Album

The Rhythmicon is a mysterious and little-known instrument that comes from the stone age of electronic music. Created in 1931 by Leon Theremin on an idea suggested by Henry Cowell, the Rhythmicon was inspired through some of the polyrhythmic principles advanced in Cowell's book New Musical Resources. The Rhythmicon was capable of playing advanced polyrhythms derived from the partials of the harmonic series; it utilized a small keyboard wired to a series of optical disks in a system analogous to early television technology. Lack of a working original model and inaccessibility to first-hand information about the Rhythmicon has rendered it a footnote in the history of electronic music, despite having been one of the most advanced electronic instruments of its era—on track with developments that would lead to the invention of the synthesizer some 35 years later. Usefully, composer Nick Didkovsky has designed, on a grant from American Public Media, a "virtual" Rhythmicon on the web, accessible at http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/rhythmicon/index.html. This has granted access to a number of interested composers in working with this most arcane of electronic instruments, and some of the results have been collected in Innova's The Art of the Virtual Rhythmicon.

The Rhythmicon works with sustained tones that beat at different frequencies, an aspect reminiscent of both early minimalism and the 1960s work of Pauline Oliveros in pieces such as I of IV (1966). Although the distinctive timbre of the Rhythmicon ensures some element of commonality between the nine pieces represented on the Innova disc, the approaches of the eight composers vary widely and some bring external elements into the music such as sound effects or tapes of voices, including that of Cowell himself in Jeff Feddersen's This Time I Want Them All. Cowell's presence and personality serve as a topical thread that informs much of the music, although the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 and the Iraq war are other pertinent subtexts. Canadian composer Robert Normandeau's Chorus is dedicated to the victims of 9/11 and is arranged in a suite-like group of movements that illustrate a kind of philosophical narrative. By comparison, Janek Schaefer's All bombing is terrorism is a benign and uninterruptedly peaceful movement that makes use of the Rhythmicon's properties as a safe haven from a world spinning out of control.

In a way, the most moving of the pieces here is Philip Blackburn's Henry and Mimi at the Y, an imagined evocation of a pre- concert rehearsal of Rhythmicon and microtonal pianos inspired by an actual concert of that kind held by Cowell and composer Mimi Cooper in 1932 at the San Francisco YMCA.Blackburn's music reaches into the past and illustrates it; the Rhythmicon was a child of the depression, and largely that inhibited its further development, but also provided hope in grim economic times that technology and music would move forward. Seventy-five years on, composers are facing similar economic hardships in addition to the threat of war and annihilation—among the classes of composers hardest hit because of 9/11 were the downtown New Yorkers, many of whom lived within mere blocks of the World Trade Center. It is heartening to see that Didkovsky's virtual Rhythmicon has brought the distinctive voice of this instrument back to musicians, and Innova's The Art of the Virtual Rhythmicon is a thought-provoking, accessible, and highly interesting program of new music utilizing old technology.

© Uncle Dave Lewis , All Music Guide

CD 1
Janek Schaefer Composer All Bombing is Terrorism, for virtual rhythmicon Work Janek Schaefer Computer
1	All Bombing is Terrorism, for virtual rhythmicon	12:00			$1.99
Annie Gosfield Composer A Sideways Glance from an Electric Eye, for virtual rhythmicon Work Annie Gosfield Computer
2	A Sideways Glance from an Electric Eye, for virtual rhythmicon	7:35			$1.49
Philip Blackburn Composer Henry and Mimi at the Y, for virtual rhythmicon Work Philip Blackburn Computer
3	Henry and Mimi at the Y, for virtual rhythmicon	4:34			$0.99
Jeff Feddersen Composer This Time I Want Them All, for virtual rhythmicon Work Jeff Feddersen Computer
4	This Time I Want Them All, for virtual rhythmicon	5:48			$0.99
Matthew Burtner Composer Spectral for 0, for virtual rhythmicon Work Matthew Burtner Computer
5	Spectral for 0, for virtual rhythmicon	4:42			$0.99
Matthew Burtner Composer Spectral for 60, for virtual rhythmicon Work Matthew Burtner Computer
6	Spectral for 60, for virtual rhythmicon	4:27			$0.99
Viv Corringham Composer Eggcup, Teapot, Rhythmicon, for virtual rhythmicon Work Vic Corringham Computer
7	Eggcup, Teapot, Rhythmicon, for virtual rhythmicon	6:15			$0.99
Mark Eden Composer Cremation Science, for virtual rhythmicon Work Mark Eden Computer
8	Cremation Science, for virtual rhythmicon	5:33			$0.99
Robert Normandeau Composer Chorus, for virtual rhythmicon Work Robert Normandeau Computer
9	Chorus, for virtual rhythmicon	13:57			$2.49