Musica Elettronica Viva
Entry updated 6 March 2024. Tagged: Music.
Experimental music group founded in Rome in 1966; active until 2017; commonly abbreviated to MEV. Initially with a somewhat nebulous line-up, it soon coalesced around the core trio of Alvin Curran (1938- ), Frederick Rzewski (1938-2021) and Richard Teitelbaum (1939-2020), each of whom had distinguished careers in avant-garde music. Their first album, SpaceCraft (1967) mixes electronics, saxophone and organ to attempt to convey the sensation of Space Flight (the whole album consists of one long track). Later MEV releases included pioneering examples of electronic improvisation but no sf content. They did however take the unusual step of licensing the band's name and concept to other like-minded musicians. The French arm of MEV, led by Ivan and Patricia Coaquette, recorded the sf-themed album Leave the City (1970). Amidst a sparse narration of heading into space to avoid "the age of destruction", the mix of noisy electronics, free jazz and bucolic folk is heady even for the time and milieu of its recording. [CWa]
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