The Story Of The Child
"The appointment for the interview was at 1 p.m. in the Doors' Sunset Strip offices. But it seemed a little early for most of the group. 'You see,' Jim explained later, always polite and anxious to make a good impression, 'we played at a late set last night at the Cheetah' (an acid discotheque in Los Angeles, one of the most advanced of its type in the United States). So for the next quite a while after 1 p.m., I sat in a deep plastic leather chair in the receptionist's office, thinking how this sacred room or rock and roll so closely resembled the 11th floor of William James. Suddenly, in walked three of the Doors followed by two men who obviously were not. They hurried past and entered a room and had a meeting for 30 or 40 seconds. Only one sound came out of the room. That was Jon saying, 'Listen, if you're going to put us in a battle of the bands, it'll only be with one group, The Stones. Yeah, the Stones.'" From Psychedelic Revolution in Rock 'n' Roll: Confessions of Four Doors Who Made It By JEFFREY C. ALEXANDER, October 13, 1967
Enter the world of psychodelia. Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Cream, the Doors. And more.
Psychedelic rock, which was the first notable modernistic happening outside of academic circles, appeared during 1960s in America, inspired buy usage of drugs. Rock guitarists would, after having drug-induced trips, speak of things such as “sound of thick air” and try to record these sounds. You find this weird maybe? Well, 'weird' was the name of the game exactly.
Psychedelia and Progressive Rock
Rock psychedelia exploded during 1970s, the period during which rock and pop bands throughout the world were wildly experimenting. Alan Parsons Project and Space are some of the groups that became world famous with theirs futurist rockist instrumentals.
But it was the british Pink Floyd before which all had to bow down. As early as in 1960s, the most spectacular progressive rock group to these days created rock records with modernist parts that will influence later e-music legends Tangerine Dream and others (Saucefull of Secrets from the same named album). Wikipedia:
As a musical style, psychedelic rock attempted to replicate the effects of and enhance the mind-altering experiences of hallucinogenic drugs, incorporating new electronic sound effects and recording effects, extended solos, and improvisation, and it was particularly influenced by Eastern mysticism, reflected in use of exotic instrumentation, particularly from Indian music or the incorporation of elements of Eastern music. Major features include:
- electric guitars, often used with feedback, wah wah and fuzzbox effects units;
- elaborate studio effects, such as backwards tapes, panning, phasing, long delay loops, and extreme reverb;
- non-Western instruments, specifically those originally used in Indian classical music such as the sitar and tabla ;
- a strong keyboard presence, especially electric organs, harpsichords, or the Mellotron (an early tape-driven 'sampler');
- extended instrumental solos, especially guitar solos, or jams;
- complex song structures, key and time signature changes, modal melodies and drones;
- electronic instruments such as synthesizers and the theremin
These are almost the same features which will soon start to define a new chapter in the history of experimental music of XX century: a chapter in which seemingly impossible dreams of modernist musicians actualy started functioning.
That modernism, from the late 1960s onward, wasn't anymore a solely academic concern, had a lot to do with a change in public psyche that followed WWII. This generation of people, born within the presence of the mechanical and electronic machines, were not anymore what 'plebs' used to be. Science fiction novels and stories such as H.G.Wells' “War Of The Worlds” and books from SF gurus sir Arthur Clarke and Isaac Asimov, science-popular TV shows which romanticized scientific achievements, and the first movie SF spectacles that will peek in monumental and mysterious 2001: Odyssey in Space from 1968, directed by Stanley Kubrick and written by Arthur Clarke, Ridley Scott’s Alien and Blade Runner, and George Lucas' Star Wars, and futuristic TV series like Star Trek, resounded strongly with wide audiences. Logically, music that embraces these changes would be expected to follow this success.
Psychedelic and progessive rock was especially sweeping through American and U.K. musical scenes, where even some luminaries of the mainstream pop started being interested in musical experiment. On this way, it happened that the picture of Stockhausen appeared on the back of a Beatles album.
