Listen to eight minutes of music from the Sonoton Library LP ‘Space Fiction’ (SON 106, Stereo, Germany, 1980)
Although the German music library Sonoton was formed in 1965, most of its recorded output floating around these days stems from the dawn of the 1980s and beyond. From the music on the records I do have, and the sleeves of the ones that elude me, I think we can safely say that Sonoton specialised in the contemporary, futuristic and progressive side of the ‘off the peg’ soundtrack business.
Much of this library’s music has an air of foreboding, menace, danger and desolation about it. As listeners, confronted with heavy percussion, electronic sound effects and synthesizers, we may find ourselves abandoned in a toxic wasteland, lost in a busy factory, plunged many fathoms into a freezing ocean or ravaged by the misuse of all manner of recreational drugs.
On this record we are flung into the eerie isolation of deep space accompanied by, according to the album’s rear cover overview, “Futuristic sounds with and without pop rhythms”. Well, thank goodness for the pop rhythms; when faced with the inconceivable vastness of the known, and unknown, universe (and one’s own undeniable insignificance) it’s nice to have something to tap a toe or click a finger to.
