ROBERT RUTMAN / US STEEL CELLO ENSEMBLE

BITTER SUITES LP

Private / Rutdog

Rare original private pressing of some of the greatest sound sculpture ever reminescent of Remko Scha's Machine Guitars or Harry Bartoia records.

Some info on the release: Look Broken Music book. Original private pressing, released by the artist on his own Rutdog Records imprint in 1979 in Usa. Performed at various galleries across New york City. All instruments built by the artist, who also formed the ensemble. Beautiful photos of the sculptures(instruments) on the back cover together with explanatory liner notes. This is a recording of a concert by Robert Rutman and his steel cello's recorded sometime in the late 70's at a New York Art Gallery. If you are unfamiliar with the Steel Cello Ensemble, it's basically a few people playing large sheets of metal which produce totaly amazing, spooky, droning outer-space sounds. Very much in the same league as Bertoia's sound sculptures or the minimalism of La Monte Young and Yoshi Wada. A very important artist record, ages ahead of its' time (and much better than all those drone records released today), very close to those that you can find inside the Broken Music book, which features the records with the sound art of Paul Panhuysen, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Monahan, Terry Fox, Rolf Julius, Christina Kubisch, Logos Duo, Akio Suzuki or the records of Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik, and the indeterminacy of John Cage.

Robert Rutman (Berlin, 1931) went to the USA to study art in 1955. In 1975, he started building steel-metal sculptures to be played with a bow, like a violin, and founded the U.S. Steel Cello Ensemble. 1939 (Pogus, 1990) documents some of these resonating sculptures and their ghostly drones: Tabla and buzz chime, Steel cello and bow chime, Chant bow chime and horn, Three bow chimes, Song of the steel cello. After a long hiatus, new compositions began to appear on Music To Sleep By (Tresor, 1998), Song Of The Steel Cello (Pogus, 1999), that contains the title-track, Zuuhh Muttie Mum (1999).

Robert Rutman is an instrument inventor who created the steel cello in the early '70s. The instrument is a large sheet of steel suspended vertically, with a wire stretching between the two right corners. This string is bowed, and the curved steel acts as a resonator. The player can fret the string to produce a wide range of pitches, and can also use the instrument for percussive sounds. The pieces consist of buzzing drones with regular undulations, the release explores great resonating waves of sound, full of overtones and long, sustained tones. At times sounds like an air raid, with an ominous opening section reminiscent of resonating airplane sounds in World War II movies, then a screeching of sirens and crashes. This record is a good exploration of new areas of instrument building, as well as a fine ambient and drone release in its own right. Rutman has recently collaborated with artists like Carsten Tiedemann from the tribal-ambient group Mo Boma and Rudi Moser, a recent addition to the industrial group Einstürzende Neubauten.

Condition: Vinyl lies in very good+ condition, being a little bit dirty and showing some slight marks. Cover lies in only very good condition, with some overall storage and ring wear, split at the opening at the top (looks somewhat better on the picture than it actually is).

Tracklist

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