In 2001, the Pogus label released No Mo, a collection of three early tape pieces by Pauline Oliveros. "No Mo" and "Something Else" date from 1966, when she worked at the University of Toronto. "Bog Road" was recorded a year later in San Francisco. All three pieces hold the excitement and limitations of early tape music.
Oliveros' work from that period has been cruelly underdocumented. These pieces do not represent bottom-of-the-barrel scraps, but accomplished experimental compositions, important to understand the woman's evolution as an artist. The first two works were created using standard electronic devices (at the time). "No Mo" plays with white noise, echo, and spatialization. "Something Else" is tone-based. Delicate synthesized sounds are layered to create a landscape, something like a field in a summer night. "Bog Road," the longest piece at 33 minutes, consists of an early experiment with the Buchla Series 100 Box. Based on tape loops and delays, the piece is made of two separate parts isolated in the left and right stereo channels. This crude panning works better when heard on loudspeakers (the sounds get a chance to meet). On headphones, it gets schizophrenic. Through its half-hour duration, the piece evolves slowly, the composer striving to make changes in loops as seamless as possible. A bit overlong, it is not as satisfying as the other two works on this CD, but its experimental dimension is interesting to study. ~ François Couture