The Amazing Electronic Music Thread

[Thor 7,495]

 

This doesn't fit in any of the "Now Playing" threads. It's not rock/pop, it's not film music, it's not classical, but I suppose electronic comes closest. What it is, though, is a gorgeous, moody concept album from this year that builds on the glorious textures that Preisner and Gerrard conjured up on VALLEY OF SHADOWS in 2017. Huge, spacey chords by Preisner -- as if in a church -- with Gerrard's usual haunting vocalizations.

[Thor 7,495]

 

Their best album remains LIFEFORMS, but I dig the Manchester back beat of this debut album (1991), right in the middle of its popularity across both electronic music and indiepop.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

@Thor,

That's "Madchester" 

[Thor 7,495]

Right you are!

[A24 4,331]

 

Even Kate Bush had one in the '80s.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

"Had one" what? Harp? Socks? Bad sweater? 

Is that a Fairlight?

[A24 4,331]

On 11/01/2023 at 1:32 PM, Naïve Old Fart said:

"Had one" what? Harp? Socks? Bad sweater? 

Is that a Fairlight?

 

Of course it's a Fairlight.

 

 

 

Vangelis when he was 6 years old. 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

He dreamt music.

[A24 4,331]

 

[Thor 7,495]

 

Up until last year's masterpiece FORGOTTEN SHAPES, this -- his debut album from 2013 -- was my favourite album of Waveshaper (who's my favourite synthwaver). Undiluted optimism, funky beats and a hunger to explore.

[A24 4,331]

The strings on Blade Runner (Spinner ascending and Blade Runner Blues), Chariots Of Fire, Soil Festivities and the vocoder sounds on See You Later are all played on a Roland VP-330. It's a legendary string, choir and vocoder machine. 

 

 

I just found out (4 years after its release) that Behringer made an true analog emulation. It's sounds exactly like the famous Roland VP-330!

 

 

[A24 4,331]

 

Despite of the hefty price tag (£26500), the Colossus is selling like hot cakes!

 

 

I want one just for its looks!

[Thor 7,495]

 

My own collection of various Underworld tracks I've assembled over the years (four hours' worth!). I should organize them better, and find a better cover for my iTunes. But anyway....can't go wrong with Underworld!

[A24 4,331]

 

Enjoyed watching this. I didn't know that one of the Kraftwerkers was a classically trained musician or that Ringo Starr was an influence on the 'drumming' in Kraftwerk. In the end, I agree, it's difficult to say which band was more influential.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

5 hours ago, AC1 said:

 

Enjoyed watching this. I didn't know that one of the Kraftwerkers was a classically trained musician or that Ringo Starr was an influence on the 'drumming' in Kraftwerk. In the end, I agree, it's difficult to say which band was more influential.

 

No it's not.

The Beatles.

[A24 4,331]

Battle! Who wins?!

 

 

Or ...

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

I like both, but HEAVEN AND HELL takes it.

[A24 4,331]

I think Thor will disagree! 

 

 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

Thor does what Thor does. It doesn't make his opinion any less valid.

[Thor 7,495]

Oh, I agree, actually. No contest. Was never a big fan of MASK, to be honest. While HEAVEN & HELL, on the other hand, is one of my favourite Vangelis albums from the 70s (moreso the beautiful "Heaven" A side than the rather abrasive "Hell" B side).

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

Howazabout:

SOIL FESTIVITIES vs. INVISIBLE CONNECTIONS 

 

DIRECT vs. THE CITY 

 

CHINA vs. SEE YOU LATER

 

ALBEDO 0.39 vs. SPIRAL

[A24 4,331]

7 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Howazabout:

SOIL FESTIVITIES vs. INVISIBLE CONNECTIONS 

 

CHINA vs. SEE YOU LATER

 

 

 

Why would these battle with each other?

 

I mean, to me, Mask is almost the sequel to Heaven And Hell, but I fail to see the musical link between Soil Festivities and the very experimental Invisible Connections. Perhaps a better match would be Beaubourg and Invisible Connections? Both experimental and in a way more akin to Modern Classical music?

 

China (very traditional Chinese music to some fans) and the dystopian future of See You Later? Huh?

[Thor 7,495]

I think I've said this before, but I'm primarily a fan of Vangelis from the early 80s onwards (much to AC's chagrin, I know). But there is a handful of 70s albums that I like - HEAVEN & HELL, OPERA SAUVAGE and SPIRAL. The Jon/Vangelis album SHORT STORIES is also good. IGNACIO, but only to a certain extent. And then APOCALYPSE DES ANIMAUX, of course, which also happens to be one of my top favourite Vangelis things ever. The outlier here.

[Thor 7,495]

 

Listening my way through all 7 volumes of Ed Starink's absolutely BRILLIANT series of albums between 1989 and 1993; some of the best electronic rerecordings ever made, some that even surpass the original (like Vangelis' "Dervish D" and Kraftwerk's "The Robot"). I also have a longer, personal story to go with this to explain why these discs mean so much to me, but I'm not gonna bore y'all.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

Please bore us! 

