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CD in 4 panel digipak
• Birth Dream (13:03)
• Journey (47:29)
• Arrival (18:18) mp3
total time 78:54
York University's music department houses one of the UK's first ever electronic music studios, and during the early seventies it was a hotbed of creative activity. Much of the released output from the studio at this time revolved around the work of the dynamic composer Trevor Wishart. Journey Into Space was his first release, composed between 1970 and 72, and was privately pressed (shortly before the formation of YES records), as two separate LP's in 1973. (The CD cover amalgamates the 2 original designs). Along with other early private releases of experimental music in the UK (ie the LP of sound poems by Cobbing/Jandl, or the LP of musique concrète by Desmond Leslie), this record is also a total anomaly in the canon of British experimental music and has little to do with the current, or even subsequent work by Wishart. The vast length of this piece has many different styles. There are acoustic sections, mostly of junk and toys (bike bells, squeeze horns, bottles, metal tubes, combs etc.) as well as flute and brass sections that are used as raw material. There are also sections of everyday field recordings, scraps of NASA Apollo transmissions, as well as plenty of multitracking, editing, vocal acrobatics and musique concrète. Among the 48 participants credited on the original sleeve are a whole roster of York University alumni including nearly all the artists who were showcased on the then unreleased 3LP box set 'Electronic Music From York', along with other noteworthy students as diverse as Steve Beresford, Jonty Harrison, Roger Marsh, Dominic Muldowney, Bernard Rands and Jan Steele. The co-operative spirit of York's music and drama departments, plus the raw enthusiasm and open attitude of the participants involved in the project gave this music an immediacy, similar to the later LAFMS scene.
REVIEWS
ABSURD
Starting the navigation w/ a release which I at last managed to
purchase recently and its title says it all "Journey into Space"
the reissue of Trevor Wishart's devastating 2lp set that was issued
in 73 and which luckily for us ol'boy clive @ paradigm managed to reissue
some time ago. As Wishart himself mentions on the lp's back cover (on
the case reprinted on the cd's back cover) notes "Journey into
Space, is the allegorical journey of a man towards self-realisation",
which I believe can be by itself a great explanation of the "journey"
that floats within this reissue's sound waves. Strangely I had the same
& stronger feeling as I had w/ "red bird/anticredos" when
I heard it ages ago, for me in these 2 works (without underestimating
AT ALL the rest) Wishart has a kind of magic to create his soundscapes
in such a way that will make you stare at your loudspeakers flabbergasted,
and impress you with his soundscapes. One of the very few composers
who has the ability to play & construct sounds which speak truly
of themselves, a gift which I truly believe that not many people have.
As happens in this bizarre "journey" w/ field recordings,
tapes and whatever (created w/ the contribution of various friends of
Trevor's, such as Steve Beresford, Cliff Atkinson, Ruth Andrews to name
but a few) making it a purely (& unaltered from time) milestone
MASTERPIECE!!!!! (Nicolas Malevitsis)
ALL
MUSIC GUIDE
This album truly is something different. Predating Wishart's excellent
'Red Bird' (reissued in the 1990s on the CD 'Red Bird/Anticredos), 'Journey
Into Space' was composed over the course of three years (1970-1972)
and self-released the next year in the form of two separate LPs sold
by the composer himself. In early 2002 the label Paradigm reissued the
complete work on one CD. With its total duration of 79 minutes (quite
ambitious in those days) and its then-unique amalgam of concrete sounds,
tamplered bits of free improvisation and scored musical events, the
work stands out. Yes, as Wishart himself points out in the new liner
notes, some transitions are crude. Someone listening to it without a
historical perspective could easily find many examples of naive sound
juxtapositions and overtly explicit symbolism (especially when compared
to the complex networks of symbols found in 'Red Bird'). Nevertheless
the piece still holds a pioneer freshness and commands respect. Plus,
those who prefer tape compositions that follow a narrative will be charmed
by the underlying allegory which takes us from a 'Birth Dream' to a
'Journey' in which a man's 'day in the life' parallels a rocket launching
and the eventual expansion of Life's understanding found in the metaphysical
'Arrival.' The space theme, most probably inspired by Neil Armstrong's
moonwalk (still a news event when Wishart started to work on this) is
what dates the piece. Furthermore it gives it some sort of psychedelic
aura -- the sequence in which the man wakes up and prepares to go to
work can't help but recall Pink Floyd's 'Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast'.
