >>>

Cassette Tape Issue, Important Records, SAUNA14

Recorded March 12, 2011 by Ernst Karel at Boston's Goethe Institut. 

This performance version of the original piece (released on CD as IMPREC323) provides a different perspective on the original composition.

In Turntable History / Spin Ensemble (2011), Dreyblatt creates a palette of signals and patterns derived from his own recordings of a Magnetic Resonance Imaging Scanner ('Siemens Magnetom Symphony Maestro Class') in a radiological practice in Berlin. Dreyblatt was fortunate to gain rare permission to record this device in operation with a technician from Siemens who manned the machine especially for these recordings, searching for software settings related to their resulting sonic output rather for scanning particular body areas. Dreyblatt treated the device as a giant Tesla coil, in which the alignment and resonances of a powerful magnetic field is gradually altered by rotating radio frequencies. He then analyzed and deconstructed the original recordings and grouped the audio segments by pitch, rhythm and density. 'Turntable History' was originally conceived as part of an audio-visual installation installed at the Singuhr Gallery in Berlin in 2009. The installation was captured in a recording was issued by Important Records in February, 2011. Turntable History / Spin Ensemble (2011), was premiered at a concert at the Goethe Institute in Boston on March 12, 2011

Important Records >>>

LP, CD, Choose Records, Berlin

Selected by: Jörg Hiller
Mastering By Rashad Becker
Sleeve Design By Hendrik Schwantes
Choose Records, Berlin

Tracklist:
1. Harptones: May 26, 1981, Roulette, New York; The Orchestra of Excited Strings: Arnold Dreyblatt and Ruth Charloff (Excited Strings Basses), Randal Baier (Miniature Princess Piano), Kraig Hill (Portative Pipe Organ), Michael Hauenstein (Hurdy Gurdy)
2. Regal Sustain: November 21, 1981, Real Art Ways, Hartford, Ct.; The Orchestra of Excited Strings: Arnold Dreyblatt and Michael Hauenstein (Excited Strings Basses), Peter Phillips (Miniature Princess Piano), Greg Lewis (Hurdy Gurdy)
3. Bowing: November 21, 1981, Real Art Ways, Hartford, Ct.; The Orchestra of Excited Strings: Arnold Dreyblatt and Michael Hauenstein (Excited Strings Basses), Peter Phillips (Miniature Princess Piano), Greg Lewis (Hurdy Gurdy)
4. Striking: November 21, 1981, Real Art Ways, Hartford, Ct.; The Orchestra of Excited Strings: Arnold Dreyblatt and Michael Hauenstein (Excited Strings Basses), Peter Phillips (Miniature Princess Piano), Greg Lewis (Hurdy Gurdy)
5. Sideband: July 17, 1997, Theaterspektakel, Zürich, The Orchestra of Excited Strings: Rob Gutowski (Trombone), Dirk Lebahn (Excited Strings Bass), Jason Kahn (Cimbalom), Silvia Ocougne (Sustain E-Guitar), Pierre Berthet (Percussion), Werner Durand (Saxophone)
6. Flowchart (Excerpt): May 5, 2007, The Music Gallery, Toronto, Canada Rob Clutton (Bass), Anne Bourne (Cello), Kathleen Kajioka (Violin), John Gzowski (Guitars), Scott Thompson (Trombone), Nick Fraser (Drums)
7. The Odd Fellows: October 23, 1983, WBAI Free Music Store, NY; The Orchestra of Excited Strings with Special Guest Pipes: Arnold Dreyblatt And Michael Hauenstein (Excited Strings Basses), Kraig Hill (Miniature Princess Piano), Eric Feinstein (French Horn), Peter Zummo (Trombone)
8. Organmusic For Sixteen Hands: January 31, 1999, Kresge Auditorium, Massachussets Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Ma.; Arnold Dreyblatt (Conductor, Kresge Pipe Organ), Christine Southworth, Derek Van Beever, Melissa Mazzoli, Rebecca Zook, Mike Tarkanian, Ryan Rifkin, Nikhilm Vinod Mittal
9. Surfacetones For Solo Snare Drum: March 3, 1985, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Wolfgang Glum (Snare Drum)
10. Brushtones: 1977, Fulton Street Studio, NY Arnold Dreyblatt (Double Excited String Bass)

Recordings: Steve Cellum (1), John Gzowski (6), Brooks Blanchard (2,3,4), Bobby Bieliecki (7), Steffan Rietzentahler (5), Arnold Dreyblatt (10), Others Unknown
Selected by: Jörg Hiller Mastering By Rashad Becker Sleeve Design By Hendrik Schwantes
All Titles Registered By Gema Distributed By A-Musik

Choose >>>

CD Imprec322, Important Records

Sound Content: Siemens Maestro Class, Magnetic Resonance Imaging Scanner. Recorded at Radiology Practice, Dr. Anne Sparenberg, Berlin
Technical Assistance: Rainer Kirsch, Siemens AG, Berlin
MRI Recordings by Konrad Sprenger, Choose, Berlin, 2004
Engineering: Ecki Güter; Recording: Timour Klouche, Nepenthes Mastering
Singuhr-Hörgalerie im Kleine Wasserspeicher, Berlin
Producer: Carsten Seiffarth

Turntable History is a recording of a 40 minute multi-channel sound composition which was concieved as part of an audio-visual installation installed in the circular vaulted brick space of a historical water container in Berlin in 2009. The original sound content is derived from recordings made by Arnold Dreyblatt of a Magnetic Resonance Imagining Scanner ("Siemens Magnetom Symphony Maestro Class") in a radiological practice in Berlin. Dreyblatt was fortunate to gain rare permission to record this device in operation without patients being involved. A technician from Siemens manned the machine especially for these recordings, searching for software settings related to their resulting sonic output rather for scanning particular body areas. Dreyblatt treated the device as a giant "Tesla coil", in which the alignment and resonances of a powerful magnetic field is gradually altered by rotating radio frequencies. Dreyblatt analysed and deconstructed the original recordings and grouped the audio segments by pitch, rhythm and density. The resulting five-channel composition of harmonically resonating, pulsating signals, sounded within this voluminous reflective space (with long delay times) is wonderfully captured in this recording.

