Album: Various Artists, Earle Brown Contemporary Sound Series, Vol. 5 (Wergo)

The fifth set of reissues of Earle Brown's landmark survey of the 1960s classical avant garde yokes three albums of disparate intentions.

Sonic Arts Union's Electric Sound offers four pioneering exercises in electronica by Alvin Lucier, Robert Ashley, David Behrman and Gordon Mumma, of which Lucier's buzzy-clicky "Vespers" is the most interesting. Music for Flute and Piano has pieces by Messiaen, Berio and Castiglioni performed with dry rigour by Severino Gazzelloni and Aloys Kontarsky; while the latter's recording of Charles Ives's Concord piano sonata stretches the series's brief further into the past than usual.

DOWNLOAD THIS Vespers; Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon; Gymel; Le Merle Noir; Concord Sonata