The instrumental passages include contributions from a cast of York
University alumni, including students Jonty Harrison and Steve Beresford.
Despite its flaws, Journey into Space remains a fascinating listen and
an important document from a key period in avant-garde music history. (François Couture)
AUDION #47
This is one of those releases that I have never been able to make
up my mind on, and I still can't. The original vinyl was incredibly
difficult to listen to, as with so many silences the vinyl noise could
be the loudest part at some points, and also in being split over 4 LP
sides, the intended continuity was lost. With this CD release the quality
and continuity are corrected for a perfect listening experience, yet
it's still no simple album to explore.
The very nature of vast parts of this being just pure sound collage
(or, just sound with no collage) and only moments of musical and/or
constructed focus, make it an environment to be absorbed in, rather
than a normal musical experience. Trevor's own notes say that he now
considers the work over-long, but I don't really think so, not when
it's listened to in the right context, as a background environment,
a blind-man's film so-to-speak. And after all, it does get pretty musical
in a Henze/pousseur type fashion towards the end. A most welcome reissue
indeed!
BANANAFISH
Some twenty years
ago when the scientusts of Philips were putting the finishing touches
on the shiny plastic medium that now adorns so many homes, they were
briefly released from the wool-lined cocoons whence they secreted the
miraculous goo that became compact discs.
"Fliegher mumulandia" said the president, which translates
roughly as "Our stockholders are plucking their nose hairs in consternation."
The new marketing techniques were in place, and the lustre of the discs
a splendor to behold, but, inexplicably, no one had decided on an ideal
length. "Glench kurtilinka!" he cried with exasperation and
vehemence requiring no translation.
Cowering in the corners of the white-walled office, hiding from the
sun denied them so many months, the scientists remained quiet, afraid
that the smallest sound might awaken yet another storm of wrath. However,
their silence only made matters worse, as the president began spinning
in counterclockwise circles, his fingers lengthening into hissing, floppy
eels, spittle flying off his purple lips and burning the faces of the
unfortunate in its path.
After a torturously long time, which may have been only a few seconds,
one of the workers, an elderly woman whose hair had been braided into
hammocks in which nearly all of the others had slept as infants, spoke
up.
"Just tell us," she rasped, her voice creaking like a spiders
exoskeleton frozen atop a pond, "Tell us how long you would like
to listen. Shall we make your music last an hour, a day? For the amount
of time it takes you to rub the jade stick within the opened durian,
or for the time it takes to grow a new fruit until it, too, is ripe?"
The president decelerated, discharging frothing missives the whole time.
Most of his monologue was lost in the Doppler'd reverberations bouncing
off the chandeliers and vases, but the relieved scientists caught enough
of his message: "I should be able to listen to Trevor Wishart's
Journey Into Space, originally released as two LP's in 1973, without
needing to pause between sides or records."
It has taken nearly twenty years, but Paradigm Discs has at last fulfilled
the Philips president's dream. Finally, this collage of Scratch Orchestra-style
scoring, rudimentary overtone singing, scattershot brass, and deeply
resonant beer-bottle-blowing can be listened to in one seventy-eight-minute
sitting - or, for most people, listened to at all. Had he not been so
adamant about reproducing the entirety of both albums, in 2003 we would
not be privy to some of the more obvious elements of this piece (the
narrative found sounds such as alarm clock, yawns, belches, and other
morning noises familiar to anyone who's ever awakened); historical accuracy
and completeness justifiably call "Shotgun!" here, making
any revisionist editing take the windy back seat. It was the
early '70's after all, when a lot of chiming bells and endearing newborns
were expected to sit beside quick tape splicing and unidentifiable spectral
gurgling. At last, science has been put into the service of art, and
Wishart's nascent collage can be experienced in all its youthful, stimulating
glory. (Alesandro
Moreschi III)
BRAINWASHED
Trevor Wishart's legendary electroacoustic trip from the yawning
York University breakfast table into the off planet starmind vacuum
originally span onto two bits of vinyl way back in 1973. Now Paradigm
have rescued it to aluminium bit-coded posterity, in all it's lo-fi
collaged glory, with a slightly off putting sleeve note from the composer
who seems embarrassed by the naivities he now finds in the execution
of his first release. Three years in the making, 'Journey Into Space'
mixes up free improvised junk toy fiddling, clocks ticking, rocket launch
blasts, slamming doors, heartbeats and haunted chain rattling, with
a hell of a lot of tubular bell bashing along the way. Wishart mixed
and remixed field recordings and captures with improvised and scored
contributions from 48 musicians, including Steve Beresford and Jonty
Harrison. The opening thirteen minutes of deep bowed string drone, gurgling
grey hospital limbo groans and creaks and jingling bells might feel
right at home on your favourite Nurse With Wound album or sat alongside
the admittedly more tidy and better recorded Throbbing Gristle masterpiece
'Journey Through a Body.' This is a perhaps a genuinely seminal work,
which might have had as much if not more influence on the outsider industrial
scene as the academic corridors from which it crept slowly. The "Birth"
intro winds out with distant choirs singing odd hymns to a crying new
baby. The least successful sequence is the man waking, yawning, belching
and generally farting about that starts the almost fifty minute 'Journey,'
which continues with a car zooming off into the quaint honking city.
