Think “Gen­er­a­tive Music” and what may come to mind is Bri­an Eno, push­ing a but­ton and let­ting music flow from his stu­dio com­put­er. But the idea is much old­er than that.

The “Illi­ac Suite” from 1952 is named after the cash-reg­is­ter-look­ing ILLIAC com­put­er on which it was com­posed, and is one of the first exam­ples of bring­ing com­put­er pro­gram­ming into the task of cre­at­ing music with­in some well defined para­me­ters. The result­ing score was then played by humans. You can hear the first exper­i­ment above.

The pro­gram­mers were Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Isaac­son, who met at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Urbana-Cham­pagne, where the ILLIAC com­put­er was built. Inter­est­ing­ly, Hiller con­sid­ered him­self a chemist first, a com­pos­er sec­ond. He had stud­ied clas­si­cal com­po­si­tion under Mil­ton Bab­bitt and, even while work­ing at DuPont labs in Vir­ginia, was com­pos­ing string quar­tets and vocal works. Bab­bitt and oth­er teach­ers had encour­aged him to keep com­pos­ing even while he turned to chem­istry. Per­haps they knew that the art and the sci­ence would dove­tail?

Because indeed they did. While work­ing on the ILLIAC, Hiller real­ized that the method­ol­o­gy he was using in chem­istry prob­lems were the same as those used by com­posers, and decid­ed to exper­i­ment. Isaac­son would help pro­gram the new com­put­er.

The first exper­i­ment sounds the most tra­di­tion­al, the most like Bach. The two cre­at­ed sim­ple rules: a melody that only used notes with­in an octave, har­monies that tend­ed towards the major and the minor with no dis­so­nance, and a few oth­er para­me­ters.

The sec­ond exper­i­ment fea­tured four-voice polypho­ny with slight­ly more com­plex rules. The third exper­i­ment is where it gets inter­est­ing, and starts to sound very “mod­ern,” very Pen­derec­ki. Here Hiller and Isaac­son tried to intro­duce rhythm and dynam­ics, although admit­ted­ly they had to shape a lot of the deci­sions out­side the pro­gram and intro­duce some cor­rec­tive algo­rithms.

The fourth and final exper­i­ment was to then replace the “musi­cal” rules of the first three with rules from non-musi­cal dis­ci­plines, and to show that a score could be cre­at­ed from pret­ty much any­thing. Hiller and Isaac­son used Markov Chains to com­pose the final more repet­i­tive and puls­ing piece. (Markov Chains are beyond the scope of this arti­cle, but we encounter them when Google ranks search results or when our iPhones pre­dict what we are going to type next.)

The first three scores were then per­formed by mem­bers of the University’s stu­dent orches­tra in August of 1956 while the fourth was being com­plet­ed. The fin­ished works caught the inter­est of Vladimir Ussachevsky, who would set up the influ­en­tial Colum­bia-Prince­ton Elec­tron­ic Music Cen­ter in New York City and begin releas­ing his own com­po­si­tions the fol­low­ing year.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Christ­mas Car­ols Made by Alan Turing’s Com­put­er: Cut­ting-Edge Ver­sions of “Jin­gle Bells” and “Good King Wences­las” (1951)

Hear the First Record­ing of Com­put­er Gen­er­at­ed Music: Researchers Restore Music Pro­grammed on Alan Turing’s Com­put­er (1951)

An Impres­sive Audio Archive of John Cage Lec­tures & Inter­views: Hear Record­ings from 1963–1991

A Huge Anthol­o­gy of Noise & Elec­tron­ic Music (1920–2007) Fea­tur­ing John Cage, Sun Ra, Cap­tain Beef­heart & More

Peefeey­atko: A Look Inside the Cre­ative World of Frank Zap­pa

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

Writ­ing in his 1995 diary about his sem­i­nal ambi­ent album Music for Air­ports, Eno remem­bered his ini­tial thoughts going into it: “I want to make a kind of music that pre­pares you for dying–that doesn’t get all bright and cheer­ful and pre­tend you’re not a lit­tle appre­hen­sive, but which makes you say to your­self, ‘Actu­al­ly, it’s not that big a deal if I die.’”