Back to Pink Floyd, their most popular record to date, “Dark Side of The Moon”, already featured heavy usage of synthesizers. It even had a few completely electronic passages, all of them notable.
But the real deal when electronic music is concerned was appearance of theirs “Wish You Were Here” album from 1975. It contained a legendary track “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”, a 25 minutes piece in two parts, full of extraordinarily inspired atmosphere. And while many were ecstatic about the piece, alarm bells went off in mainstream rock circles. At the time already revered group was wildly attacked by rock critic Nick Kent from NME: “Every note hangs in that archetypically background, under-developed form, which characterizes Floyds when they are the least inspired”. His text ends with the warning that modern rock music is the most endangered by Pink Floyd and the likes, intoxicated with the “sound of the automate”.
But the next Pink Floyd record, “Animals” from 1977, was no less synthetic. And that's not the worst part of the story.
Synth-pop and Kraftwerk
Back in 1971 Gershon Kingsley, classical composer particularly interested in musical humor, created the piece which will practicaly set the tone for so-called synth-pop: the tune Pop Corn. This tune had something of classical and something of pop music, yet had a specific character that made it modern and appropriate to be played on a synthesizer.
Another famous synth-pop hit was Space's Magic Fly from 1977. But in reality synth-pop had little to do with the promise that synthedized music was bringing. And Germand band Kraftwerk decided to do something about it.
In 1974, after a series of unsucefull experimental records, they recorded an extraorinary minimal and raw-sounding synthesizer piece that flerted with pop, called Autobahn. It became an international hit soon after being broadcasted in a radio edit version -- since the original version was 22 minutes long. The main motive of this track was utilizing rhythm on a peculiar way, flowing and breaking on an 'intelectual', 'mathematical' way - very appropriate for synthesizer-based music. Its sounds mimicked traffic and car horns; this celebration of driving clicked with western audiences. Kraftwerk will follow this record with Radio-activity from 1975, and particulary impressive Trans-Europe Express from 1977. It was clear from these works that Kraftwerk captured something that musicians before them were missing: the authentic and highly effective music of synthesizers. The highpeek of theirs "sound of the automate" however is yet to follow: it was the album “Man Machine” from 1978. This album, as did the previous ones, offered a number of legendary hits, including Robots, Model and a piece Space Lab, which brings to mind a scientific orbital installation as depicted in early, naive SF comic-books and novels, like that of Isaac Asimov. The way on which synthesizer sound was matched with music appropriate to be played with such sounds was exhilarating: a true "ethnic music" of synthesizers.
Kraftwerk were the first truly electronic music group. As such they are routinely regarded futurists, but in reality far more of their work is formed by the past. On The Man Machine, it's the SF of the 1920s and 1930s-- Fritz Lang's Metropolis and the earliest conceptions of robots.
We can only imagine how someone like Nick Kent must have had felt when faced with these "monstruosities". But everyone had to admit that Kraftwerk possesed perfect sense of style and a rhythmic prowes. These elements will stay the main ingredients of Kraftwerks music to date. Atmosphericaly, a trademark of Kraftwerk's music is a visceral coldness, aided by use of vocorders, icy synths, and stuttering electronics, creating something of a musical detachment from anyone listening to the music. Kraftwerk are a bit like the musical equivalent to Darth Vader; "more machine than man".
Krafterks raw minimalistic electronic music proved to be a lasting world-wide phenomenon. Jude Rogers writes for The Observer in January 2013:
"It's hard to appreciate how alien Kraftwerk appeared back then. The first advert for Autobahn in the black-and-white NME looks particularly shocking: a bright blue sign from the future, under a feature on country music divorcees. At the time, the song was dismissed as a gimmick by the press – but not by fans who made it a No 11 hit.
Then came the xenophobia. The war was still a recent, scorching cultural memory, so perhaps it's not a surprise that a Barry Miles live review was headlined 'This is what your fathers fought to save you from'. The NME reprinted a feature by US critic Lester Bangs, in which Hütter was asked if Kraftwerk was 'the final solution' for music. The image with the piece was even more tasteless: a press shot superimposed on to a Nuremberg rally."
