Analog Synthesizer Epics: S/D, POV

Crepuscule version is 60:21, I sold back my copy of the Point

Gleeson's review of Sextant for Amazon is great! Everyone should vote 'yes this review was helpful'.

VSM: You are also an avid synth literature collector.

BK: I love the period when you'd see early synth catalogs, probably before '72 or '73, everyone looked like a scientist. Nobody had long hair in those catalogs. They weren't pushing that aspect of it. They had guys in lab coats and glasses working the gear. And then, when Emerson started getting in the Moog catalogs, '74, '75 especially, and then Herbie Hancock, Billy Preston and so forth, they were saying "Let's push these toward musicians because it's cool."

VSM: And they realized how lucrative it was to have Stevie Wonder endorsing your product.

BK: And then it would finally be more imporant for musicians than for scholarly people. But we like the scholarly aspect of all this stuff, and remember the days when evrybody learned about electronic music by going to a little tiny lab room with a four-track Teac and an ARP 2600 and a bunch of acoustic tile on the wall. You know, doing four-track pieces in a room.

Guy goes on to say:

"Hotel California took the better part of two weeks because there were so many arrangement things to do. The "Switched on Bach" section, alone, took about 2 days. That was done the old way. We did that one on the Moog III modular and went crazy and patched in two notes at a time, or one note or five notes to make it work. And that's the only way to get it to sound right. Then again, most people wouldn't notice it, they just think it sounds funny. But people who know the Clockwork Orange soundtrack, for example, would definitely get a laugh out of it, appreciate it."

I've heard this a few times, but think I need to it again. It is Roger Manning, after all...

Vangelis -- A great sense of texture and melody, but also limited by some fairly romantic notions about his role in the world.

L'apocalypse des Animaux has some really compelling atmospheres, for sure -- "Création du Monde" sounds familiar as hell. I think it would be particularly disturbing for those who find

I'm more partial, sonically, to the stuff he did when he acquired the Yamaha CS-80. Unfortunately, it's pretty inconsistent. Beaubourg is good, but diffuse — almost as if he's saying, "Modern, yes?" Spiral has moments that are T. Dream-ish, both good and bad. China is a little goofy w/ its faux-Asian stuff. The Blade Runner and The Bounty OST's have great moments. But I'm sure you could compile at least one great disc of stuff out of this.

I dl'd T. Dream's Dream Sequence — clearly, it was compiled for fans whose attention spans wane in the absence of a pulse. As a result, they went to pains to find sequencer passages in everything. It must be said, though: "Beach Scene" would embarrass Jan Hammer. Still, "White Eagle" is good fun.

Still wanna know if there's any Schulze I'm missing...

you need a lot of spare time to get something out of Schulze. if you're waiting for something amazing to happen, you won't get it, you have to want to leave it going. in the 70's, very few records actually dared to go for such extended durations of monotony -- all his records had 30 minute sides, plenty of time to get lost -- we're all used to 74 minute ambient CDs now, so it's harder to imagine how particularly deep these records might have seemed. try Mirage or X for one of the more composed things, Timewind for one of the interminable seqencer wallpaper albums. I've got several respected friends who love these records. One owns the 50 CD set and says 'yeah there's some good stuff in there'. okay, dude.

if you want good late 70's T Dream, Force Majeure ends with "Through Metamorphic Rocks". and the live 70's bootlegs are interesting -- they really were improvising free, and to incomprehensibly huge audiences. the Sheffield 1974 set sounds very modern.

Sounds like a solid description of Roland Kayn--I've always considered him halfway between Stockhausen and Schulze. As a result he seems to get little recognition/respect from either camp.

other things on the academic all-synth side that I like (offhand):
Milton Babbitt: Composition for Synthesizer, Ensembles for Synthesizer
Douglas Leedy: Entropical Paradise
Subotnick: Silver Apples, Wild Bull, Touch, Sidewinder, 4 Butterflies, Until Spring
David Borden & Mother Mallard
League of Automatic Music Composers (currently online only)
Bulent Arel & Daria Semegen
Laurie Spiegel - The Expanding Universe & Obsolete Music

there's also a bunch of late Ussachevsky & Mimaroglu all-synth pieces, and things like Charles Dodge's Earth's Magnetic Field & Charles Wuorinen's Time's Encomium, perhaps not for everyone but I'm not selling my copies.

