[Reissue] Laurie Spiegel - The Expanding Universe / Unseen Worlds

Unseen Worlds is reissuing both of these classics, shipping out in January. The Expanding Universe has been expanded to a 3LP set that includes tracks from the previous 2CD deluxe reissue.

http://www.unseenworlds.com/releases/the-expanding-universe

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Release Info

 

The Expanding Universe is the 1980 debut album by composer and computer music pioneer Laurie Spiegel. The original album is reissued here as a massively expanded 3LP or 2CD set, containing all four original album tracks plus an additional 15 tracks from the same period, nearly all previously unreleased and many making their first appearance on vinyl in this brand new 2018 edition. Since this album’s first reissue in 2012, it has gone on to be widely established as a classic of electronic, ambient, and 20th century classical music. Some of the well-loved works included in this set are "Patchwork", the "Appalachian Grove" series, “East River Dawn” and "Kepler's Harmony of the Worlds", which was included on the Golden Record launched on board the Voyager spacecraft. The pieces comprising The Expanding Universe combine slowly evolving textures with the emotional richness of intricate counterpoint, harmony, and complex rhythms (John Fahey and J. S. Bach are both cited as major influences in the original cover's notes), all built of electronic sounds. These works, often grouped with those of Terry Riley, Phil Glass, Steve Reich, differ in their much shorter, clear forms. Composed and realized between 1974 and 1977 on the GROOVE system developed by Max Mathews and F.R. Moore at Bell Laboratories, the pieces on this album were far ahead of their time both in musical content and in how they were made. Each of the included works broke new ground, pioneering completely new methods of live interaction with computer-based logic - ways of creating music that are now reaching the heights of their popularity with Ableton Live, Max/MSP and other interactive music software entering mainstream music production.

 

Product Info

 

2CD

 

2 CD set

Gatefold wallet

23 page booklet with comprehensive liner notes by Laurie Spiegel and period photos

 

3LP

 

3 LP set

Mastered by Laurie Spiegel, cut by Rashad Becker

Split-fountain gatefold sleeve

Download card included

http://www.unseenworlds.com/releases/unseen-worlds

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Release Info

 

Laurie Spiegel’s second full-length album, Unseen Worlds, arrived just over ten years after her debut album. Having realized the pieces found on The Expanding Universe (1980) on an instrument no longer available to her, the GROOVE System at Bell Laboratories, Spiegel moved on to composing and developing for the Alles Machine, alphaSyntauri, McLeyvier and various other instruments before creating an instrument entirely her own. Spiegel created “Music Mouse - An Intelligent Instrument” on a Macintosh 512k so that she could have an instrument that was not general purpose but a small, specialized, and well defined musical instrument for and by her that she did not have to compromise on or risk losing access to it. While it was a very personal instrument for Spiegel, demand among friends and colleagues nevertheless grew until “Music Mouse - An Intelligent Instrument” became a commercial product for the Macintosh, Amiga, and Atari personal computers with a devoted popular following that continues to this day, despite the obsoletion of those platforms. At the time of her Unseen Worlds album’s original release in 1991, the issuing record label turned out to be going out of business, dissolved and disappeared, sending the album immediately into obscurity. Outside of a private CD edition issued by Spiegel on her own Aesthetic Engineering label in 1994, this new edition represents the first proper commercial release of Unseen Worlds.

 

“Some pretty amazing heartfelt molecular inner-happening soundscape soul journeys” – Terry Riley

 

“Laurie Spiegel is one of those rare composers in whom head and heart, left brain and right brain, logic and intuition, merge and even exchange roles.Though she is one of the highest-tech computer composers in America, Spiegel is also a lutenist and banjo player, and sees the computer as a new kind of folk instrument. She makes her most intuitive-sounding and melodic music from mathematical algorithms, and her most complex computerized textures by ear and in search of a desired mood. Form and emotion are as difficult to separate in her music as they are in that of her idol, J.S. Bach.” – Kyle Gann

 

“Unseen Worlds is not so much based on melody and rhythm as it is on textures, pulses, and sonic environments. Sometimes dark, sometimes light, its drama pulls in the adventurous listener who wants to take a musical journey. Using computer software she wrote in order to implement a unique musical vision, Unseen Worlds blends the artistic and the technical, the cerebral and the sensual, and revives the virtually abandoned tradition of electronic music. Unseen Worlds is the work of a sonic explorer whose music can both challenge and caress. Those looking for other worlds of sound can put on headphones and find them here.” - Craig Anderton

 

Product Info

 

CD

 

Single CD

Tri-fold wallet

Period photos

Liner notes by Laurie Spiegel and Kyle Gann

 

2LP

 

2 LP set

Cut at Dubplates and Mastering

Liner notes by Laurie Spiegel and Kyle Gann

Download card included

OMG DRUMS ON VINYL FINALLY

nice. great releases. essential stuff. 

Good stuff. The wait begins.

These arrived today. Looks like Unseen Worlds threw in some other stuff as a little bonus, a couple CDs and download codes for other albums in their oeuvre, but I've got my next 4 hours reserved for Laurie. Much lush.

I got my copy of Unseen Worlds. Some heavenly vintage synths on here. Lovely stuff.

Good timing?.... (I run Waveshaper Media / Waveshaper TV, btw)

Now streaming!

Laurie Spiegel - Waveshaper TV Episode 6
(Part 1 of 3: Bell Labs)

http://youtu.be/zLd1RUDmX6w

^ how do I embed a video on this forum anyways? ^

This is the first in a 3-part video interview series with the seminal electronic & computer music pioneer. In Part 1, Laurie recounts her years working as an in-house composer, developer, and programmer at Bell Labs.

Part 1 - Bell Labs (now streaming) = 9min 16sec
Part 2 - Voyager (Jan 28) = 7min 42sec
Part 3 - The Expanding Universe (Feb 04) = 7min 53sec

The full-length Laurie Spiegel interview is over 50 minutes long - it's practically a mini-documentary! - and it will be available exclusively to our Patreon members, who also get early access to all of our interview video Episodes. You can read up on Waveshaper TV on Patreon, and support our mission to document electronic music history, here:
http://patreon.com/waveshapertv