Tag Archives: electronic music

Wendy Carlos: A Biography by Amanda Sewell

avant-garde, books, electroacoustic, electronic music, experimental music, music, , , , , , , , ,
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In 1968, Wendy Carlos was thrust into the limelight with her synthesizer interpretations of the music of J.S. Bach. The LP Switched-On Bach caught the attention of both classical and non-classical music listeners alike.

As a child, Carlos began playing piano and eventually composing her own works. At the same time, she also developed a keen interest in electronics. By the time she was in high school in the early 1950s, she had built her own home computer.

Her interest in both music and electronics led to her studying composition at Columbia University with two pioneers in electronic music – Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening. It was during this time that she learned the trade of working in a recording studio and eventually met up with Robert Moog.

Her relationship with Moog was a fruitful one in which she provided much feedback to the electronics engineer regarding the design and construction of devices which would eventually be incorporated into Moog’s modular synthesizers.

Carlos’ meticulous sound construction process would eventually lead to her experimenting with producing a piece of music by Bach. The concept of an entire album of synthesized Bach works was presented to Columbia Records by her long-time collaborator Rachel Elkind and it was agreed to issue the set on their Masterworks classical label.

After its release in October of 1968, the set was so popular that it held the number one spot on Billboard’s Classical Music chart for three years. By the mid-70s, its sales surpassed a million copies in the US alone.

In 1969, she released a second LP entitled The Well-Tempered Synthesizer which included works by Bach and other classical composers.

1972 saw the release of an expansive double LP set entitled Sonic Seasonings. Here, she devoted each side to a different season and used a combination of real-world nature recordings combined with synthetic sounds to produce evocative soundscapes. This was well before Brian Eno introduced his concept of “ambient music” on such recordings as Discreet Music and Music for Airports.

It was around this time that Carlos was invited to record music for Stanley Kubrick’s upcoming film A Clockwork Orange. In the end, only a small portion of her recordings made its way into the film and original soundtrack album. But, she eventually released her own works on a separate LP.

In the 1980s Carlos began working with digital synthesizers and created her album Digital Moonscapes. The versatility of the digital domain also made her want to experiment with alternate keyboard tunings such as microtonal scales with as many as 35 notes per octave. This resulted in the LP Beauty in the Beast. As the ’80s drew to a close, she collaborated with “Weird Al” Yankovic on a unique take on the work Peter and the Wolf.

The 1990s saw Carlos enter a partnership with the label East Side Digital where she would eventually re-issue remastered versions of her older albums (and previously unissued material) as well as her final album to date entitled Tales from Heaven and Hell.

Of course, one cannot cover the life and work of Wendy Carlos without acknowledging the path of her personal life. The most obvious aspect of which was her gender transition which took place over several years. Author Amanda Sewell does not side-step this part of Carlos’s life and treats the subject with care and respect. This includes the effect which is had on both her personal and professional life.

The biography of Wendy Carlos is an engrossing read about a musical pioneer whose work helped to bring attention to the world of electronic music and provide a vision of music’s future.

Kraftwerk: Future Music from Germany by Uwe Schütte

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The news that Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider had passed away at the beginning of May was one of those announcements that seemed to strike a particularly resonant note for me. I had first heard their music long before their breakthrough album Autobahn courtesy of a radio programme featuring import albums back in the early ’70s. They were one of my personal inspirations to start making electronic music.

It was certainly a much more pleasant experience to learn of a new biography of Kraftwerk was being published by Penguin Books earlier in the year.

Kraftwerk: Music of the Future by Uwe Schütte is a rather succinct volume which covers the careers of co-founders Florian Schneider and Ralf Hütter. The pair met at school in the turbulent days of the late ’60s and immediately hit it off. In 1968, they formed a band called Organization who released a sole LP called Tone Float (only in the UK as German record companies had no interest in their work).

Keeping their base in their hometown of Düsseldorf, the pair then went on to create the concept of Kraftwerk (literally translated a Power Station). Their early work did include electronics but also guitar, flute and drums. Much of this work was based around improvisation and electronic sound manipulation.

