Tod Dockstader

Tod Dockstader, America's long-lost electronic music grandfather, returns after nearly 40 years of silence. In the early Sixties, Dockstader looped raucous tapes to sine-wave shrapnel by night so that they were as whiplash-fast, whimsical, violent, and surreal as the cartoons he edited by day. Early works like Luna Park and...

By Andy Beta

December 8, 2005

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Tod Dockstader, America's long-lost electronic music grandfather, returns after nearly 40 years of silence. In the early Sixties, Dockstader looped raucous tapes to sine-wave shrapnel by night so that they were as whiplash-fast, whimsical, violent, and surreal as the cartoons he edited by day. Early works like Luna Park and Quatermass were touchstones not only for his generation but also latter-day noiseniks such as Aphex Twin, Boredoms, and Wolf Eyes. Ariel marks his return, and its proposed three discs (of which this is the second) meld his childhood fascination with shortwave radio to his recent implementation of the computer as compositional tool. Static, bleeps, mixed signals, fuzz, and atmospheric interference are cooked down to a consommé of crackle by Dockstader, and titles such as "Clocking" and "Piccolo" merely note the tidal flow. With his wise hands he concocts and splashes about in a warm — though alien — ocean of sound.

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