Cre­at­ed in 1978 from sec­onds-long tape loops from a much longer improv ses­sion with musi­cians includ­ing Robert Wyatt, Music for Air­ports start­ed the idea of slow, media­tive music that aban­doned typ­i­cal major and minor scales, brought in melod­ic ambi­gu­i­ty, and began the explo­ration of sounds that were designed to exist some­where in the back­ground, beyond the scope of full atten­tion.

For those who think 50 min­utes is too short and those piano notes too rec­og­niz­able, may we sug­gest this 6‑hour, time-stretched ver­sion of the album, cre­at­ed by YouTube user “Slow Motion TV.” The tonal field is the same, but now the notes are no attack, all decay. It’s gran­u­lar as hell, but you could imag­ine the whole piece unspool­ing unno­ticed in a ter­mi­nal while a flight is delayed for the third time. (Maybe that’s when the accep­tance of death hap­pens, when you’ve giv­en up on ever get­ting home?)

Unlike Music for Films, which fea­tured sev­er­al tracks Eno had giv­en to film­mak­ers like Derek Jar­man, it took some time for Music for Air­ports to be real­ized in its intend­ed loca­tion: being piped in at a ter­mi­nal at La Guardia, New York, some­time in the 1980s. And that was just a one-time thing.

The album seemed des­tined for per­son­al use only, but then in 1997 the mod­ern ensem­ble Bang on a Can played it live, trans­lat­ing the ran­dom­ness of out of sync tape loops into music nota­tion. Over the years they’ve per­formed it at air­ports in Brus­sels, Hol­land and Liv­er­pool, and in 2015 the group brought it to Ter­mi­nal 2 of San Diego Inter­na­tion­al. Writ­ing for KCET, Alex Zaragoza report­ed that “cry­ing babies, echoes of rolling suit­cas­es and board­ing pass­es serv­ing as tick­ets to the con­cert failed to remind any­one that they were, indeed, at one of the busiest air­ports in the coun­try. Even the tell­tale announce­ments were there: Air­port secu­ri­ty is every­one’s respon­si­bil­i­ty. Do not leave bags unat­tend­ed.”

And then in 2018, Lon­don City Air­port played the orig­i­nal album in a day-long long loop for the album’s 40th anniver­sary.

As site-spe­cif­ic mul­ti-media art builds pop­u­lar­i­ty in the 21st cen­tu­ry with increas­ing­ly cheap­er and small­er tech­nol­o­gy, we might hope to hear ambi­ent drones, and not clas­sic rock or pop, in more and more land­scapes.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bri­an Eno’s Advice for Those Who Want to Do Their Best Cre­ative Work: Don’t Get a Job

Behold the Orig­i­nal Deck of Oblique Strate­gies Cards, Hand­writ­ten by Bri­an Eno Him­self

Bri­an Eno Explains the Loss of Human­i­ty in Mod­ern Music

Ted Mills is a free­lance writer on the arts who cur­rent­ly hosts the artist inter­view-based FunkZone Pod­cast and is the pro­duc­er of KCR­W’s Curi­ous Coast. You can also fol­low him on Twit­ter at @tedmills, read his oth­er arts writ­ing at tedmills.com and/or watch his films here.

Like hun­dreds of oth­er teenagers in late sev­en­ties Eng­land, Susan Bal­lion, bet­ter known as Siouxsie Sioux, embraced the any­one-can-do-it-ness of punk after see­ing the Sex Pis­tols. In 1976, already a tastemak­er in the scene, she threw a band togeth­er with Sid Vicious on drums, and with no prac­tice, or even any songs, they got onstage, and impro­vised a 20-minute ren­di­tion of “The Lord’s Prayer.” There launched the career of a post-punk, dark pop leg­end, span­ning that first anar­chic gig, the infa­mous Bill Grundy TV appear­ance, some of the most influ­en­tial British rock of the late-70s and 80s, and major tours and hits through­out the last three decades.

