Northern California’s Suzanne Ciani is set to participate in the Luminate series at London's Kings Place on 26 September. She’ll also be appearing alongside Alessandro Cortini at London Barbican Hall on 19 October. A Buchla synthesizer specialist, Ciani has released 16 solo albums during a career spanning more than 40 years. In 2012 the archive imprint Finders Keepers released a Ciani compilation, triggering a revival of interest in her 1970s and 80s work. Ciani delved through that material for this new Wire mix.

“The First Wave – Birth Of Venus”
This is from my first commercially released album Seven Waves. It was started in 1979 and released in 1982.

“Lixiviation”
Composed with a Buchla 200 in about 1973 in Los Angeles. This piece was a soundtrack for a film collaboration with mercury sculptor Ronald Mallory.

“Princess With Orange Feet”
Composed in my garage studio in Berkeley, it is an improvisation on the Buchla 200 with tape delay in about 1970.

“Sound Of A Dream Kissing”
From my first LP Voices Of Packaged Souls, not commercially released, a collaboration with with sculptor Harold Paris for his Brussels exhibition. Composed on a PDP-10 computer at Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab using Music 5 in 1969.

“Help, Help, The Globolinks!”
I was honoured to be invited to create a new electronic score for Gian Carlo Menotti’s children’s opera in 1980.

“Fish Music”
Composed on the Buchla 200 in 1970 at Buchla’s studio for an aquarium installation at Woodfield Mall in Schaumberg, Illinois.

“Concert At WBAI Free Music Store”
Performed live on the Buchla 200 in 1975 for a radio broadcast in New York City.

“Flowers Of Evil”
A setting for Baudelaire’s poem Elevation, improvised on the Buchla 200 in about 1969 with spatial vocal processing.

“Paris 1971”
This is an ‘automatic’ composition generated on the Buchla 200. I set all the parametres and they interact within the specified random bounds.

“The Eighth Wave”
This piece is from The Velocity Of Love, my second released album.

Suzanne Ciani undertook the Invisible Jukebox in the The Wire 391 September 2016 issue. Subscribers can access the interview now by logging in to the online archive.