UbuWeb Sound - History of Electronic / Electroacoustic Music

History of Electronic / Electroacoustic Music (1937-2001)

About the History of Electroacoustic Music

When I started uploading the collection, in 2009, I was an undergraduate student of a composition class at the university's studio for electroacoustic music. Our professor made this collection, I believe, from his particular library, picking up some works that he found important. So there was this pile of CDs for us to hear as a kind of assignment. Because I could not be at the studio all the time I ripped the CDs to my computer so I could hear them at home. It was a natural thing then to start sharing it via the famous rapidshare, although it was not an all altruistic idea: the donwloads got me points that allowed me to get an account for downloading other shared material.

After I was done uploading I asked if someone could build a torrent so the works could be shared more easily. I didn't know if it was done or not until a friend of mine tells me that ubuweb published the collection. It was a very pleasant surprise since I, like many, admire a lot the work done in this website.

So I'm very proud and happy to see this here. I just want to clarify two things since it seems that my iniciative became some sort of legend, which is very funny. First, my college is a kind of a center of the most tradicional, western avant-gard electronic music, so I certainly agree that it leaves a lot of people outside, but leaving outside people working at the bounds of this tradition, and the area of Europe-America, was expected. I'm not saying that it's fair! Second and last, although woman are certainly an exception, I don't believe it was intentional to have few works by woman, it has more to do with the way our society and the tradition this music represent works.

Enjoy listening!

-- Caio Barros, São Paulo, Brazil 2011

This is from a 62 CD set called "The History of Electroacoustic Music" that was floating around as a torrent, reputedly curated by a Brazilian student. It's sketchy. The torrent vanished and the collection has long been unavailable.

It's a clearly flawed selection: there's few women and almost no one working outside of the Western tradition (where are the Japanese? Chinese? etc.). However, as an effort, it's admirable and contains a ton of great stuff.

Take it with a grain of salt, or perhaps use it as a provocation to curate a more intelligent, inclusive, and comprehensive selection.

-- UbuWeb