Dockstader: Quatermass

Tod Dockstader (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 6, 2007)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Starkland
• ASIN: B00004YWU4
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #263,562 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Fanfare

An astounding technical and artistic success...Among the most impressive of electronic-music CDs anywhere...Highly recommended.

Product Description

Tod Dockstader’s “organized sound” has captivated, delighted, and sometimes frightened listeners for several decades. With dozens of highly enthusiastic reviews, Starkland’s two CDs have led to the recognition of Dockstader as one of the finest electronic music composers yet to appear. The Washington Post calls Dockstader “one of the giants in the field,” while Stereophile places his output “on a par with the best.”

The two CDs, each containing over 70 minutes of strikingly original music, offer significantly improved sound over the limitations of the original LPs. Dockstader carefully supervised the transfer from his original master tapes to the final digital masters. The Washington Post notes that the extraordinary sound of the CDs “at last, is equal to the remarkable sounds Dockstader has produced.”

Starkland’s first Dockstader CD presents the darkly ominous, 45-minute work many regard as his masterpiece, Quatermass, the playful Water Music, and the premiere recordings of Two Moons (spinoffs from Quatermass).

The booklets for these two CDs offer the most complete Dockstader documentation available: biographical information, notes on each piece, photos, authoritative Introductions, and additional Dockstader commentary on his early influences and tortuous studio techniques. Fanfare found the booklets “gratifyingly thorough...among the best prepared I’ve seen.”

Anyone who has an interest in electronic music should hear this powerful, classic organized sound.

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First Maya Deren, now this!, September 21, 2005

By 

Wayne A. (Belfast, Northern Ireland) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dockstader: Quatermass (Audio CD)

I just went from one shock--finding out that the DVD collection of Maya Deren films has not gotten a single review yet--to this orphan of about the same era. If you get rid of hippies and beatniks, what's left for the 50's and 60's is a less self-promoting and more circumspect American avant-garde. Unfortunately, few know it was ever there. Hippies and Beats knew how to market and engage mass media better than they would have ever admitted.

This, and the other disc from Starkland, are spectacular collections of early experimental collage and concrete "music".
The pieces are tough to describe but there is a deep musicality to them and they don't sound like early pure electronic offerings and they aren't, by any measure, ambient. Dockstader used "real" sounds and manipulated the heck out of them. Anyone interested in modern sampling should find these fascinating (in fact this should be required listening for that set!) and a bit intimidating--it was all done with minimal multi-tracks, overdubbing, and scissors...and the results are just great and wear well over time. One almost wishes this line of musical thinking had been pursued more vigorously before the Moog and other synths kicked in. It's got a unique texture and depth to it. Really beautiful, emotional, and evocative stuff. The recordings here are first-rate.

5.0 out of 5 stars Classical from Another World, June 26, 2011

By 

Nodrog - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dockstader: Quatermass (Audio CD)

I am not a trained musical critic, but I find Quatermass strangely appealing. Although the work is filled with discordant notes (often causing beat notes between the stereo channels), it hangs together, having recurring themes very much like traditional classical works. The final movement brings back the themes for a final crescendo. Having played it countless times since discovering Quatermass in the 1970s, I am thoroughly familiar with it and can whistle some of the segments, much to the puzzlement of those around me. By far, the best way to listen is with headphones or ear buds. I experience abstract colored patterns and moving objects in my mind during some parts of the recording. It's truly one-of-a-kind and a superb work of art.