Keith's on fire at mimaroglu music sales, search the Creel Pone label.

Oxygene and Equinox — clearly, the guy has something going on w/ his patented phased string texture. And side two of the latter album has some nice sequence patterns for sure. But like many of his contemporaries, the guy's got nothing to say melodically — it's just kind of another head trip. Still, an enjoyable listen.

On a related note, I found this the other day: http://www.c64audio.com/productInfo.php?cat=SIDOL — a record of Commodore 64 tunes done in the style (and on the gear) of Vangelis and Jarre. Apparently, there's a scene dedicated to this stuff. At any rate, the first track is downloadable in its entirety and pretty fun.

Hard to do because while he was ahead of the game in some respects (or just had better access to advance printings of the ARP catalog) those first albums of his aren't terribly different from the morass of Tangerine Dream film soundtracks of the era.

I suspect that the best way to listen to Jarre now is as part of one of those synthzilla events he does with a zeppelin-sized laser show that takes over an entire city.

I think Jarre's first albums are actually pretty different from those music-by-the-yard TD soundtracks (as cool as they are)... Jarre did work his contacts but he also mastered those ARP filters... TD's stuff came out of live improv, but Jarre's layers were really beautifully crafted & composed.

He studied at GRM with Pierre Schaeffer. I think I remember a story in Keyboard Magazine where they asked Schaeffer what he thought of Jarre's music and he said "I am proud of my pupil's success. I don't think his music is particularly interesting, but success is a good thing."

Oxygene & Equinoxe, super good, the long piece on side one of Magnetic Fields is great, Concerts in China has some dreadful lead keytar but also has "Arpeggiator"

Zoolook from 1984 has some dated 80's slap bass & electro rhythms but it's also a pretty advanced Fairlight sample-cutup record, a collage of spoken fragments in different languages swarmed into fields of swimmy floaty concrete. And the dance tracks -- first time I heard Akufen & Todd Edwards I just thought 'oh they finally caught up to Zoolook'. So I shouldn't say 'dated' but 'vintage', I still like this record.

I dunno what happened to him after that, he dropped working on those textures entirely, just overkill symphonic themes & rollerdisco single-attempts, perhaps his attention was more devoted to those city-wide multimedia live spectacles by that point. Everything from Rendevous on is really pretty horrible, though I haven't heard his last few albums.

Go on about his mastery of the ARP filters, if you would...

I didn't mention Zoolook b/c it's, well, digital. But however you describe it—dated, vintage, swimmy floaty concrete—the sound design on that record is peerless. Plus, "Zoolookologie" is as brilliant a slice of electro-pop from that era as you're likely to find.

I'm not a sid-head, I thought you were talking about something oh else

the Moogs had incredible low end sounds, but the ARP's strength: particularly precise, delicate, musical filters. they're what you're hearing on those first three Jarre albums. for contrast, see Eliane Radigue's extended pieces for ARP, Trilogie de la Mort, Adnos, L'ile re-sonante, those are basically the ARP filter solos, five minute long sweeps applied to 70 minute drones.

Incidentally, I gather this is how that phasey sound was made:

Many of Jarre's etheral pad sounds comes from the Dutch organ Eminent 310U, produced from 1970 - 1984. The trademark floating sound found on Oxygene, Equinoxe and other albums is produced by filtering the organ's sound through either a Smallstone phaser or an Electric Mistress guitar pedal, optionally with a Revox B77 analogue tape delay effect...Despite Jarre's extensive use of the organ and it's unique sound, it isn't very known and can be found for a few dollars in second-hand stores.

http://www.hyperionwebs.com/electronicshadows/archives/techtalk/synths_of_jarre.htm

I started a noise thread about the Synapse Magazine archive but it might as well go here as well: http://www.cyndustries.com/synapse/intro.cfm

interview with Edward Artemyev - http://www.electroshock.ru/eng/edward/interview/patterson/

three great ANS records:
Electroshock Vol 4 - Synthesizer ANS
Edward Artemyev - Solaris
Coil - ANS (4 disc boxed set, worth the high price)

Secondly, early Jarre is strangely compelling — very...seductive sonically. In particular, "Equinoxe 3", with the baroque organ flourishes, is (as Jon might say) very swimmy-floaty.

I briefly considered a joke thread along the lines of "Arnolog Synthenegger Epics" but thought better of it.

