Sonic Seasonings

by John BushThe same year Carlos finalized the score for A Clockwork Orange, the composer recorded a double album named Sonic Seasonings; it was a complete turn away from the majestic synthesizer soundscapes and classical inspirations that had marked the movie score. Instead, Carlos recorded large amounts of environmental passages to produce a work that cycled through the four seasons. Beginning with bird calls and a thunderstorm to mark "Spring," Carlos phrases the synthesizers only in terms of the nature sounds heard. They rarely interject themselves, and the result is closer to a nature recording with occasional effects than a synthesizer recording with nature sounds. Of course, there was no precedent for "nature," "environmental," or even "new age" music in 1972 -- Sonic Seasonings was basically the genesis for several entire genres of music two decades later. As part of East Side Digital's Carlos CD reissue campaign, Sonic Seasonings was issued as a two-disc set, including the original LP plus a second disc of "natural" recordings, originally begun in 1986 and known as Land of the Midnight Sun.