ArtistInfo

Paul DeMarinis
Songs Without Throats

Compil. US 2019 on Black Truffle label
Electronic and Spoken Word (Experimental, Sound Art, Speech, Spoken Word)

Opening with a mesmerizing piece from 1978 pairing the voice and tamboura of Anne Klingensmith with letters spat out by a Speak n’ Spell to the accompaniment of the randomized melodic patterns of DeMarinis’s homebuilt electronic instrument “The Pygmy Gamelan”, the record then dispenses with the live human voice in favor of its recorded and synthetic doubles. One can follow DeMarinis’s restless probing of the possibilities of technology, from the hacked Speak n’ Spell (which gives us the austere “Et Tu, Klaatu” (1979), another duet with Klingensmith, on bowed psaltery, in which the toy’s synthetic voice is stretched into an alien song) through to the use of digital samples manipulated with home computer technology in the early 1990s (including a remarkable collage piece that weaves a rare recording of Stalin‘s voice and bird-like electronic twittering derived from its formant – glides into a rich tapestry of samples reflective of the dictator’s musical life). In between is a rich sampling of DeMarinis’s signature work with speech melodies — usually unnoticed melodic inflections that lie within speech patterns — which he analyses and translates into synthesized musical accompaniment. These pieces draw on a wide variety of sources, which range from the hilarious to the menacing, combining elements as seemingly unlikely as Beethoven‘s piano sonatas and the sounds of ’80s synth-pop. The results are an extraordinary combination of the alien and the familiar. As DeMarinis himself characterizes his work with vocal synthesis, this is “a kind of signal that simultaneously carried and obscured meaning and ideation, even as it created a sound world totally alien in esthetic”. Deluxe gatefold sleeve with archival images and liners by DeMarinis; design by Stephen O’Malley. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin.

Musicians

	Paul DeMarinis sax, syn, computer, keyboards, synthesizer, composed by, guitar, album by
	Anne Klingensmith , voice, tambura, keyboards
	Laetitia Sonami , *1957 US keyboards

Producers

Composers

ArtistInfo App

Acknowledgements

ArtistInfo for Mac, iPad, and iPhone