Suddenly a fanfare heralds a rocket launch amongst the dwindling traffic
noise and the scene shifts, planets dwindle, time slips. The rocket
engine roar eats everything until discordant anti-vacuum bells dissolve
into the silence of space. Strange new worlds open up in alien instrumention.
Distant radio crackles in from homeworld. Chiming into the void new
forms take shape from hazy fluting, and an alien city emerges from the
blue bell fog. Inside they're having a good ol' B-movie tentacle party,
ritually squeezing honk horns, until the nightmare giant babies google
in from the black and white swamplands and the first word is spoken
by chanting nose-monks. It's hard to hear this without being reminded
of early 1970s sci-fi classics 'Solaris' and '2001.' 2002: Lost in space
the land that time forgot is remembered and reissued. (Graeme Rowland)
i/e
A remarkable accomplishment, only available as a cassette, now reissued
on aluminum by one of new music's few truly essential labels. Journey
Into Space was completed by Trevor Wishart in 1975, after two years
of labor, and self-released by the artist on two LPs. In his 'anti-score'
travelogue companion booklet (available separately), Wishart sketches
out his intentions for the piece, describing the varying levels of sound
collection that acted as the compsition's ingredients. He describes
(in 1975) the tape machine as the most significant development in Western
music since the advent of notation, whose regime tape technology now
overthrows. Wishart sketches out a liberal plan for himself, briefly
touching upon the idea of a sound-art that is bound neither to musicianship
nor the dictates of musique concrète, but incorporates multiple
levels of production ethos and recording strategies. This is not, however,
a technological 'total work' but, for Wishart, a shifting surrealist
juxtaposition of audio representations and the unrepresentable other,
lying in wait inside the tape edit. The music - and Wishart does make
a point of calling it music - takes on the form of a phantasmagoric
movement from one sonic situation to the next, making 'natural' the
seamed transitions from one cluster of sounds onward. It's easy to see
how this piece could find its antecedent in so much dissident studio-as-instrument
work: namecheck Steven Stapleton/Nurse With Wound or Richard Young's
kaleidoscopic studio assemblages. Wishart's modus is the confusion of
the audio object, and this seminal piece of oddball tape genius is proof
of his throneworthiness in the cut-up underground. (K. Scott Handley)
RECORD COLLECTOR
(May 02 No. 273)
Paradigm's continuing journey into the nether reaches of experimental
music has unearthed another gem.
Trevor Wishart's work comes from the early 70s hotbed of electronic
music, York University. Journey Into Space was originally two
separate LPs released in 1973, and this is their first reissue as a
combined entity. And what a marvel it is - a veritable journey into
sonic experimentation.
The 47-minute title track opens with the sound of a man waking, dressing
and then taking a car journey, and this 'ambient' piece continues with
spliced-up tape snippets of field recordings, vocal gymnastics and many
unmusical moments.
It's a challenging piece and - like the best ambient esoterica - is
probably best listened to under the cover of darkness, where it can
soundtrack your personal visions. (Trevor King)
The SOUND PROJECTOR
10
Yet another excellent 'rescued' item from the past of experimental
music. The more of these things that come to light, the more that we
have to reassess and reappraise our supposed understanding of the chronology
and history of events. Well, the music experts may have to do that -
fortunately I knew next to nothing in the first place, so I'm just grateful
for whatever extra snippets of information I can pick up. Eddie Prevost's
Silver Pyramid would be just such a reissue, if only I had time to write
about it this issue. The MEV reissue from Alga Marghen is also an important
and little-heard part of the history of improvisation in the 1960s.
