Listening: Jonathan Fitoussi and Morton Subotnick
Two by Jonathan Fitoussi, one by Subotnick
Jonathan Fitoussi’s Plein Soleil, on the French label Transversales Disques, is an undulating electronic soundscape of morphing timbres. It reminds me a bit of Morton Subotnick, such as his “A Sky of Cloudless Sulfur” and Silver Apples of the Moon (1968), but with fancier synthesizers and a great deal more driving rhythm. It isn’t what I think of as dance music, though I would certainly be happy to dance to it. I can imagine ballet dancers clad all in black, flitting and flipping and flying about a stage, to this music. It also reminds me of the Pearls Girl Underworld EP from the mid-1990s. The multiple layers of different rhythms, both percussive and melodic synth-like, provide complexity, though each component is simple, especially when one considers there is a lot of rhythmic and melodic repetition. Timbres change, as they do in Underworld’s “Cherry Pie,” from the Pearls Girl EP. That is almost melodic, since a note on one instrument is not the same as a note on another. A melody of sorts can be made by differences between notes other than pure pitch.
Even simpler than Plein Soleil is the opening to the EP Polaris. A sequencer or loop repeats what seems like a theme in 5/4 time. High-pitched synths come in and out, similar to the beginning of Plein Soleil, but the simplicity of “Polaris 2011” is far greater than anything on Plein Soleil. “Light 2011” has a similar theme to that of “Polaris 2011,” and, offering my best guess, may be in 7/8 time. The shimmering of the synths that sweep in and out of the mix provides the primary source of change, while the sequencer or looped synth provides a constant undergirding rhythm.
I took a college course on “the computer in music,” and I was introduced to the works of Morton Subotnick. I explored electronic art music in a limited way. It offers a different listening experience than electronic dance music does. That is not to say that electronic art music has not been paired with dancing. I leave you with the first of a three-album set of Subotnick’s music, which I have just revisited after a decade or so. “Touch” is astounding to me. It offers a mind-blowingly wide soundstage, far beyond the left and right speakers of my home stereo. The sound comes from a wide sector of a circle. It is surreal to hear and feel. Your mileage may differ. “Gestures” gets into three-dimensional sonic gestures, which reach out all the way to my right ear. I have a two-channel stereo, no surround sound anywhere. The techniques Subotnick must have used in making such music are beyond my imagination. I try to imagine, anyway.