V/A - Sleepers (Finnadar, 1985)

Sleepers is a collection of lullabies from Ilhan Mimaroglu's Finnadar label. As such, the pieces are gentle and often hushed, with the most notable exception coming from Mimaroglu's own rhythm machine-ushered sleepsong. The other all arc is toward vocal pieces, with exceptions made for the occasional flute and clarinet. Annea Lockwood earns the award for Most Germane, with her three piece chorus providing dulcet tones of soothing, repetitive syllables of Samoan. Pauline Oliveros provides one of her always fascinating deep listening exercises with audience participation. As is often the case with these pieces, beautiful results emerge from her simple, introspective instructions: "Hum the sound of pleasure as if you were serenading your best loved infant...play with the MMM sound by adding vowels and dipthongs between the M's using any repetitions or prolongations...stay open to your own sensations and imagine gradually expanding your awareness to sensing your surroundings..." The piece is performed by the Queens College Choral Society.

A1 Doris Hays - Hush
A2 Annea Lockwood - Malolo
A3 Ilhan Mimaroglu - Sleepsong For Sleepers
A4 Daniel Goode - The Red And White Cows
B1 Tom Johnson - Lullaby
B2 Pauline Oliveros - Lullaby For Daisy Pauline
B3 Alison Knowles - Mantra For Jessie
B4 Ann Silsbee - Go Gentle

Sleepers

Philip Corner / Alison Knowles / George Brecht - Fluxus (Wergo, 2001)

Collected here are three radioplays from three Fluxus affiliates, Philip Corner, Alison Knowles, and George Brecht. Each piece is built from a simple element and features a text recited by the author and sometimes others. Corner's piece is an homage to Erik Satie, built from a sparce two chord piano figure and a recitation that teeters along the stereo field. Knowles' piece, which she delivers along with Brecht, Hanna Higgins, and Jessica Higgins, is built from a long list of bean names on top of a bed of violin glissando and actual tossed about beans. And Brecht gives a play in four languages, derived from a Zen Buddhist text by Seng Ts'an.

Fluxus