MICHAEL MCNABB: COMPUTER MUSIC: “DREAMSONG,” “ORBITAL VIEW,”...

MICHAEL MCNABB: COMPUTER MUSIC: “DREAMSONG,” “ORBITAL VIEW,” “LOVE IN THE ASYLUM.” Stanford University Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics; Marilyn Barber, soprano. 1750 Arch Records S-1800. McNabb is one of the most imaginative composers in the computer music field. His “Dreamsong” (1978), which blends synthesized sounds and recorded natural sounds, has won prizes on both sides of the Atlantic. “Love in the Asylum” (1981) pursues even more extravagantly the techniques of the earlier work. “Orbital View” (1979; revised 1981) was originally the musical backdrop for cliffs, craters and clouds in a NASA-sponsored film on Mars. But for all its imagination “Dreamsong” (and the others) still includes a lot of random electronic and computer noises.