Search - Erika Duke Kirkpatrick, Morton Subotnick, Joan La Barbara :: Touch/Jacob's Room

Touch, yes; Jacob, no

01/22/1999

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I have always been a Subotnick fan and was overjoyed when The Wild Bull and Silver Apples of the Moon appeared on CD. I was equally delighted to discover that Touch, another Subotnick favorite, was now available. Subotnick, like W. Carlos, has excellent taste in sound. Touch consequently exhibits sonic textures and contrasts that are still fresh, even after three decades and the digital revolution (despite what the CD label says, Touch is not computer music). Part II of Touch, however, still seems like record filler--everything Touch has to say it says in Part I. The piece has also suffered a bit in the transfer to CD. The smoothness the LP had is gone, one passage has been strangely distorted, and some annoying location modulation "ping-ponging" that was absent on the original album has been introduced. It's still enjoyable, though. Jacob's room was an odd choice to pair with Touch; another Buchla work would have made a lot more sense. This composition, with its Yoko Ono-like vocalizations and cello/computer accompaniment that quickly degenerates into boring minimalism, strikes this listner as pretentious (it might have been saved by leaving out the spoken text). "Jacob" is simply too full of itself to enjoy, so the three stars I'm giving this CD are for "Touch"."

The Brilliant and the Annoying

11/07/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Touch is an incredible piece of music, a brilliant construction of sounds from the Buchla Modular synth and a must listen for anyone even remotely interested in "electronic music". The palate of sounds are both electronic and organic sounding and are more mature than those on Wild Bull and Silver Apples, both ground-breaking albums in their own right.Touch is the precursor of music to come from Mr. Subotnic. Four Butterfiles, Sidewinder, Until Spring (all sadly never release on CD) are all great works of electronica. Nobody does Subotnic better than Subotnic; his sense of timing, pace, dynamic, timbre and texture are at the top of the scale. So IMHO Touch being the only mid-late work avialable on CD is a must have. As stated in both of the previous reviews, one can ONLY wonder WHY once of his other CD's like Until Spring, Sky of Cloudless Sulpher, Four Butterfiles, ect was not the second selection for this CD.I wish I could say something positive about Jacob's Room but I simply find it dry and sterile. It has none of the charm and organic qualities of his "early" works and leves me cold. It is actually kind of annoying to listen to. Bummer! So three stars are for the CD as a whole, (5) stars for Touch."