| Like a Melody, No Bitterness | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | October 13, 1998 [1] | |||
| Recorded | February 1997 | |||
| Studio | University of Technology (Sydney, Australia) | |||
| Genre | Experimental | |||
| Length | 41:14 | |||
| Label | Seeland | |||
| Bob Ostertag chronology | ||||
| ||||
Like a Melody, No Bitterness is the sixth studio album by Bob Ostertag, released on October 13, 1998 by Seeland Records. [2] [3]
The album comprises a single piece of music created by a Ensoniq ASR-10 sampler that slowly builds throughout from quiet abstract atmospherics into a distortion informed counterpoints. The music represented a continuation of Ostertag expanding his art through mixing samples of human voices and chanting crowd noises with purely electronic soundscapes and collaborating with improvisational musical acts such as Fred Frith and John Zorn. [4] It was released to commemorate Ostertag's final improvisations using a sampler, which he had used to create music for over ten years, before switching to compose on a laptop computer. [5]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |    [6] |
François Couture of AllMusic gave the album two and a half out of five possible stars, saying "although Ostertag shows some nice invention and definite mastery of his art, the piece lacks direction." [6] A critic for Cadence gave it a positive review and called it "a long piece that grows and morphs itself from quiet clicks and rumblings into a complex web of shimmering intensity." [4]
All tracks are written by Bob Ostertag.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Part 1" | 4:32 |
| 2. | "Part 2" | 3:01 |
| 3. | "Part 3" | 2:21 |
| 4. | "Part 4" | 6:39 |
| 5. | "Part 5" | 1:22 |
| 6. | "Part 6" | 3:11 |
| 7. | "Part 7" | 9:32 |
| 8. | "Part 8" | 6:55 |
| 9. | "Part 9" | 3:41 |
Adapted from the Like a Melody, No Bitterness liner notes. [7]
Musicians
Additional musicians
Production and design
| Region | Date | Label | Format | Catalog |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 1998 | Seeland | CD | SEELAND 508 |
| 2006 | DL |
Robert "Bob" Ostertag is a musician, writer, and political activist based in San Francisco. He has published seven books, one feature film, a DVD, twenty-six albums, and collaborated with numerous musicians.
Keep the Dog was an American-based experimental rock touring band from New York City formed in 1989 by English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith. The sextet was conceived as a review band for performing selections of Frith's repertoire of compositions from the previous 15 years.
That House We Lived In is a double live album by American experimental rock band Keep the Dog. It comprises material from their final European tour in 1991 and was released by Fred Frith on his own Fred Records in 2003.
Getting a Head is the debut solo album of live improvised music by experimental sound artist Bob Ostertag. It features Ostertag playing a homemade real-time sound sourcing system with Fred Frith on guitar and Charles K. Noyes on percussion. The album was released on LP by Rift Records in 1980. It was later released on CD by ReR Megacorp in 2000, and by Seeland Records in 2001. In a review of Ostertag's 2009 book, Creative Life: Music, Politics, People, and Machines, Chris Gehman described Getting a Head as "wonderfully strange and inexplicable".
Ayaya Moses is a 1997 studio album by the Fred Frith Guitar Quartet, an American-based contemporary classical and experimental music guitar quartet comprising Fred Frith, René Lussier, Nick Didkovsky and Mark Stewart. It is their debut album and was recorded in Radio-Canada's Studio 12 at Maison Radio-Canada in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, seven years after the ensemble was formed in 1989. It was released by Canadian record label, Ambiances Magnétiques.
Verbatim is the fifth studio album by Bob Ostertag, released in May 1996 by Rastascan Records.
Twins! is the a collaborative studio album by Bob Ostertag and Otomo Yoshihide, released in 1996 by Sank-Ohso Discs and Creativeman Disc.
Fear No Love is the fourth studio album by Bob Ostertag, released on February 18, 1995 by Avant Records. The album's concept deals with the phobias surrounding queer love including fear of intimacy, fear of gender, fear of stereotypes, fear of AIDS, fear of rejection and fear of fear.
Say No More is the third studio album by Bob Ostertag, released in 1993 by RecRec Music.
Attention Span is a collaborative album by Bob Ostertag, Fred Frith and John Zorn, released in 1990 by RecRec Music.
Sooner or Later is the debut studio album of Bob Ostertag, released in 1991 by RecRec Music.
Burns Like Fire is the second studio album by Bob Ostertag, released in 1992 by RecRec Music.
Verbatim, Flesh and Blood is a live album by Bob Ostertag, released in 1998 by Rastascan Records.
PantyChrist is a live album by Bob Ostertag, released on May 18, 1999 by Seeland Records.
Say No More 1 & 2 is a compilation album by Bob Ostertag, released on April 16, 2002 by Seeland Records. It comprises the albums Say No More and Say No More in Person originally released in 1993.
Say No More 3 & 4 is a compilation album by Bob Ostertag, released on April 16, 2002, by Seeland Records. It comprises the 1996 studio album Verbatim and its 1998 live counterpart Verbatim, Flesh and Blood.
DJ of the Month is the seventh studio album by Bob Ostertag, released on November 19, 2002 by Seeland Records.
Motormouth: Bob Ostertag Plays the Buchla 200e is the ninth studio album by Bob Ostertag, released on February 1, 2011 by Seeland Records.
Motormouth Variations is a remix album by Bob Ostertag, released in July 2011 by Sandwell District.
Bob Ostertag Plays the Serge 1978-1983 is the twelfth studio album by Bob Ostertag, released on June 30, 2014 by Analogue Motions Studio and Kandala Records.
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