Unreleased Suzanne Ciani Tracks Set For New Complilation

Lixiviation is a compilation of unearthed gems from one of electronic music's earliest innovators. Spanning nearly two decades from 1968-1985 the 16-track album celebrates Ciani's formative years as a musician as it showcases her early synth compositions alongside her cutting edge commercial work for such companies as Atari, PBS, Ballys and Coca-cola. Lixiviation comes as the result of a new creative archive based relationship between B-Music/Finders Keepers Records and Suzanne Ciani.

Ciani's detailed and academic approach to music and electronics coupled with an impeccable sense of timing and melody (and a good sense of humor) shines throughout this new collection of previously unreleased recordings. Lixiviation compiles and re-contextualizes both secret music and commercial experiments of Ciani made for microcosmic time slots and never previously documented on vinyl or CD.

The album oscillates between Ciani's early experimental electronic compositions and a variety of commercial works. There's her famous "Pop & Pour" for Coca-Cola, scores for ITT and Almay commercials, and the Atari video games logo and corporate tag. There's also the Kraftwerk-esque TV spot for Atari's "Liberator." Interspersed through the compilation is a variety of ultra rare synth experiments, ranging from the otherworldly hums and arpeggiated synth lines of title track "Lixiviation" to the bubbling dreamscape of "Princess with Orange Feet" and the nine-minute ambient finale of "Second Breath."

Labeled the "American Delia Derbyshire of the Atari generation," Ciani was a trailblazer in the fields of electronic music, synthesizers and sound design and one of the first women to make a name for herself in the male dominated world of electronic music. In an era when most musicians were enamored with rock and roll and electric guitars, Ciani was transfixed by the endless possibilities of synthesizers. She would go on to have a sonic portfolio boasting commissions for the Xenon classic pinball machine, the sounds for the Meco Star Wars theme, the Atari TV commercials and the electronic sound effects in the original "Stepford Wives" film (amongst many others) in addition to her personal compositions - some of the most unique and experimental music of its time. Ciani would find great success both commercially and artistically: She was profiled by the New York Times in 1974, featured on "The David Letterman Show" in 1980 where she demonstrated her synthesizers to a bewildered Letterman, had the #1 sound design music house in New York, and would become the first solo female composer of a major Hollywood film when she scored Lily Tomlin's "The Incredible Shrinking Woman."

Tracklisting