An exhibit in the main floor of UW-Madison’s Memorial Library seeks to showcase pivotal moments in the history of experimental and electronic music. Many of those pivotal moments are available to play (and available to check out) in Memorial’s basement, amidst the vast musical collection of the Mills Music Library.

The exhibit is arranged in a loose chronology over roughly eight decades. Yet, some of these recordings sound much more contemporary than you would think.

Pauline Oliveros’s “Bye Bye Butterfly” sounds like it could be a selection on WORT’s RTQE… but it was realized at the The San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1965.

The most well-known composition from Don Voegeli (pronounced “vaguely”) is the original theme to NPR’s All Things Considered, but some of his other “beautiful and lovely” music was composed at Madison’s own WHA/WPR in Vilas Hall, in the 1970s, on one of his Moog synthesizers.

George Lewis’s improvised duos between human and computer musicians are an early example of computer improvisation dating back to the 1980s.

Steve Meyer, Data Strategist for the Mills Music Library and Tom Caw, Music Public Services Librarian teamed up to curate the exhibit. It’s titled Oscillators, Resonators, & Tape, Oh(m) My! (get it?) and runs for just a few more weeks, until February 2.

Meyer and Caw join host Brian Standing in-studio to play some of their careful selections.

Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate here