Jim Fassett - Symphony of the Birds (Em)

Here’s one of the weirdest Christmas presents ever to grace my imaginary tree. I know nothing about Jim Fassett; I am guessing, from the voice on this reissue, that he was in radio, and it would make sense, given the interwoven history of that medium and the burgeoning “tape music” scene. This is exactly what its title suggests—the Japanese reissue of a symphony made up entirely of bird songs. The liners are, unfortunately, in Japanese, but the recording is in stereo, so I’m going to hazard a late 1950s recording date for this quaint bit of history. A quick search also unearths 1955 as a tentative date, but I’m not so sure, given that I thought stereo’s prominence came a bit later.

The music herein turns out to be more interesting than I’d anticipated—a three-movement piece that follows, loosely, a Fast-Slow-Dance pattern associated with early symphonic plans. The third movement even sports what you might call pitch-based motives, wonder of wonders, developed in what would now be a very easy series of transpositions to bring off, given the early 1980s advances in technology. Most enjoyable, though, are some beautifully layered passages in the “slow” movement, vast sweeps of atmospheric multi-octave trills that still fill the soundstage.

Fassett’s comments, both pre and post symphony, are meant for the Concret novice, providing vivid illustrations of the bird calls and of the processes by which they were manipulated. It’s all good fun, and I’m told the booklet has some great pictures, but a bit of hunting tells me that it’s a fairly expensive proposition, so dig around a bit if you’ve an itch to stuff a late stocking with this slice of lopsided nature.

~ Marc Medwin