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Through weblog channels too circuitous to list, I came across this page of Soviet synthesizers. Who knew? Above is the Kvintet. Also, here's the New England Synthesizer Museum, which seems pretty comprehensive. Earlier Bill Schwarz posted a link to this site of electronic instruments from 1890-1990, which overlaps somewhat with the New England site. And as long as I'm dumping links, here's a site called the Obsolete Computer Museum. Check back later and I may have formulated something to say about all this. Or maybe not.
I'm running my turntables at half-speed this week to lament the passing of Throb, or at least its retail space. This record shop specializing in electronic dance music was located on 14th Street on Manhattan, then Orchard Street, and now it's just going to be operating online. This is too bad, because the meat space component of the dance dj scene is important--that is, having a place to test-spin the vinyl, look at record covers, and talk to salesmen who know the music (and are djs and producers themselves). Thanks to Zach, Carter, Aldo, dM, Derek and everyone else who made listening and buying so pleasant and fun the past few years. I'm really bummed about this.
Adrien75, a great musician previously discussed here and here, has a new suite of tunes available for download as mp3s, titled Therms Forever. Comparing it with his two releases from last fall, Disc 1 comes closer to the peppy instrumental synthpop of 757 while Disc 2 mirrors the atmospheric feel and slower pace of Coastal Acces (with less focus on ambient solo guitar). But TF is really a melding (and evolution) of those earlier releases. The first three tracks, "Welcome," "Connections," and the Alphaville-namechecking "Lemmy Caution" give a good sense where the music is heading: pretty, sometimes elegiac melodies hovering over metronomic electro beats (with intermittent nods to the artist's drum-and-bass roots), and an interest in the emotional effects of radically altered sounds. A later track that jumps out is "A Plethora of Zombie," which harks back to Ralf and Florian-era Kraftwerk (check out the trippy, phase-shifted rhythms in the middle).
Despite the all-electronic vibe of the tracks, Adrien has the instincts and touch of a jazz musician, introducing chord changes, tricky rhythms, and an emotional pitch beyond the range of many techno and/or breaks producers. That's been clear since "Detroit & Carpet Eyes" (which he recorded with Doron Gura as Unagi Patrol), an exquisite piece that shifts compositional gears several times, like a Brian Wilson "pocket symphony" with breakbeats, or more recently Coastal Acces' "Highway One South," a leisurely motorik composition with burbling sounds rising and fading like features of the landscape passing in front of the windshield. Thankfully, though, he doesn't wave his virtuosity in our faces; unlike his prog-rock and fusion forebears, he keeps things clean and minimal, and unlike his electronica peers, hasn't succumbed to the trend of adding vocals to "broaden the appeal."
Here are a few more echoes of things one hears floating around in the mix--not literal cops or samples, more like musical neighbors: breathy brass licks reminiscent of Herbie Hancock's Crossings sextet (in "Smogma"), the eerie stateliness of Wendy Carlos' Clockwork Orange-vintage synth ("Keep Connected"), and a distinctive early YMO slither I can't place yet, in "Connections." According to Adrien's web page, he's got another album in the works--maybe when he's ready to publish I'll have doped out a fraction of the subtleties in this one!
Anyone who's ever been to an electronic music concert featuring laptop performers (we often have them here in NYC at Tonic) knows there ain't much to look at. Paper Rad, the Providence-based art collective, went through the entire repertoire of stage moves last night [June 27] at the closing event for "Blinky," an exhibition at New York's Foxy Productions. Concentrating intensely--check; nodding sagely--got it; leaning over to look at a band member's screen--several times; avoiding eye contact with the audience--consistently. The only problem with all this sincere, scientific-looking activity was it had nothing to do with the sound coming out of the speakers: the "laptops" were Fisher Price toys with colored yarn for cables and the music was a prerecorded mishmash of stop-and-start drumming and desultory, singing-in-the-shower vocals--all completely non-digital. You gotta admire a group willing to exhaust an audience's patience to make a point.
Considerably more exuberant was the act that preceded it: the reunion concert of New Yorkers Cory and Jamie Arcangel, who last performed together as hockey-mask and fright-wig wearing metal teens in Buffalo (documented on a hilarious home video). The duo, now civic-mindedly decked out in Sabres T-shirts and caps, demonstrated a Nintendo Duck Hunt game scrambled to electronic hash with a Game Genie, and then challenged Williamsburg's vaunted electroclash scene with an infectious tribute to Miami Bass titled--why kid around?--"Booty." While an 8-bit computer pumped the bass, Jamie rapped through a heavily-distorted microphone, Cory played electric guitar on his back, and the crowd got down. The last performer, Towondo Clayborn of Occasional Detroit, had a hard act to follow after all this insanity, but did an extended, intermittently dazzling set of hip hop electro noize that had people wandering in off the street (and also leaving--the philistines!). Think a bipolar union of Anti-Pop Consortium and Detrechno, with inspired segues between the two modes, plus off-the-top-of-the-(hot)head lyrics that gave new meaning to the term "loose."
A couple of other photos of this event are here.