But as we will see later, this was only the beginning of missunderstandings that are to follow electronic musicians.
Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze
Kraftwerk probably did the best that can be done with theirs minimal and clunky kind of sound. But this sound was not in tune with everyones vision of how electronic music should be done. Since the beginning of 1970s, Tangerine Dream and Klaus Shulze were taking a different path. Giving way to broad imagination and subtle atmospheres, they were creating unusual, murky, atonal atmospheric music. The depth and inspiration stemming from theirs works, although from the beginning being in danger of not being picked up by widest circles, was undrestood. A substantial following was defined around theirs early works, of which Tangerine Dreams Phaedra is a cannonical example. Daniel Incognito from sputnikmusic.com writes (February, 2007):
"Phaedra offers a more refined experience (than previous TD alums), a cerebral journey through sounds, genres and worlds. Their days of experimentation were not behind them when creating Phaedra, with experimentation still being key in the bands vision. But with experience and chemistry together, Tangerine Dream were now able to translate their ideas into sound with far more poise and control. Their music no longer detailed journeys through space; it explored the emotions of those journeys.
Although it would be impossible to infer any references to the ancient Greek mythological figure Phaedra, it is a track that can be satisfying no matter what state or mood you are in. Phaedra actually occurred by mistake, the band were experimenting with their new synthesizers and sequencers, just as the tape happened to be rolling. Even though the track was ridden with technical errors, Edgar Froese and crew left it pretty much as it was, only adding a few extra synth layers in parts of the song. The equipment that they were using was so experimental and shoddy, that with any slight change in temperature the equipment’s oscillators would flux. Resulting in ever changing tuning.
Phaedra essentially fits into the progressive and ambient genres. The first passage in Phaedra lasts about 4 minutes long with sweeping solar wind like swoops and a continuous moog synthesizer sound that cautiously builds up and creates a trance-inducing effect. As the passage builds up, so do the sweeping synth noises that somehow flow into a precipitated passage of rapid bass noise. The flow between the passages is spectacular, having a seamless transition between bass and synthesizer. The transitions in Phaedra truly show how much Tangerine Dream have developed since their often inharmonious prior works.
As the bass melts away, eerie moog synthesizer noises roll in and transform into a familiar slowly ascending movement. As the volume starts to rise, so do the sweeping solar noises fading in and out, with a variety of wavey synthesizer sounds weaved into the soundscape. The build up climaxes 10 minutes into the piece, with haunting choruses adding to the spine-chilling feel. After the build the scene is set on a desolate planet, with spooky organ chords, an eerie background hum and chilling alien like noises. As the song slowly fades out with its spine-tingling synthesizer noises, it is very difficult not to be drawn into the music; to imagine the scene Tangerine Dream intended to create. What Tangerine Dream do is absorb the listener into the music, and drive home the emotion of the experience. To call this song anything short of brilliance would be a fallacy.
Of course the album is not just one song in length, and although Tangerine Dream could have easily left it at that, the album still contains three more spellbinding songs. Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares is a solo piece by the band’s leader Edgar Froese. Rather than an artificial and detached sound that many ambient songs could be accused of, its spiralling synthesizer washes are abundant with emotion. The song never really reaches anywhere, yet the immersion in the journey brings much enjoyment.
The themes of the album do not differ much from the straight and narrow, yet the planets, galaxies and universes of each song are clearly defined. Movements Of A Visionary begins with stuttering bug like noises that creating a tense and frightening atmosphere. The transitions once again are done to perfection, with helicopter like noises fading in and out into those familiar moog synths. Unlike the title tracks desolate planet feel, Movements Of A Visionary feels full of life with croaking bugs and clicking insects dwelling inside the untamed jungle. Letting oneself drift away with the music creates a surreal experience of art and music blended into one, before Tangerine Dream quickly pull the listener out of their mesmerised state. Sequent C' has a strong feeling of depression, with the minor key synthetic washes slowly making a path through the song. It is not of the same breed as the first 3 tracks, nor of the same magnitude. But it does make for a chillingly beautiful ending. The song does not dwell about, with its aching sorrow driven into the listener’s heart in just over two minutes. Whilst no magical world is created in the music, it acts as one last pure release of emotion as the album fades out.
