Spiegel, Laurie

Obsolete Systems

Label: Electronic Music Foundation Country: USA

"An overview of Laurie Spiegel's electronics works, ranging from 1970 to 1983. Utilizing analog synthesizers (Buchla 100, Electrcomp 100), tape, digital synthesis, Echoplex, Bell Labs' GROOVE Hybrid system, etc. Comparable to classic 70s-era Schnitzler streaming, this is a very memorable document of this obscure composer's best works. "Laurie Spiegel, electronic music pioneer, has been working with cutting-edge electronic instruments since the 1970s. She has written software, designed systems, and explored most of the early synthesizers. And she is also a wonderful composer! And the music on this CD is so talented, beautiful, and fascinating that it becomes a stunning demonstration of how musical and humanly expressive technology can be. The CD also demonstrates relationships between instruments and the music that can be composed for them. Spiegel writes: 'Each musical instrument, whether electronic or not, implies an aesthetic domain and sensibility unique to its design ... These are a few I've personally explored. When it was new, each of these music systems, now long obsolete, was state of the art, visionary, radically new and so revolutionary that it required extended explanations in response to common questions such as 'Why would anyone ever want to do that?''"Electronic Music Foundation