Morton Subotnick
A Sky Of Cloudless Sulphur / After The Butterfly (LP)
FormatLPLabelNonesuchGenreExperimental
Out of stock
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condition (record/cover): NM / EX
The first release on Nonesuch Digital, the label's short-lived audiophile imprint, recorded direct-to-digital and pressed with the new format's premium-quality lacquer cuts. A Sky of Cloudless Sulphur (1978), Side A, is fully electronic, realised on the Buchla 200 Series in Subotnick's CalArts studio: roughly fifteen minutes built around the kind of long pulse-driven evolution that Silver Apples had introduced thirteen years earlier, but with the harmonic sophistication of late-seventies Buchla programming. The title comes from a phrase in Shelley's Adonais.
Side B is After the Butterfly (1979), one of Subotnick's first "ghost score" pieces: trumpeter Mario Guarneri plays against a pre-recorded tape that responds to his live amplified signal via voltage-controlled processing in real time. CalArts Twentieth Century Players ensemble, conducted by Subotnick. Engineer Tom Steenland. After the Butterfly is the work that signalled Subotnick's move from pure-tape composition to the live-electronic processing that defined his work for the next decade.
Release notes
Branded Nonesuch Digital on cover and Nonesuch on labels. Large silver hype sticker with black printing on shrinkwrap states: '"After The Butterfly" Is a Nonesuch Digital Recording N-78001'
| A | A Sky Of Cloudless Sulphur | 14:44 | |
| B | After The Butterfly | 18:19 |
- Alan K. Bartholemew
- Cello (B)
- Dane Richards Little
- Cello (B)
- James D. Rohrig
- Clarinet (B)
- William Edward Powell
- Clarinet (B)
- Morton Subotnick
- Composed By, Liner Notes, Conductor (B), Synthesizer (A)
- Irving Petlin
- Cover [Painting]
- Marvin B. Gordy III
- Percussion (B)
- Jay Charles Bulen
- Trombone (B)
- Toby L. Holmes
- Trombone (B)
- Mario Guarneri
- Trumpet (B)