Damn, nobody's mentioned Vangelis' Beaubourg yet. Seek this immediately if you're into exploratory analog-synth strangeness. It's his peak solo work.
Also seek M. Frog's Labat and Underwater Electronic Orchestra (the latter recorded as Jean Yves Labat). He was Todd Rundgren's keyboardist for a spell in the '70s.

-- Dave Segal (djvein...), September 5th, 2005.

I agree with you about "Beaubourg" being the best Vangelis record, and I also really like "Underwater Electronic Orchestra", but haven't heard any other of M. Labat's work - I didn't know him as M. Frog, either.

Also, if people are interested, Richard Pinhas has made many wonderful records, and I recommend that people hear at least any one of the first 5 Neuronium albums also.

I also just bought the UK reissues of Body Love and Moondawn by Klaus Schulze on CD. I like him less and less but these albums are both great. Body Love is Volume I and has a bonus track called Lasse Braun. Now if they would just reissue Volume II on CD.....

whoa. thanks!

It's not an "epic," in fact most of the tracks are meant to serve didactic purposes, but I can listen straight through the whole thing with a big smile on my face. (I generally prefer reading technical manuals rather than epic novels, too...)

Revive, nearly two years later, at which point I've gone from willfully ignorant about Jarre and Vangelis to loving them and contemplating how one might revisit this stuff in a modern context (since neither seem capable of doing that themselves).

Right now, I'm finding myself drawn back to Jarre -- listening to Concert in China at the moment, the most enjoyable parts of which are the new stuff: "Arpeggiator," etc. A bit of a mixed bag, but interesting nonetheless.

It really is interesting the extent to which he fell off the planet quality-wise after Zoolook, which showed such promise for him in a digital context (as a point of contrast, Eno took a very, very long time to get good w/ digital gear). As a sound sculptor, Jarre was really without peer for a while there.

The only solo Vangelis I've heard (besides Blade Runner) was something
called The Lizard and I quite liked it. I've always liked early Tangerine Dream, I guess I need to get into "mid-era."
I think that Rh Band should get a mention on this thread. I'm not sure if they use "banks upon banks" of synths, or guitars, or tapes, or what, but I think that the end result of whatever process they are using would place them in the same company as this thread. I listened to their live record on HP Cycle just last night and it is a very palpable analog drone epic.

Tomita pwnz this thread

king of all synthesiser disco epics surely = E=MC2

-- Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, September 5, 2005 1:47 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Link

lyric:
tea and coffee by Laurie

who was Laurie?

the world needs to know

I think that Rh Band should get a mention on this thread. I'm not sure if they use "banks upon banks" of synths, or guitars, or tapes, or what, but I think that the end result of whatever process they are using would place them in the same company as this thread. I listened to their live record on HP Cycle just last night and it is a very palpable analog drone epic.

definitely. in a similar "there may be no analog synths here" vein, the mouthus/axolotl LP on old english spelling bee.

Tomita pwnz this thread

based on pictures at an exhibition i concur.

i'm digging the escape from new york soundtrack at the moment

Shall we revive yet again?

1. Michael Hoenig "Departure From The Northern Wasteland"
2. Wolfgang Duren "Eyeless Dreams" http://dueren.waldorfian.info/
(download the whole super rare LP)
3. Delia Gonzalez and Gavin Russom "The Days Of Mars"

I also just bought the UK reissues of Body Love and Moondawn by Klaus Schulze on CD. I like him less and less but these albums are both great. Body Love is Volume I and has a bonus track called Lasse Braun. Now if they would just reissue Volume II on CD.....

I think this thread introduced me to all these records.

The Hoenig is a Berlin School classic -- a brief member of Tangerine Dream and also producer of Harold Budd's Lovely Thunder. The Duren is a pretty good example of the kind academic epics that Gleeson/Fast et al were doing on analog synthesizers but on the PPG wave sequencing digital synth. Days of Mars feels a little like its just a TD knockoff.

I like both the Body Love records quite a bit. I know Milton doesn't care for Schulze's soloing -- I think his noodling becomes more of a texture than anything.

a TD knockoff.

you say that like it's a bad thing!

checking out that michael hoenig now..

might explain his cancelled London show on Wednesday

local news source
http://www.phillymag.com/news/2015/10/09/charles-cohen-arrested/

it's his 70th birthday today then

jail cake for you charlie

mediocre