Musique Concrete is created by recording various sounds on tape and modifying them in some way. The term was created by Pierre Schaeffer, an early pioneer of this style, to differentiate it from "normally" composed music, Musique Abstraite. Concentrating on found sounds or natural occurances, the results of such alterations and manipulations cause the original recordings to express themselves in new and unique ways. ReR's Musique Concrete CD collects some of the very best pieces ever constructed, and presents them alongside newer forms of Concrete stylings.Each piece is a classic, influential, indispensible work.

JOHN OSWALD - "PARADE" (1986) : uses a cube factor increase in tape speed to plunderize several existing versions of Satie's classic, and then fragments and alters the result accordingly.

GEORGE KATZER - "Aide Memoire" (1983) : collects recordings made in Germany from 1933 to 1945. After Concrete treatments, the resulting sound collage is both a horrifying reminder of history's lowest point and, concommitantly, an ironic classic of the genre.

LUTZ GLANDIEN - "Es Lebe" (1990) : couples electronically manipulated tape with the tuba work of Michael Vogt. Created at the Studio of Academy Art in Berlin, it is a masterwork of the newer, electroacoustic style.

STEVE MOORE - A Quiet Gathering" (1988) : Thirteen different families of sounds are collected, examined, arranged by texture, and altered to both express the differ- ences and similarities to each other in a rather entertaining fashion.

JAROSLAV KRCEK - "Sonaty Slavickove" (1970) : Builds up elements to sonically express a 17th Century text by Jan Korinek, manipulating natural sounds and the human voice to approximate the musical characteristics of a sonbird in the wild.

RICHARD TRYTHALL - "Ommagio a Jerry Lee Lewis" (1975) : is one of the most radical and classic examples of the genre. It's wild form uses "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" as source material.