32. Electronic Music 1988

Three major live electronic pieces and a few shorter ones. “Not for Public Consumption” is a live multi-cassette recorder mix - Burt was one of the people who pioneered cassette culture in the early 1970s, and here he shows his mastery in a rampaging collage. “Riffs for Ross” is Burt and a keyboard sampler assembling his dream bebop band, where Charlie Parker and Art van Damme finally get to play together. “From my Window” is for breath controlled Serge synthesizer (Burt was one of the people who contributed to the design of the Serge) and samplers - a combination of European electroacoustics and Australian free improv.

31. A 1987 Sampler

Early sampler pieces. “String Quartet No. 4" is a piece for computer controlled string quartet samples. An elegant fake that approaches the complexity of the real thing. “for Caroline” is a multitracked environment for both sunny sounds (Burt's tuning forks), and subterranean ones (cellist Sarah Hopkins and poet Chris Mann in a storm drain). “Justice, Equality and Beatings IV” continues Burt's explorations in drones at the edge of consonance and dissonance.

27. Computer Music 1985 for Fairlight CMI

Can tacky kitsch and serious inquiry coexist in the same piece? Burt's entire career has constituted an emphatic YES! to this question. In the forty minute “Easy Rounds and Folk Dances” he alternates between the refined and the silly, the severe and the stupid. “Post Modern Waltzes” is Burt's non-verbal denunciation of post-modern theory. If only those word obsessed critics had had the smarts to hear it and really understand it! In “Portraits and Homages”, Burt uses and pays homage to the ideas of his spiritual forefathers: Charles Ives, Conlon Nancarrow, Henry Cowell, Lou Harrison and Percy Grainger. If you ever wondered what the Fairlight CMI sounded like outside of its habitual pop context, this CD is for you.

26. Justice, Equality and Beatings 1 & 2 (1984-85)

This series of pieces started in a snowbound motel room in New Hampshire, in the northern winter of 1984. Trapped by the snow with a friend's DX7, Burt began playing with its tuning capabilities. The result was the first of series of drone pieces that continued until 1990. The first three of the series are on this CD. Glowing, glittering sounds that seem to stretch on forever, yet, almost without the listener realizing it, evolve into continually new and surprising sonic terrains.

21. Four Pieces for Synthesizer (1981)

Four major analog synthesizer pieces from the early 80s, mostly made without keyboards, where the synthesizer is treated like an analogue computer, and is programmed to control itself. Two of them were dance scores for choreographer Eva Karczag, and are definitive early minimalist pieces. The other two pursue a more complex path - Simultaneous Portraits features intense polyrhythms, and Harmonies at Launching Place uses the sound of rain and lyrebirds in the Victorian bush to trigger off and control walls of glittering sound.

19. From the Dreambooks and Lo-Fi Proposals (1980 & 86)

“The thing about Warren Burt is, he can take any thin thread of trashy material, and make a piece out of it.” -Ron Robboy. The trashy materials here are Dreambooks, gambling charts formerly used in the numbers racket in the US. Using these as a source of random information, Burt makes one of the earliest Synclavier pieces, basing each highly cyclical piece on the bogus numerology of the Dreambooks. “Lo Fi Proposals”, on the other hand, continues Burt's love affair with cheap technology and it's defects as a source for art. Here the mighty Casio SK1 toy sampler is put through its paces in a series of environmental, political, orchestral, and structural miniatures.

16. Suite for Synclavier (1979)

A 50 minute suite of five pieces made on the Synclavier system at Adelaide University,one of the first digital synthesizers. Four of the pieces were used as soundtracks for the video piece “Even Five More Moods, Yet”, while one, “Japonica's Dream” is previously unreleased. Includes the collage piece “for Ives and Jobim” and the lush, overblown minimalism of “Gorgeous Formalism.”

13. 8-8s: Four Pairs in the Shape of a Piece (1978-79)

Long lost, and recently recovered, these pieces had quite wide exposure in the late 70s, with some being released on LP and cassette, and much radio play. There are eight 8-minute pieces, ranging from clanging bell-ringing change pieces, to happy minimalist pulse pieces. Four are made with one of the first Synclaviers, and four with the Serge-Driscoll synthesizer that Burt had built.

