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Morton Subotnick
Until Spring
Release Date: 1976
Label: Columbia/Odyssey

Subotnick's last composition for the Columbia label -- this time released on the budget Odyssey line -- is the fourth in his long series of "Butterfly" scores, and it has a more outgoing, somewhat more aggressive personality than the previous two Columbia albums, Sidewinder and 4 Butterflies. Instead of dividing the score into the three-part "Butterfly" metaphor that Subotnick liked to use in other such scores, this one purports to concentrate just upon the point of emergence, while using three "gestural" qualities of "thrusting out, becoming, and being" throughout the piece. After a tentative start, listeners begin to encounter some of the trademark Morton Subotnick aggression -- sharply defined, pitchless, electronically delayed sounds pingponging across the stereo spectrum. Part two opens with more pinging that gradually slows down much the way a bouncing ball slowly comes to a halt, speeding up to produce the sensation of a motorboat drifting to and fro. Eventually things settle into a series of insistent, driving ostinatos before fading innocuously away. As is often the case in his best work, Subotnick manages to be rigorous, abstract, emotional, and entertaining at the same time. Richard S. Ginell, All Music Guide

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