Feb 11, 2020
In June 2006, I left work early to get up to The Scala in North London, where my synth hero, Thomas Dolby played an intimate gig as a warm up to his appearance at the Wireless Festival.
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In June 2006, I left work early to get up to The Scala in North London, where my synth hero, Thomas Dolby played an intimate gig as a warm up to his appearance at the Wireless Festival.
JOHN MAUS “Synth Hero Mix”
Every month, Tim Noakes invites an electronic music pioneer to mix together an hour of their formative Synth Heroes on NTS radio. This month’s mix comes from John Maus who’s also going to release his new album “Screen Memories” this week.
MIX NOTES BY JOHN MAUS
00.00 Brian Schmidt - Black Knight 2000
The iconic theme for the pinball game ‘Black Knight 2000’ from 1989.
01.17 Jerrold Immel - Megaforce theme Immel’s 1982 score is a remarkable blend of electronic synthesis and live orchestration, both elements hadn’t been integrated before. Immel is also known for writing the music for Dallas, Knots Landing and How The West Was Won.
01.51 Basil Poldedouris - Feels Like Science This track is taken from Misfits of Science, a fantasy TV series that aired from 1985-86. It follows a group of super-powered humans on their adventures.
03.25 Alan Hawkshaw - Astral Plain Featured on Bruton Music’s ‘Frontiers of Science’ LP from 1979.
07.15 Logic System - Clash (Chinjyu Of Sun) The musical project of Hideki Matsutake who was an assistant for Isao Tomita in the 70’s and collaborated with Yellow Magic Orchestra as their sequence programmer and modular synth operator for several albums.
11.24 Units - I-Night Groundbreaking American synth punk from San Francisco. This is the flip to their third 7” ‘Warm Moving Bodies’ from 1980.
15.36 Superstar & Star - No More Sorrow The undisputed king of homemade disco, ‘No More Sorrow’ is the opening track from his cassette compilation on Estonian imprint Porridge Bullet / Pudru Kuul.
19.15 Simon Park - Columbia Market Harborough’s Simon Park is best known for producing the TV theme to Van Der Valk. This LP comes with the tagline… ”Exciting, dramatic sounds for electronic synthesizers.”
22.09 Paul Hertzog - The Tree and The Sword Hertzog wrote this for the ‘Bloodsport’ soundtrack. “The secret contest where the world’s greatest warriors fight in a battle to the death.”
23.54 Reverend Alecia - Yahweh, Your Wisdom Lets Me Walk in the Light "Through faith and works let us never stop praising Yahweh, our master. There's no one like Yahweh!”
26.32 Andy Clark - The Starting Point Taken from ‘Synthesis 2’ released in 1980. Andy Clark was previously the keyboardist in Be-Bop Deluxe and Red Noise with Bill Nelson too.
28.47 Blouse - Time Travel This features on the Portland band's self-titled debut album from 2011.
32.42 Derek Scott - Fugarock A decidedly choice meditation from Scott’s ‘Sounds Unusual’ LP from 1975. The song also features on the soundtrack to Dawn Of The Dead along with Simon Park’s compositions.
34.06 Gary War - Thousand Yard Stare The opening track from his 2012 Spectrum Spools album, ‘Jared’s Lot’. Gary War will be touring with us throughout our upcoming European tour.
38.00 Mekanik Kommando - Microbes New wave from Nijmegen! ‘Microbes’ is a fidgety gem from their classic 1981 debut LP ‘It Would Be Quiet In The Woods If Only A Few Birds Sing’ (Torso).
41.00 Tom Dissevelt & Kid Baltan - Whirling Dissevelt and Baltan (Dick Raaijmakers) were first wave innovators of early electronic composition. This was made in their Eindhoven-based workshop in 1959 and was grouped together with some other tape loop miracles and giddy oscillator work-outs on their album ‘The Fascinating World Of Electronic Music’.
43.30 Rush - Subdivisions “In the high school halls, in the shopping malls, conform or be cast out.”
46.21 Fifty Foot Hose - If Not This Time Fifty Foot Hose were operating in the late 60’s in California by fusing rock and avant grade composition through their exploration of homemade synths. Check out their 1967 album ‘Cauldron’ which had a huge influence on Throbbing Gristle’s early work.
49.57 Akito Nakatsuka - Start BGM This is the jingle that plays at the beginning of each race in the NES game Excitebike from 1984. His soundtrack to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES) is also well worth a listen.
50.04 Sferro - Autonomous Robot Majestic electronic prog from 2013’s Wetware Computer release from synthwave producer Sferro. His label Girlfriend Records helps keep alive a similar aesthetic.
55.27 Rose Hill Jr. High Band - Star Trek Theme “Live long and prosper.
“Screen Memories” is out 10/27 on Ribbon Music.
I would play the crap out of a Synth Hero game.
Who wouldn't love a rhythm game based around a synthesizer or drum machine peripheral? There's so much great electronic and synth music that could be included, both classics and recent stuff.
Tangerine Dream
Supersempfft / Roboterwerke / Wunderwerke
Kraftwerk
REM
Devo
Eiffel 65
The Human League
OMD
Duran Duran
Soft Cell
Madeon
Royksopp
A-ha
The Similou
Erasure
Ratatat
Donna Summer
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Depeche Mode
Newcleus
O-Zone
Meco
Daft Punk
Juan Atkins
Ultravox
That's pretty good for just a starting lineup, right? Pull one song from each of those and you've already got a great tracklist. "Popcorn" would have to be included, of course, and in the case of extreme ambition, the Reading Rainbow theme song could be included just so we can play the opening synth part that's permanently embedded into our memories.
via Dazed Digital // Synth Hero