Video: Dither plays Laurie Spiegel's "The Expanding Universe" at Public Records, Brooklyn 7/22/23 (complete set)
“The quartet concept: the gravitas of four corners, circle in square, life cubed and balanced.” Elliott Sharp, from the notes in the cd “Dither”
four tracks from Laurie Spiegel's 1980 LP "The Expanding Universe", each arranged for guitar quartet by one member of Dither
Dither is (l-r): Taylor Levine - guitar Brendon Randall-Myers - guitar Joshua Lopes - guitar James Moore - guitar
https://ditherquartet.bandcamp.com
The Dither is a quartet of electric guitars based in New York, which present a complex and sophisticated DNA based on an eclectic mix that includes composed, improvised and electronic music. They are omnivores. They are the velociraptor of experimental electric guitar music. Sophisticated. Tireless workers. Stylistically excellent.
Laurie Spiegel (born September 20, 1945) is an American composer. She has worked at Bell Laboratories, in computer graphics, and is known primarily for her electronic-music compositions and her algorithmic composition software Music Mouse. She also plays the guitar and lute. Spiegel is seen by some as a pioneer of the New York new-music scene. She withdrew from this scene in the early 1980s, believing that its focus had shifted from artistic process to product. While she continues to support herself through software development, Spiegel aims to use technology in music as a means of furthering her art rather than as an end in itself. In her words, "I automate whatever can be automated to be freer to focus on those aspects of music that can't be automated. The challenge is to figure out which is which." Spiegel's realization of Johannes Kepler's Harmonices Mundi was chosen for the opening track on the "Sounds of Earth" section of the golden record placed on board the Voyager spacecraft in 1977. Another work, titled "Sediment", was included in the 2012 film The Hunger Games. She has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame.