THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Sundct r. Februar t

TH IHGA.AL uno en r.117

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records

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7

Electronics:

The

medium is

the money

By JOE PEHRSON
Three years ago, anyone in-
terested in electronic music had
to scrub around in the discard
piles of wholesale record shops,
hoping to find something stuck
in among the '20 per cent offs.'
Today this is not the case. A
deluge of contemporary music
is filling the discount stacks in
most record shops, and many
of the big names (Columbia for
example) are cashing in on
what they call the "Moog revo-
lution.".
Much of this current fervor
stems from popularization of
the medium-both from its use
in progressive rock and in a dew
gendre, the psychedelic flipped-
on sound (Terry Riley). As
John McClure, prime pusher for
Columbia records, will tell you-
" . broaden your horizons
without getting trapped in that
square symphony and opera
stuff." Columbia's panacea for
musical ague.
The main result of all this
business has been a great in-
crease in the number of avail-
able electronic recordings. In

fact, anything that even vague-.
ly hints at the word "electronic"
is sure to be a seller. Most of
the discount and lesser-known
labels (CR, for example) have
remained aloof from the popu-
larization trend .- keeping the
same spirit of experimentation
they had before Bach ever de-
cided to "switch on."
Record shops have become in-,
terested-not in the music but
in the medium. Discount labels
find that the new trend enables
them to expand their already
existing contemporary selection:
There are many new electronic
pieces being recorded, often as
commissioned works for budget
labels, and there is a good
chance that one can find some-
thing of "quality" among the
new releases. Many of the new
works carry with them new'
aesthetics - new systems of
judgment, and "quality" be-
comes a purely relative term.
How's that for inventiveness!
Nonesuch Records has a new
contemporary series which deals
almost exclusively with commis-
sioned works. Not only does

Nonesuch offer recording op-
portunities f o r contemporary
composers, but it insures that
all relevant information con-
cerning the composer, the con-
struction of a work, and the
composer's attitude toward his
art be presented clearly on the
album cover. A complete None-
such collection would be noth-
ing less than a history of the
contemporary idiom.
One particularly interesting
record of this series of Musie
for Instruments and Electronic
Sound by Donald Erb (None-
such HI-71223). This is one of
the first attempts I have seen
to put electronic sound in a
perspective with other sounds
and other types of music. Erb
considers the two Moog instru-
ments used in this recording as
equal partners with the conven-
tional instruments in his en-
semble. The electronic instru-
ments are played live-this al-
lows a kind of flexibility that
often is missing in tape-live
performance compositions. In
some sections of Reconnaissance

the piece seems to call for a
greater complexity of electronic
sound than is feasible in live'
performance. Hopefully, refine-
ments of the Moog will permit
greater performance ability for
future recordings. Erb's musical
h u m o r (Reconnaissance) is
really amazing, and the inter-
action of timbres makes this re-
cording a .fine choice.
Morton Subotnick has record-
ed another shallow excursion
into the electronic Netherlands.
Touch (Columbia MS 7316)
shows some advancement in Su-
botnick's compositional style-
at least for the first five min-
utes. He seems to suddenly have,
discovered color. The album, as
a whole, is tedious, and Subot-
nick never seems to think of
relating the title of his piece to
the electronic sounds (except
for a few instances on the sec-
ond side). His rhythmic pat-
terns, for the most part, are
really raunch-and only slight-
ly different from that well-
quoted section of Silver Apples.
Read the back of the record
jacket, anyway. It's amusing.
One of the best electronic re-
cordings I have heard in quite
some time is recorded on the
Deutsche Grammophon .1 a b e 1
(138811). Gesang der Junglinge
(Song of the Youths), by one of
the granddaddies of electronic

composition - Karlheinz Stock-
hausen, is a beautiful combina-
tion of concrete imagery, tape
manipulation of actual chil-
dren's s o n g s, and electronic
sound. This work is tightly in-
tegrated - content forms the
construction (and not the other
way around). Kontakte, in two
parts, is also very good. One re-
peated figure, which plays from
speaker to speaker, is a bit tir-
ing, but listen to the color
cadences that fall from that
figure. Incidentally, Deutsche
Grammophon has new contem-
porary series - Avant Garde.
It's probably worth looking into.
On the contemporary string
scene, CRI has a. new release
that should be mentioned. String
Quartet No. 2 by Ezra Lader-
man (CRI 224 SD) is a highly
melodic work and Laderman
has a fine grasp of contem-
porary counterpoint. Although
the work seems serial in form,
it is something more-combin-
ing serial and textural patterns.
Don't bother with the Mark
Brunswick-his poetry is almost
as bad.
Finally, don't miss the re-
cording of Ives' Two String
Quartets (Columbia MS 7027).
It is Columbia and it is expen-
sive, but this performance by
theJulliard Quartet is well
worth it.

BENEFIT DANCE
SIT-IN DEFENDANTS
-FEATURING-

FRIDAY, FEB. 6

9- 12P.M.