 

(edit) I've been checking his stuff out, on YouTube.

It's faithful, but with enough twists and turns to make it sound individual.

His "Theme From 'The Bounty'", is great, as is his take on "Desert Theme", by Brian Eno (don't blame me, that's what it says, on the cue! ).

"The Gold Bug" isn't bad, either, complete with #bee bow, bee bow, bee bow#s.

[Thor 7,495]

OK, you asked for it, but I’ve had a few beers and some wine, so what the hell.

 

Back in the late 80s, as a kid going on teenage years, I was already a fan of Jean Michel Jarre and The Alan Parsons Project and a few other things represented on these discs (I have origin stories for those too, but that’s a different story). But I was by no means well-versed in electronic music, and knew most other pioneers only by name.

 

Well, my family has a summer house on an island in Denmark which my late Danish grandmother bought in the early 80s. I’ve gone there each summer for 40 years now. A paradise. My dad took over the place in the 90s, and my grandmother passed away in 2014. Anyway, there was a neighbouring kid there, who I hung out with a lot. He had a cassette collection, and in that, there were four or five of the “Synthesizer Greatest” albums. Of course, I checked them out, and copied many of the tracks to my own mixed tapes. The best, most upbeat tracks (I wasn’t into slower music then). This was when I first discovered Vangelis, believe it or not. More specifically, Ed Starink’s version of “Dervish D”, which as I said above, outshines Vangelis’ original. As someone told me, Vangelis really needed a BEAT for that blues track, and Starink provided one. I prefer it to the original to this day. Same with several of the Kraftwerk tracks, which up the energy, but obviously miss the ‘starkness’ of the original compositions.

So many other artists I properly discovered in this set as well – Kraftwerk, Faltermeyer, OMD, Hammer, Art of Noise, Moroder, Lai, Serra, Oldfield, you name it.

 

Fastforward a few decades, and I’m now re-familiarizing myself with the 7-disc set, released over 4 years, between 1989 and 1993. There might be more volumes too, there’s a concurrent French version of the series that has more volumes, but I’m not sure about which tracks overlap with the English version on Arcade and so on.

 

Ed Starink, a Dutch electronic arranger and composer, totally got what the original compositions were about and provided versions that, for the most part, paid tribute to them while adding his own slant on things. It helps that they came out in the period that they did,because he used existing technology close to the compositions themselves, not new artists approximating it through new tech.

 

From the covers and the concept, this might seem like any odd crappy synth compilation that came out at the time, but it’s anything but. There is a HUGE amount of finesse involved. He also made Barry sound like Vangelis and whatnot. I urge everyone to check out these albums on YouTube. They’re spectacular. OK, some of the tracks fall short of the originals, but most do not.

 

Here are a couple of examples, the aforementioned versions of “Dervish D” and “The Robots”, for your perusal.

 

 

 

 

 

[Thor 7,495]

Jon Aanensen and Tim Partridge had a chat with legendary 80s synth wiz Harold Faltermeyer:

 

https://celluloidtunes.no/a-chat-with-harold-faltermeyer/

[Thor 7,495]

 

I've been listening to so much new (and new old) stuff recently, I needed a little bit of the super familiar. Nothing much to say about this. I'm a Jarre completist, he's one of the foremost reasons I'm into instrumental music (and film music), and this was just a random pick in my collection right now. Heard it many hundred times over the years. Brilliant through and through.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

Top pick, @Thor! 

I hated MAGNETIC FIELDS when I first heard it, in 1981, but over the years, it's soared right up in my estimation, to where it's, now, my second favourite Jarre, just below ZOOLOOK.

[A24 4,331]

I still have to upload a sound clip and ask the experts here who the artist is. It's a track that I've recorded from the radio when I was 15 (the program was called Music From The Cosmos) but in all these years I never found out who it was. I still have the cassette tape (a green BASF cassette) but I need to make it digital so I can upload it. I know it's from the '70s so how hard can it be?

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

Well, what are you waiting for? 

[A24 4,331]

There are actually several 'unknown' tracks on the cassette. It was a mix from various artists, all in mono because all I had was a little Pioneer radio cassette recorder. Anyway, let's see if this actually works.

 

Track 01 Kosmos 1

 

http://sndup.net/hsdk

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

It works, but I can't, for the life of me, think what that might be.

I've got some suggestions, which I'll post later.

[Thor 7,495]

I also have no idea what it is.

 

Are you talking about the Carl Sagan series COSMOS? If so, that contained a bunch of different music. Lots of Vangelis, both original music (in its reawakening a couple of years later) and existing. I think there was some Jarre in there, some Larry Fast etc. Some classical. I can't connect your clip to any of those.

[A24 4,331]

4 hours ago, Thor said:

 

Are you talking about the Carl Sagan series COSMOS?

 

It was the '70s, the weekly radio show was called 'Muziek Uit De Kosmos' and it was all about electronic music.  It was on BRT (Belgian Radio and Television), which is like the BBC of Belgium. 

