Morton Subotnick
Morton Subotnick, born in Los Angeles in 1933, is an American composer of electronic music, best known for Silver Apples of the Moon (1967), the first electronic work commissioned by a record label. He made it on the Buchla synthesizer, the instrument he had helped bring into being when he co-founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1961 with Ramon Sender and Pauline Oliveros. At a time when electronic music was abstract and wary of pulse, Subotnick broke with the academic avant-garde by writing sections of regular, dancing rhythm, and The Wild Bull and Touch followed the same path.
Morton Subotnick, born in Los Angeles in 1933, is an American composer of electronic music, best known for Silver Apples of the Moon (1967), the first electronic work commissioned by a record label. He made it on the Buchla synthesizer, the instrument he had helped bring into being when he co-founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center in 1961 with Ramon Sender and Pauline Oliveros. At a time when electronic music was abstract and wary of pulse, Subotnick broke with the academic avant-garde by writing sections of regular, dancing rhythm, and The Wild Bull and Touch followed the same path.
The Art Of Joan La Barbara (LP)
Fantastic album with the great singer performing with her extended vocal technique and electronics three compositions for voice, instruments and electronics by herself plus one piece for voice, cellos, English horn and synthesizer by Subotnick, released by Nonesuch in 1985.
Silver Apples Of The Moon (LP)
'The' Buchla synthesizer album and a seminal and influential timeless electronic music classic, released by Nonesuch in 1967. Essential. Allentown pressing.
A Sky Of Cloudless Sulphur / After The Butterfly (LP)
Excellent 1980 LP on Nonesuch pairing two compositions from the late 1970's: a full electronic synthesizer/tape piece and composition for trumpet with ensemble and live electronics (the "electronic ghost score").
Return (LP)
1986 LP on New Albion with the beautiful and pioneering 1984 cosmic composition for computer-generated sounds. With insert.
Laminations / Concert Piece For Synket & Symphony Orchestra / Violin Concerto (LP)
1971 LP on Turnabout's great "The Contemporary Composer In The USA" series presenting two compositions for orchestra and electronics/synthesizer (the mighty Synket) and a violin concerto.
The Wild Bull
2023 repress. Audiophile 180 gram LP that was cautiously remastered for vinylRe-issued on vinyl for the first time since its original 1968 release! Based on an ancient Sumerian poem, Morton Subotnick's follow-up to his highly influential milestone Silver Apples of the Moon (KR 014LP) is no less an adventurous sonic trip on the Buchla synthesizer. Limited edition (500 items) audiophile 180 gram LP, especially mastered for vinyl. Born in 1933, Morton Subotnick is a key figure in the progress of el…
Music For The Double Life Of Amphibians (Landmark Recordings)
'The literal meaning of “amphibian” is “double life” and applies to animals living part of their lives in water and part of their lives on land. In the program note to his electroacoustic classic Music for the Double Life of Amphibians, Morton Subotnick states that “amphibian” is to be taken as a metaphor for the work’s structure and programmatic content, which follow a metamorphosis of being through the stages of amphibian to beast to angel. But it also applies to the musical material, the doub…
The Wild Beasts - Landmark Recordings
*2022 stock* Morton Subotnick achieved fame in the field of electronic music with Silver Apples of the Moon and The Wild Bull, his best-known tape works of the late 1960s. Since then, he has been active combining electronics with other media, notably employing gestural sketches on tape to alter sounds produced by voices and instrumentalists. The two works on this 2015 Wergo release are representative of Subotnick's methods, using a trumpet with a chamber ensemble in After the Butterfly, to reali…
Silver Apples of the Moon / The Wild Bull
Silver Apples of the Moon' is without a doubt the best known work from influential composer and electronic music pioneer Morton Subotnick. It was originally commissioned by Nonesuch records back in 1967, when electronic music was more of a series of ideas than a recognised art form, and since then it has achieved well deserved classic status, influencing so much that would come after it is impossible to conceive. Subotnick's instrument of choice was the Buchla modular synthesizer, a gigantic pat…
Touch • Jacob's Room
'I believe Jacob's Room is one of the most extraordinary examples of extended vocal techniques that I have ever heard. Touch is the child of the original Buchla electronic music triumvirate that included Silver Apples and Wild Bull. Its exploration of the sound and texture possibilities of electronic music is a variation on the two previous compositions. Jacob's Room is a vehicle for Subotnick's wife, Joan LaBarbara to demonstrate why she is universally considered the master of extended vocal te…
Volume 1: Electronic Works
Electronic works by Morton Subotnick: Touch and A Sky of Cloudless Sulphur, remastered from the analogue tapes with new stereo mixes, and Gestures with vocalist Joan La Barbara. Includes the complete 28-minute version of A Sky of Cloudless Sulphur.
Silver Apples Of The Moon
2020 repress. As composer, musician and initiator of the San Francisco Tape Music Center which he cofounded with Pauline Oliveros and Ramon Sender in 1961, Morton Subotnick (born 1933) has propelled the progress of electronic music in several significant ways. From 1963 on he worked with Don Buchla on the development of the early synthesizer Buchla Series 100 before moving to New York where the artist-in-residence at the newly established Tisch School of the Arts of New York University was enabl…
Complete Piano Works
All of Morton Subotnick's piano music on one disc for the first time, with four first recordings, including Liquid Strata and The Other Piano with electronics, played by SooJin Anjou and supervised by the composer.
Silver Apples Of The Moon 50th-anniversary ed.
Vinyl edition is strictly limited to 1,000 copies. Audio has been Remastered from the original, pre-mastered digital tape transfers. Unlike previous reissues of this LP (both vinyl and CD), remastered for Wergo's 1994 CD edition and narrowing the recording's stereo field, our reissue has been remastered maintaining the full stereo field of the original recording. Brand new liner notes by Morton Subotnick.The original, iconic liquid-light cover artwork by Tony Martin has been re-scanned for full-…
Volume 2: Electronics Works
Two classic analog electronic works by Morton Subotnick, Sidewinder and Until Spring, in multi-channel surround sound, previously available only on LP, in the second volume of his electronic works.
Electronic Works 3
Morton Subotnick's electronic works: the first CD and surround release of the quadrophonic tape piece Four Butterflies, and Until Spring: Revisited, a live recomposition of his 1975 Buchla work. The DVD adds A Sky of Cloudless Sulphur: Revisited.
And the Butterflies Begin to Sing
Both works on this disc share the trademarks of his unique style: the relentless, pounding motoric energy that merges, sometimes with startling suddenness, into a dreamlike texture that seems to float, the continual sense of something magical occurring, often produced with no more paraphernalia than a desktop computer. And the Butterflies Begin to Sing [for string quartet, bass, MIDI keyboard, and computer (1988)], conceived as music for an imaginary ballet, is based on The Hundred Headless Wome…