Welcome to 2020, dear folks! This year is already gearing up to be a doozy, and along those lines, we’ve got an interesting tape here to chat with you about. An interesting tape filled with eclectic computer music created by one of the more fascinating figures that you’ve probably never even heard of. Antony Widoff has had a lengthy career that has seen him rubbing elbows with the likes of U2 and Frank Zappa, co-developing a musical composition software tool, and creating multimedia installations for display around the world.
In the 1980s, a young Widoff was a student at Bennington College, where he got involved with the development of a musical composition tool called M, and was hired by Intelligent Music, the small company founded by another of the developers, Joel Chadabe. The other two authors of the software were David Zicarelli (who apparently still works on M) and John Offenhartz. At around this time, the aspiring musician and composer was also noticed by free jazz legend Bill Dixon, who was a professor at the school, and formed a sort of collaborative pairing with the innovative trumpeter.
He was also in an angular post-punk band called Memorial Garage alongside Philip Price, and has been attributed to a recording under the name Weak (released in 2003) and an animated storybook called Have Another Pillow. He currently runs a podcast called The Assembly of Silence Radio Hour, writes philosophical texts, and creates videos (and still makes music). These activities can be sampled over at his Patreon, on which Widoff goes by the name Taijireality.
Disposition was a series of demo recordings for the M software tool and was originally released by Intelligent Music as one of four products that the company had on offer. The others were the M software itself, as well as another package called MIDI Draw, and a cassette from founder Joel Chadabe. The music is, not surprisingly, varied from track to track. Jaunty new age romps pair up with quiet interludes which butt up against more experimental fare. There are some exquisite and incredibly fascinating moments here, especially the title track and the free jazz-like “Who Is This You”. The closing piece, the evocative “Just a Phase”, samples the many moods and motifs found across the rest of the tape and juxtaposes these in a very evocative manner. Somehow, this collection of ideas and experiments has coalesced into a unique experience that is definitely worth undertaking.
Fortuitously, a copy of the original Disposition cassette turned up in the hands of musician Andrew Weathers, who runs the Full Spectrum Records label. Weathers immediately contacted Widoff, who was delighted to re-issue the music for a new, and potentially appreciative, audience. I’m going to repeat myself when I say that this is certainly a tape worth investigating, so I urge you to bounce on over to the Full Spectrum Records Bandcamp site and take an aural gander at this lovely little gem; prepare to be pleasantly surprised.
