What's the artist and title? Environments series

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Hi again!

So there was this series of field recordings a while back (chiefly the 1970s), and I’m trying to tidy up their inclusion in MB. Judging by various articles on them, they’re all by one person, Irv Teibel, and they’re all released on one record label, Syntonic Research, Inc., which he owned. The cover artwork for the records and tapes themselves seem a bit hazy. They don’t mention his name. They do mention the company’s name, but more as a label than as an artist. Should they actually be credited as by [no artist]? Or perhaps as by Irv Teibel, linked in to his entry, but credited as [no artist]?

At the moment, the records in MB are mostly credited to the company, the tapes mostly credited to the person, and nothing credited to [no artist]. Whereas looking at the cover artwork for the label’s various releases on Discogs, neither seem to be credited as artists. I’m guessing I should link them to the artist Irv Teibel, but with the credit text as [no artist], is that right?

Then there’s the actual release names. The official titles seem to be things like “Environments - Totally New Concepts In Sound - Disc 4” although most of his releases in MB currently have more useful and descriptive titles based on the track names, such as “Environments 9: Pacific Ocean / Caribbean Lagoon”.

Mercifully, the tapes seem to be a bit less ambiguously called “Environments 1”, “Environments 2”, and so on (even though they only have two copies of a single track each, making them better suited to descriptive titles).

I’m guessing I should simply go with “Environments - Totally New Concepts In Sound - Disc [number]” and “Environments [tape number]”, and leave the useful descriptions to the track titles, but again, I wanted to check first to make sure. I’d like to tidy these up and improve consistency, then add some more missing releases, but first, I want to make sure I tidy them in the right direction.

Does anyone have any suggestions here for the artist and release names? Is the cover still king?

Thanks!

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if the cover does not mention the artist have a look on the edge the artist may be listed there. tapes have the artist on the edge most of the time and not always on the front and if you don’t see an artist then i think maybe put the producer as the artist if that’s all you can fined. tho this one in the link should have the artist as Syntonic Research Inc. only unless you can find some doumataton saying it is not discogs has it as Syntonic Research Inc. and Irv Teibel but looking at the images i dont see Irv Teibel mentioned anywhere on it. you need to be able to back up what you put on it is what it come down to. https://www.discogs.com/No-Artist-Environments-Tintinnabulation-Special-Low-Frequency-Version-2/release/3473341

i’m no expert on this but that’s how i would do it you can also ask support@metabrainz.org

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There are numerous external sources crediting these releases to Irv Teibel. [no artist] (or [nature sounds], a more specific version) shouldn’t be linked if it can be avoided. You should leave a comment in the annotation saying that Irv Teibel isn’t credited on the release itself.

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I wanted to resurrect this topic as I go to add some of the Numero Group releases for the Environments series. I wanted some advice on how to standardize the recordings and releases. Currently we have a few different approaches for Environments 1:

One release credits Syntonic Research, Inc. with the recording artist being Environments 1 (the name of the album) while all the others simply credit Irv Teibel. Like @ZoeB pointed out, it’s only recently that Irv has gotten direct credit for Environments series (such as the Numero releases I’m adding). My inclication is to get rid of the Syntotic Reasearch, Inc. group entirely and consolidate everything under Irv Teibel, including the recordings.

What do others think?

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Okay, I’m going to begin edits to move Environments releases to Irv Teibel unless there is an objection, especially to remove credit away from the label, Syntonic Research, Inc.

By the way, another case of the label being credited as the artist of the release is NatureQuest: https://musicbrainz.org/artist/1bb72630-2f0c-4f8d-a1ac-ed1c7913546c

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Just to keep a record here, I’ll be aliasing Teibel on all of the Numero releases as “Environments” as that is how Numero released it on digital platforms. Example: https://boomkat.com/products/environments-1-8612dc30-f279-4bcc-bf3a-c0cb4967a5f3

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Thank you very much, @Kripsy! That sounds perfect to me.

One thing to watch out for with this particular record label is that the records and tapes seem to belong to two independent series, so really shouldn’t be grouped together at all. While usually a single release group has multiple releases on vinyl, tape, CD, etc, the tape versions of Environments released later on are in a very different order to the records. For example, tape 10 (Gentle Rain in a Pine Forest) is one of the tracks from record 4. So for each number, there’s really two separate release groups, one for the records and one for the tapes.

