Mother Mallard's - 2024 - Make Way For Mother Mallard. 50 Years of Music

(127:59; Cuneiform Records)

The full name of the band is Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Co. / David Borden while the album is ‘Make Way For Mother Mallard: 50 Years Of Music’, and as one may surmise from the title is a celebration of a band’s 50th anniversary. American composer and musician David Borden helped pave the way for electronic music – via both analogue synthesizers and digital instruments – by forming the world’s first ever synthesizer ensemble in Bob Moog's Trumansburg studio, using Moog’s prototypes and finding a way of enabling them to be used in performance. He then later founded and headed Cornell University's Digital Music Department. This 2- disc set features one disc of early (1970’s) and one disc of recent (2019) Mother Mallard performances of several key Borden pieces.

The first two songs on this set, “Endocrine Dot Patterns” (15:30) and “C-A-G-E I” (32:10) feature the earliest full line-up of the band, with David Borden and Steve Drews being joined by Linda Fisher following the duo’s early concerts when they realised they were limited at just how much they could play due to a lack of hands. They had commenced by performing works by the likes of Robert Ashley, Morton Feldman, Daniel Lentz, Jon Hassell, Terry Riley, John Cage, Philip Glass and Steve Reich, but as time progressed their own compositions took precedent and for me the one which really stands out for me on this release is “C-A-G-E I” which is incredibly hypnotic and following  a similar path to what would be experienced with Tangerine Dream who had much more musical success. The repeated melodies and changing layers make for a complex arrangement which is quite dangerous to play when listening to in the car as it really does take hold of one’s consciousness as all that exists are the notes, and the music is all-encompassing.  This is the first time I have come across Mother Mallard’s Portable Masterpiece Co. who appear to be one of those bands whose influence has been much larger than their recorded output, with their debut only coming out in 1973, yet there is no doubt that Borden’s work with Robert Moog had a huge impact on the world of synthesizers.

Kev Rowland, January 2025

Links:
https://www.mothermallard.com/
http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/