The Expanding Universe (2018 reissue)

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Laurie Spiegel

2018

Music/Sound

The Listening Room

Description

Laurie Spiegel’s The Expanding Universe, first issued in 1980 and re-released in 2018 with over an hour of previously unheard material, is a landmark in the history of computer music. Composed between 1974 and 1978 during Spiegel’s residency at Bell Labs, the album was realized on the Alles digital synthesizer using Max Vernon Mathews and F. R. Moore’s Groove system (an acronym for “Generated Real-time Output Operations On Voltage-controlled Equipment”). In contrast with earlier fully pre-programmed works of computer sound, Spiegel pioneered an improvisatory method of real-time interaction with machine logic. Her performances steered algorithmic processes through live input, anticipating the interactive paradigms later made ubiquitous by tools such as Max/MSP and Ableton Live.

A former Juilliard composition student who had experimented with Buchla synthesizers at New York University, Spiegel crafted music of intricate counterpoint, shimmering harmonies, and complex, propulsive rhythms. Energetic and layered, The Expanding Universe bridges academic computer research with the pulse-driven minimalism that foreshadowed ambient and electronic dance music, cementing Spiegel’s influence across generations.