As you can no doubt guess, Phaedra isn’t for everyone. If you permit yourself to be immersed into the music, and allow yourself to float away into Phaedra’s world then it is quite simply one of the most spell-binding albums of the 20th century. But with a sceptical & demanding mind Phaedra does not offer its full experience to the listener. The album is still as highly influential as it was back in the 70s, and it is easy to see why. Tangerine Dream truly were leaders in electronic music, they carved a path with Phaedra for future generations to follow and learn from. Genius is an overused term in the music industry, thrown about left right and center. Phaedra however is one of those rare cases where the term is merited."
As this depiction shows, Tangerine Dream were emotionaly offering far more than theirs more popular peers Kraftwerk. They will with time develop theirs trademark sound, which takes the listener for a travel between earth and sky, through surreal spaces. This was achieved by pairing sound drones of kinetic character with gliding and ethereal string sounds. Unlike with other electro-pioneers, rock aesthetics was substantialy present in Tangerine Dream's musical experiments. The group will with time produce a string of records of unique atmospherical subtilety, as well as of progressive nature, encompasing genres such as electronic, ambient, krautrock, synth pop, psychedelic rock and progressive rock.
Klaus Schulze was originaly a drummer and a member of Tangerine Dream. However, he soon left this band to pursue a solo carrier. And fortunately so. He will soon become the second prophet of synthesizer-based atmospherics, next to Tangerine Dream. And although the music of Klaus Schulze is often bracked together with that of Tangerine Dream, these are two quite different musical worlds, as Darren Bergstein points out in Perfect Sound Forever online music magazine:
"Despite both originating in the same timeframe, TD and Schulze marked out superficially similar, but ultimately divergent, territory. Enamored with and availing themselves of the technological breakthroughs occurring in electronic music production in the nascent '70's, obsessively accumulating vast banks of then state-of-the-art synthesizers, keyboard controllers and sundry other devices, and extolling a near-fetishistic zeal for where such technology might take them, TD and Schulze laid the groundwork for an entirely new aural lexicon, making what was first conceived as avant-garde simply garde, a type of synthetic sound design that was steadfastedly European. ... TD and Schulze ultimately wound up on different sides of the same coin.
In deep love with the alchemical results borne of synthesizer and sequencer, allowing torrential, intricate rhythmic lattices of notes to spiral across vast alien landscapes wrenched from the artful bending of circuit and frequency, TD and Schulze shared approaches but realized different iconographies. As Hollywood beckoned the Dream to exchange their tangerine for tinsel, Schulze (though no stranger to the odd soundtrack himself) stayed a course that if anything mirrored that of the lone classical composer happy enough to labor intensely in private while honing his craft, experimenting, progressing, negating compromise and ceaselessly working."
After a few less succesful works, an album that put Klaus Schulze on the map was Timewind from 1975. This album featured two pieces. The opening one is the dynamic sequencer tour-de-force "Bayreuth Return". It was recorded live directly to a 2-track tape machine in Klaus' bedroom(!). Schulzes unique aproach to sound, evident from the very beginning of the work, is more reminiscent of a painter splashing his colors on the canvas than of the musician playing instruments. Schulze uses etherial chord washes coupled with floating and hypnotic rhythms, which will become one of his trademarks in the future. The second half, "Wahnfried 1883", is Klaus' tribute to composer Richard Wagner. Over the course of its 28 minutes, listener is treated to a massive cloud of synthetic wind sounds and heavy dark long-held chords. There is no rhythm, only a dark ambient structure. It certainly requires a listener prepared for 'something else': Timewind was a piece which takes one traveling through alien landscapes buried deep within our subconscious minds.