 

Okay, next one! 

 

Track 02 Kosmos 2

 

http://sndup.net/p988

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

3 hours ago, A24 said:

There are actually several 'unknown' tracks on the cassette. It was a mix from various artists, all in mono because all I had was a little Pioneer radio cassette recorder. Anyway, let's see if this actually works.

 

Track 01 Kosmos 1

 

http://sndup.net/hsdk

 

Some suggestions:

Early Jarre 

Early Kraftwerk 

Early Vangelis 

Dave Greenslade 

David Bedford

[Thor 7,495]

It's not early Jarre. I have everything by him, both released and unreleased, and while he did do some experimental affairs that are very sound designy in the 70s, I did not recognize the first clip among those.

 

Second clip is more "musical" -- funk combined with electronics, with a TD-like sequencer underneath. Don't ask me what it is, though. Larry Fast?

 

I'm also thinking that they could have taken some of their material from the many April Orchestra library music albums, in which case it's more difficult to identify (unless it's Francis Rimbert's material, which I own).

[A24 4,331]

1 hour ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

 

Early Vangelis 

 

 

Track 1 is all synth, and believe it or not, Vangelis didn't use any synths in the beginning of his career.

 

 

1 hour ago, Thor said:

 

I'm also thinking that they could have taken some of their material from the many April Orchestra library music albums, in which case it's more difficult to identify (unless it's Francis Rimbert's material, which I own).

 

I never thought of that. But yeah, it could be Library Music, and maybe that's why they didn't always credit the artist. 

[A24 4,331]

Another unidentifiable track:

 

Track 03 Kosmos 3

 

http://sndup.net/jpxj

 

[Jay 37,353]

7 hours ago, A24 said:

Track 01 Kosmos 1

 

http://sndup.net/hsdk

 

This is "Charisma" by Terje Rypdal from the 1977 album "Waves"

 

 

 

3 hours ago, A24 said:

Track 02 Kosmos 2

 

http://sndup.net/p988

 

This is "Where Are We Going" by Adrian Wagner from the 1977 album "Instincts"

 

 

18 minutes ago, A24 said:

Track 03 Kosmos 3

 

http://sndup.net/jpxj

 

This one doesn't seem to be in Shazam's database

[A24 4,331]

OMG, Jay, you got the second track completely right! Mystery solved! It sounds so much more amazing now (compared to my old mono recording)! Adrian Wagner ... never heard of him. It seems to end with the sound of water so track 3 might be him as well. (edit: I just checked on Amazon Music and no, it isn't).

 

First track starts with Terje Rypdal (guitar) but then it continues to be something else (the synth part). Apparently they were playing Rypdal when I started to record the show.

 

The funny thing is I have a CD by Terje Rypdal and it's one of my all time favorite concert works.

 

Looking at Adrian Wagner's albums on Amazon Music. He did make a library music album for KPM. 

[Thor 7,495]

Hah! Completely forgot about using Shazam, even though I have it installed on my phone. I'm so old-fashioned!

 

I've also never heard of Wagner, but that track was tantalizing, so I might check out more.

 

[Edit: After quickly checking out the album on YouTube (it only appears to have four tracks), it was only that single track that was interesting, IMO]

[A24 4,331]

8 minutes ago, Thor said:

 

[Edit: After quickly checking out the album on YouTube (it only appears to have four tracks), it was only that single track that was interesting, IMO]

 

I came to the same conclusion. I'm now checking out his 'The Electric Light Orchestra' CD (1975)

[Naïve Old Fart 9,520]

All kudos to @Jay.

[Jay 37,353]

On 08/11/2023 at 11:13 AM, A24 said:

First track starts with Terje Rypdal (guitar) but then it continues to be something else (the synth part).

 

OK playing a later part of the track, Shazam says that it's "Nine Moons In Alaska" by Beaver & Krause from the 1971 album "Gandharva"

 

 

[A24 4,331]

That's it! OMG! It's from 1971. Need to check the rest of the album now.

 

 

 

Beaver & Krause

[A24 4,331]

11 hours ago, A24 said:

That's it! OMG! It's from 1971. Need to check the rest of the album now.

 

 

 

 

This album sounds like a '70s movie score. Check it out, guys! It also features another one of my mystery Kosmos tracks. The audio quality is pretty amazing as well. Hard to believe it's from 1971. This album together with their previous album 'Wild Sanctuary' are apparently critically acclaimed.

 

[A24 4,331]

 

Love it!

[Thor 7,495]

Thanks! Checking out now. Those opening tamtams in the first track immediately reminded me of Budd's GET CARTER, but this came out before that film, if I'm not mistaken, or right around the same time.

[A24 4,331]

It's a varied collection of electronic and non-electronic tracks. It sorta reminds me of THX-1128 score, which was released around the same time period. Beaver & Krause made a name for themselves in the electronic music genre but many of the tracks are acoustic (woodwinds, strings, etc). It provides for a nice and pleasant background while internetting.