Various Artists – Untitled Songs (SIRR)

This double cd set from Portuguese label Sirr uses Karlheinz Stockhausen’ Gesang der Junglinge as something of a starting point for investigation, noting its groundbreaking use of spatialisation on multichannel speakers and unique melding of the human voices and electronic sound. It then casts its eye around to view the current state of electro acoustic music. And there’ some pretty diverse and quite experimental moments. From Janek Schaefer’ strange droning voice piece to Stephen Vitiello’ more highly processed smattering of digitalia and Porto based duo @c’ almost poetic soundscape there’ much ground covered. Elsewhere there’ Swedish composer and field recordist CM von Hausswolff in a typically obtuse minimal work of static and drones, Asmus Tietchens offers some heavily processed voice which becomes a quite tender and minimal work and Australian duo Anthony Pateras and Robin Fox belt out a wet electronic piece of alarming scope, almost totally obscuring the fact that the sound source was originally a contact mic inside Pateras’ mouth. And this kind of weirdness is Stockhausen’ legacy.