Whichever way you cut it, it was superb music then and it's equally
superb now, and ripe for our enjoyment. This Trevor Wishart item is
a significant part of the legacy of UK electro-acoustic composition,
but also opens a window on the York University 'scene' of the early
1970s. (For further information on this little-known chapter, it seems
a triple LP box set called Electronic Music From York is on its way.)
In the early 1970s, men were men. The music and drama departments at
York fostered a collaborative spirit and added to the power of this
music. 48 participants and players (presumably students, colleagues,
and friends), along with some who became important and famous, are listed
on the sleeve; hopefully, they were earnest bearded intellectuals to
a man, unashamed to accept offers of appearing on Open University documentaries
to show the public what 'modern music' is all about. This unusual release
was originally a private press item, two vinyl LPs available by mail
order from Wishart at the music department. Describing it as 'a total
anomaly in the canon of British experimental music' , Clive Graham compares
the original vinyl with Desmond Leslie's LP of musique concr?te and
Bob Cobbing's sound poems LP. It turns out that the music is quite untypical
of what Wishart would later go on to produce, but remains well-loved
by all who heard it, even if Wishart now rather wishes he could live
it down. 'Journey into Space was a transitional and important work for
me when I made it,' he admits, 'but as a whole I now find it over-long,
many transitions too pedestrian, and its treatment of ideas too crude.
It's almost embarrassingly late 60s!' I find it absolutely gorgeous,
particularly the field recording segments of the long track which are
almost like an aural document of a vanished, 1970s, three-day week Britain.
Over 78 minutes of music here, kids; bring your own packed lunches.
The marathon kicks off with 'Birth Dream', 13 minutes of bottle-blowing
music with added dings and chimes, and a low groaning vocal noise suggesting
of birth pangs, or floating in amniotic fluid. Remember that Kubrick's
Star-Child was observed not long before this, an image etched in the
memory of any sensible person who beheld it. More outer-space high jinks
follow in 'Journey', where Wishart uses NASA samples and the sound of
rockets taking off, long before anyone else was doing it (with the possible
exception of Astral Navigations, the underground progressive rock LP).
The Apollo moon programme was well under way at this time and its powerful
images and sounds abounded on the television sets of the UK, quite often
with informed commentary from James Burke and Raymond Baxter. But Wishart
is not filled with childish Buck Rogers dreams of life among the planets.
His 'Journey' is partly mundane, quotidian, depicting a man awaking,
turning off his alarm clock, climbing out of bed, washing, and driving
down the motorway. His car journey is transformed into a space odyssey
by the simple juxtaposition of the engine noise with an overlaid Saturn
missile roaring. Halfway through, he stops to refill with petrol. These
are all very 'narrative' elements, and almost naive, but gorgeous; this
is almost like the early Monty Python LP track which poses the quiz
question, 'Which famous film director is this, getting up in the morning?'
- following it with a sound collage which could be absolutely anybody
getting up in the morning. And I mean no disrespect with that observation,
believe me. Wishart and Python might not be that far apart. The field
recordings are gradually overtaken by the compositional elements; minimalist
percussion and bell music, overlaid with treated motorway sounds. Electro-acoustic
at its very best, and soon to get better; the composition grows increasingly
mad. Chimes, babies screaming, heartbeats, clangs, noises and radio
sets; 'plenty of multi-tracking, editing, vocal acrobatics and musique
concr?te', as Clive Graham's sleeve note says. The closing track 'Arrival'
is where all of the elements are brought together in a psychedelic freak-out
style - preceded by lots of doors opening, we're assaulted by a melange
of insane flutes, more bells and chimes, random grunts and yelps and
inane chants from the York student brigade, while fragments of the original
'Journey' tapes seep into the fabric. All wonderful stuff; who could
fail to be entertained? The best package yet from Paradigm; it reproduces
an exact facsimile of the original LP back cover, and conflates the
two front covers into a new striking compound design. Inside are fragments
from the original score, or 'antiscore', copies of which can be ordered
from Paradigm, a nice photo of a Yorkshire Landscape where these adventures
took place, and a sketch of an alarm clock printed on the white CD.
