7 Trumps From The Tarot Cards And Pinions

Mindblowing CD reissue of Ruth White’s dark experimental electronic masterpiece ‘7 Trumps From The Tarot And Pinion’. Originally issued in 1969 on Limelight and now available through US label Rhythms Productions in collaboration with Tom Thumb Music, who many of you will know were responsible for reissuing Ruth White’s ‘Flowers of Evil’. If you were fortunate enough to score a copy of that record, then make some space on the shelf for its evil twin. This is proper holy grail stuff for historical electronic music connoisseurs and in the current climate for darker strains of electronic music and fetish for horror soundtracks this really illustrated how it should be done
Electronic composer and innovator Ruth White is considered among today’s most gifted arbiters of what is termed “the new music.” Formally educated in piano and composition (she has three degrees from Pennsylvania’s Carnegie Tech), Miss White discusses her work in her Southern California studio: “I do not have a formal classical electronic background— that is self-taught. In fact, I was careful not to study electronics with anyone. Because I have been working in recording for many years, I felt that there was a directness of approach that I wanted to develop which was totally missing from the electronic scene in classical music.”
How effectively her medium has conveyed her message may be judged by the critical comment awarded her own original electronic compositions.Writing of “Seven Trumps From the Tarot Cards,” a completely electronic score reflecting her impressions of the occult, Donal Henahan commended Miss White in The New York Times for her “musical inventiveness and electronic sophistication.”