New Sounds In Electronic Music- Steve Reich, Richard Maxfield, Pauline Oliveros (1967)

Rating-- 5/10

The further along to get into this record, the more it hurts your ears.

I would not recommend listening to it unless you're a hardcore fan of early electronic music, from back when computers were as big as rooms. It feels a lot like a "first draft" and I'm sure it would be interesting for some people, but for me, it doesn't sound like music.

Of course, it's here because it is indeed very historically significant, what with it being, I assume, one of the very first albums of electronic music. The genre has come a long way and, as much as certain people like to complain, said genre actually sounds like "real music" now. It does seem unfair to compare this very ahead-of-its-time recording to modern music-- like comparing a pinhole camera to a real film or digital camera-- but on a purely aesthetic judgement, this misses the mark for me.

I suppose you could call it "deep listening" music if you wanted to, the kind that could put you to sleep. And it probably could, at least until about thirteen minutes into "I of IV", which is when my ears were hurting and I felt like I was stuck inside a computer.