La Maquina de Cantar is a short LP by Argentinian electro-acoustic composer
Horacio Vaggione. It first appeared in 1978 on the label Cramps. Ampersand reissued it on CD in 2002. The 17-minute "La Maquina de Cantar" (The Singing Machine) relies solely on an IBM computer. Produced in the early '70s, it features a lush synthesized tone and works by accretion. The music is looped and the composer slowly transforms the mass by adding and subtracting layers -- another variation on the process of composition through accumulation also explored by
Robert Fripp (his
Frippertronics albums of the late '70s and early '80s) and
Pierre-André Arcand (his "macchina ricordi"). "Ending," also 17 minutes in duration, is a duet between
Vaggione and Elizabeth Wiener, both playing Moog-type synthesizers. Here again they accumulate looping sequences to create hypnotic kaleidoscopes that recall
Philip Glass' "Music in Twelve Parts," with a sound closer to
Larry Fast's early albums under the project name
Synergy. When everything stops at the 11th minute to make room for a chorale-type hymn, the proceedings get very close to
Rick Wakeman's
The Six Wives of Henry VIII -- except
Wakeman would not have repeated the theme for six minutes, multiplying the synthesizer parts until they were a hair short of breaking into oversaturation. This is space music when it still had a place in the experimental field. It is far removed from
Vaggione's later work in academic electro-acoustic music (what he is best known for). It didn't age very well, making it more of a historical document.