Pauline Oliveros Albums (15)
'Pauline Oliveros and Eleh'
Release Date 9/23/2008
Tracks 2
Label Important
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'Accordion Koto'
Release Date 5/26/2008
Tracks 4
Label Deep Listening
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What The Critics Say
The marriage of the venerable accordion and elegant Japanese koto may strike some as strange bedfellows, but not to such masterful improvisers as Pauline Oliveros and Miya Masaoka. The way these instruments blend together and drift apart from one other in a natural and spiritual way seems perfectly conceived, because both of them play their instruments so unconventionally. Oliveros has always been interested in electronic accoutrements, and thus extracts an otherworldly sound that is incomparable. Masaoka's koto is not approached in a traditional way, and she utilizes extended techniques to make it sound guitar-like, percussive, and anything but imperial. This recording depicts a sound text of a full day's life cycle according to the two performers, and indicates how different their lives are from the rat race society of everyday normalcy. It surrounds a peace, tranquility, and harmonious balance of rural and meditative structures that enhance and bring order to what might otherwise seem chaotic. In short, it breathes organically, never forced or prodded, and always brings common sense and fresh ideas to the table. As you'd expect, "Daybreak" is serene and slow to develop and awaken, with Masaoka playing her instrument in a most atypical manner. As Masaoka is scratching and bowing the koto strings accompanied by the pensive accordion of Oliveros, the duo adopts the sound of a crow effectively, along with otherworldly waking birds. "Forenoon" is 24 and a half minutes in length, featuring very long and involved chattery conversations between the two. The very short "Afternoon" must be a late lunchtime snack, an accordion drone as the soup for a koto sandwich. "Twilight," at nearly 20 minutes, weaves the accordion and electronic enhancements into spiritual silver. It's meditational, as is much of the music Oliveros prefers in her deep listening concept, while Masaoka derives a danceable line with an ostinato bass riff, and some hyperactivity occurs in the sounds of the woodland. An overdue project according to the booklet, this pairing makes perfect sense, not at all as a duality, but as a unified whole of vintage elements turned into an innovative organ of beauty. ~ Michael G. Nastos, All Music Guide
'Accordion and Voice'
Release Date 4/24/2007
Tracks 2
Label Important
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What The Critics Say
There are so many gems buried in Pauline Oliveros' past that the early electronic pieces reissued in the early 2000s have only scratched the surface. First released on cassette in the late '80s, Tara's Room offers a glimpse at the visionary woman's contemplative side -- the subtitle "Two Meditations on Transition and Change" is to be taken at face value. "The Beauty of Sorrow" (25 minutes) features an accordion tuned in just intonation and hooked to delay processors, her "Expanded Instrument System" at the time. The accordion notes shimmer and flap lightly against each other when played back on loudspeakers. The drone is quickly set into motion and passes through the listener, carrying part of him or her along with it. The electronic effects are slightly more intrusive than in her subsequent works, but they add food for thought. "Tara's Room" (27 minutes) is a different affair; listeners who know Oliveros mostly for her pioneering work with electronics and her accordion playing are in for a surprise. The piece consists of multi-tracked voice, wooden flute, and percussion. Flute, drum, and crotales provide the sparse elements used in the first minutes. Gradually, the voice of Oliveros repeating a mantra over and over appears and moves up front, joined in her psalmody by what sounds like dozens of other Paulines, forming a whole community. The voices literally drown the soft drum and flute tracks, eventually reverberating throughout the stereo spectrum. The result is impressive and hypnotic, maybe a bit less involving than one would expect. Analogies with Terry Riley's more spiritual and ritualistic pieces are in order. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
'The Minexcio Connection: Live! at the Rosendale Cafe'
Release Date 1/1/2003
Tracks 4
Label Roaratorio
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What The Critics Say