In 1976 Schulze will record another seminal album, Moondawn. Piece Floating from this album is regarded by many for his masterpiece. Daniel Incognito describes it on sputnikmusic.com (April 27th, 2006):
"Floating is introduced with sparkling string noises, accompanied by an Arabic version of the Lord's Prayer. For a German experimental musician and activist, it is strange to see religious doctrine appearing in his music. Yet Schulze claims that the opening was never intended to be anything more than an earthy addition to the sound. Klaus Schulze has often emphasised the sound in his works, using samples, synthesizers, spoken word; anything to enhance the sound of the work. 'I am still looking for sounds that fit my imagination. Of course I am bound to the available technology in each time.'
Despite being severely limited in terms of technology, Moondawn manages to create a wide atmospheric sound, utilising both the beautiful and the ugly. In Floating, Schulze innovatively contrasts beauty with ugliness. The haunting choral hums that fill up most of the song until 5 minutes in.This bridge between concerns of serious experimental musicians and wide audiences was created for the first time, making Oxygene the seed for musical world of the future.
Like his peers, Schulze is also highly adept at transitioning between sounds. The haunting coral hums slowly increase in pitch and volume at the 5 minute mark, slowly being devoured by high pitched synthesized strings. A subtle organ arpeggio can be heard underneath, once again adding to that wide landscape that Schulze specialises in. The first sign of a beat enters in underneath the flurry, with spread apart one-twos. The organ arpeggio and drum beat start to take on bolder forms, with a frantic beat emerging from the chaos. The force is almost unbearable, in the face of a never-ending build up. Relief is found as the high synthesized strings fade out to reveal the organ arpeggio in its full glory. The entrance and exit of sound is almost unnoticeable, with the broad emotion of the song encapsulating the listener into a trance.
Whilst many of Schulze's contemporaries failed to merge drum beats into the music, the beat in Floating is almost in perfect sync with both the fat sounds of the big moog and the high eerie mini moog tones.
The passage following the build up is around 6 minutes in length with a keyboard rhythm and drumming dominating. Alien like fluttering synthesizer noises are mixed in briefly like a humming bird. Psychedelic big moog sweeps start to enter into the song, building the tension up. Much like the frantic beat of the song, many of the sounds only make fleeting appearances on top of the more constant rhythms. Each build up of sound and space is rebutted straight after by eerie sounds of ugliness. This contrast of tones make Floating anything but boring. The changes in sound occur at such a frantic pace that mapping them would be impossible. Unlike the similar epic electronic masterpiece of the time Phaedra, Klaus Schulze aims at a much more chaotic feel. If listened to hundreds of times, listeners could still find new unheard tones and patterns amongst Floating. Although perhaps not as focused as some of his and his contemporaries other work, Floating is unmatched in its wide frantic sound. The contrast between ugly and beautiful as the song crescendos into nothingness creates an almost orgasmic effect."
Maybe the most exceptional feature of Schulzes music is incredible sense of freedom that they create. Schulze explains:
My kind of working is best described as 'improvisation'. I play around, and slowly a piece of music emerges out of that. Normally when I compose, and play the first note, I don't know what note will follow.
A listener can feel what Schulze is confirming in his interviews: a soothing expirience of sound voyage which constatly creates a sense of space and possibilities within it. Klaus Schulze pieces are not in a hurry to develop: they evolve slowly and often last for more than 20 minutes. One of the key ingredients that make this possible are so called "drones" - repetitive sound patterns, usually reproduced by automatized sequencers.
In a 1994 interview that Darren Bergstein conducted with Kalus Schuzle, Schulze spoke of how his approach to electronic composition reflects the modes inherent in classical structures; he noted that "the setting up of my music has always been ‘classical' because of the (track) lengths, how the pieces build up themselves. But I don't feel limited by classical settings the way a symphony is."
Indeed, Schulze chapioned probably the least limiting, the most deliberating approach to electronic music to date. His influence made him into one of the few classic electronic composers.
Music of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze will soon start to be viewed as a sort of a norm for electronic music that is both exploratory and effective. By many, and especially by music critics, it was expected that electronic music will in the future continue down these lines.
However, it wasn't to be.