Review: Dusted, Feb. 22, 2011, By Marc Medwin
"Conlon Nancarrow transformed the player piano into high art. Alvin Lucier showed us the subtleties of slow sweep oscillators. Now, Arnold Dreyblatt renders poetry from an MRI machine and a vaulted water cistern. Turntable History is a document of icy beauty in which pitch, space and machine function in touching symbiosis. In a way, the album's title is misleading, as the turntable is a silent partner. In the 2009 installation of the same name, a 'media turntable' (quotations from Dreyblatt's website) projected images in and around the large circular space for which the project was conceived. The music was played over five strategically placed loud speakers, an effect that I imagine was somewhat reminiscent of Varese's 'Poème électronique,' written for the Philips Pavillion at the 1958 Worlds Fair. Beyond that, the parallel breaks down. According to the indispensible but scanty liner notes, Dreyblatt was given special permission to record the MRI's unique language without a human subject, later grouping the results by sonic property to form the 40-minute composition. As is the case with 'Poème électronique,' there is obviously no way for a two-channel system to capture the full spatial impact of Dreyblatt's sound sculpture. What is surprising, though, is just how much of a sense of space and perspective this recording affords. From the distant, pulsed trudge that opens the work, seeming to approach from ahead and to the right, the echoing timbres create an enthralling illusion of three dimensions. Echo is never overbearing, however, and in an astonishing feat of mixing prowess, each sound is layered to allow enough transparency and depth to fill any listening environment. Some sounds even seem to emanate from behind, hinting at the grandeur of the water container's acoustics.

The mechanical sounds themselves are also responsible for the continuous illusion of perspective. As with an ensemble recording, such as 1995's Animal Magnetism, the steady pulses traditionally associated with minimalism vie with unexpected tonal and rhythmic juxtapositions. Here, as with Lucier's oscillators, a precision of rhythm and microtone is achieved far beyond the ability of even the finest musician to emulate, filling the soundstage with motions of their own. That opening pulse, the work's heartbeat, creates a sense against which everything else seems somehow transient. We are also treated to similarly complex shifts in timbre. Listen to the first actual pitch of the piece, how it pulses and throbs unpredictably and how its timbre brightens. These are the relationships that propel Turntable History forward. Beats come forth from within each pitch and from the way the pitches interact, forming exquisitely intricate webs of polyrhythm that compliment the constantly morphing halos of morphing overtones. Consider one moment: at about 3:30 into the work, where a sudden shift in beat and tonality sweeps away everything that preceded it. There are too many such instances to catalog. When we reach the concluding single pitch, and as the mechanized heartbeat fades, another sense of circularity is achieved, which was prefigured by the minute repetitions that form the music's fabric. Even divorced from its visual elements, this is an essential addition to Dreyblatt's all-too-small discography. It presents a facet of his art that has never been represented on disc with such clarity and fidelity."

Important Records >>>

An Audio Journey in the Text
CD, Tzadik #8157

"This is the long awaited release of one of Dreyblatt's most personal and major extended works. Created in 1991, it combined documentary photographs, films, texts and sound materials selected from archives and private collections with original music and was a landmark in multimedia opera production, touring a dozen cities and winning the Philip Morris Art Prize in 1992." - Tzadik, 2010

Executive Producer: John Zorn

1 OVERTURE 6:36
2 BEGINNINGS 7:31
3 FAMOUS 5:54
4 FORGOTTEN PROVINCES 6:43
5 NATIONAL STATES 2:30
6 WAR 4:18
7 DESTINIES 4:39
8 WOMEN 3:53
9 FRIENDSHIP 2:53
10 JEWS 3:32
11 INVENTION 4:49
12 PERSONAL PHILOSOPHIES 4:58
13 COLLECTIONS 3:11
14 1933 7:05
15 NOW 5:57

Speakers: 
Peter Gilbert Cotton
Ilene Winckler
Alexandr Krestovskij
Tibor Szemzö

Voice Recordings: Choose, Berlin
Sound Design: Jörg Hiller with Joachim Schütz, Choose, Berlin
Mastering: Mastertone by Scott Hull, 2010

Musicians and Participants:
Pierre Berthet: Water Drip Drum Installation, Percussion, Shelley Hirsch: Voice, Joachim Schütz: Guitar; Robin Hayward: Tuba; Jan Schade: Tuba; Jörg Hiller: Electronics; Hans Peter Kuhn: Sound Environment for original opera performance; Arnold Dreyblatt: Piano, Electronics, Sound Composition

CD Layout PDF >>>

Who's Who Website produced at the University of Lüneburg (1995): >>>

“In 1985, I found a copy of Who’s Who in Central & East Europe (Central European Times Publishing Co., Ltd., Zurich, 1933, 1934) in a used book store near the Galanta Tower in Istanbul. It contained over 10,000 Biographies and was the first and last biographical dictionary to be published concerning this region exclusively until Who’s Who in the Socialist Countries of Europe was published in 1989 (Sauer Verlag). Both publications were immediately obsolete soon after they were published, as European historical events overtook them.

Under the structure of alphabetically arranged biographies lie buried layers of information not usually found in contemporary reference works of this type: revelations of a personal nature, intimate details, traces of desires and fears, life concepts and philosophies as well as references to major historical events. Though the majority of these entries are written in the second person singular, it is apparent that most were composed by the individuals themselves. As I first began to turn the page of this book, I perceived a complex network of personal myth construction: a geo-political history of Central and Eastern Europe put together as if a puzzle from thousands of individual stories, revealing an image of a vanished world captured at a critical point in time, which only a few years later would all but cease to exist. From our present vantage point, having experienced the historical discontinuities of a “world” and a “cold” war, these expressions of vanity and self-assurance take on a compelling significance.