SOUTH QUAD CAFETERIA

$1.00 admission-benefit for the legal defense of
the 107 arrested in the bookstore sit-in

r

cinema
Nanami': Interesting inferno





By NEAL GABLER
Nanami, now playing at the
Campus Theater, is subtitled
"Inferno of First Love." Pretty
steamy stuff. But I think this
does an injustice to the film.
Whatever it is, it is not a simple
sexploitation flick. For one
thing, it isn't:very simple. For
another, it has too much sensi-
tivity to be put in the nudie
class. This is not to say that it
is a_ g ood film; "interesting"
would-be more apt.
The title refers to a slip of
a girl, maybe eighteen years old.
She works as a nudie photo-
graphic model, satisfying all the
pervisions of her customers. The
irony of copulation via the
camera, the greatest passion en-
joyed vicariously through an im-
passive instrument, sets the
theme for the picture-Is there
any such thing as love, or are
there only variations of exploi-
tation?
The question is wrestled out
in Nanami's young lover, Shun,
and it is on this torn soul that
the film focuses. Shun is a grad-
uate of the school of hard
knocks. His father died when he
was seven. Shortly after his
miother remarried and kissed
hin goodbye. A delinquent-type,
he was tossed from orphanage
to orphanage until a kindly
couple took him in, The hus-
band worked in metals and
taught Shun the trade. But there
was one problem. The man was
also a homosexual.
So it isn't very difficult to
see why Shun is disoriented.
The only relationships he has
ever known are distortions. Yet
he can't quite. accommodate
himselif to society's prostitution
of everyone and everything. One
of' the film's sado-masochists
tells him, "You're young. You
still believe in love." For Shun,
as for most of us, it is extremely
unsettling to believe and, at the
same time, to have little evi-
dence of anything worth be-
lieving in.
When he meets Nanami he
proclaims the truth of his situ-
ation-that this is his first love.
She becomes the conduit not
only of genuine affection but
also of : the .pent-up passions
lurking in his unenviable past.
For him, love and perversion un-
comfortably exist, and as he
himself says, "This is like a

dream." How can he merge the
dream and his life?
Susumi Hani's camera suc-
cessfully paints the picture of
his dilemma. The black and
white film is wonderfully ex-
pressive; he uses light and
smoke both to deepen the
dream-like quality and to serve
as counterpoints to darkness
and breath, recurring images
that . underscore the theme.
There is also a remarkable al-
ternation between a surrealistic
subjectivity and a stark objec-
tivity of the camera's eye that
gave me the same kind of dis-
orientation to Shun's world that
he himself must feel.
However, disorientation to the
narrative world of the film is
different from disorientation to
the film itself. One difficulty of
Nanami is that it never quite
shores up its theme; it never
really builds to anything. Writer
and director Hani seems just as
confused as Shun. Just when the
movie appears to have found
direction, along comes a point-
less scene to derail it. I couldn't
help but feel like Sisyphus,
constantly having to re-relate to
the film and each time thinking
I had made the proper adjust-
ment. But it is all very inter-
esting anyway. .
Meanwhile, there's this sweet-

potato vendor. He's telling 'a
story about a girl who walked
up to him and asked him for a
potato, a raw potato. When he
asked her why she wanted it
raw, she answered . . . Well, I
don't know what she answered,
because I don't understand Jap-
anese and the subtitle never ap-
peared. Just another of life's
little tribulations.-

5th Week
Shows at
1,3,5,7,9

(a.

DIAL.
5-6290

PROGRAM:
Sonata No. 44 in G minor.............................HAYDN
Kreisleriana, Op. 16.................................SCHUMANN
Nocturne in E, Op. 62, No. 2 ........................ CHOPIN
Sonata in B minor, op. 58, No. 3 CHOPIN
Tickets: $7.00--$6.50-$6.00-$5.04-$3.50-$25O
at.
UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY, BURTON TOWER, ANN ARBOR
Office Hours: Mon. thru Fri. 9 to 4:30; Sat. 9 to 12 (Telephone 665-3717)

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{

M-M-m-m-m, yummie!
A giant hamburger of f lb. U.S.
Govt. pure beef topped withlet-
tuce, tomato, mayonnaise, onions,
pickles and ketchup .
/ MtILING PEEDY®ERYICE
West of Arborland
Read andI Use
Daily. Classi feeds;

a.i

4,

Nomination forms for 1970 DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARDS
FOR INSTRUCTORS, ASSISTANT PROFESSORS, AND JUNIOR

'V
I,

ENCORE ! By Popular Demand:
GRAD MIXER N0. 2
SUNDAY, FEB. 1
8 P.M.
25c donation
atTHE HOUSE
~) 1429 HILL ST.

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SATURDAY and SUNDAY
Diry of a Country Prest
dir. ROBERT BRESSON (1950)
The most nearly f utless film ever made.
1-John Russell Taylor
1&975c Architcture
662: 811::c.uditriu

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Subscribe to The Michigan Daily
34
Presents 4
SAMUEL FULLER
A Retrospective and Personal Appearance
by a major American Film Director
THE FILMS PROGRAM INFORMATION 662-8871
(all showings in Architecture Auditorium, unless otherwise noted)
Monday, Feb. 2: 7: "The Run of the Arrow," 9: "I Shot Jesse James"
Tuesday, Feb. 3: 7: "Verboten!," 9: "The Run of the Arrow"
7: "Battleship Potemkin," 9: "The Naked Kiss" (in Aud. A)
Wednesday, Feb. 4: 7: "The Steel Helmet," 9: "Shock Corridor"
7: "Battleship Potemkin," 9: "Underworld, U.S.A." (in Aud. A)
Thursday, Feb. 5: 7: "Park Row," 9: "The Steel Helmet"
Friday, Feb. 6: Creative Arts Festival night, special admission $1.25.
-7 . "Gi: - , ns r+G Ca. . rk s.. n f Q " O n\A Ar.. C. I t r ar il l ars n t - s



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