Search - Various Artists, Matthias Osterwold :: Ghost and Monsters

Leonardo Music Journal is published once every year. It contains not only articles on many fascinating subjects, but also a compact disc, usually a compilation of music that relates to the theme of the journal. For the first time, this year's compact disc, curated by Matthias Osterwold for LMJ Volume 8, subtitled 'Technology and Personality in Contemporary Music', is available independently. Osterwold writes: "Ghosts and monsters are products of imagination ... the ghosts of the past encounter the monsters of the future ... The pieces on this CD bring together examples of musical work that trace some aspects of the fields in which today's ghosts and monsters reside: politics, ideologies, the cult of personality, the mystery of technology ... from Lenin to Lennon, from gramophone to interactive audio software ... it is an imaginary, jumpy 'tour de force' through the century." Altogether, this is a wonderful 20th-century collection, conceptually as well as musically strong, it is indeed, as Osterwold puts it, "an essay in musical form," and a very intelligent and fascinating essay at that.