The first performance of Who’s Who in Central & East Europe 1933 premiered in Berlin in early 1991 at the Kino Babylon in East Berlin. It was called a Hypertext Opera to indicate the “cut-up” non-linear libretto which I had been working on for the previous year. At the time, the term “hypertext” was a literary term, and the World Wide Web did not yet exist. The production was a co-production of DAAD Berlin Artists Program and the Wiener Fest Wochen, and was awarded the Philip Morris Art Prize in 1992. After the premiere, the opera toured extensively in Europe from 1991 until 1997, and was produced in German, Czech and Hungarian.

In 1993, John Zorn inquired about the possibility of an audio version of the opera to be issued on his new Tzadik label. The prospect of a reworking of the libretto into an English audio version and necessary recording project was daunting to me back then, and I politely rejected the offer. Thirteen years later, John asked me again. Many years had passed since I had suspended the opera production, during which time I had used the Who’s Who… text in numerous other artistic projects.

The resulting recording, two years in development, is still very much based on the dramaturgy of the original performance yet at the same time represents a new approach. The opera marked the beginning of a new direction in my creative work, and I am still following that trajectory in my installations and performances. My interest in themes such as recollection and collective memory, as well as the use of text in visual display all stem from the research involved in developing this opera project in the 1980s.

The opera collaged multiple layers of visual elements, including projections of animated text and images along with speech, live and pre-recorded music and sound. After re-examining the original libretto and listening to countless tapes of performances, I made a number of aesthetic decisions. I proposed a more minimal and concentrated work, more along the lines of a Hörspiel or artistic radio play. I opted to omit the musical intermissions of the original opera, during which my ensemble performed with Shelley Hirsch, since much of that music has since been released in instrumental versions. I kept the loose framework of the original libretto, while at the same time letting the details take on a new shape.

A number of sections were recreated much as they originally stood while other sections mixed older elements with newer material or were created especially for this audio production. I decided to re-record all of the text in English, with the intention that the text should be clearly understood. I invited two American-born actors living in Berlin (Peter Gilbert Cotton and Ilene Winckler), both of East European Jewish decent. To these voices I added Alexandr Krestovski (Prague) and Tibor Szemzö (Budapest), both friends of mine since my travels in Eastern Europe in the 1980s. The vocalist, Shelley Hirsch, who had such an important role in the performance work, appears here on Invention, along with musicians Pierre Berthet and Jan Schade who both performed for years with my ensemble, The Orchestra of Excited Strings.

As I developed this work in the late 1980s, events in Eastern and Central Europe were illuminating a part of Europe which had been hidden behind what was then called the “Iron Curtain”. Further historical development had been frozen since 1945. The cultural and political world within which my libretto navigates, had been largely unknown other than to a few specialists. Interestingly, it was at the premiere of the opera in Vienna in 1991, in a city where the public had been educated in the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that the long forgotten place names and biographical details could again resonate. Today, we are accustomed to the nationalist earthquakes which continue to rock the region, yet we are still largely ignorant of the violent forces which were damp-ened by post-War Communism.

In my many works with this text I have treated Who’s Who in Central & East Europe 1933 as a canonic text: a “given” or “closed” text to which nothing can be added, as in the Talmudic textual tradition. With the aid of a computer, selected text fragments have been dissected and reconstructed, as a simulation of a “guided tour” through chosen paths in an architecture of biographical information. I have largely concentrated my selections on the forgotten lives and the “no longer famous”; (though perhaps individual names might be familiar to East European specialists), whose forgotten voices call out to us now, both singly and in polyphonic chorus as an individual and a “collective” identity and fate.”

—ARNOLD DREYBLATT Berlin, 2010

n.b.k. Concert 2 - Arnold Dreyblatt Ensemble

Documentation of the concert of the Arnold Dreyblatt Ensemble on July 18, 2009 at n.b.k.

Arnold Dreyblatt - Composer, Excited Strings Bass
Konrad Sprenger - Percussion, Electronics
Joachim Schütz - Prepared Electric Guitar

Edited by Marius Babias

DVD, 48 min, Neuer Berliner Kunstverein 2009

ISBN 978-3-89424-991-5

CD, Cantaloupe Records
CD #CA21046

Track List
01 Resonant Relations 33:02
02 twentyfive chords in twentyfive in ninety four variations 12:50

"Resonant Relations":
Recording: Westland Studios, Dublin, Edited by Jörg Hiller, Choose, Berlin, 2005, Engineered by Dave Slevin, Mastered by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin
Crash Ensemble, Dublin: Susan Doyle, flutes, Roderick O'Keeffe, trombone, Deirdre Moynihan, violin, Lisa Grosman, viola, Kate Ellis, cellow, Malachy Robinson, bass, David Adams, harpsichord & keyboards, Steve Kelly, percussion
Commissioned by Crash Ensemble with funds from the Irish Arts Council

"twentyfive chords intwentyfive in ninety four variations":
Engineered, Edited, & Mastered by Jörg Hiller, Choose, Berlin, 2006
Arnold Dreyblatt, Miniature Princess Pianoforte, Excited Strings Bass
Konrad Sprenger, Sinewaves
Composed for the 25th anniversary of Gelbe Musik Berlin. Originally issued in a numbered CD edition of 25 in 2006 by GelbeMusik, Berlin.

On "Resonant Relations" 
With support from the Irish Arts Council in 2004, I was commissioned by the Crash Ensemble, Dublin to compose a new work. During a series of intense working visits over a one and half year period, members the ensemble was introduced to the Dreyblatt tuning system. The Crash Ensemble is the only group outside of my own previous ensembles which has learned to perform in my intonation of 21 unequal tones based on the first eleven partials of the harmonic series and their multiples. The resulting work, "Resonant Relations" was composed for flutes (wooden and metal), trombone, violin, viola, cello, contrabass, harpsichord, and percussion (timpanies, snare and bass drum, metal pieces). The work was first performed at the Sugar Club in Dublin on 27 October 2005 in a program co-curated with Crash artistic director Donnacha Dennehy which included performances of compositions by my two composition teachers La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier.