Kitaro
Despite the atmospheric proweses exerted by Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, something was lacking: music that will be both atmospheric and melodious.
After getting acquainted to Klaus Schulze somewhere in the mid seventies and discovering the immense creative potential of synthesizers, Japanese musician Kitaro will devise his own brand of electronica that was mixing Schulzes atmospheric approach with melody. Starting with 1978, he recorded a string of exquisite recordings, including Oasis and Silk Road -- which is the soundtrack for the TV series of the same name, and that consecrated him as an electronic composer.
His synthesized pieces, always closely hinting ethno and classical music, achieve naturalness of sound that is not even approached by peers such as Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze -- as they are indeed not approached by anyone to date. Kitaro himself affirms that closeness to nature is quintessential to him: his music breathes with all the colors and vibrations of imaginary landscapes, contemplating nature and the firmament. The other component of Kitaros aproach is spirituality. Instead of the teutonic heaviness of Schulze, Kitaro offers the zen-like depth. In the opinion of many fans, this attitude has caused his music to be so special. Kitaro says:
It is possible that this spiritual aspect influences the acceptance that my music has. Nobody else does the same as I do, since the people tend to compose in general in a routine way. I do something different, I try to compose my music spiritually and this must surely be felt. Many artists that make alternative music utilize only the new technologies: I use, besides, the ancient acoustic instruments, and this fact can shape an essential difference".
Both these key features of Kitaro's music are expressed in words in his composition The Great Spirit from the album Peace On Earth from 1996. However, Kitaros music wouldn't be possible without his melodic prowes. His tunes often posses striking tenderness, which coupled with his refined liquid instrumentation create theirs own kind of heavenly trance. Otherwordliness however is not lost; Kitaro succeeds in marrying the love of nature with the love of artificiality, which was implicit in all the electronic music of the period.
The beauty of his innovative music soon made him known outside his country. With time, he will come to world fame as one of the classic electronic composers. These days, though, you will routinely find him bracketed under 'New Age', despite this New Age etiquete tells little about his music, and probabbly doesn't do it justice. Neither do comments like this:
...the vocabulary of his music is that of the contemporary Hollywood soundtrack at its most shamelessly bombastic. ... It was a showy, musically simplistic affair... The compositions themselves seemed at once relentlessly trite and dramatically overblown. While Kitaro's keyboard lines had the feel of Hollywood title songs, they didn't cohere into melodies. Crescendo followed crescendo in such frequent succession that any sense of musical drama was quickly squandered. Near the end of the concert, Kitaro turned the torchlight pounding of bass drums into a display of ceremonial kitsch reminiscent of Yma Sumac's camp rituals. Stephen Holden, The New York Times (October, 1987)
Apart from TV series, Kitaro was able to later contribute to quite a few movies. Actually, what Kitaro was doing was probably more comparable with classical music orchestrated on synthesizers than with completely synthetic intoxications pursued by most other electronic composers.
However, Kitaro was no pioneer in this respect.
Electro-symphonists: Walter Carlos and Isao Tomita
As early as in 1968, Wendy Carlos produced seminal electronic versions of Bachs music -- the six "Brandenburg Concertos" to be precise, named “Switched On Bach”. This was the first ever platinum-selling classical album. The album became the most influential electronic classical recording of all time, and marks the beginning of the "synthesizer" era. Mark S. Tucker writes in Perfect Sound Forever musical magazine (May 2007):
"It wasn't merely the synthesizer's arresting palette which captured the consumer's fancy, but Carlos' letter perfect understanding of the deeper mathematics and many levels of Bach's ceaselessly fascinating work. Where the opening "Sinfonia to Cantata #29" stunned the listener into a cyborg world of the alien and familiar, the follower, "Air on a G String," demonstrated an extremely perceptive ear drenched in electronic sensitivities performers with traditional instruments would be exceedingly strained to duplicate. The synth's ability to generate nuances impossible to acoustic instruments weighed heavily in the mix, but Carlos had so subsumed its oft cold nature that the midground he tread was a new dimension.