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To add to what you are saying, the tapes are often edited for looping. I was actually considering how to handle the recordings. I’m somewhat new to managing recordings on MusicBrainz and wasn’t sure how to link them all as they are all based on the same recording but end up being essentially different masterings or edits.

I was also considering the names of the individual releases, which I favor your conclusion to name them based on what was on the various release covers such as “Environments - Totally New Concepts In Sound - Disc 4”. However, I do see some utility in leaving the release group as “Environments 9: Pacific Ocean / Caribbean Lagoon”. What do you think?

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I get the impression all of these recordings are looped and manipulated in post-production, they very much went for what sounds good over any kind of authenticity. I think you’re right, if the tape versions of the recordings are a substantially different length to their record counterparts, that counts as an entirely different recording because it’s a substantially different edit. But someone with more knowledge than me might be able to jump in and correct me there…

As for the names, yes, it’s a question of whether to go for accuracy of what they were called, or usefulness in what makes them easy to find. I believe it’s generally best practice to go with accuracy, even though it’s a bit of a shame in this case, but again someone more knowledgeable might be able to correct me there.

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I took a closer look at recordings and it looks like the best strategy is to have the original vinyl and later digital releases share a recording. The tapes can be new recordings with an “edit of” relationship to the original. Digital recordings at slower RPM can also be new recordings with an “edit of” relationship to the original, same for altered CD tracks.

And then for release groups I thought about it and agree that the cassette and vinyl/cd/digital releases are different series. I think both the cassette and vinyl/cd/digital release groups should be called “Environments 1”, etc., as even for the vinyl/cd/digital relases the majority are named that way. Then we can disambiguate simply using “main series” and “cassette series” for each. I’m not sure if “main series” is the right description, but I think it’s overkill to list out the tracks. While it’s a little messy, the CD series can fit into the viny/digital “main series”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environments_(album_series)#Environments_cassettes

This seems better than having everything fit into one release group based on recording and having the cassette numbers be completely irregular.

@ZoeB if you agree I’ll start making these kinds of edits.

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I’m not very authoritative, but that all sounds wonderful to me, thank you! Yes, I think you’re spot on that the cassettes are the outlier that should have their own new release groups, while the CDs are in the same release groups as the records. That all sounds exactly right to me. Thank you, this is just the sorting out that this series needs!

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I take it MusicBrainz is more of a horizontal democratic community and this is more discussion than most releases get. Good enough for me. :slight_smile:

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Naming and grouping the Environments series has proven challengnig. I am leaving this post here to document my reasoning and provide a basis for further discussion.

NAMING CONVENTIONS

Something to note when looking at naming conventions for the Environments series is that Irv Teibel was very interested in how to market his work. Because of this, a lot of marketing is on the covers with phrases such as “The magic of psychoacoustic sound”, “Tun your hi-fi into a psychoacoustic device”, “Music of the future is not music” and so on. These marketing phrases are mixed in with the titles to appear as subtitles at first glance. Also, often the releases have one main recording featured on it and this will also be indicated on the cover even though it is really just a track listing, or is it? These questions would be easier to answer except there is no consistency, even from the cover to the spine to the media itself with a variety of names on a single release.

To get to some kind of stable naming convention I researched across the series to see how they were referenced when taken out of context of the marketing and then made some subjective calls based on what I thought provide the clearest information.

LP

For the LPs, the most consistent naming convention is “Environments: Disc 1”. Starting with the very first release, the cover only says “Environments” but both the record and the marketing on the back reference it as “Environments Disc One”.

This convention continues with the 2nd and 3rd release but instead of typing out the number it is just “Disc 2” and so on. With the 4th release up until the end of the series, the naming convention changes where the record now just says “Environments 4” but the cover and spine both reference the disc still:

Taking this all in mind with MusicBrainz subtitling convention (using the colon to demarcate) is how I got to “Environments: Disc x” for a stable convention.

Note that Syntonic would refer to their own releases by the track name when asking customers to place orders. However, these clearly aren’t official titles and just another way for them to try to disambiguate their confusing marketing.

Cassette

For cassette releases I recommend using “Environments 1” as the stable naming convention. This one is a bit more subjective. All cassette covers have a marketing phrase mixed in as a seeming subtitle such as “The music of the future”. However, the cassettes would not, instead having the track in a subtitle position. This remains pretty consistent throughout the entire series with slight changes in design as it goes on. Marketing phrases differ between the spine and cover and should be excluded. The track name remains consistent and is how Syntonic refers to its own releases on order forms, but it’s just a track listing and I can not find any evidence it is really part of the title. It just happens that the tapes have a single track so they design it to be large.