On "twentyfive chords in twentyfive in ninety four variations"
Gelbe Musik ("Yellow Music") is a gallery and record/cd store in Berlin which specializes in contemporary music. Internationally known, "Gelbe Musik" has become somewhat of an institution in Berlin over the years. For the 25th anniversary in 2006, director Ursula Block asked me to create an exhibition of early scores from 1976-1981, which I entitled, "Working Papers". "twentyfive chords in twentyfive in ninety four variations" was one of two pieces which I composed for the occasion, and which was presented on a limited signed edition CD of 25 copies. The piece proceeds through 95 variations of 25 chords which are based upon the pitch of the 25th harmonic, which is used in my tuning scale.

Cantaloupe Records >>>

YBJ 05

AUSTIN NEW MUSIC CO-OP LIVE 2007

“Kinship Collapse" Part 1 14:23
“Kinship Collapse" Part 2 10:12

Performed by the Austin New Music Co-Op:
Steve Bernal, cello
Brent Fariss, bass
Mikal Hart, horn
Sarah Hennies, percussion
Josh Ronsen, guitar
Travis Weller, violin.

Recorded Live:
Saturday, October 20th, 2007
Ceremony Hall - 4100 Red River, Austin, Texas

“Kinship Collapse” was commissioned by the Austin New Music Co-Op in 2007.
Concert produced by Travis Weller.

Editing and Mastering, Arnold Dreyblatt, 2020
Released September 3, 2020

CD, limited signed edition of 25, 2006

On the occasion of the the 25th Anniversary of the famous gallery and record store in Berlin "Gelbe Music", I was invited by Ursula Block to have an exhibition of early scores and documents (see "Exhibition Music"). For this exhibition I composed two pieces for a special signed and numbered CD edition of 25 which was issued by Gelbe Music in 2006. 

1. twentyfive chords in twentyfive in ninety four variations (12:50) 
2. twentyfive chords in twentyfive in twentyfive variations (3:45)

Recorded , mixed and edited by konrad sprenger at Choose Audio, Berlin, 2006
Miniature princess pianoforte, excited strings kontrabass: Arnold Dreyblatt
Sinewaves: Konrad Sprenger

Re-mastered and released on: https://arnolddreyblattmusic.bandcamp.com/album/chords-in-25-2006

CD, Table of the Elements

Arnold Dreyblatt and the Orchestra of Excited Strings
Live at Federal Hall National Memorial, 1981
TOE-CD-54

The Orchestra of Excited Strings:
Arnold Dreyblatt: Double Bass Viols with Excited Strings
Ruth Charloff: Double Bass Viols with Excited Strings
Randal Baier: Midget Upright Princess Piano Forte
K. Mason Hill: Portable Pipe Organ
Michael Hauenstein: Hurdy Gurdy

Recorded May 28, 1981, Federal Hall National Memorial, NYC
Runnng Time: 50:25

This live CD celebrates the 25th anniversary of Dreyblatt's historic concert at Federal Hall in New York (where George Washington was inaugurated as President). Utilizing the natural resonances of the structure''s spectacular dome, Dreyblatt and co. romp through seven outstanding pieces for just-intoned double basses, piano, hurdy gurdy and pipe organ, emphasizing dynamics and sonorities to stunning acoustical effect.

"Arnold Dreyblatt is a minimalist who never forgot that music is still the human mating call. Anyone who has experienced the composer's recordings with his marvelously-dubbed Orchestra of Excited Strings knows how madly Dreyblatt's pieces swing. They flaunt time as precisely as a Swiss watch. Indeed, music like this can put you in the mind of the whirring cogs and pulleys of some small mechanized device. Everything's moving, twitching about, a bunch of individual sounds racheting up and down in a modulated relationship to all the other individual sounds. This animated playfulness exudes a real charm. Springy rhythms dance with each other, as clipped percussion and purposefully bowed strings generate delightful harmonic chatter." - Tabel of the Elements

"A composer of stature, Dreyblatt has charted his own unique course in modern classical music. Often characterized as the most rock-oriented of American minimalists, his work with the Orchestra of Excited Strings does justice to the moniker...." - Dusted

"...Rewardingly visceral, a dual exploration of how instruments react to the touch and how musicians mesh with each other ... a stellar ensemble." - New York Times

"Transcendental and ecstatic."- Downtown Music Gallery

A Field Guide To Table Of The Elements - Southeastern Edition (2 x CD, Sampler) Compilation., 2006

Table Of The Elements ‎– TOE-CD-90

Arnold Dreyblatt “Star Trap” 6:55

w/ Zeena Parkins, San Agustin, Tony Conrad, Rhys Chatham, Leif Inge

LP, limited edition, Table of the Elements

Lapse, 1995, Live at Theater Spektakel, Zürich, The Orchestra of Excited Strings
Point Source, 1997, Live at Lounge Ax, Chicago, Arnold Dreyblatt, Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drum, David Grubbs

"Table of the Elements presents the Lanthanides, a series of 14 single-sided, limited edition LPs. Each disk is pressed on clear or transparent vinyl, silk-screened on the reverse in glow-in-the-dark ink, and packaged in a clear vinyl sleeve.  As one of the most engaging of the second generation of New York minimal composers, Arnold Dreyblatt has developed a distinctive-and delightfully accessible-approach to composition and performance. Employing modified and invented instruments and a unique tuning system, his music is a vigorously rhythmic and richly textured romp through the natural overtone series. These two outstanding pieces for just-intoned electric guitar, bass violin, cimbalom, percussion and brass emphasize dynamics and sonorities, to stunning acoustical effect." - Second Layer

YBJ 04
“Octet: Music for 32 Strings” 17:10

Commissioned by Saarland Radio SR2, 2002

Recorded Live: Pellegrini-Quartett Freiburg and Saarbrucker Streich-Trio: "Alten Feuerwache", Saarbrücken, 2002

(in Cooperation with the Saarland Statetheater Saarbrucken, Kammermusik-Reihe, und dem Saarl. Rundfunk SR2 - Kulturradio)

Mastered by Arnold Dreyblatt, 2020

Released September 1, 2020

CD, Cantaloupe, CD 21006

Performed by The Orchestra of Excited Strings
1. International Dateline 9:42, 2. The Adding Machine 8:16, 3. Lapse 7:36 , 4. House of Twang 3:12, 5. Meantime 14:33

