A few months after my father died, a gentleman from South Africa—who was one of the first strangers to offer condolences on Facebook—told me about some music made with the ARP 2500 that he wanted to share with me. Subsequently, we corresponded throughout the year and pandemic.

I received the CD in the mail many many months later, and after some agreement and uploading and downloading, we have created a CD for the public to enjoy.

For a limited time, we are offering this CD through The Alan R. Pearlman Foundation Bandcamp page, all proceeds split between the musicians and the Foundation.

The music—decades later — is as fresh and interesting as music that we hear from today’s complex electronic music systems.

Please listen and support music everywhere. Thank you, Amoraim Amoraim.

~ Dina Pearlman (d’ARP)

Bandcamp

About this recording

This live concert was recorded in the late 1990’s after the discovery an an old ARP 2500 synthesizer which had been relegated to the dungeons of the South African College of Music in Cape Town.

I found it in an old store room covered in a blanket the reason it had been basically discarded was that apparently no one could get it to work.

After resucitating the ARP and moving up to what was then my music studio , room number B13 , I sat day after day twiddling this and that knob until one day hallelulia , a sustained high pitched tone rang out and the rest is history.

The electronic music concert was performed by myself and a good friend of mine who at the time was studying to be a composer , Peri Likiardoppolos.

I had recently purchased the iconic Roland D50 , a digital  synthesizeralmost as renound as the old ARP,  with my scholarship funds which was to allocated to support research for my masters degree in a totally different field , Ethnomusicology.

Peri then aquired another Roland synth and I had another old analogue ETI synth so we had 4 synths in total. These we then combined with some prerecorded sound effects which consisted mainly of the natural sounds of the African wilderness.

The concert was the only one we performed.

About Microdot Records

Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009

South Africa’s oldest electronic music label microDot Records started by accident in 1984 as a tape label called Netwerk 77.

This occurred because I met a girl at a “ Design for Living “ show. She asked if I could do some music for relaxation. This resulted with the first release which I did called “ Transformation’s “.

This is actually nearly ready to be re-released after 36 year’s.

Later I also included other artist’s releases who also liked the idea of a tape release. I released more music sound like ambient, space, avant garde, noise, cut-ups, rock, reggae, folk, new wave & even Jazz like Rough Diamond. After 27 tape releases it became time for a name & change to ” microDot Records “. microDot Records first CD release (v/a) was ” Africa in Trance ” by “ Amoraim “ or jayO as known at that time. This being the first South African trance release of the new millenium. Very popular as there were also large monthly outdoor trance festivals.

Releases following were ambient techno, drum ‘n Bass, electronica, ambient, African drumming, experimental electronics, techno trance, dub, tribal trance, tribal acid, lounge, trance, ambient beats, pure tribal, metal, electronic folk, afro dubstep & 80’s rock. In other words whether it’s ambient, dub or another type of genre microDot are into music that’s pleasing to it’s ear whether it’s different or not. microDot Records are also not afraid to move in any direction but can also release many titles of one style.

Have a look at microdotrecords.bandcamp.com & u might see many surprising music. I’d really like to release many vinyl’s but there is not 1 vinyl pressing plant in the whole of Africa as far as we know.

Ciao
Amoraim
microdotrecords.bandcamp.comSave

Heartbeat, printed music magazine (editor)