Despite the awards, star col­lab­o­ra­tions, and mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional influ­ence, Siouxsie’s strik­ing musi­cal tal­ent has often been giv­en short shrift in the U.S. press. For exam­ple, a 1992 Los Ange­les Times con­cert write-up after the release of her biggest U.S. hit, “Kiss Them for Me,” cast her as “the leader of a cult of weird chicks,” writes Liz Ohnane­sian at Noisey, “in a review that spent five para­graphs on her looks and a whop­ping two on the music.” Maybe, “at that point, the band was used to that.” But it’s a seri­ous over­sight.

“Much has been writ­ten about the vocal range of artists like Fred­die Mer­cury,” Dan­ger­ous Minds points out, “but not so much on the equal­ly bril­liant Siouxsie Sioux.” If the com­par­i­son seems stretched, con­sid­er anoth­er one: Kate Bush.

Though very dif­fer­ent artists, both released debut albums in 1978 and became style icons who are as influ­en­tial for their look as for their vocal prowess. Siouxsie, whose voice “devel­oped from spiky, punky vocals to rich, pow­er­ful, and glo­ri­ous tex­tured tones… can hit the high notes and bring an unnerv­ing warmth and men­ace to her low­er range.”

With Siouxsie and the Ban­shees, The Crea­tures, and in her solo work, she has giv­en cool, icy voice to goth­ic sen­ti­ments and images, con­vey­ing ache and fear and bru­tal beau­ty. In the videos here, lis­ten to Siouxsie’s iso­lat­ed vocals from 1988’s “The Killing Jar” (hear the orig­i­nal right above), an excel­lent exam­ple of “just how good she is.” Above, also hear her vocal track from “Hong Kong Gar­den,” her 1978 debut sin­gle, and “arguably the most impor­tant of the ear­ly post-punk hits,” writes Robert Webb at The Inde­pen­dent.

Lis­ten to her sing 1985’s “Cities in Dust,” about the destruc­tion of Pom­peii, and below, hear “Kiss Them for Me,” a cryp­tic trib­ute to actress Jayne Mans­field and a song that made a new gen­er­a­tion of Siouxsie and the Ban­shees fans when it came out in 1991. Siouxsie has attract­ed a new­ly devot­ed fan­base every decade since the 70s for her style, song­writ­ing, and her voice, an instru­ment that deserves greater atten­tion.

“These days,” she said in a 2007 inter­view, the lega­cy of punk has “almost been reduced to a fash­ion state­ment. I think there’s been a false sense of empow­er­ment for women” in music. “Almost as if there’s that ever-present pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with body form and image… not about express­ing any style or intent.” Young artists look­ing for gen­uine inspi­ra­tion will always find the real thing in Siouxsie’s impres­sive body of work.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Siouxsie and the Banshee’s Raw & Com­plete­ly Impro­vised First Show, with Sid Vicious on Drums (1976)

The Sex Pis­tols Make a Scan­dalous Appear­ance on the Bill Grundy Show & Intro­duce Punk Rock to the Star­tled Mass­es (1976)

Four Female Punk Bands That Changed Women’s Role in Rock

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Few albums of the late 1970s and ear­ly 1980s have held up as well as those by Talk­ing Heads, but what to call the music record­ed on them? Rock? Pop? New Wave? In the dif­fi­cul­ty to pin it down lies its endur­ing appeal, and that dif­fi­cul­ty did­n’t come about by acci­dent: impa­tient with musi­cal cat­e­go­riza­tions and expec­ta­tions, front­man David Byrne and the rest of the band kept push­ing them­selves into new ter­ri­to­ries even after they’d begun to find suc­cess. When they set out to cre­ate their fourth album, 1980’s Remain in Light, “they were look­ing to change the way they made songs.” Instead of leav­ing the writ­ing to Byrne, “the band want­ed a more demo­c­ra­t­ic process. And so they tried some­thing they nev­er had before.”

