Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Valse Sentimentale - Clara Rockmore
2. Oraison - Ens D'Ondes De Montreal
3. Etude Aux Chemins De Fer - Pierre Schaeffer
4. Williams Mix - John Cage
5. Klangstudie II - Herbert Eimert/Robert Beyer
6. Low Speed - Otto Luening
7. Dripsody - Hugh Le Caine
8. Forbidden Planet: Main Title - Louis Barron/Bebe Barron
9. Elektronische Tanzste: Concertando Rubato - Oskar Sala
10. Poem Electronique - Edgard Varese
11. Sine Music (A Swarm Of Butterflies Encountered Over The Ocean) - Richard Maxfield
12. Apocalypse-Part 2 - Tod Dockstader
13. Kontakte - James Tenney/William Winant
14. Wireless Fant - Vladimir Ussachevsky
15. Philomel - Milton Babbitt
16. Spacecraft - MEV

Disc 2:

1. Cindy Electronium - Raymond Scott
2. Pendulum Music - Sonic Youth
3. Bye Bye Butterfly - Pauline Oliveros
4. Projection Esemplastic For White Noise - Joji Yuasa
5. Silver Apples Of The Moon, Part 1 - Morton Subotnick
6. Rainforest Version 1 - David Tudor
7. Poppy Nogood - Terry Riley
8. Boat-Woman-Song - Holger Czukay
9. Music Promenade - Luc Ferrari
10. Vibrations Composees: Rosace 3 - Francois Bayle
11. Mutations - Jean-Claude Risset
12. Hibiki-Hana-Ma - Iannis Xenakis
13. Map Of 49's Dream The Two Systems Of Eleven Sets Of Galactic Intervals: Drift Study '31/69 c.... - La Monte Young

Disc 3:

1. He Destroyed Her Image - Charles Dodge
2. Six Fants On A Poem By Thomas Campion: Her Song - Paul Lansky
3. Appalachian Grove - Laurie Spiegel
4. En Phase/Hors Phase - Bernard Parmegiani
5. On The Other Ocean - David Behrman
6. Stria - John Chowning
7. Living Sound, Patent Pending Music For Sound-Joined Rooms Series - Maryanne Amacher
8. Automatic Writing - Robert Ashley
9. Canti Illuminati - Alvin Curran
10. Music On A Long Thin Wire - Alvin Lucier
11. Melange - Klaus Schulze
12. Before And After Charm (La Notte) - Jon Hassell
13. Unfamiliar Wind (Leeks Hills) - Brian Eno

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23550 in Music
• Released on: 2005-10-25
• Number of discs: 4

Rolling Stone
This review is for the original OHM Release:

"The whole thing is a scream"

Billboard
This review is for the original OHM Release:

"Early pioneers of electronic music get their due on Ellipsis "OHM" set"

Album Description
OHM+ : the early gurus of electronic music

Special Edition 3CD + DVD

Leaps in technology: oscillators, generators, vacuum tubes, amplifiers, transistors, magnetic tape, integrated circuits, and the microchip— inspired new instruments: the telharmonium, theremin, ondes martenot, electronic sackbut, clavivox, electronium, moog synthesizer, and computers— and artists everywhere hungry for new modes of expression.

This collection is a humble but bold attempt to give form to the wonderful, multi-directional, inevitable birth of electronic music.

"Many of the ideas in this collection have now been so completely assimilated into popular listening that it may sometimes be hard to remember how surprising it all was on first outing. Some of it still sounds pretty exotic. These CDs are important as part of the story of how we got to where we are now-the cultural conversation so far-and as a still fruitful repertoire of future possibilities." —from the Foreword by Brian Eno

Three CDs—42 original music tracks from 1948-1980 112 Page Book—extensive artist interviews, commentaries, and archival photographs Special Edition DVD—over two hours of rare performances, interviews, animations, and experimental video.