Their first three releases were prime examples of their work at the time. It’s unfortunate that to this day these albums basically been written out of the band history and not been any part of a re-issue program for their recordings.

For Kraftwerk, it was their fourth album – Autobahn – that denoted the beginning of their recording career. It’s the album (and song) that brought the group to international attention (although, it was virtually ignored in their own country).

They subsequently built up their reputation with their next three releases of the ’70s – Radio-Activity, Trans Europe Express and The Man Machine. It was also at this point that their work started to reverberate into other forms of music. It became an influence in electronic dance music and what would develop into techno.

They brought in the ’80s with Computer World with it’s ubiquitous Pocket Calculator emanating from radios around the world.

After that, the space between album releases would become much greater. It was another five years before the release of Electric Cafe and another seventeen years until the Tour de France Soundtracks (with a stop-gap remix effort called The Mix in 1991).

But, that doesn’t mean that Kraftwerk were inactive during these long apparent silences. As the author points out, Kraftwerk were not really a “band”. They considered themselves to be a multi-media project. They spent a lot of time concentrating of visual elements to their work, as well. Stage presentations, museum exhibitions… you name it, they seemed to have their finger in it.

In the past twenty years, Kraftwerk were very active in the area of live performances. The miniaturisation of their music producing gear helped a great deal in this regard.

Throughout the book, Schütte puts the efforts of Kraftwerk in the context of the music, society and art of the times and also details how it affected the future of music. It is a good overview of their music and art helped to shape many things to come.

A Tribute to John Cage concert

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Sometime during the late summer of 2016, I was spending a lazy Sunday afternoon listening to music. On this specific occasion, one of the CDs that I was playing was called Fifty-Eight by the American composer John Cage. As I scanned the liner notes of the disc, it suddenly occurred to me that 2017 would mark the 25th anniversary of Cage’s death in August of 1992. This made me reflect upon how the words and music of John Cage made their way into my life.

Back in the early 1970s, I found myself gaining an interest in avant-garde music of the contemporary classical variety. I was still living in Windsor at the time and would spend a great deal of time at the downtown main branch of the public library. It was there that I delved into books about this genre of music and could also borrow LPs from the library collection.

After reading a number of books, the one name that seemed to crop up more than any other was that of John Cage. His way of composing involved processes which likely sounded pretty crazy to many listeners of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven.

Cage would experiment with putting bits and bobs between the strings of a piano in an effort to completely change the sound which it produced. This became known as “prepared piano.” He also composed percussion works for ensembles which included such items as automobile brake drums.

He used the I Ching as well as maps of constellations in order to explore new and different ways to create compositions. He also found much of interest in using chance operations and indeterminacy. These parameters could create a new sounding work each time that a composition was performed. Some works could also be performed by superimposing one composition on top of another for an even greater end result.

By 1980, I had purchased my first synthesizer and used it to create abstract sounds and compositions which no doubt owed some debt to John Cage among many other contemporary composers.

So, in 2016, I had the idea to create an event which would celebrate John Cage in a novel manner. Instead of simply arranging to have people perform his works, I wanted to present an example of how, some 25 years after his passing, his ideas and sounds continue to be an influence on composers and performers into the 21st century.

With this idea in mind, I approached Museum London to see if they would be interested in helping to present this performance to the public. I was very pleased to hear of their enthusiastic support for the idea. And now, almost 25 years to the day (he actually passed away August 12, 1992), we plan to celebrate the ongoing influence of Cage’s work.

The evening will feature three performances of new works. Timothy Glasgow will create sounds using a modular synthesizer setup. This assemblage of electronic modules is especially interesting in that the results of turning a small dial or flipping a switch can reveal unintentional and surprising sounds. This is an excellent example of Cage’s approach to randomness and indeterminacy.
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Alex Schmoll and Angie Quick will present another take on Cage. For their contribution, Alex will create a backdrop of synthetic sounds while Angie reads extracts from Cage’s numerous writings. The snippets of the writings will be arranged in a random manner in order to create a unique presentation.

