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Morton Subotnick - Silver Apples of the Moon

Posted on 5/14/2011 3:34:48 PM by admin

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Morton Subotnick - Silver Apples Of The Moon

The other day I dug out an old record for a listen. This was Morton Subotnicks, Silver Apples of the Moon. This record came out in 1967 and if you ask me, it still sounds very modern and fresh. I think Warp Records could quite easily release something like this today.

Morton Subotnick is an American composer of electronic music, best known for his Silver Apples of the Moon, the first electronic work commissioned by a record company, Nonesuch.

Early electronic music was made using wave generators and tape-manipulated sounds. Subotnick was among the first composers to work with electronic instrument designer Don Buchla. Buchla's modular voltage-controlled synthesizer, which he called the Electric Music Box and which was constructed partly based on suggestions by Subotnick, was both more flexible and easier to use, and its sequencing ability was integral to Subotnick's music.


At a time when electronic music was highly abstract, largely concerned with pitch and timbre, with rhythm an afterthought or of no consequence and patterns largely avoided, Subotnick broke with the academic avantgardists by including sections with regular rhythms. Both Silver Apples and 1968's The Wild Bull have been choreographed by dance companies around the world.


If you haven't heard this great album, then I really suggest checking it out.