Perhaps that explains the fascination with the LP. It was an entirely new creature, taming the wild farflung timbres of the remaining electro-pioneers back down to a recognized canon. Those who hadn't the breadth of imagination to appreciate his electronic contemporaries' bizarrer output could fall rapturously into Switched. Taboo hedonisms within the emerging genre were now acceptable, the mainstream classicalist fetish for propitiation and the need to prostrate before antiquity greatly assuaged."
Wendy Carlos will soon write another gem of electro-symphonic music: movie soundtrack for Stanley Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange from 1971. This soundtrack included majestic electronic versions of classical music, mostly Beethoven, but also an original modernist piece Timesteps. Mark S. Tucker writes in Perfect Sound Forever musical magazine (May 2007):
"'Timesteps' must be heard by anyone even faintly interested in electronic music. An episodic masterpiece of the first water, it ranks with the 25 best original electronic realizations in music. Extremely deep, illuminated in its spatiality, the composition contains huge parameters for the many gestures, statements, and environments Carlos writes into it. Perpetually active, the song's a highly described diorama constantly shifting through abstracted planes. Nor is "Country Lane," that dropped tune, as pedestrian as its title implies. Dramatic, proud, confident, the composition marches and struts in magnificent raiment like an amused deity across the skin of the world, observing the vain human comedy beneath it. That whole LP is a perfect companion to the sanctioned soundtrack, measuring up in all ways, but with the delicious addition of almost-forbidden fruit. To some few, it occupies as solid a place in hearts and minds as the Beatles' Sergeant Pepper's, King Crimson's In The Court of the Crimson King, or any other defining moment in vinyl."
When we are talking about electronic music scores, there is a musician who is often overlooked as a contributor to this field, becaue he is primarily a movie director: John Carpenter. His pioneering use of synthesizers to create taut hypnotic tension for his iconic horror and SF films gave birth to a number of legendary themes, which feature his unique atmospheric signature. Forever self-deprecating, he’s downplayed his genius saying he did his own scores because he was fast and cheap, but that unfairly dismisses his unmistakable artistry. He is one of the rare musicians able to employ purely electronic sound on a way to express a particular emotion or atmosphere that he has on his mind. Obviously, since he almost exclusively deals with dread and horror, his music is no less 'scary'. A score such as the main theme of Dark Star from 1974 is one of the best expressions of dread and unholy suspense in music. His famous soundtrack for Halloween, 1978, routinely hailed as his best (which is arguable), is of a different sentiment: chilly, subtle, almost low-key theme, with an odd 5/4 time signature, whichs suspense can cause your hair to stand on end. There’s more, though, to the score than the title theme: Laurie’s Theme is a wonderful bit of somber creepiness, and The Shape Lurks/Stalks is simply chilling, where a simple two-note piano figure marries to cheese grater percussion that perfectly approximates a lumbering Michael Myers endlessly fixated on killing his sister.
"Really simple, synth-driven, effective", in Carpenter's own words, is what he is after for most of his musical work. A perfect example of this strategy is one of his biggest hits, Assault On Precinct 13 from 1976. Famous movie composer Hans Zimmer will later confess that this is his favourite movie theme. Somewhat more evolved Carpenter's pieces include Prince of Darkness (1987), Big Trouble in Little China (1986) and The Fog (1980).
For another gem of movie soundtracks, The Thing (1982), he collaborated with magical Enio Morricone, who, as per ussual, produced a theme for all times: a powerful sequence of chords backed by an ominous rhythm, which create a morbid emotion of unholy deformation.
Another musician who famously contributed to electronicaly orchestrated classical masterpieces was Isao Tomita. He will with time produce electronic versions of pieces by Debussy, Mussorgsky, Gustav Holst and more. Tomita's trademark orchestral sound brimms with playful, airlight radiance. Some music producers, such as Ed Starink, famous for his versions of greatest synthesizer hits, regard him as a more important contributor to electronic music than even such luminaires as Jean Michel Jarre or Vangelis.