Environments 1

Environments 11

CD

For the CDs I recommend using the title and subtitle from the spine such as “Environments 1: Psychologically Ultimate Seashore”. This is another subjective case where the cover, spine and media all have different titling. The cover has a marketing phrase in the subtitle position followed by another subtitle that describes the tracks. This is what is on the spine minus the marketing phrase. However, the CD media says “Environments 1” followed by Special Edition and then the name of the track with the spine subtitle no where to be seen. This is consistent throughout the three releases. It is my judgement that the spine title next to the catalogue number is the most intentional.

Environments 1: Psychologically Ultimate Seashore

Environments 3: Dawn & Dusk At New Hope, PA

Digital

This is the simple one. When Numero rereleased the Environments series digitally they used the simple naming convention of “Environments 1” and so on. Note that they credit the artist as “Environments”.

RELEASE GROUPS

Another not obvious problem is how to group the releases. Only the digital and LP series match each other exactly, otherwise every series uses the numbering differently with different edits of the same recordings. The most precise thing to do would be to have every release be its own release group but this would make the Irv Teibel page very hard to read, matching harder to do and also betray the intuition that these releases really should have some grouping.

To start, the cassette series has very different numbering for the recordings from the original LP series and I think there is no question they should be their own release groups. Not only did they reedit all the tracks to be loopable for a unique tape experience but also split up each of the a/b sides and rereleased them in a new series. Each cassette also got about 5 reissues of its own, sometimes more reissues than the original LPs.

The big question is what to do with the CD series. There are three of them and on the CD media (but not the cover) claim to be special editions of the original Environments releases. This makes it pretty simple to group them in the original LP series except that the third and final release “Environments 3: Dawn & Dusk At New Hope, PA” is actually comprised of the b-sides from “Environments: Disc 2” and “Environments: Disc 3” making it not so obviously in the Environments 3 release group despite its title. However, my judgement here is to group them all together anyways. I see more confusion than clarity from making them a separate release group. If people think otherwise it should be simple enough to split them out.

Finally, I opted to name the groups simply “Environments 1” etc., as that is the most common naming convention across all releases as well as common references such as Wikipedia.

So here is how the proposed grouping would look (disambiguation in parenthesis):

Environments 1 (Original LP series)
    Environments: Disc 1
        1. Psychologically Ultimate Seashore
        2. Optimum Aviary
    Environments 1: Psychologically Ultimate Seashore
        1. Psychologically Ultimate Seashore
    Environments 1
        1. The Psychologically Ultimate Seashore
        2. Optimum Aviary
        3. The Psychologically Ultimate Seashore (16 rpm)
        4. The Psychologically Ultimate Seashore (45 rpm)

Environments 1 (Cassette series)
    Environments 1
        1. Slow Ocean
        2. Slow Ocean

LABEL

There is conflicting information on the internet and Discogs regarding the label for the LP releases. Some sources like Wikipedia say that Atlantic was the label for the entire 11 part series. Then there are notes on Discogs or even marked releases stating that Syntonic Research, Inc. and Atlantic respectively have identical releases with the same catalogue number but different labels. However, when I inspect the scans of the different vinyl releases I don’t see evidence for this information. Instead what I see is that Atlantic was the label for Environments: Disc 1 through Disc 3. Then starting with Disc 4 until the end, it is all Syntonic Research, Inc. The only exception is Disc 1 which had releases under the labels SR Records, Synontic Research, Inc. and Atlantic at different times under different territories. This is how I will be categorizing releases, but again this is based only off information available to me through unipak scans on Discogs. If people have other information please let me know.

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Try and get this lot into an annotation otherwise it will be lost forever in the blackhole of the forum. And lost again if in the next decade someone replaces the forum with something else and breaks all the links.

Quality research should be part of the database. Your quality work should be preservered

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I agree that @Kripsy’s work should be documented somewhere other than these forums. People used to use the MusicBrainz Wiki for things like this.

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Thanks everyone. I’m happy to put this research some place else, but I’m not sure where. I could put it on the Wiki but I didn’t see where it would fit. Likewise, I can put the relevant pieces in annotations but it seems like a little much to include all of this in a single annotation.

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