Southern California-based composer and improviser David Rosenboom is a figure for whom no real “school” is apt, and that’s what makes his work immediately accessible but primed to slip through certain cracks. Along with Donald Buchla, Rosenboom devised algorithmic methods for real-time composition (improvisation) with the synthesizer; proponents of “live electronic music,” their innovations are now a major part of the contemporary electronic music environment, including programs like SuperCollider. Rosenboom has also worked with brainwaves as a tool for improvisation and as a pianist recorded with reedman Anthony Braxton. Yet Rosenboom’s music is little heard outside of certain circles — his discography is fairly slim compared to peers like Alvin Lucier or Robert Ashley, but it is incredibly rewarding (check In the Beginning or How Much Better if Plymouth Rock had Landed on the Pilgrims, both on New World).
One of the most idiosyncratic and curious sets in Rosenboom’s discography is also one of the most obscure. Composed in 1979 and 1980, Daytime Viewing, a collaboration with vocalist Jacqueline Humbert, was released privately on cassette in 1983 and barely saw the light of day. Now it sees its first commercial issue on CD and LP via Unseen Worlds, which has built its aesthetic on minimal music, electronic composition, and populist sensibilities, combining accessible whimsy and romantic depth that brings new music to audiences weaned on indie rock.
Daytime Viewing is a song cycle consisting of six pieces; based on the absurdist theatricality of television soap operas as well as commercialism and family, Humbert’s voice and Rosenboom’s synthesizers are joined in places by the percussion of William Winant to create a landscape that is both lush and spry. Humbert’s soothingly rich, almost mechanized vocals set the stage for the record’s characters in a literal sense, earnest and necessarily removed. Rosenboom’s Buchla synthesizer is responsive and undulates with Humbert’s voice, taking flight where lyrics are absent. “Bareback” is a bizarre composition that toys with domestic foibles, Humbert’s lilting singsong matched perfectly by the circus-y billows and poots of Rosenboom’s knotty machinations. The tune’s weird coda delves into an overprotective mother’s physical relationship with her baby — a darkly effective component of Daytime Viewing’s lyric content, fleshed out further in the surreally powerful title piece juxtaposing an abusive partner with women’s fashion.
“Distant Space” heralds the second side with a poppy overture, Winant’s bongos darting amid grandiose, shimmering tone rows and Humbert’s soaring voice. An incredibly virtuosic singer, she moves through a range of inflections, from flatly electronic to nearly operatic, and her nuanced, clear Sprechstimme fits perfectly into the eliding region between organic and inorganic that Rosenboom occupies. “Talk 2” has a funky compulsion to it reminiscent of Annette Peacock and Paul Bley’s collaborations — pulsing whinnies, right-handed electric filigree, and Winant’s metallic accents create insistent accompaniment for Humbert’s round, full and reverberant phrases. It appears that by the second half of the cycle, the focus is a bit less on the specificity of Humbert’s language and more greatly on the cohesive framework of leider, folk song, jazz, and electronic pop. And however dark Daytime Viewing may get, there is a current of humor that is undeniable. It’s not that absurdity is necessary for vanguard art to be “accessible,” but the avant-garde deserves a hearty wink every now and then. While not the definitive Rosenboom album, Daytime Viewing is a fascinating set of music that deserves an earnest hearing.