Tomita was destined to become associated with synthesized sound and classical music. Scarlet Cheng writes for Los Angeles times (May 1999):
"Even as a child, Tomita was always intrigued by sounds, and he credits Western music as the inspiration for his musical career. Sometimes he would skip his high school classes to listen to the classical music programming. Then he realized the station broadcasted the same program late at night, so in the evenings he would take a nap and wake up just to listen to it."
I was startled to discover such composers as Ravel and Debussy, and how they could create these vivid and brighter worlds of music using the same instruments as people of the past. "For the first 20 years of my career, I was looking for some new instrument--there have been no new instruments since Wagner. Then I discovered the synthesizer, and with that I could create by myself the sounds I wanted to have." Isao Tomita
Scarlet Cheng continues in the same article:
"In 1971, he got a Moog III and a sequencer. Then, as now, he was making a living by writing musical scores for film and television, but he had heard Wendy Carlos' album "Switched on Bach" and wanted to do his own take on the classics. Over a period of 14 months, stumbling forward largely through trial and error, he borrowed themes from such pieces as Debussy's "Clair de Lune," transforming them into something of his own.
The result was so new, so different that Japanese music publishers turned it down. Tomita had to fly to New York before he could find receptive ears. When "Snowflakes Are Dancing" was released, it shot to the top of Billboard's classical chart. It was nominated for a Grammy in four categories, a first for a Japanese musician. His next album, "Pictures at an Exhibition," also hit No. 1, selling 100,000 copies in three months."
The Problem of Electronic Music and Brian Eno
Although musicians presented until now did much to discover possibilities of synthesized music, all of them were lacking this or that when compared to what synthesizer enthusiasts were unconciosly hoped to hear. Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze were not beautiful and sublime on the way on which classical music was. Electro-symphonists such as Wendy Carlos and Isao Tomita did offer more beautiful music, but despite being interesting, these electro-symphonic reworks of classical scores were not authentic music made possible by synthesizers. Kitaro was soothing, but certainly lacked the experimentality which was so important to modernists.
Simply, it was always difficult for people to think of the way of using theoretical potentials of electronic music. It was very difficult to think about music that would not be based on rock, classical or folk. What could be the emotional ground, the spiritual realm of such music? “Cosmic”, “electronic music” etc. were just words. But more melodious modernist music seemingly couldn’t escape sounding too close to touched-up pop or traditional classical.
But there was an awareness that the authentic synthesizer music can be discovered. There was a dream of re-discovering musical art; of pushing the boundaries of traditional music. It was quite a competition out there, although not outwardly; a quiet, off-the-record quest for 'the holy grail', for strange and beautiful electronic music.
The idea is to produce things that are as strange and mysterious to you as the first music you ever heard. One of the reasons why a piece of music is beautiful is because it came without a context, it 'plopped from outer space', in a sense... Brian Eno
Brian Eno is well known, among other, for stating that 'he is not a musician', despite its music how he came to the world fame. It is the piece Descreet Music from 1975 that will prove to be the turning point in his musical path. This unusually tranquil piece almost wasn't what people mean when they say music -- it barely has a musical structure, and what is even more important, it wasn't meant to be listened to like 'normal' music. It was without strong emotions and listener is instead expected to enjoy subtle play of sounds within the slowly evolving sound loom. It was the beginning of a different kind of aproach to music, which Brian Eno will later call ambient music. Brian Eno and ambient music will be further presented in the next chapter, 'Aural Presence'; here we will only stress that from mid 1970s onward, Eno will champion a decidedly experimental and non-conventional take on musical art. In January, 1975, together with his friend the painter Peter Schmidt, Brian Eno released a set of flash cards they called “Oblique Strategies.” They were black on one side with an aphorism or an instruction printed on the reverse. Eno's first rule was “Honour thy error as a hidden intention.” Others included “Use non-musicians” and “Tape your mouth.” This gave a hint of the other side of Brian Eno - that of a musical thinker.
However, Eno's ambient music sounded too background and uneventful to hope to produce some bigger vawes at the time.