Suzanne Ciani ‎– Voices Of Packaged Souls

“Dead-Cert Pressings’ first archival disc is an extended pressing of an original vinyl run of around 50 discs made in 1970 for an art gallery exhibition in Brussels documenting a sound sculpture collaboration between hard material artist Harold Paris and fledgling electronic composer Susan (Suzanne) Ciani. This original limited gift/art artifact is officially the rarest tangible recording of Ciani’s music – who is now recognised in the press as “The Delia Derbyshire Of The Atari Generation” on account of her groundbreaking developments in the commercial evolution of synthesizer music as one of a small number of female composers in the field. Voices Of Packaged Souls is a limited edition LP produced by Ciani in collaboration with Paris for his exhibition at the Galerie Withofs in Brussels, Belgium, June 1970. Paris created an original Mylar cover for the album, which is now an almost impossible to find collectors item. Harold Paris was an important figure in Suzanne’s early days. His warehouse studio in the industrial waterfront area of Oakland was next door to Don Buchla’s studio and it was Harold who first introduced Suzanne to the electronic instrument designer whose innovative instrument would direct her musical and professional path for the next two decades. The sounds on this early LP were culled in part from Ciani’s early experimental work at Stanford University’s Artificial Intelligence Lab, where she had studied with Max Matthews (the father of computer music) and John Chowning (the father of “frequency modulation” – where sounds were created by designing functional interactions amongst software modules and then using punched cards to program the output, which became audible only the next day!). Ciani also used sounds developed on the Buchla analog synthesizer, an open-architecture modular system, controlled via patchcords, knobs, switches and a touch plate. Voltage-controlled panning and reverb created spatial movement as well. And finally, there are musique concrete sounds – real sounds modified and mixed into the whole. Inspired by the development of the musical computer, voltage-controlled analog synthesizer and musique concrete, Ciani found a new expression and strength in the power of these new instruments and her ability to interpret feelings and objects with her own new language of sound. Ciani produced this, her first album, at radio station KPFA in Berkeley, CA, where she was given access to the tape machines from midnight until 6am gratis. She owns only one copy of this work in its original vinyl form.”

Label: Dead-Cert Home Entertainment – VCR-001

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, 45 RPM, Reissue

Country: UK

Released: 2012

VG+/VG. Small tear on front of sleeve, presumably from sticker removal. Some scratching/spotting to front of sleeve. Upper seam coming unglued