Musicians: Arnold Dreyblatt, Robert Black, Jeff Liebermann, Laurel P. Smith, Marc Stewart, Danny Tunick, Evan Ziporyn
Recording produced by Evan Ziporyn

Recorded on February 1, 2001 at the Endicott World Music Room, Massachussetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Boston
House of Twang recorded live at Kresge Auditorium, Massachussetts Institute of Technology, January 31, 2001. Monochord built by Marc Stewart at 'The Lab', Rivington Street, N.Y.C.
Edit Reconstruction, Mixing by Jörg Hiller with Arnold Dreyblatt, at the Konrad Sprenger Studio, May - July, 2001, Berlin
Mastered by Hanse Warns with Jörg Hiller and Arnold Dreyblatt at Samples & Frames Studio, August, 2001, Berlin
Parts of this music were composed and rehearsed with support by an award from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts (1997-98), New York and a residency at the Center for the Arts, Massachussetts Institute of Technology (2000-2001), Cambridge. This music was premiered live at Tonic, New York City, January 18 & 19, 2001, in concerts produced by David Weinstein.

"Armed with a small platoon of stringed instruments, percussion and a hurdy-gurdy, composer Arnold Dreyblatt and his ensemble have created what can best be described as an "organic techno" album-that is, techno performed by humans rather than programmed by them, which brings with it inevitable (though slight) human inconsistencies in execution. Plucked and bowed strings of every sort-guitar, cello, bass and zither among them-are set atop dirty fatback drumming, like Led Zeppelin's John Bonham leading a marching band. Short musical ideas are repeated over harmonic pedal-points, changing and evolving frequently enough to avoid a feeling of stasis. The illusion of music moving through three-dimensional space- an effect that great loopers like Plastikman and DJ Shadow create through the clever juxtaposition of static and dynamic musical elements-is not in evidence here. Instead, the delight in Dreyblatt's music comes from the details, the continuously revived freshness in the repeated gestures, and the warm pulse that comes from music actually played by bows, sticks and fingers.
While it's unlikely that Dreyblatt's album will spawn a revolution in electronica, his low-tech techno approach may inspire a new strain of minimalism within classical music, one that draws upon contemporary electronica for inspiration but remains acoustic in execution. Overall, The Adding Machine suffers from a lack of variation among the cuts, but when it all comes together, as in the syncopated, tribal Meantime, the groove is irresistible."  - Ben Finane NY Press

Cantaloupe Records >>>

YBJ01 Bandcamp Release

Recorded Live at Tonic, New York City, January 19, 2001
Remastered, 2020. Concert produced by David Weinstein.

Legendary Concert program shared with Jim O’Rourke and Tony Conrad at Tonic

Evan Ziiporyn: Cimbalom
Robert Black: Double and Excited Bass
Marc Stewart: Electric Guitar; Monochord
Jeff Lieberman: Electric Guitar
Laurel Smith: Violin and Hurdy Gurdy
Danny Tunick: Percussion

1.Dateline 18:04
2.Meantime 17:31
3.Lapse 08:50
4.The Adding Machine 10:23

This Orchestra of Excited Strings was formed in 1999 to perform new compositions for concerts at Tonic in New York in a concert together with Tony Conrad and Jim O'Rourke; followed by performances at MIT and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

The ensemble represented a collaboration drawing from a number of generations. In contrast to the well-known talents of Bang On A Can All-Stars members (Evan Ziporyn, Marc Stewart and Robert Black), Jeff Lieberman and Laurel P. Smith, both graduates from MIT were both in their early 20's. Danny Tunick, with his extensive background in both rock/punk and classical styles, provides a solid driving force which is inspiring for the entire ensemble.

January 20, 2001

MUSIC REVIEW: New York Times
”Concentration Can Have Its Rewards”
By ANN POWERS

One could say that the entire history of my work in music has been derived from a single, subjective experience with sound," the composer Arnold Dreyblatt wrote in the program notes to a 1986 performance by his Orchestra of Excited Strings. "It is this experience which generates the music ideas - and not the other way around." This emphasis on the gut over the mind has had a deeply positive effect on his music, which he and a stellar ensemble performed Thursday and yesterday at Tonic.

The intuitive aspect of Mr. Dreyblatt's work does not overshadow its intellectuality. A major figure in the minimalist lineage that connects LaMonte Young to Sonic Youth, Mr. Dreyblatt, who is 48, writes pieces that demand deep concentration and benefit from the listener's prior knowledge. Enacting theories of acoustics and harmonics that relate as much to physics as to Western composition, his works can sound not just repetitive but almost mechanical to the casual ear. Titles like "The Adding Machine," which concluded Thursday's early set, indicate that Mr. Dreyblatt welcomes such associations.

In concert, however, his music is rewardingly visceral, a dual exploration of how instruments react to the touch and how musicians mesh with each other. The five pieces given their premieres on Thursday found the harmonics in rhythm and the cadences of harmony.

The first featured only Mr. Dreyblatt, playing his prepared "excited bass," and the drummer Danny Tunick. The composer performed the "beating drone," fast, swooping chops against the strings, producing a sound that recalled a pianist's plucking of his instrument's strings. Lightly fingering the instrument's neck, he produced overtones of the astounding kind heard in Asian throat singing.

Mr. Dreyblatt, who very rarely performs, left the stage after welcoming an ensemble that included the Bang on a Can All-Stars Mark Stewart, on cello and guitar, Robert Black, on bass, and Evan Ziporyn, on a gamelan-style metallophone, with Laurel Smith on violin and hurdy- gurdy and Jeff Lieberman on guitar. Mr. Tunick sounded a military drumbeat that became one pulse in an interactive explosion.

The ensemble sped into an interaction that was limited melodically but extremely nuanced in its multiple pulsing rhythms and frequencies. On one level, this was "the sound of one string," to quote the title of the recent compilation of Mr. Dreyblatt's works on the Table of the Elements label. But inside that unity, deep complexity arose as each musician slightly shifted tempo and tone.