This might turn out to be the last release from this unique UK label,
as label boss Graham is thinking of giving up the unequal struggle in
the face of indifference. Prove him wrong and buy a copy of this. (Ed
Pinsent)
TESTCARD #11 (translated)
It begins comparatively calm and conventional in order to develop
all the more furiously. 'Journey Into Space' is a multi facetted trip
and a (long forgotten) classic of electroacoustic music. It came into
being between 1970 and 1972 at one of the first electronic studios in
the UK at York University. The recording appeared first of all as a
double LP in a long sought after private pressing. On the back cover
Wishart thanks all who took part - perhaps several are known from 'Tongues
Of Fire' (on Voiceprint) - 48 names altogether, of whom several are
still known today ie Steve Beresford and Jan Steele. The musical palette
spans acoustic music (with bicycle bells, bottles, metal objects) via
flutes and brass to field recordings and samples, among them are NASA-recordings
of the Apollo flight. It is divided into three sections which span a
broad acoustic cosmic path. More conventional recordings of everyday
sounds (alarm clocks, traffic sounds etc), change with harsh cut-up-collages
and new-music-passages which go from Morton Feldman to humourous Fluxus
minimalism. The inventiveness of this recording is enormous and represents
a mixed spectrum of the musical forms of expression of its time, a journey
which on the left hand has the door of Pierre Henry, and at the same
time opens the gate to psychedelia with the right hand. During the hour
the composition comes to an enormous intensification: What began with
the narrow room with its constricted sound cosmos, ends in a thunderous
orchestra pit, which his threads spin to the edge of the universe. (Martin Büsser)
VITAL 313
This CD is a re-issue of two self-released LPs by Trevor Wishart
from the early seventies, which were apperentely not very well-known.
I think I may have heard the odd piece by Wishart on the odd compilation
in the early 80s, and associated his name with stacks of analogue synths.
And looking at a title like 'Journey Into Space' that might not be very
wrong. I imagined a very spacey CD with long synth patterns... the only
thing wrong in this picture is the re-issue on the Paradigm label, who
are not really known for releasing cosmic music. So it is. Wishart's
old recording is 'the allegorical journey of a man towards self-realisation'.
He uses techniques from musique concrete to built his lengthy pieces
(this CD lasts over 78 minutes, mind you) and the sound input ranges
from toys, bottles, metal tubes and sounds from builder's yards. These
sounds are edited, mixed, re-edited, re-mixed and treated (speed-change,
filtering, reversing). The piece operates in blocks. There is a block
with toys, a block with metal sounds, a block with environment sounds
etc. Although this is all fun to hear, the compositions themselves seem
to be a bit randomly put together. Sounds here and there, changing sections
to the next etc, but the real structure, some sort of tension... it
seems to be lacking a bit. More a soundscape than a composition maybe.
Wishart feels sort of similar, as he writes on the cover: 'as a whole
I now find it over-long, many transitions too pedestrian, and its treatment
of 'ideas' too crude: it's almost embarrassingly late 60s!!' Don't worry
Trevor, some people find this very appealling (but they generally prefer
the old vinyl over a new CD) and me... I just thought of it as a very
nice curiousty from the ancient days which I enjoyed hearing. (FdW)
The WIRE (April 2002)
Trevor Wishart prepared this 79 minute
tape piece at York University between 1970 and 72, pressing the double
LP himself. His original notes say it describes 'the allegorigal journey
of a man towards self-realisation'. This journey is represented by a
collage of field recordings and deconstructed instrumental performances,
the latter both improvised and sketchily scored. 'Birth Dream' is a
woozy ten minutes of blown bottles and brass. So far, so good; but a
children's chorus and baby's cry mark the start of a tedious literal
programme: an alarm clock and lengthy throat clearing announce the man's
journey is underway, with Wishart's microphone following his slide into
reverie and space. It would be embarrassing if it weren't boring, more
radio FX than composition. Later, though, we find ourselves in outer
space. There are some nice soundscapes here - a haze of tubular bells
and squeeze-horns, 'Stimmung'-style vocals, but it's all so aimless.
Only towards the end of the piece does the pace pick up, with some choppy
editing, free trumpet and flutes (one of which, I presume, is played
by Steve Beresford, who was then studying at York). Wishart stitches
together his materials with skill, so it's a shame that what must have
amounted to thousands of hours of work is undone by aesthetic misjudgements
of some magnitude. In a sleevenote written for this CD rerelease, Wishart
writes that he now finds the piece 'overlong, and its treatment of 'ideas'
almost embarrassingly crude'. He's not wrong. (Tom Perchard)