condition (record/cover): NM / EX

La Barbara, the vocal virtuoso who effectively codified extended technique in American music (multiphonics, circular singing, glottal clicks, inhaled tones), had been recording her own compositions on Wizard Records since 1976; this Nonesuch LP was her first major-label vehicle. Three of her own pieces fill three sides: October Music: Star Showers and Extraterrestrials (1980, multi-tracked solo voice recorded in the IRCAM basement studio with David Wessel's help), The Solar Wind (commissioned by NEA, chamber ensemble), and Vlissingen Harbor (1982, chamber ensemble, inspired by a Dutch port town La Barbara visited that summer).

The fourth side is given to her husband Morton Subotnick's The Last Dream of the Beast, for solo voice and electronic "ghost score," one of the works in his late-seventies series exploring real-time computer-processed live performance. Steven Mosko conducts the ensemble works.