Carter Thomas, "Sonoma" [CP-206]

While Creel Pone has done a bang-up job at documenting non-Subotnick alternatives such as Michael Czajkowski’s “People the Sky,“ Douglas Leedy’s “Entropical Paradise“, etc. there’s, simply, not a lot of recorded & released music out there made on the early Buchla systems; which makes this hitherto undiscussed collection of pieces by the composer Carter Thomas, all recorded between 1971 & 1977, then issued in the UK in 1985, something of a unheralded gem. Starting with “800th Lifetime“ - an 11-minute suite for Buchla 100 & 200, inspired by Alvin Toffler’s “Future Shock“, composed & recorded 1972 - we’re in unfamiliar territory; absent are the whiz-bang histrionics, replaced by a dark, brooding atmosphere that calls to mind such Concrète classics as Andre Almuro’s “Kosmos“ & even some of the more dispersed Roland Kayn “Cybernetic“ works. The terse “Auric Light“ is perhaps the album’s