Label: Creel Pone

70年代後半に日本を拠点としながら東芝EMIより多くの音盤を発表した事で知られるFrank W. Becker。それ以前の76年に自身のGorilla imprintから発表していた激レア1st[Celebration]のCD-R。東京のABCホール、NHKスタジオでの録音を含むとんでもなく貴重な3曲からなり、特に2曲目[Waves]では高橋あき、秋山邦春がパフォーマーとして参加している驚きの記録。マスト。





Even to a die-hard Early Electronic Music acolyte, Frank W. Becker's name isn't a readily familiar one, despite issuing a half-dozen LPs of vaguely Berlin-school music via Toshiba EMI while based in Japan in the mid-late 70s. "Celebration," a "Private" issue on his own Gorilla imprint, starts out sure enough with the titular, 1976 side-length bit of protracted sequencing and minimalism-inspired forms - all with a vague new-age lilt to it b/w of calming ocean noises & an almost Terry Riley-ish turn of phrasing - but by the second side we're given an insight into Becker's aspirations as a proper composer of capital-A Avant-Garde Electro-Acoustic gems, witnessed by the two excoriating pieces.

"Waves" (1974-76), a "Composition for Prepared Piano, Electronics, and Tape Delay" was recorded live at ABC Hall in Tokyo, and featured legendary Japanese pianist Aki Takahashi along with Kuniharu Akiyama - a name that may be familiar from his disc on Omega Point's excellent "Obscure Tape Music of Japan" series. "Incursion" (1972) is a "Composition for Tape Collage" rendered at the NHK studio, and is a crackling, vibrant display of Musique Concrète tactics, showing Becker's formative sensibilities to be fully formed.

This Creel Pone replica, while not going as far as replicating the "Trick" die-cut sleeve, does offer the included insert in both English & Japanese, encoded onto the 6-panel booklet; an absolutely justifiable entrant into the "OTF" 199-x series.