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Morton Subotnick: Electronic Works 3

Morton Subotnick (live electronics), Miguel Frasconi (glass harp & live electronics) & Sue Costabile (SUE-C) (live video)

On the tape piece "Until Spring: Revisited", the wind-chime tinklings of glass harp lurk amid a shifting sussurus of white-noise. It's drifting music of depth and spatial presence, as is "Butterflies",...

Morton Subotnick: Electronic Works 3

Morton Subotnick (live electronics), Miguel Frasconi (glass harp & live electronics) & Sue Costabile (SUE-C) (live video)

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On the tape piece "Until Spring: Revisited", the wind-chime tinklings of glass harp lurk amid a shifting sussurus of white-noise. It's drifting music of depth and spatial presence, as is "Butterflies",...

About

This disc brings the first release of '4 Butterflies' for quadrophonic tape on CD, and the first recordings of Subotnick’s live remix/recomposition of the classic tape piece 'Until Spring: Revisited'

Until Spring was first conceived in 1975 on the Buchla synthesizer using only analogue techniques. “It was about 10 years from Silver Apples to Until Spring,” Subotnick explains, “and I’d evolved a whole concept and a technique, but I had gone as far as I could go with it. I could do everything I wanted to do, but I couldn’t do it in real time.” As computers and software developed in the coming decades, Subotnick created a software-based instrument that he felt could allow him to complete his original vision, which led to Until Spring: Revisited, a reinterpretation constructed around source materials from Until Spring, recorded live in San Francisco. The work has been performed many times by the ensemble of Morton Subotnick (live electronics) and Miguel Frasconi (live electronics and glass harp).

Four Butterflies was originally released as a stereo LP on Columbia Records. This is its first release on CD. Mode has made a high-resolution transfer from the analogue master tapes, which was then given a new mix by the composer. Set in four sections separated by two interludes, Four Butterflies is a floating, mysterious electronic landscape. See also mode237dvd

Liner notes by Andy Battaglia and Morton Subotnick

Contents and tracklist

Revisited
Track length37:27
This track is only available as an album download.
Butterfly No. 1
Track length7:46
Interlude (1)
Track length1:24
Butterfly No. 2
Track length9:32
Butterfly No. 3
Track length7:21
Interlude (2)
Track length1:38
Butterfly No. 4
Track length7:07

Awards and reviews

2nd March 2012

On the tape piece "Until Spring: Revisited", the wind-chime tinklings of glass harp lurk amid a shifting sussurus of white-noise. It's drifting music of depth and spatial presence, as is "Butterflies", whose animated dolphin-talk buzzes and flurries of liquid bleeps describe patterns that enchant without slipping into the lockstep grooves of technopop.
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