Mills College’s Center for Contemporary Music, an outcropping of the San Francisco Tape Music Center, is legendary for its connection with some of the most important names in electronic and experimental music. We’re talking John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnick, Steve Reich, Terry Riley. The program is still esteemed today and continues with faculty like Zeena Parkins and Fred Frith. And listen up synth nerds: it’s also one of the places you can play the original Buchla 100.
Mills College counts L.A. composer and sound designer Stefan Smith as a graduate. With an impressive list of collaborators of his own, Smith is now departing from accompanying visuals to release a duo of records. The first of these, an EP titled Mirror, hits at the end of this month.
Both releases arrive via the Sapiens imprint, though it couldn’t be further from the techno with which its founder Agoria is associated. Rather, Smith’s music edges closer to the meditations of Laurie Spiegel, as heard in the EP’s title track. Listen for yourself below, and look for the Mirror EP (which includes a remix by Perel) on June 29, followed by a self-titled full-length due October 12.
Mirror tracklisting:
01. Mirror (Perel Remix)
02. I’m Really Sorry, That Has Never Happened Before
03. Mirror (Original Mix)
Stefan Smith tracklisting:
01. Figure In A Landscape
02. Chimera
03. Mirror
04. Jupiter (606)
05. Embers
06. Vestige
07. Ghosts
08. Zone (3)
09. All Strange Away