Bleep

Dais Records (Sonoio, William S. Burroughs) issue this previously-unreleased collection from Swedish composer Ragnar Grippe. Symphonic Songs was created some time between Grippe’s 1977 LPs Sand/Electronic Composition and 1981’s Lost Secrets. Stylistically the lengthy entries here are closer to the 1977 stuff than Grippe’s later forays into no-wave disco. These sprawling compositions twist synthesisers into strange shapes in a manner that clearly draws on the musique concrete of Karlheinz Stockhausen. At points Grippe also blends in the serialism of Arnold Schoenberg as well as a ghost of Midori Takada’s post-minimalist experiments. Symphonic Songs is a crucial new entry in Grippe’s catalogue.