Kagel: Acustica is a reissue of the landmark 1971 Deutsche Grammophon recording of Mauricio Kagel's Acustica (1968–70), performed by the Kölner Ensemble für Neue Musik, released on May 1, 2026 as the second entry in Deutsche Grammophon's new Avantgarde vinyl series — a limited, numbered double LP on 180-gram vinyl, mastered and cut from the original analogue quarter-inch two-track master tapes by Rainer Maillard and Sidney Claire Meyer at Emil Berliner Studios, with new liner notes by Bradford Bailey. The work was originally recorded at Studio Rhenus in Godorf bei Köln across four sessions in January 1971, and stands among the most radical and theatrically ambitious compositions of the Buenos Aires-born, Cologne-based composer Mauricio Kagel (1931–2008), a central figure of the postwar European avant-garde and a longtime friend and colleague of Luc Ferrari — whose Presque Rien No. 1 was issued as the series' inaugural release. The four-part work — each part occupying one side of the double LP — combines electroacoustic tape material produced at WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk) in 1969 with live acoustic performances, together running just over 75 minutes.Acustica is composed for what Kagel called "experimental sound-producers and loudspeakers" — an extraordinary and deliberately unclassifiable instrumentarium drawing on roughly 200 graphic-score cards, through which five performers navigate a vast array of invented instruments, found objects, homemade sound-producing devices, and mechanisms incorporating loudspeakers, tone generators, and cassette recorders. The work embodies Kagel's concept of instrumentales Theater (instrumental theatre), in which sound, physical gesture, and the visible presence of the performer are fused into a single dramatic and musical act — a category that dissolves the boundary between musical performance and theatrical event. The first two parts of the recording are live performances; the final two are purely electroacoustic compositions produced at WDR. Together they constitute what uDiscover Music describes as a work that "frees sound from traditional performance conventions" and represents "a uniquely Latin American response to the European avant-garde: a vibrant, democratic sound world full of invention and humanity" — a monument of twentieth-century experimental music now newly accessible in a collector's edition worthy of its historical significance.
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