Morton Subotnick Albums (7)
'Southwest Chamber Music'
Release Date 4/27/2004
Tracks 7
Label Cambria
See Album Tracklist and Review
'Silver Apples of the Moon for Electronic Music Synthesizer'
Release Date 6/14/1994
Tracks 4
Label Wergo
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Over the course of thirty minutes, Silver Apples of the Moon presented a change for serious electronic music. Unlike many other early synthesizer records, the music here is continuous, powerful, almost overwhelming. The work is also reliant on a breathtaking variety of sounds: clicks, chirps, buzzes, gongs, hums, sirens. Some of these are de rigeur for an academic synthesizer record, but many continued to sound fresh decades after its recording. Silver Apples of the Moon deserves credit not just because it's one of the earliest albums produced by a modular synthesizer, but because it's a great piece of music. A 1994 reissue by Wergo added Subotnick's 1968 work "The Wild Bull" to the CD program. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Subotnick's last composition for the Columbia label -- this time released on the budget Odyssey line -- is the fourth in his long series of "Butterfly" scores, and it has a more outgoing, somewhat more aggressive personality than the previous two Columbia albums, Sidewinder and 4 Butterflies. Instead of dividing the score into the three-part "Butterfly" metaphor that Subotnick liked to use in other such scores, this one purports to concentrate just upon the point of emergence, while using three "gestural" qualities of "thrusting out, becoming, and being" throughout the piece. After a tentative start, listeners begin to encounter some of the trademark Morton Subotnick aggression -- sharply defined, pitchless, electronically delayed sounds pingponging across the stereo spectrum. Part two opens with more pinging that gradually slows down much the way a bouncing ball slowly comes to a halt, speeding up to produce the sensation of a motorboat drifting to and fro. Eventually things settle into a series of insistent, driving ostinatos before fading innocuously away. As is often the case in his best work, Subotnick manages to be rigorous, abstract, emotional, and entertaining at the same time. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Though the majority of Subotnick's "butterfly" pieces were to be composed later during his "ghost score" period, this electronic canvas was the first outbreak of his preoccupation with that enigmatic insect to surface on LP. Set in four brief sections separated by two tiny interludes, Four Butterflies finds Subotnick burrowing further inward, restricting his palette of electronic colors ever more economically. The silences are longer, the overall volume level is low, and sometimes one thinks that these floating, mysterious, pitchless butterflies have vanished altogether. More crucially, the dramatic pacing that marked Subotnick's more exciting earlier electronic scores for the phonograph record is mostly lacking here, though there is structure in the form of a three-part development (larva-cocoon-butterfly) that he would use extensively in the future. "Butterfly No. 3" rises to a nice climax and reprises an agitated idea from "Touch," and "Butterfly No. 4" begins with a quietly insistent repeating ostinato, but for the most part these are very reticent creatures. The original LP has yet to be reissued. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
When it became clear that quadraphonic sound was not going to catch on in any meaningful numbers, Morton Subotnick reined in his forces in turn, composing "Sidewinder" and every subsequent electronic piece for Columbia in two-channel stereo. With the shrinkage of available channels came a scaling back in theatricality, for "Sidewinder" is a subtler, quieter, less flamboyant piece of work than its wilder predecessors, though no less absorbing once you enter its sound world on its own terms. Though the title came as a suggestion after the piece had been conceived, each part of "Sidewinder" opens with the distant shaking of a distinctly snake-like electronic rattler. Moreover, the power of suggestion conjures images of parched desert landscapes invaded by sinister, relentlessly grinding machines. Yet to be transferred to CD, Sidewinder marked a turn inward for Subotnick that would last through most of his pure electronic work of the 1970s. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
"Touch" is quite literally a Morton Subotnick toccata (which, in Italian, means "touch"), composed especially for Columbia Records' then-emerging SQ quadraphonic system on a four-track Ampex tape recorder. It is a flamboyant, exciting, abstract piece, dramatically paced and structured, with a pair of whopping dramatic crescendos in part one that still produce a powerful effect on the original hotly-cut quadraphonic LP. Well, quad didn't catch on in a big way back then -- though pioneering quad fans got their revenge a couple of decades later with surround sound -- and frankly, it didn't give Subotnick's work that big of a boost. When the quad LP is played on an original SQ quad system (contemporary listeners can use Dolby Pro-Logic surround sound, which operates on the same principle as SQ), you do get some front/back separation, but the sources of the sound are not nearly as distinct as the composer intended. For example, the first sounds you hear should come from the back speakers, but on the quad LP, it is difficult to pinpoint the source. We know this because when the true discrete four-channel DVD-Audio version came out in 2001 on the Mode label, it blew the old quad LP away with its sharp directionality and stunning high-definition sound. "Touch" was also available earlier on a two-channel stereo LP, and there are witty liner notes in the form of letters by Subotnick's erudite colleague at CalArts, Mel Powell. But clearly, the Mode DVD-A (also available on CD) is the medium of choice now. ~ Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide
