Published by Ellipsis Arts. Paperbound book, 96 pages, 8"x11", generously illustrated with color photographs, plus audio CD, packaged together as a boxed set.

Price $26.95

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Gravikords, Whirlies and Pyrophones is a book-and-CD package devoted to new and unheard-of musical instruments. The book is full of magnificent photographs and informative text; the CD is full of great music; every page and every track overflow with ideas and originality. Thirty-seven of the world's most interesting and inventive musical instrument makers appear in the book, with music from eighteen of them included on the CD.

A few examples: the opening track on the CD is Hans Reichel's Daxophone — a more developed and elegantly crafted version of the ruler firmly held overhanging the edge of the desk, played, in this case, with a bow. Hans gets an incredible circus of sounds from this arrangement with irresistible musical results. The late Jamaican mento musician Sugarbelly Walker plays his bamboo saxophone with facility, style, passion and joy. Susan Rawcliffe produces strange and hauntingly beautiful sounds on oddly shaped and acoustically complex ceramic wind instruments inspired by pre-Columbian flutes and whistles. Music and instruments from the great mid-century iconoclast Harry Partch are included, as well as the earlier Theremin, played by the leading virtuoso of its day, Clara Rockmore.

Technical aspects of the instruments are not covered in depth in this release; rather, the purposes and personalities of the makers come to the fore while the photos and sounds are allowed to speak for themselves. The reviews of this collection have been more plentiful and more uniformly enthusiastic than you could have thought possible, SO: give it a look and a listen.

Artists included in the book and on the CD: Hans Reichel; Phil Dadson; Qubais Reed Ghazala; Jean-Claude Chapuis; Don Buchla; Ward Hartenstein; Harry Partch; Sugar Belly; Darrell De Vore; Leon Theremin; Barry Hall; Jacques Dudon; Ken Butler; Thomas Nunn; Sarah Hopkins; Robert Grawi; Susan Rawcliffe; Wendy Mae Chambers.
Additional artists appearing in the book only: Michel Moglia; Arthur Ferris; William Eaton; Richard Waters; Godfried-Willem Raes; Nazim Ozel; Bob Bates; Luigi Russolo; Ben Hume; Ferdinand Forsch; Arthur Frick; Carleen Hutchins; Reinhold Marxhausen; Richard Cooke; Oliver DiCicco; Fred "Spaceman" Long; Trimpin; Scott Hackleman; Brian Ransom.

$26.95

Sounds from the Gravikords, Whirlies & Pyrophones CD (MP3 format):

Excerpt from Naiades
played by Jacques Dudon on Aquavina

Excerpt from Silence the Tongues of Prophesy
played by Reed Ghazala on Incantors