Songs Without Throats, by Paul DeMarinis

Songs Without Throats

by Paul DeMarinis

supported by

Rod Stasick Haven't heard this yet, but I'm imagining the days back in the mid-70s when Jerry Hunt and I used to laugh ourselves silly (while being in awe of potential capabilities) over an altered prototype S&S toy. I seem to remember the "Pygmy Gamelan" at one of the New Music Americas? Looking forward to hearing this.

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

€10 EUR
Black Truffle 041 2xLP
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Presented in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with archival images and liner notes by Paul DeMarinis.

Includes unlimited streaming of Songs Without Throats via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Sold Out

	1.	If God Were Alive (& He Is) You Could Reach Him By Telephone 07:29
	2.	R4T 05:25
	3.	Et Tu, Klaatu 09:27
	4.	Eenie Meenie Chillie Beenie 04:17
	5.	Novena 06:56
	6.	Mind Power 04:07
	7.	Yellow Yankee 06:01
	8.	I Want You 03:07
	9.	Vocal Variety 04:24
	10.	Kokole 06:39
	11.	Cincinnati 1830-1850 08:11
	12.	Edison’s Piano 11:28
	13.	The Lecture Of Comrade Stalin At The Extraordinary 8th Plenary Congress 07:06

about

Paul DeMarinis is a key figure in the history of electronic music since the 1970s. Collaborator with the likes of Robert Ashley, David Behrman, and David Tudor, DeMarinis is a pioneer in the development of gallery sound installation and digital music technologies. Black Truffle is thrilled to announce the release of a double-LP collection, selected in collaboration with the artist, focussing on DeMarinis’s exploration of synthesized voice and the digital analysis and manipulation of speech sounds. Drawing together tracks dispersed on compilations along with a number of pieces previously unheard in any form, Songs Without Throats offers a revelatory look into DeMarinis’s alternately accessible and uncompromising production between 1978 and 1995. Opening with a mesmerizing piece from 1978 pairing the voice and tamboura playing of Anne Klingensmith with strings of letters spat out by a Speak n’ Spell to the accompaniment of the randomised melodic patterns of DeMarinis’s homebuilt electronic instrument ‘The Pygmy Gamelan’, the record then dispenses with the live human voice in favour of its recorded and synthetic doubles. We follow DeMarinis’s restless probing of the possibilities of new technologies, from the hacked Speak n’ Spell (which gives us the austere ‘Et Tu, Klaatu’ 1979, another duet with Klingensmith, this time on bowed psaltery, in which the toy’s synthetic voice is stretched into an alien song) through to the use of digital audio samples manipulated with home computer technology in the early 1990s (including a remarkable dream-like collage piece that weaves a rare recording of Stalin’s voice and bird-like electronic twittering derived from its formant-glides into a rich tapestry of samples reflective of the dictator’s musical life). In between we get a rich sampling of DeMarinis’s signature work with speech melodies – usually unnoticed melodic inflections that lie within speech patterns – which he analyses and translates into synthesized musical accompaniment. These pieces draw on a wide variety of textual and vocal sources, which range from the hilarious to the menacing (‘Cincinatti [1830-1850]’ sets a detailed description of butchering techniques, for example) and an equally broad range of musical conceptions, combining elements as seemingly unlikely as Beethoven’s Opus 31 pianos sonatas and the sounds of 80s synth pop. The results are an extraordinary combination of the alien and the familiar. As DeMarinis himself characterises his work with vocal synthesis, this is ‘a kind of signal that simultaneously carried and obscured meaning and ideation, even as it created a sound world totally alien in esthetic’.

credits

released July 1, 2021

Design by Stephen O’Malley.
Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin

license

about

Black Truffle Australia

The black truffle has a place in gastronomy alongside saffron, caviar, foie gras and the finest of wines. Widely considered as the jewel of French cooking it is prized for its unique flavour and intoxicating aroma. The resident chef at Black Truffle Records has found that the best method for finding the "diamond of the kitchen" requires the use of a divining stick and facing into the sun. ... more

contact / help

Contact Black Truffle

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Songs Without Throats, you may also like:

Shutting Down Here
by Jim O'Rourke

supported by 25 fans who also own “Songs Without Throats”

Everything in its right place. Or not. Circadiansongs
go to album
Sheer Hellish Miasma
by Kevin Drumm

supported by 23 fans who also own “Songs Without Throats”

inferno is unquestionably the best, most uncompromising noise track ever imagined and brought to life avery
go to album
TANNENBAUM
by Kevin Drumm

supported by 20 fans who also own “Songs Without Throats”

my bones have left me; i remain structureless avery
go to album
Messages To God
by Sarah Mary Chadwick

More whip-smart, occasionally sarcastic songwriting from Sarah Mary Chadwick, acid lyrics set to soothing arrangements. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 23, 2023
go to album
An Imaginary Autumn
by Tatsuro Murakami

Haunting electroacoustic music that at times borders on drone, gentle melodies summoning memories of days long past. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 23, 2023
go to album
Spring Rites
by Tannhauser Orchestra

Bright, gorgeous, bashing songs from these Belgian shoegazers that never lose track of melody amidst the waves of distortion. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 23, 2023
go to album
Basic Combustion
by Kevin Drumm

supported by 20 fans who also own “Songs Without Throats”

Comforting and enveloping, like a synthetic re-imagining of cicadas and the low hum in a summer night. Alec L. Critten
go to album