#early synth

[musicmoreweirdthangood]

90s teens will recognize the whistled opening from Beck’s 1996 “Sissyneck” from Odelay, but that’s not what we’re hear to talk about: it was sampled from the much weirder “The Moog and Me” from 1969 by Dick Hyman, who got his start in much blander piano music before getting into experimental electronics. This is one of the most listenable tracks on the album--no weird time signatures, no experiments with tuning the keyboard to play notes not normally part of the Western chord structure, just an early drum machine, a rhythm piano, and a call-and-response duet between his whistling and his Moog.

[thedurvin]

Kraftwerk: Pocket Calculator / でんたく(2009)

Another piece of vital synth pop history, Kraftwerk’s peppy little song about how great pocket calculators are, remastered and pumped up a bit, and then a second verse in Japanese (I know how much you guys like things in Japanese)

why does the official release of a classic Kraftwerk song have less than two hundred views

[laseramaryllis]

Music spotlight

Listen on spotify

Making of

Suzanne Ciani - Seven Waves

This album holds a lot of nostalgia for me. My dad had a large collection of new age music and this CD was his oldest. I inherited it after he died and I come back to it often.

This is Suzanne Ciani's first album released in 1982. Her work gradually shifted to traditional piano but this album stands out with it's sounds made entirely from synthesizers. The first track, birth of venus, is haunting and mysterious, almost like a dark fantasy film. The album then calms down with smooth songs that make you want to go sailing. Best song, hands down, is water lullaby. This track pulls you in with it's slow clacking beat and pans. There's a flavor of sadness to this album with just a touch of hopefulness.

Suzanne has this album and making of on her YouTube channel.

[drainster]

Wolfgang Bock - Cycles (Side A) // Telefunken 1980

Starts off very Jean Michel Jarre but then the drums kick in. Sit back and enjoy.

[thedurvin]

This is the funkiest little beat, I wish I knew how to freestyle

[thedurvin]

You know Raymond Scott’s works like “Toy Trumpet” and “Powerhouse” from Warner Bros. cartoons, but that all came from his jazz work in the 30s and 40s, sampled by Carl Stalling; later, Scott worked in advertising and got sick of jazz musicians wanting to improvise and started building his own synthesizers, buying parts from Bob Moog himself and using them to a really unique sound to the jingles produced by his music company, Manhattan Research Inc. “Lightworks”, a jingle for cosmetics, is one of the more famous ones and has been covered a time or two.

[tumblingus]

Native Son - “Super Safari”

Recording and remixing engineer Hideo Takada

[decoderkk]