// BIN 0002

Roberta Settels Isolation! [Vinyl LP 2007 ] [BIN 00-02]

Roberta Settels (1929 - 2014) was an American composer and industrial designer, who lived in Stockholm, Sweden.
She studied composition at Juliard in New York, and during the 70-ties and 80-ties, composed electronic music
in Stockholm at EMS, and in Paris at IRCAM, and studied with the composeres Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis
Later she created her own studio.

Isolation from 1985 is her only released recording. It was released on her private label “Music in Crisis”.
Although ‘Isolation’ was composed in 1985, most parts of it sound very fresh and contemporary.
Very unique for it’s time, the timbres and formal progression of the work bare little resemblance to the
electroacoustic maximalism of the period. Rather it shares aesthetics with more contemporary genres
such as Lowercase and Microsound.

The music, all generated by pure analog means, contains elements of extreme minimalism and splicing-techniques
derived from the tape-music tradition. Even though the work, making clever use of sine-waves and white noise,
it is very minimal in it’s expression, and very clearly communicates the emotional states of lonliness and isolation
which are it’s conceptual aim.The work is divided into four parts: Landscape With 3 tape-recorders And… ,
Scenario, Isolation (Meinhof In Memoriam) and P1 – Information?, forming a perceived whole.

This reissue comes in a limited edition of 250 copies with a custom-made plastic sleeve, with the original
cover, plastic sleeve and cover-notes in Swedish, English, German and French, written and designed by the composer.
Sold out.

Tracklist:

A1: Landscape With 3 tape-recorders And… (12:03)
A2: Scenario (9:07)
B1: Isolation! (Meinhof in memoriam) (43:90)
B2: P1 – Information? (3:33)

» Discogs Entry

2007 review excerpts:

Is this really from 1985? Very, very hard to believe, but if it's true, then it's truly a forgotten classic.
Here the silence of say Lopez, Meelkop, Behrens or Chartier is forecast by some fifteen years. A sparse tone
here and there, a sine wave, isolated from the rest. Only in the fourth part, 'P1 - Information?' there is a sudden
lot of activity,but even then it still remains sparse. Freightening music, sounding the isolated work inside a
prison cell very well.

Frans De Waard, Vital Weekly

This is uneasy music....Settels offers her music as a means of spiritual survival, when it rather bravely confronts the
reality of spiritual extinction; an example, perhaps, of creative endeavor better and more profound then the creator's
intentions or understanding.

The Wire Magazine

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Original 1985 reviews:

More:

»Original press release
»'Rødt chok' review from the music magazine Geiger (in Danish)
»EMS affiliated composer Roberta Settels dies. The Wire Magazine