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Morton Subotnick: Electronic Works, Vol. 3 DVD

Until Spring revisited; Four Butterflies etc

Morton Subotnick (live electronics), Miguel Frasconi (live electronics and amplified glass instruments), Sue Costabile (live improvisational visual accompaniment)

Mode 237 DVD [2 hrs 13 mins]

Here is a valuable new DVD with recent remixes of historic electronic works.

Morton Subotnick (b.1933) conceived Until Spring in 1975 on a synthesizer using only analog techniques. Latterly he created a software-based instrument to complete his original vision.

Until Spring revisited is performed live, the video dramatically cutting between live performance footage with "SUE-C"s live video art. Four Butterflies, originally released as a stereo LP, is here a high-resolution transfer, newly remixed by the composer, "a floating, mysterious electronic landscape", presented with original films which had been projected in live performance in the 1970s.

For fascinating context there are generous discussions about the new work, and Subotnick and Ramon Sendere [R] reminiscing and recapturing memories of the 1960s and heady days at the seminal San Francisco Tape Center.

A lot of these tracks are compelling in a soothing, relaxing way in sound and abstract picture, and I think the DVD taken as a whole will lead many of our readers to a new appreciation of electronic music, which some of us might have been inclined to dismiss as old hat.

Recommended.


Cage Works for Percussion 1

Mode 229

I suppose one may be allowed one blind/deaf spot, and this side of Cage's "music" is that for me.

It is dedicated entirely to John Cage's percussion works, including the complete set of "Imaginary Landscapes" 1-5, plus "Credo In Us"; the DVD versio contains audio several bonus audio tracks & the visuals are limted to text titles etc; not a real DVD in my book.

Best is the picture of the intrepid percussionists at work.

Peter Grahame Woolf