Released 1988 (1988) | Release date 1988 Label Recommended Records | |
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Recorded 1986–1987, United States Length 82:59 (LP releases)60:15 (CD releases) Genres Experimental music, Experimental rock Similar Fred Frith albums, Experimental rock albums |
Fred frith the technology of tears
The Technology of Tears (And Other Music for Dance and Theatre) is a double album by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith. It is the first of a series of Music for Dance albums Frith made, and is sometimes subtitled Music for Dance volume 1. It was recorded between June 1986 and April 1987, and released on a double LP and a single CD by RecRec Music (Switzerland) and on a double LP only by SST Records (United States) in 1988. It was re-issued on CD in 2008 by Fred Records (United Kingdom). All the CD releases omit the Propaganda suite (side 4 of the double LP).
Contents
The album comprises three suites:
Frith composed all the music and plays most of the instruments, with assistance from John Zorn, Tenko Ueno, Christian Marclay and Jim Staley.
The Propaganda suite was reworked and remastered in February 2015, and released by Fred Records as Propaganda in November 2015.
The music
On The Technology of Tears, Fred Frith continues his exploration of world dance music he began on Gravity and Speechless, this time supplementing traditional instrumentation with digital technology to generate patterns, pulses and noise. Samples are used throughout, accompanied by horns, sporadic percussion and wordless vocals. The album is a mix of musique concrète, folk music and improvisation.
On the first part of the Technology of Tears suite, Frith experiments with Henry Kaiser's newly acquired synclavier, at the time the state-of-the-art sampling and processing technology. On parts two and three of the suite Frith plays mostly "low-grade" instruments with added samples by turntablist Christian Marclay. Jigsaw is a collection of dozens of musical cells, "each recorded separately in increments of between 3 and 12 measures; all at the same tempo, and in the same key". The intention was that the modules could be assembled in any order to create the final piece. The reason for this approach was that Rosalind Newman had requested that many changes be made, and with Jigsaw she could arrange the segments how she wished. In the end, she accepted Frith's demonstration sequence as the final piece.
Reception
A reviewer at AllMusic, "Blue" Gene Tyranny, described the Technology of Tears suite as "... unrelenting slices of hard-edged sounds over a pulse ...", Jigsaw as "... patterns with constantly shifting accents and sub-divisions ...", and Propaganda as "... a series of brilliantly evocative soundpieces with electronics, guitar, and sound effects ...".
Track listing
All tracks composed by Fred Frith.
Personnel
Production
Songs
1Sadness - Its Bones Bleached Behind Us13:05
2You Are What You Eat7:22
3You Are What You Eat (continued)11:39