Each piece offered a different perspective into sound's journey in and out of what is commonly called music.

Sometimes the images conveyed were organic, as the playing proliferated like a single-celled organism dividing. Sometimes they were more abstract, stimulating heady questions about big subjects like mathematics and time. Always, though, the music was also fun, both for the players, who rocked and grinned at its physical challenges, and for the audience, asked to play the fulfilling game of paying full attention.

This set initiated a two-day celebration of minimalist music that would feature the pioneering composer Tony Conrad and the younger avant-rock stars Thurston Moore and Jim O'Rourke. Mr. O'Rourke took the stage immediately after the ensemble departed and offered a soothing counterpart to its clamor.

Mr. O'Rourke is best known for his guitar work, but this evening he explored electronica. Using a Powerbook and a mixing board, he composed a dreamscape of vibrations. Bells, strings, a snippet of a choir, woodwinds and unidentifiable buzzes collided and merged in the gentle yet portentous blend. It was an adagio for cyborgs, reaching through space for the same organic awareness Mr. Dreyblatt has found in seemingly simpler machines.

CD, on "Renegade Heaven", Cantaloupe
Cantaloupe CA21001
Bang On A Can All-Stars

Special thanks to Evan Zyporyn

In 1986-87 I began working on a "digital dynamic processing system" for a commission at Ars Electronica in Linz in 1987 and further developed this in a residency at STEIM in Amsterdam in 1989. This system was triggered with recorded machine tracks and interacts with acoustic instruments. Its basis are recordings of the rhythms produced by a number of malfunctioning escalators on the Blvd. Ansbach in Brussels which I made in 1987. In this version of Escalator, I notated repetitive rhythmic patterns found in these recordings and scored them for cimbalom, prepared electric guitar and cello, later adding layers of percussion, saxophone and prepared "excited strings" bass in collaboration with the musicians The first performance of “Escalator” for the Bang in a Can All-Stars in 1995 was the first occasion where my music has been played by an ensemble other than my own. The piece had its beginnings in a duet performance piece with percussionist Pierre Berthet in Belgium in 1988, and it has been performed in various transformations by The Orchestra of Excited Strings over the years. - Arnold Dreyblatt

"Arnold Dreyblatt's Escalator is based on recordings of malfunctioning escalators. The band would hammer away on one note while the drums pounded with Beefheartian rhythms. Tense harmonies abruptly gave way to gentler sections while still maintaining typical Dreyblatt rhythms. Escalator sounded less like a malfunctioning escalators than an insanely mad town orchestra. Bang On A Can should commission more works by New York City microtonalists like Branca and Dreyblatt." - Juxtaposition Ezine

"Arnold Dreyblatt's Escalator took drumbeats based on the rhythms of malfunctioning Belgian escalators and topped them with chords in untempered tunings, sounding both ramshackle and jaunty." - New York Times

Cantaloupe Records >>>

CD, Table of the Elements

"Live and previously unreleased recordings: 1979-1991, including classic works like Nodal Excitation, Propellers in Love, etc. Dreyblatt's music focuses on the harmonic possibilities of stringed music and heightened sound awareness and this is an important and supremely pleasurable sound document of his works. Includes music for various combinations of prepared double bass, miniature princess pianoforte, hurdy gurdy, pipe organ, French horn, trombone, violin, percussion, electric guitars, electronics, cimbalom, tuba, voice, etc.  Arnold Dreyblatt is a major contributor to American minimalism; yet his efforts to date, like those of fellow composers Rhys Chatham and Tony Conrad, have been conspicuously underdocumented. The tracks compiled on The Sound Of One String range from early solo performances to digital studio recordings of Dreyblatt's full ensemble; together these comprise the first comprehensive retrospective of a remarkable, twenty-year career." - Table of the Elements"

"The Sound of One String may be (Dreyblatt's) best album. It's a collection of recordings from the late 70's to the early 90's, some solo, some featuring his group, The Orchestra of Excited Strings. Dreyblatt's music is primarily concerned with the manipulation of various string instruments to produce ghost-like overtones and harmonics. The wide variety of instrumentation here (everything from e-bowed guitars to hurdy-gurdys to a conventional string ensemble) brilliantly displays the range and musicality of Dreyblatt's sound experiments." - David Licht, Pulse.

"An expat composer, Dreyblatt has studied and played with Alvin Lucier, Pauline Oliveros, and LaMonte Young. His music is precise, gorgeous, and rich, based on the ringing, overlapping tones of droning, "excited" strings and other instruments. In his 19 years of making minimalist/maximalist music, Dreyblatt has only released three full-length works, each of which combines the visceral wallop of primitive rock & roll with the ethereal, glistening, timbral qualities of the finest orchestral string section. Fans of Phill Niblock, Tony Conrad, and the Deep Listening Band will be pleasantly excited by this collection of experiments, live recordings, and unreleased shorter works that include horns, percussion, a variety of prepared string instruments, and hurdy-gurdy put to exquisite, levitating use". - Mike McGonigal

1. Nodal Excitation (Solo) 7:20
2. E-Bow Blues 3:07
3. Nodal Excitation (Excerpt) 4:47
4. March of the Nodes in Formation 5:55
5. The Odd Fellows 4:22
6. Propellers in Love 10:47
7. Damping Influence 5:35
8. Die Luftmenchen 5:36
9. End Correction 6:50
10. Music for Small String Orchestra 13:43
11. Dirge Relations 5:14

CD Tzaddik Records
TZ 7004
Produced by John Zorn

Performed by The Orchestra of Excited Strings:
Point Rotation
Next Slide
Animal Magnetism
Group Velocity
Side Band
Flashbulb History
Epilogue

"While I really like everything of Arnold's, especially the more "heroic" parts of Nodal Excitations and Propellors in Love, this is the record that really steps out as the first genuinely new sound in maybe 10 years. It's as if the Dirty Dozen Brass band got a hold of some of Arnold's records and decided to give it a go. I cannot overstate how unbelievably brilliant this record is. When played loud, I firmly stand by my declaration that it is one of the 4 or so best records ever made". - Jim O'Rourke