Customer Reviews

The Total Package
I recently purchased Ohm, the early gurus of electronic music, and I am very immpressed. By far the most important criteria for judgment must be the quality of the cleaning up of early recordings. Every track on all three CDs has a low noise floor, which has been achieved without the loss of palpability or dynamic range that is so common with the usual cleaning processes. The other stand out feature is that this is the complete package; 114 page booklet with great art work, 13-16 tracks on each CD and a 20 track DVD. The whole lot is so well put together that I am proud to own it. Only one track each from the 30's and 40's, and heaps from the 50's and 60's. I'm glad I bought this.

An Audio Encyclopedia of Early Electronic Experiments
I enjoyed listening to the CD and watching the videos. Some of the selections, however, were not quite what I would call musical quality, but were interesting sound samples. I was glad that I heard them, but once heard they would not be something I would want to listen to as music or for a background when reading a book. Some tracks had a very good ambient environmental quality that would be good for creating a warm background, meditating or deep listening. Some showed that synths could do classical very well compared to the older instruments. As a collection, they were not categorized so that all the ones that would make ambient listening are grouped together, so I plan to do a mix of my own from this collection. It is PBS special quality as far as the DVD presentation, though some of the selections seemed more about the animation than the music in the background. I was very impressed with the presentation on STRIA and tried to find more on the internet afterwards. The idea of the a new musical scale from the phi ratio seems exciting to me. Clara on the Theremin, both on the DVD and on the CD was impressive and shows how well the Theremin can replace a violin. Having done a lot of healing work, it would be nice for violinists to know this option, because it is easier on their bodies. The neck kinking and tight shoulder throws the body out of balance a lot and sometimes leads to headaches or even migraines. It would be interesting to see a Theremin tweaked slight more to make it even sound more like a violin, but it is close already. All in all, I enjoyed the old collection and can organize the selections on my own from what they have given.

A great collection of important works
This is an excellent collection of pre-1980s electronic music. It probably goes without saying, but just to be clear, the music here is part of the academic/experimental music tradition and more popular forms of electronic music such as Kraftwerk or Jean-Jacques Perry are not represented here.

There is a great selection of composers here from early musique concrete pioneers like Pierre Schaeffer to technical innovators like John Chowning to unclassifiable geniuses like Iannis Xenakis. There are a few curious omissions such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, but the curators explain in the extensive liner notes that they were not able to acquire the rights to many works that they wanted to include.

Ohm is particularly useful for a broad overview of the development of electronic music. I carry it to my Intro to Sound Synthesis class everyday to play examples for my students. It's pretty handy in that way.

My biggest criticism is that many of the selections are excerpts. While it's great to have some 42 works all in one place, it's a shame to modify a composition without the composer's input or consent. It would be difficult to include the entire work in some cases such as "Philomel," which is a little over 20 minutes (if memory serves) and you may not mind having excerpts. It does make extended listen a bit easier. Since not everyone is used to hearing this sort of electronic music, these highlights may actually make the music slightly more accessible.

The DVD has a variety of material. There are quite a few "visualizations" created recently for early works. I'm not exactly sure how I feel about this. I really think, for example, Xenakis should have signed off on the project before they superimposed some visual material on his "Bohor". I can't really see what this adds, as many of these visualizations end up looking similar to the iTunes visualizer.

There are some very interesting interviews with pioneers such as Milton Babbitt and Clara Rockmore. Those are probably the most interesting parts of the DVD. There are also a few live performances. These range from a beautiful performance from Rockmore on her thermin to a bizarre performance piece featuring Alvin Lucier and his amplified brainwaves.

The set includes a nice booklet with some great information. It's perfect for someone unfamiliar with electronic music and will give them a good feeling for what it's all about. You get some historical context, some composer background, and brief descriptions of the work and why it is important.

Overall, I highly recommend this. For the beginner, this is an easily accessible introduction. For the expert, this is a handy summary of early work in the field and one that you can easily recommend to students.