Analogue synthesis retrospective
Steve Benner | Lancaster, UK | 03/13/2002
(4 out of 5 stars)
""Obsolete Systems" is a fascinating retrospective of works by pioneering programmer and composer of computer music, Laurie Spiegel. The title derives from the fact that all of the works result from the use of electronic sound synthesis systems which are all now completely defunct. The disc is partly a testimony to how rapidly the field of electronic music changes but also acts as an invaluable record of former times, providing a series of snapshots through the 70s and 80s sound synthesis scene. It thus documents the rise and the decline of the analogue sound synthesis systems, and gives a glimpse too of the earliest days of experimental digital synthesis under the control of desktop microcomputers. As well as providing a historical dimension, though, this release also demonstrates how timeless is the aesthetic which underlies even high-tech music-making, showing beyond all doubt that while the technology may move on, and centre of the soundworld shift slightly as a consequence, the products of those older technologies remain every bit as valid and as vital today as they ever were. The disc presents more than an hour's worth of material, all of which comes across as pioneering or exploratory in nature. None of this is idle or pointless experimentation, though, so much as a series of deliberately studied forays into vast and (at the time) completely unexplored territories. Many of these works were the very first to be produced using the systems they feature, systems that were, in fact, often the result of this particular composer's own programming and design work. While many of the works presented here may have started life as sketches, none of them sound to be in the slightest incomplete. And while there is nothing on the disc that may be regarded as particularly penetrating, there is much to admire and enjoy, especially for those interested in more introspective studies of timbre and texture - or, indeed, love wallowing in the enormous sonic landscapes that these bygone systems could so beautifully invoke.Laurie Spiegel's dedication to her particular field of artistic endeavour cannot be doubted and it is good to see that the worth of her music has at last been given sufficient recognition to warrant a disc to itself. I hope that this will be but the first of many such releases of tapes from her loft."
Track Listings (12) - Disc #1