12. Le Grand Ni Symphony (1978)

Burt and Julian Driscoll designed and built Aardvarks VII, a digital composing machine made out of the simplest chips. Simple in concept, but powerful in execution, this microtonal music machine formed the basis for a 70 minute long symphonic piece (Glenn Branca wasn't the only person doing unorthodox symphonies in this period!), for live electronics. Performed all over Australia, Europe and the US it's in C Major, no less, and alternates high-speed minimalist melodics with the sounds of rattling metal signs activated by the electronics of Aardvarks VII.

11. Pastorale (1977-78)

A more gentle set of pieces for concrete and electronic sounds. Two minimalist dance scores for choreographer Eva Karczag; a patch which gets the synthesizer to laugh, and compositions for environmental sounds and percussion make a suite which could almost, but not quite, (just a bit too subversive, it is!) fit into the New Age bin.

10. Aardvarks V: Symphony (August 9 th ) (1977)

A single unaccompanied melody which lasts for an hour. Using Aardvarks IV, his homemade music computer and semi-intelligent composing machine, Burt steers his digital processes through the seas of musical structure, creating a polyphonic electronic single line melody. Think of a Bach solo cello partita updated with hard edged electronic sounds, elaborate spatial panning, and atonal and microtonal harmonies and you'll get the idea.

9. Four Quartets and a Canon (1975-76)

6. Aardvarks IV (1972-5)

Noise fans will love this one. One of Burt's major works, it's been called "the best electronic piece since the First World War." A long, violent fresco, it was made with Aardvarks IV, an almost intelligent composing machine that Burt built because he couldn't afford a computer at the time. Evolving from an uneasy drone into complex and roaring sounds, the piece rises to what seems like a climax, only to dissolve into a sense of mystery and curiosity. If you want to find out what the state of the art in electronic music technology was in the early 70s, here it is.

5. Bobo the Clone...(1974)

One of Burt's chief influences was William Burroughs. This highly energetic live performance - made on the Serge synthesizer after a session repairing it - was made in a single afternoon, and encapsulates Burt's reactions to the master of the modern macabre.

4. Harmonia Mundane (1974) ( TWO CD )

Burt was one of the members of the People's Synthesizer Project, which evolved into Serge Modular Music systems, makers of the legendary Serge synthesizer. This is a set of five pieces made with a collection of fabled early electronic music machines: the Serge; the random information generator Daisy; a PDP-11 computer, and the Scalatron microtonal organ. "Bromeliads" is a static, non-directional soundscape, where a computer program simulates the motion of electrons in a black hole. "French Fried Minds of Walruses and Caterpillars", on the other hand, is a directional electroacoustic landscape, and "Busonianiania" is a straight out all-needles-in-the-red distortion piece.

3. Anthology 1970-73

A collection of analog and live-performance pieces from the early 70s. "Lullabies II" for briefcase synth and tape delay was an early minimalist piece. "For Charlemagne Palestine," a tribute to his friend, was Burt's first microtonal electronic drone piece. "John Lilly Meets the Dolphins" is a piece based on the voices of consciousness-studies pioneer John Lilly and his dolphin collaborators, as well as the sounds of whales and walruses. This is Burt's first piece dealing with underwater soundscapes, a theme that he would continue to explore.

2. Sketches of Scenes and Seasons from Upstate New York (1971-72)

Three analog synthesizer pieces which were made without a keyboard - these are structuralist abstracts. Burt was heavily influenced by the ideas of Constructivist sculptor George Rickey at the time, and these pieces, all of which have landscape titles, are the sound equivalent of the outdoor kinetic sculptures of the late 60s.

Burt's first electronic music work. From the rampaging collage of "The Trilobite Trilogy Blues" through the barrage of roaring, whining Formula-One Grand Prix like sound of "Sleiden Sound" to the chopped up sound of 19 people reading 19 th century pornography in "The Scarlet Aardvark Strikes Back", this highly energetic and exuberant piece expresses Burt's joy at finding a medium which suited him perfectly. Made with the now historical CEMS synthesizer system designed by Joel Chadabe, early synthesizer fans will love this.