Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper: Electronic Music with Don Druick

The above Electronic Music by Canadian Composers compilation was released in 1975 on the small-independently-run Melbourne record label. Melbourne’s parent company, Rodeo Records, made its name producing and releasing albums by country and folk music artists. Rodeo established its Melbourne division in the mid-1960s but close to ten years elapsed before the label began releasing compilations dedicated to electronic music.

Volume 2 must have generated a certain amount of interest because it was reissued in 1980 as parts of the label’s New Music Series. The compilation features compositions by Michel Longtin, Peter Huse, Reinhard Berg and Don Druick. The latter’s “Cellophane Wrapper” is a particularly enthralling piece of psychoactive electronic music:

“Cellophane Wrapper” was composed at the Simon Fraser University Studio. It was mastered on a four-track Ampex and involved the use of a custom white noise unit, buchla enveloper, variable speed looper, and moog bode ring modulator. The music is concerned with the exploration of nonsymetric intensity contours which peak at a point one-third the distance from the beginning. (Liner notes – Electronic Music by Canadian Composers Vol. 2)

Druick, a Montreal-born multidisciplinary artist, spent the first part of his prolific career composing and performing various types of musical works – that is before he turned to performance and visual arts as well as writing. Between 1960 and 1973, Druick completed four film scores, one of which was selected by Melbourne for inclusion on its Electronic Music by Canadian Composers compilation.

The composition featured here serves as a soundtrack to a short film by Canadian experimental filmmaker David Rimmer. Variations on a Cellophane Wrapper is one of many exemplary experimental works made in Canada since the 1960s.

“cellophane wrapper”