This is the second volume of the Kilkenny Electroacoustic Research Laboratory Anthology, which is a music compilation anthology attempting to preserve the fictional history of a small composer community based in rural Ireland existing from the late 60’s until the late 80’s. The project is written by the Irish composer and artist Neil Quigley.
Included with this download is 50 page booklet outlining the history and origins or each track and a special thank you letter from the Label management.
Volume 2 of the anthology was influenced by a variety of Irish news stories and cultural ephemera, Alasdair Gray’s Lanark, Garry Shandling, and post-war electronic music of the U.S., U.K and Europe.
"In this second volume of the Kilkenny Electroacoustic Research Laboratory Anthology, we focus primarily on the music cultures adjacent to the laboratory. The music we have included here is regarded by key members of the lab as ancillary to the primary output of the organisation, but we feel that this music gives a clearer picture of the broader culture and context in which K.E.R.L. existed.
Unlike the first volume, we have decided not to order the selected works chronologically, but instead have ordered them based on a sort of conceptual throughline, which is intended to tell a story or at least give an impression of how the studio affected the broader artistic community and how the outside world influenced the development of the organisation.
Tony Quinn (1942-) joined the Kilkenny Electroacoustic Research Laboratory in the early seventies as a studio engineer and he later became the operational manager of the organisation. We have included two pieces by Quinn in this volume, both of which were attempts at creating more sustainable revenue streams to subsidise the more idiosyncratic research being done at K.E.R.L., which can be heard in volume one.
The first work of Quinns we have selected is a piece taken from a collection of music which he had composed for an ill-fated homeware and lifestyle outlet store, planned by the supermarket chain L&N, which was to be trialled in Kilkenny throughout 1982.
The second piece included is a track called ‘Footing’ from Tony’s 1983 record Boglands, which was the first release of music under the lab’s relaxation series of records. In ‘Footing’ we can hear similar ideas to what Quinn had been exploring in his work for L&N, but by this stage in his career these compositional elements had become refined into a type of post-scarcity ambience.
We have included a piece by Helga Hölzel (1940-) whose work was also included in the previous volume of the K.E.R.L. Anthology. Her prose piece - ‘Piece for Amplified Bodily Infrasound and 31 Bodhráns,’ is a fascinating study of the feedback system between performer and space. The realisation of the work which we have included here, we believe is performed by Hölzel herself and that the recording comes from the Munster premiere of the work, programmed at a concert in New Twopothouse in the spring of 1970.
In 1981 Davey ‘Rinsey’ Butler (1959-) replaced Quinn as the engineering assistant in the studio. A young keyboard player who had played in local bands around the Southeast, Butler used the lab at off peak times to write the music for a television pilot which his uncle had written for the national broadcaster, called White Mountain, or The Border. We have selected three pieces from Butler’s work on this project for inclusion.
In this edition of the anthology, we have also included a number of pieces by Kenny Phelan (1951-2014), who was also featured in the previous volume. In 1984 Phelan was invited to become part of the laboratory by his close friend Tony Quinn. They were both interested in the new forms of spiritualism spreading across Ireland.
The first work by Phelan which is included here is an extract from his score for the video game: ‘Voyage to Tech Duinn,’ which was developed between 1986 and 1987 for the NES by the Kilkenny based new religious movement and life coaching pyramid scheme, The Kilkennanite Women’s Lodge.
The score for the game consisted of simple arrangements of assorted Irish and Scottish folk tunes optimised for the console’s sound chip (the Ricoh 2A03/07).
This work subsequently led Phelan to compose several experiments which pushed the limits of the sound hardware of the NES. We have included these four experiments in the same order in which they appeared on the original 7-inch release of this research, which the Kilkenny Electroacoustic Research Laboratories released as part of its “Study Series” in early 1988.
Dullards were a Kilkenny based three piece who were a key part of the short lived but highly controversial ‘Ceoil Guaise’ movement. The movement, only lasting three concerts in all, consisted of very loud, confrontational music and often destructive performance practices. During the second of the three concerts, the stage of the Carlton Ballroom was destroyed by a digger which one of the performance artists had stolen from his grandad and driven into the venue from Callan. The final Ceoil Guaise concert, which took place in the Town Hall in Kilkenny City, resulted in a blazing inferno of the Tholsel, a beloved local landmark at the centre of the high street.
Peter Morton (1942-98), while not an official member of K.E.R.L., was a Kilkenny based composer who benefitted from using the organisation’s facilities and equipment. Strangely, Morton’s entire compositional oeuvre is written under several pseudonyms; historic characters which he had developed extensive backstories for, along with discreet compositional styles and motives for each. He called the composers group which he had created to fit all these characters ‘An Triú Scoil Laighean,’ or The Third Leinster School.
The piece we have selected for inclusion here is a triptych of serialist miniatures for Piccolo, Cello and Piano written under the penname Fionn Ó Maoldomhnaigh called ‘Trí Mionsamhlacha don Triúr.’ We believe Morton wrote the piece at some point in 1975.
Prior to being a composer and researcher within K.E.R.L., Packie Bolger had played bass, synthesiser, low whistle and uilleann pipes in a Kilkenny based spud rock/ceoil neamhaí band, Dian Cécht. The band only ever released one official album called ‘Radió on Eoraip’ which is where we have selected the two tracks included in this collection, ‘Medium Waves from Oviedo’ and ‘Luxembourg Calling.’ The band ended soon after the release as the drummer/drum programmer, Owen Kiely, had taken a month away from touring to design and manufacture a series of currachs made from tiramisu, which with hindsight was a clear indication of a serious psychotic episode.
In the previous volume of this anthology, we included some work by the composer Oisín O Croidheagain (1938-). We have subsequently uncovered a 1982 public works pilot scheme which Creegan was involved in. The scheme involved the installation of what council blueprints described as ‘singing bins’ in four towns throughout Kilkenny for a trial period. The local council intended these bins to attract tourism to Kilkenny and encourage children not to litter. Despite the intent behind the scheme, it was a disaster from the outset, being plagued by a series of unaddressed health and safety issues, an unwieldy and expensive technical setup and a series of local protests who characterised the sound of the bins as “nightmarish.” The scheme swiftly ended after three children had been dancing near the bins on a rainy summers’ day and were seriously electrocuted."
----- Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.------