The evening will conclude with a performance by the Transmorphous Sound Ensemble which consists of myself along with Richard Moule. For our contribution entitled 1+1 4 JC, I will utilize a prepared table-top guitar setup while Richard will use a prepared violin. This will be accompanied by a new video work which I have created specifically for this event.

In keeping with the idea of a 25th anniversary, each performance is set to clock in at 25 minutes.

Event details:

Ocean of Silence: A Tribute to John Cage

Transmorphous Sound Ensemble

Alex Schmoll & Angie Quick

Timothy Glasgow

Thursday, August 24, 7:00 PM

$10 advance / $15 door

(advance tickets available @ museumlondon.ca)

Museum London, 421 Ridout St., London, Ontario, Canada (519-661-0333)

 

Silent Records Lives Again

avant-garde, electroacoustic, electronic music, experimental music, improvisation, music, , , , , ,

Silent Records was the brainchild of label founder Kim Cascone. Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, Silent issued many recordings of interesting music spanning several genres including ambient, industrial and beat-oriented sounds.

In 1996, Kim invited me to issue something on his label after becoming familiar with my work on the FAX label from Germany. So, twenty years ago(!) my album Distant Rituals was released on Silent Records.

It was around this time that Kim left the label and sold it to an employee. Unfortunately, this change of hands did not work out well and the label folded in 1997. So, for nearly 20 years many great recordings have remained out of print.

Fast forward to 2016 and Kim has decided to re-boot Silent Records. In recent months, he has managed to track down most of the core artists who are still living and active. That includes me.

In the coming months, many of the long out of print recordings will start to make a reappearance via various media platforms. In addition to this, he has also managed to create a brand new compilation release entitled From Here to Tranquility 6. This latest installment in the series includes recent recordings by many of those core artists from years gone by. My work entitled Onlooker will be featured on the set. It will be available for download or as a limited edition CD release.
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There will also be a second volume of this set which features artists which have some relationship with the label (but, not as a core artist). This release will be made available as a download-only item.

In addition to re-issuing Distant Rituals, Kim has inquired about the re-release of some of my other long out of print material. Stay tuned as there will be more information coming in the future.

At the present time, Silent Records now has its own devoted streaming channel via SomaFM. Please visit the site to hear some wonderful ambient sounds from the past. This is just the beginning to the channel. Musical content will soon be expanding.

It’s all very exciting news and I wish Kim Cascone the best for his venture in the future!

The Silent Channel on SomaFM

Dieter Moebius (Cluster): 1944 – 2015

electroacoustic, electronic music, experimental music, Gone Gone Gone, improvisation, Krautrock, music, vinyl, , , , ,

Dieter Moebius was one of the founding members of the avant-garde experimental trio known as Kluster who formed in Berlin in the late ’60s. Along side fellow artists Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Conrad Schnitzler, they produced a trio of records which were abstract sound collages.

After the departure of Schnitzler (who was also a founding member of Tangerine Dream), the remaining duo re-branded themselves as Cluster. In this incarnation, the duo produced several recordings of wonderful minimalist electronic soundscapes.

In the early 1970s, new music from German began filtering into the UK. The sounds of Cluster along with Can, Amon Duul II, Tangerine Dream, Neu! and Kraftwerk began to make inroads outside of their native land.

One person whose ears were opened to these sounds was Brian Eno. He subsequently recorded albums in collaboration with the Cluster duo.
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Both Moebius and Roedelius recorded many solo albums over the years. They also continued to work together as well as joining Neu! guitarist Michael Rother as a trio called Harmonia.

The sounds made by Moebius and Roedelius not only made an impact on a new generation of electronic music artists in the 1970s but, continue to be felt to this day.

In the early 1980s, I was half of an electronic music duo called M104 along with Werner Albert. The greatest compliment that we received about our music was that we were the Canadian version of Cluster. Enough said.

Obituary at The Guardian website.