So says the Poly­phon­ic video above on how the band wrote “Once in a Life­time,” sure­ly the most beloved song on Remain in Light and quite pos­si­bly the most beloved in Talk­ing Heads’ entire cat­a­log. “Inspired by Afrobeat leg­end Fela Kuti, the instru­men­tal­ists in the band record­ed a num­ber of jams,” such as the proto-“Once in a Life­time” out­take “Right Start” (which itself fol­lowed on “I Zim­bra” from Talk­ing Heads’ pre­vi­ous album, Fear of Music).

When bassist Tina Wey­mouth came up with a strik­ing bass line, the band “took that lick and extrap­o­lat­ed it, slow­ly build­ing a piece around it. After weeks of jam­ming, David Byrne and pro­duc­er Bri­an Eno came in to the stu­dio to start adding arrange­ments and lyrics to the music pieces.”

Eno count­ed the rhythm of the song dif­fer­ent­ly than every­one else did, result­ing in a dis­tinc­tive lay­er­ing of dif­fer­ent grooves all at once. On top of this came the lyrics, which Byrne devel­oped as he “sat down and lis­tened to tel­e­van­ge­list ser­mons, pulling phras­es from them and craft­ing them into lyrics.” Put togeth­er, “the song cre­ates a trance­like state, cap­tur­ing the man­ic monot­o­ny of mid­dle-class exis­tence” with both its cap­ti­vat­ing­ly repet­i­tive music (played by the band mem­bers act­ing as “human sam­plers”) and its words, as Byrne him­self inter­prets them, “about the uncon­scious, about how we oper­ate half-awake on autopi­lot.”

Like so many hits of the 1980s, “Once in a Life­time” launched into the zeit­geist from the plat­form of MTV — a net­work that did­n’t even exist when the song came out. “Made on a shoe­string bud­get, the video for ‘Once in a Life­time’ is one of the most mem­o­rable of its time.” Co-direct­ed by Toni Basil (of “Mick­ey” fame), it “played with blue­screen tech­nol­o­gy, com­pos­ing mul­ti­ple David Byrnes on top of a white back­ground or images of reli­gious cer­e­mo­ny.” Byrne and Basil “pored over film of preach­ers, peo­ple in trances, reli­gious sects, and much, much more. Some of these were put in the back­ground, but more impor­tant­ly, they were used as the basis for Byrne’s danc­ing.” When the con­tent-hun­gry MTV launched six months after “Once in a Life­time” came out, the video went right into heavy rota­tion. 37 years lat­er, we can look back at both it and the song as “the walk­ing embod­i­ment of all that the Talk­ing Heads were: it’s cut­ting-edge, it’s strange, and it’s utter­ly bril­liant.”

Relat­ed Con­tent:

How David Byrne and Bri­an Eno Make Music Togeth­er: A Short Doc­u­men­tary

The Iso­lat­ed Vocal Tracks of the Talk­ing Heads’ “Once In A Life­time” Turn David Byrne into a Wild-Eyed Holy Preach­er

The Genius of Tina Wey­mouth: Break­ing Down the Style of Talk­ing Heads and Tom Tom Club’s Basslines

Hear the Ear­li­est Known Talk­ing Heads Record­ings (1975)

Talk­ing Heads Per­form The Ramones’ “I Wan­na Be Your Boyfriend” Live in 1977 (and How the Bands Got Their Start Togeth­er)

Talk­ing Heads Fea­tured on The South Bank Show in 1979: How the Ground­break­ing New Wave Band Made Nor­mal­i­ty Strange Again

Based in Seoul, Col­in Mar­shall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les and the video series The City in Cin­e­ma. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.