40. Texts and Music 1987-1998 ( TWO CD )

Working with both human and machine poets, Burt here sets texts and performances by humans Amanda Stewart, Gertrude Stein, Elizabeth Block, Allyn Brodsky and Brigid Burke, Nossis, Ptolemy, Plato, etc. and cyber-authors Racter and Eliza. Performers include Howard Stanley, Susie Fraser, bernie m janssen, Ernie Althoff, and a host of others. This wide ranging collection of texts and settings is almost an encyclopaedia of ways the contemporary composer can deal with words.

39. Chris Mann and Warren Burt: Collaborative Works 1977-1993 ( TWO CD )

The collaboration of Burt and Mann is legendary in Melbourne and international performance poetry circles. For almost two decades, they worked together on a series of gritty, uncompromising performances where Burt provided sonic environments as convoluted as Mann's multi-layered texts. Includes “Syntactic Switches” from 1977, an historical La Mama performance, as well as the forty members of the Astra Choir performing with an equal number of cassette recorders, resynthesizing the sounds of Pidgin and the audience's voices. “of course” and “anyway”, their two major collaborations from the late 80s, for live computer and voice, are also included here.

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.

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.

18. Lo-Fi Melodic Electronics (1979-81)

Low technology, low humour, low volume characterize these pieces. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” is the sound track for an early performance by New York cross-cultural music legend Ned Sublette. It's a kind of automated medieval music that nods to minimalism. “Dr. Burt's Microtonal Disco-Fat Arkestra” is three badly played pop tunes (so bad they're really baaad!) in the style of the legendary California incompetence ensemble Fatty Acid (that Burt helped found)- one of the earliest pieces made with the Fairlight CMI; and “Leather Disco” is an attempt to out-disco Giorgio Moroder with a table full of electronic toys and cassette recorders.

17. Tasmanian "D" and Suite for Cheap Technology (1977-80)

In the 1970s, Burt was one of the pioneers of Melbourne's cassette culture. His work with Ron Nagorcka in the now legendary duo Plastic Platypus led to these solo pieces. “Tasmanian ‘D'” starts with the sound of a key ring and a single circular breathing ‘D' on a piccolo, and through multiple cassette recorders transforms them, in live performance, to a shrieking mass of shredded sound. “Suite for Cheap Technology” is a collection of pieces premiered at Melbourne's seminal Clifton Hill Community Music Centre, using lots of little electronic devices to create “electronic music that anyone could make.”

7. Nighthawk, Part 2: 3 Poems of Reassemblage (1975)

Three classic lo-tech experimental poetry pieces. Includes "Frou-Frou Flamingo", Burt's first cassette recorder piece, the dark gangland rhythms of "The Alligator Lords," and the vocal multiphonics and cut up pulp literature of "The Smirking Haddock." Cut-up poetry, toy percussion, cheap electronics - an essential piece from the 1970s sound poetry movement.