Suzanne Ciani: Lixiviation

Labeled the “American Delia Derbyshire (Delia Ann Derbyshire (5 May 1937 – 3 July 2001) was an English musician and composer of electronic music and musique concrète) of the Atari generation,” Finders Keepers Record has released a compilation that features early compositions by the synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani who was one of the few women around that timethat made a career as a synthesist. This new album heavily features the Buchla 200.

In the 60's sculptor Harold Paris first introduced her to Don Buchla, whose studio building was next door to the UC Berkeley in the industrial waterfront section of Oakland. She worked for Don Buchla in his factory and by doing so got her first Buchla 200.

For me she is not just making music but creates landscapes that unfold in front of you as
you listen to the record. And it takes you to places where you have never been before.

Suzanne Ciani says about one of the pieces included on this compilation:
“This is an exampleof a Buchla piece where the music is generated by the machine itself, after lots of careful programming. I would spend weeks just living with the machine, always on, and tweak the parameters that were interacting to create this “automatic” composition. The idea was that you worked with the machine, setting up sequences and envelopes and filter modulations that interacted  in an organic way. The composition then infolded infinitely, going for weeks.”

Suzanne Ciani has a very detailed but also in my eyes, joyful approche in a way that I realy like and I would say that this record is definitely a piece of electronic music history.