"The bright, punchy staccato nature of Dreyblatt's compositons allude to some of Michael Nyman's early ensemble works, a character further emphasized by the dynamic constraints of the instrumentation... ...Dreyblatt wants you to listen through the beats in order to connect with the overtone structures and resonant sound features bouncing off the rhythmic surfaces... ...I've certainly grown to love it.' - David Illic, The Wire Magazine Soundcheck Winner October, 1995 

"This particular release from 1995 is initially striking because of its pure energy. I guarantee that it's one of the few releases you'll find featuring "classical" instruments which encourages you to "listen at maximum volume!" Dreyblatt also uses a wider palette than most Minimalists, as his Orchestra of Excited Strings actually consists of strings, horns, percussion, and just-intonation guitar. Yet he holds the same concern with microtonal structure that Conrad does, just through more propulsive music. Some people back in the Seventies used to talk about how the music of Steve Reich and Phillip Glass was somehow related to "rock," but those charlatans don't have anything on Arnold Dreyblatt. - Pataphysics Research Journal

CD, A Haymish Groove, Extra Platte EX 316 155

Two tracks recorded for a project of Geduldig and Tihimann (Vienna) for their CD project in 1992 in collaboration with my old collegue and friend Andy Statman. Also on this CD are pieces by Guy Klucevek and Eliot Sharp. We recorded in Brooklyn after a concert by the Orchestra of Excited Strings at La Mamma. I invited Andy Statman to play these pieces live with the ensemble at the 10th anniversary of the Berlin Orchestra of Excited Strings in Podewil in 1993.. - Arnold Dreyblatt

eyn luftmensch in Lahore, The Orchestra of Excited Strings w/Andy Statman (composed & arr. Arnold Dreyblatt) 3:53
Maximoffs Doina, Orchestra of Excited Strings w/Andy Statman (composed & arr. Arnold Dreyblatt) 5:12

“In Geluid”
Compilation Cassette Edition issued by De Salon, Groningen

“End Correction”, Arnold Dreyblatt and Pierre Berthet, Live Performance recorded at Grand Theater, Groningen

”Music for String Orchestra” Arnold Dreyblatt Conductor, String Ensemble Workshop, Prime Foundation

YBJ03 Bandcamp Release

Arnold Dreyblatt and Pierre Berthet

May 31, 1988, Recorded Live in Concert at De Salon, Grand Theater, Groningen, Netherlands

Never released before in its entirety.

Arnold Dreyblatt: Electric Guitars and Dynamic Processing Electronics
Pierre Berthet: Percussion

Re-Mastered by Arnold Dreyblatt: 2020

1.Basque Drum 07:15

2.Gate Decay 06:33

3.Fuzzy Dice 05:41

4.End Correction 22:28. (Full Version)

YBJ02 Bandcamp Release

Concert of Music by Arnold Dreyblatt and The Orchestra of Excited Strings

Legendary Live Concert of The Orchestra of Excited Strings after the studio recording of “Propellers in Love”

Recorded Live at Petöfi Csarnok, Budapest, October, 1985; organized by Tibor Szemzö and Group 180

Mastered by Arnold Dreyblatt 2020

Jan Schade: Modified "Princess" Piano
Arnold Dreyblatt and Dirk Lebahn: Excited Strings Bass
Wolfgang Mettler: Violin
Wolfgang Glum: Percussion

1.Harmonics 09:31

2.Odd & Even 11:59

3.Solo for Snare Drum 02:33

4.Bowing 06:20

5.Pedal Tone Dance 04:06

6.Propellers in Love 15:43

LP, Super Viaduct, SF, 2017
CD, Hat Art Records, Switzerland; 1986, CD 6011
LP, Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, 1985

Harmonics
Odd & Even
Bowing
Pedal Tone Dance
Propellers In Love
Lucky Strike

High Life (extra track on CD)

"Arnold Dreyblatt is one of the great architects of the second wave Minimalism. A student of Pauline Oliveros, La Monte Young, and Alvin Lucier, and a close friend and collaborator of Ellen Fullman, the bassist and composer was a definitive voice among the early 1980’s New York avant-garde, before relocating to Berlin in 1984. Recording shortly after his arrival and released by the Künstlerhaus Bethanien’s imprint for radical efforts in sound, Propellers In Love stands as one of the most important works of its era - entirely rethinking the meaning and approaches of Minimalism. This tragically overlooked series of recordings present Dreyblatt as the crucial link between his own generation, and those who proceeded him - embracing the metronomic rhythms favored by Steve Reich, and the resonances of just intonation charted by La Monte Young, while moving toward more complex structures, dissonances, and tonal relationships which came to define the work of many of his peers. Featuring an ensemble - The Orchestra Of Excited Strings, playing percussion and stringed instruments largely adapted, modified, or prepared by Dreyblatt, Propellers In Love is a beating heart - an optimistic image of the multitude of possibility within the future of the avant-garde. The title track - stretching across the album’s first side, is a seething world of dissonance, harmonics, and ecstatic rhythm - a rattling world of astounding beauty, and the link between Charlemagne Palestine and the then emerging efforts of Glenn Branca, Rhys Chatham, and Terry Fox. The second side - dedicated to the work High Life, finds the ensemble shifting toward bowed strings - building a rising sea of complex tone and overtone - a shimmering body of endurant sound. An absolutely incredible record - as good as Minimalism gets - immersive, overwhelming, and as accessible as it is challenging. The thought that it has been out of print on vinyl for nearly 35 years is nothing short of sin. Grab it before it goes, this one won’t be around long." - Soundohm, 2017

"Dreyblatt's ensemble, consisting of altered, adapted, and prepared instruments are in just intonation and play drones or repeated tones, setting up heady resonances with a contiually changing and complex matrix of overtones. By adding drums and other percussion, and by writing fast, sometimes furious tempos, Dreyblatt avoids the dreamy and sometimes stultifying effect that is a part of so much drone music. The entire six-part title track is lively and vibrant. High Life is similar in spirit to La Monte Young and Alvin Lucier, with its nonstop drone and lavish array of overtones to inspect and exult in." -Option

