Mario Bertoncini
Cifre / Four Systems / Cartridge Music
Edition RZ (Germany) 1989
ED. RZ 1002 (LP)
sleeve : EX-(TEOC, slightly wear on edge and corner.)
media : EX-/EX-(light surface noises caused by slightly hairlines.)
This album was released in 1989 by Italian composer/pianist Mario Bertoncini, who was also a member of Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. On the A-side are two versions of "Cifre" for piano prepared by Mario Bertoncini, plus "Four Systems" composed by Earle Brown, and on the B-side is "Cartridge Music" composed by John Cage. The three tracks on the A-side, in which multiple prepared pianos are played like percussion or stringed instruments, have a radical orientation that anticipates noise music, and the rough sound of the B-side, in which the sound is collected through the cartridge of a record player and edited/processed, is intensely avant-garde.