Digital Moonscapes

Digital Moonscapes
Studio album by Wendy Carlos
Released  1984 (1984-MM)
Genre Classical
Length 55:38
Label East Side Digital
Producer Wendy Carlos
Wendy Carlos chronology
Tron (soundtrack) (1982) Digital Moonscapes (1984) Beauty in the Beast (1986)

Digital Moonscapes (1984) is an album by Wendy Carlos. "Written for orchestra (or orchestra replica), it is inspired by several astronomical subjects."[1] A symphony orchestra is simulated using Digital Synth's GDS (General Development System) and Synergy Digital Synthesizers (see: Crumar). These used additive and complex FM/PM modulation. She named her ensemble the LSI Philharmonic: "('Large Scale Integration' circuits, i.e., computer chips)".[1] "This was the first digitally synthesized orchestra of any significance that a single composer could command."[2]

But why do all this?...The goal ought to be providing the base on which to build new sounds with orchestral qualities that have not been heard before but are equally satisfying to the ear...look for the next steps using the experimental hybrid and imaginary sounds which have grown out of this work.
— Wendy Carlos[2]

These efforts bear fruit in her later work Beauty in the Beast (1986) and Tales of Heaven and Hell (1998).[2]

The music on the album is described as: "veer[ing] uncomfortably between murky electronic experimentalism and weedy pseudo-baroque,"[3] and as, "thoroughly tonal, Romantic-orchestra-inspired, electronic tone poems."[4]

According to Curtis Roads, "Three compositions produced in the 1980s stand as good examples of compositional manipulation of analysis data: Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1981) by Jonathan Harvey, Désintegrations (1983, Salabert Trajectoires) by Tristan Murail, and Digital Moonscapes (1985, CBS/Sony) by Wendy Carlos."[5]

Sources

  1. 1 2 "Digital Moonscapes", WendyCarlos.com.
  2. 1 2 3 Holmes, Thom (2002). Electronic and Experimental Music, p.166. ISBN 978-0-415-93644-6.
  3. ↑ Bogdanov, Vladimir, ed. (2001). All music guide to electronica, p.84. McDonald, Steven. ISBN 978-0-87930-628-1.
  4. ↑ Morin, Alexander J. (2002). Classical Music, p.1082. ISBN 978-0-87930-638-0.
  5. ↑ Roads, Curtis (1996). The Computer Music Tutorial, p.146. ISBN 978-0-262-68082-0.

External links

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