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All music and noises © Copyright Paul A. Williams aka Elwood Herring - Please read these notes before downloading
| Mins | Electronic Symphony no.2 "Impulses" op.18 (1979-83) | |
 | 73:20 | My longest piece from the 1980's - a 6 movement electronic "symphony" including everything but the kitchen sink. I worked on this for 5 years (on and off), so it gets more sophisticated as it progressed and as I expanded my range of instruments and techniques. Here's the whole bizarre extravaganza. The whole symphony is available in a handy zip file on MegaUpload. |
| Mins | Descriptions of individual movements | 1. Adventure Andante |
19:30 | Raw stark chords on the organ lead after a few violent outbursts into a schizophrenic piano solo with multiple echoes and dead ends. Several themes are tossed around and discarded, and the movement ends by self-destruction. (Unfortunately there are points in this recording where tape hiss can't be completely removed as the original signal is so low I've actually had to boost the sound level in places. I've done my best though.) |
| 2. Battle (Intermezzo) |
09:20 | A crazy pot-pourri of sounds coming at you from all directions, with nothing in sync with anything else - total chaos (or is it?) | |
| 3. Secrecy Andante |
06:10 | A curious electronic trio with an accompanying "violin" solo in the distance. Mildly sinister. | |
| 4. Darkness Adagio | 06:25 | Music as if heard from behind thick curtains; the individual instruments can barely be distinguished. | |
| 5. Hope (Scherzo) Allegro |
02:43 | A sudden jump for joy - but with no apparent direction. Enthusiastic noise. This movement marked a return to my working on this piece after a gap of over a year. The reason was the purchase of the Crumar synth. |
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| 6. Insight Adagio - Allegro |
29:20 | The crux of the whole piece. Themes from past movements reappear but slightly altered. There is even a direct quote from a famous 20th century symphony. All seems to lead up to a grand finale - until the ominous bleak organ chords from the 1st movement reappear and confirm that we're right back where we started. |
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