Uploaded April 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Pulsers (1976)
Takehisa Kosugi, electronic violin
Pulsers explores the world of rhythms created electronically by analog, rather than digital, circuitry. With analog circuitry, the time-base common to the rhythms can be varied in many different ways by a performer, and can eventually become unstable.
This recording of Pulsers incorporates an improvised tape by Takehisa Kosugi, with his "electronic violin", made in collaboration with this work.
The core component used to produce Pulsers is a complex modulator designed by Gordon Mumma in conjunction with a sound system proposed by me for the Pepsi Pavilion, at Expo '70 Japan (a project of Experiments in Art and Technology Inc.). Alterations were made by me to trigger mechanisms of the circuit, as well as to its output ports, in order to enhance the variety of rhythms possible, and to allow multiple outputs having different characters. No primary input signal is used; rather, phase-shifted feedback is the trigger source.
Material for this record was assembled and mixed by David Tudor and Nicolas Collins at Airshaft Studio, NYC. A microcomputer-automated mixer of Collins' design was used to cross-gate source tapes, live concert recordings, and finally the resultant 8-track tape. --David Tudor
Art by Odili Donald Odita
Pulsers (1976)
Takehisa Kosugi, electronic violin
Pulsers explores the world of rhythms created electronically by analog, rather than digital, circuitry. With analog circuitry, the time-base common to the rhythms can be varied in many different ways by a performer, and can eventually become unstable.
This recording of Pulsers incorporates an improvised tape by Takehisa Kosugi, with his "electronic violin", made in collaboration with this work.
The core component used to produce Pulsers is a complex modulator designed by Gordon Mumma in conjunction with a sound system proposed by me for the Pepsi Pavilion, at Expo '70 Japan (a project of Experiments in Art and Technology Inc.). Alterations were made by me to trigger mechanisms of the circuit, as well as to its output ports, in order to enhance the variety of rhythms possible, and to allow multiple outputs having different characters. No primary input signal is used; rather, phase-shifted feedback is the trigger source.
Material for this record was assembled and mixed by David Tudor and Nicolas Collins at Airshaft Studio, NYC. A microcomputer-automated mixer of Collins' design was used to cross-gate source tapes, live concert recordings, and finally the resultant 8-track tape. --David Tudor
Art by Odili Donald Odita