"Arnold Dreyblatt's ensemble performed a bright, colorful work for winds, strings, guitars, cimbalom... ...an essentially minimalist impulse and a spirit that's multi-cultural: its heavy drum beat and the freewheeling, almost manic quality of its string and wind writing made parts of the work seem a stew of primitive, ritual musics, both Asian and African.' -The New York Times

 

LP, India Navigation, produced by Phil Niblock and Bob Cummings, 1982
CD, Dexter's Cigar, Drag City, Chicago, Remastering, Produced by Jim O'Rourke,  CD DEX 15, 1996
LP, Drag City, Chicago, 2015

"New York, early 80's, very early. Studio 54 is hosted by a hologram, the Mudd Club is already an institution, and The Clash's first appearance in New York is in a giant casino, with a full-sized Zeppelin at the door. Not exactly a receptive pond for the next wave of adventurous music. Some names did pop up, harkening to a past of lofts and all-night concert events. In the late 60s and early 70s, Philip Glass, Tony Conrad, along with John Cale and LaMonte Young, Terry Riley and others were closing the gap between that blissed-out eternal mantra and the side door of rock. By the late 80's most of it had been forgotten, including one amazing character, Arnold Dreyblatt. Dreyblatt only had one record, Nodal Excitation (on the mostly post-AACM jazz label India Navigation), before he packed and moved to Berlin, where he concentrated on his other activities, making only two more records over the next 10 years. But for those who caught the action, Arnold was the man. He was more rock that any of the others combined, and he was also the only one to really tap into that massive proto-minimal sound that Conrad had squelched out of his tin-contact mic violin in the early 60s. He got interested in long string sounds, and bought a bass that he wired with piano wire. By hitting the strings instead of bowing them, Dreyblatt was able to get those ringing overtones, but he also had added something new: pure rhythm. In 1998, dexter's cigar were on the scene, excavating the valuable stuff from that semi-recent past for Nodal Excitation's first-ever appearance on CD. It brought it into a lot of new ears - but times have changed and so have the ears. So what you have here is the first-ever LP reissue of Arnold Dreyblatt's freshman record, a slice of minimal history that is STILL as potent now, if not more, as it was in '98 and '81 before it. It was a lighthouse that was aiming the wrong way when the tugboat came by, but now it's shining right in your face." - Drag City, 2015

"Nodal Excitation is a reissue of a key minimalist masterwork. Dreyblatt's documentation in the past has been slim, with albums on Hat Art, Tzadik and (shortly) Table of the Elements. This album features a 39 minute performance by Arnold's group known as The Orchestra of Excited Strings, recorded in 1981/82 "Dreyblatt only had one record Nodal Excitation (on the mostly post-AACM jazz label India Navigation), before he packed and moved to Berlin, were he concentrated on other activities, making only 2 more records over the next 10 years. But for those who caught the action, Arnold was the man. He was more rock than any of the other minimalists combined, and he was also the only one to really tap into that massive proto-minimal sound that Conrad had squelched out of his tin-contact mic violin in the early 60s. Indeed, in the early 70s, after being in school in Buffalo, where Conrad taught, Dreyblatt moved into Manhattan to work for LaMonte Young, where he witnessed first hand, and listened first-ear to those legendary recordings of the Theatre of Eternal Music. He got interested in long string sounds, and bought a bass that he wired with piano wire. By hitting the strings instead of bowing them, Dreyblatt was able to get those ringing overtones, but he also had added something new: pure rhythm...So what you have here is Dreyblatt's freshman record, a slice of minimal history that is as potent now, if not more, as it was then. It was a lighthouse that was aiming the wrong way when the tugboat came by, but now it's shining right in your face." - Drag City Press Release

'Sounding almost like dulcimers, the bowed basses begin compositions with insistent, percussive rhythms, before the rest of the ensemble gradually enters, creating dense walls of organ and hurdy-gurdy drone. The hammered 'excited strings' speed up and slow down, churning out ringing passages that shift from melodic to dissonant and back. - Badaboom Gramophone

Nodal Excitation is a mesmerising drone composition in six movements with a sound far larger than the instruments with which it was made. Recorded in 1981, it totally rocks. Never mind that the music is consistently melodic and absolutely beautiful. And while not much happens on the small scale of listening, if you let yourself just listen to the whole thing, you'll feel at least as swept away as you were by Minor Threat's cover of '12XU'... ...This music will rattle yor skull and shake the worms out of your apples. It's pretty good. - Mike McDonigal, New York Press

"Reissue of a key minimalist masterwork. Dreyblatt's documentation in the past has been slim, with albums on Hat Art, Tzadik and (shortly) Table of the Elements. This album features a 39 minute performance by Arnold's group known as The Orchestra of Excited Strings, recorded in 1981/82 Dreyblatt, Michael Hauenstein (bass violas with Excited Strings), Peter Phillips (Midget Upright Pianoforte), Kraig Hill (Portable Pipe Organ) & Greg Lewis (Hurdy Gurdy). "Dreyblatt only had one record Nodal Excitation (on the mostly post-AACM jazz label India Navigation), before he packed and moved to Berlin, were he concentrated on other activities, making only 2 more records over the next 10 years. But for those who caught the action, Arnold was the man. He was more rock than any of the other minimalists combined, and he was also the only one to really tap into that massive proto-minimal sound that Conrad had squelched out of his tin-contact mic violin in the early 60s. Indeed, in the early 70s, after being in school in Buffalo, where Conrad taught, Dreyblatt moved into Manhattan to work for LaMonte Young, where he witnessed first hand, and listened first-ear to those legendary recordings of the Theatre of Eternal Music. He got interest in long string sounds, and bought a bass that he wired with piano wire. By hitting the strings instead of bowing them, Dreyblatt was able to get those ringing overtones, but he also had added something new: pure rhythm...So what you have here is Dreyblatt's freshman record, a slice of minimal history that is as potent now, if not more, as it was then. It was a lighthouse that was aiming the wrong way when the tugboat came by, but now it's shining right in your face." - Bob Simons

Nodal Excitation LP Reissue >>>