Recorded in a small New York cafe, this performance features Reynols as a trio (Moncho and Pacu Conlazo, and Anla Courtis, but no Miguel Tomasin) joining veteran improviser and "deep listening" mastermind Pauline Oliveros for a set of quiet, drone-based improvisations. Reynols reinvent themselves with every concert and every album. The Minexcio Connection shows the group at its most quiet yet, almost too careful not to drown Oliveros' hypnotic accordion playing. The music is spacious and space-born, dominated by a strong reverb effect that keeps the whole album wrapped inside a psychedelic cloud (even the sound of applause is multiplied and disembodied). "The Invisible Flag Points to the Sun" features two mouth harps and a didgeridoo merging with the accordion for a pleasant 12-minute drone. The only composition on this LP, "Six for New Time," is significantly (and quite understandably) different from the version recorded by Sonic Youth, and features Iona reciting a poem dedicated to Oliveros. "Cathedral Juice" features all four improvisers singing, their voices uniting in a peaceful, somewhat anachronistic drone (or is it actually out of time?). In "Cosmother Fell Asleep Inside a Galaxy-Cake" they are back to accordion, guitar drones, and maracas, the music remaining calm albeit more troubled. The Minexcio Connection is not the ultimate Reynols -- or Oliveros -- record. Its lack of dynamics and narrow stereo spectrum will discourage more than a few listeners and, truth be told, it is disappointing. But beyond the reverberating fog and the low fidelity, there are fine hallucinogenic moments to experience. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
In 2001, the Pogus label released No Mo, a collection of three early tape pieces by Pauline Oliveros. "No Mo" and "Something Else" date from 1966, when she worked at the University of Toronto. "Bog Road" was recorded a year later in San Francisco. All three pieces hold the excitement and limitations of early tape music. Oliveros' work from that period has been cruelly underdocumented. These pieces do not represent bottom-of-the-barrel scraps, but accomplished experimental compositions, important to understand the woman's evolution as an artist. The first two works were created using standard electronic devices (at the time). "No Mo" plays with white noise, echo, and spatialization. "Something Else" is tone-based. Delicate synthesized sounds are layered to create a landscape, something like a field in a summer night. "Bog Road," the longest piece at 33 minutes, consists of an early experiment with the Buchla Series 100 Box. Based on tape loops and delays, the piece is made of two separate parts isolated in the left and right stereo channels. This crude panning works better when heard on loudspeakers (the sounds get a chance to meet). On headphones, it gets schizophrenic. Through its half-hour duration, the piece evolves slowly, the composer striving to make changes in loops as seamless as possible. A bit overlong, it is not as satisfying as the other two works on this CD, but its experimental dimension is interesting to study. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
'Primordial Lift'
Release Date 1/25/2000
Tracks 1
Label Table of the Elements
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'At the Ijsbreker, Jan 24, 1999'
Release Date 1/1/1999
Tracks 5
Label JdK Productions
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What The Critics Say
The 1990s saw an increase of avant-garde fans' interest in Pauline Oliveros' work. This concert in duo with pianist David Gamper is a good example of her art. Both musicians (Oliveros plays her trusty accordion) are equipped with an Expanded Instrument System (or EIS), which transforms the sounds and distributes them in the performance space. The music is contemplative, slow developing, and trance-inducing. The long plaintive tones of the accordion echo from side to side, multiplied. Gamper fiddles with small percussion and the piano's bowels. The CD begins with a 35-minute duet, "Breaking the EIS," a piece going from brutality to Zen-like serenity, from electronically warped sounds to Oliveros' pure vocal chants. Then, each performer is allowed a solo spot. Gamper's multi-tracked piano number is not convincing at all, but the accordionist is better and leads into another duo (11 minutes), this time an alien version of new age music. In the encore, Oliveros uses her voice again, blending it with the accordion's sound. At the Ijsbreker, Jan 24, 1999 requires deep listening if one wishes to experience it totally. This is the type of performance a recording cannot possibly do justice, but it's the next best thing and production is as good as can be. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
