Tag Archives: Brian Eno

Wendy Carlos: A Biography by Amanda Sewell

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In 1968, Wendy Carlos was thrust into the limelight with her synthesizer interpretations of the music of J.S. Bach. The LP Switched-On Bach caught the attention of both classical and non-classical music listeners alike.

As a child, Carlos began playing piano and eventually composing her own works. At the same time, she also developed a keen interest in electronics. By the time she was in high school in the early 1950s, she had built her own home computer.

Her interest in both music and electronics led to her studying composition at Columbia University with two pioneers in electronic music – Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luening. It was during this time that she learned the trade of working in a recording studio and eventually met up with Robert Moog.

Her relationship with Moog was a fruitful one in which she provided much feedback to the electronics engineer regarding the design and construction of devices which would eventually be incorporated into Moog’s modular synthesizers.

Carlos’ meticulous sound construction process would eventually lead to her experimenting with producing a piece of music by Bach. The concept of an entire album of synthesized Bach works was presented to Columbia Records by her long-time collaborator Rachel Elkind and it was agreed to issue the set on their Masterworks classical label.

After its release in October of 1968, the set was so popular that it held the number one spot on Billboard’s Classical Music chart for three years. By the mid-70s, its sales surpassed a million copies in the US alone.

In 1969, she released a second LP entitled The Well-Tempered Synthesizer which included works by Bach and other classical composers.

1972 saw the release of an expansive double LP set entitled Sonic Seasonings. Here, she devoted each side to a different season and used a combination of real-world nature recordings combined with synthetic sounds to produce evocative soundscapes. This was well before Brian Eno introduced his concept of “ambient music” on such recordings as Discreet Music and Music for Airports.

It was around this time that Carlos was invited to record music for Stanley Kubrick’s upcoming film A Clockwork Orange. In the end, only a small portion of her recordings made its way into the film and original soundtrack album. But, she eventually released her own works on a separate LP.

In the 1980s Carlos began working with digital synthesizers and created her album Digital Moonscapes. The versatility of the digital domain also made her want to experiment with alternate keyboard tunings such as microtonal scales with as many as 35 notes per octave. This resulted in the LP Beauty in the Beast. As the ’80s drew to a close, she collaborated with “Weird Al” Yankovic on a unique take on the work Peter and the Wolf.

The 1990s saw Carlos enter a partnership with the label East Side Digital where she would eventually re-issue remastered versions of her older albums (and previously unissued material) as well as her final album to date entitled Tales from Heaven and Hell.

Of course, one cannot cover the life and work of Wendy Carlos without acknowledging the path of her personal life. The most obvious aspect of which was her gender transition which took place over several years. Author Amanda Sewell does not side-step this part of Carlos’s life and treats the subject with care and respect. This includes the effect which is had on both her personal and professional life.

The biography of Wendy Carlos is an engrossing read about a musical pioneer whose work helped to bring attention to the world of electronic music and provide a vision of music’s future.

David Bowie – Stardust, Diamonds, Heroes and Ashes

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The clock radio went off at 5:30 AM and the lead-off new story is about David Bowie. His latest album – Blackstar – was released just three days ago and the news reveals that Bowie’s voice is now silenced. Apparently, a well kept secret regarding 18 months of suffering from cancer has now become public.

While I may have initially been exposed to Space Oddity or some tracks from The Man Who Sold the World, my first real exposure to Bowie came with the album Hunky Dory in 1971. Many tunes from that album were constantly on the FM airwaves in the Windsor / Detroit area at the time. It wasn’t just Changes and Life on Mars. It was also Queen Bitch, Andy Warhol and Oh You Pretty Things.

And then there was Ziggy. He was seemingly the man who fell to earth and changed the face of music and style. A flaming red-haired alien who rocked like nobody else at the time.

Bowie seemed like a person who could single-handedly  both start and end an era. He had a vision that seemed unstoppable in an era of ever changing fads and fashions. Since nobody seemed to know what he would do next, there was an endless curiosity as to what would be his next revelation.

In the beginning, he played in short-lived bands who played R&B. By the time of his debut LP, he was planted firmly in a mode reflecting his admiration for popular singer Anthony Newley. But, it was his subsequent release of Space Oddity which would gain him more attention.

That led to his joining forces with guitarist Mick Ronson on the Tony Visconti produced The Man Who Sold the World. From there it was on to Hunky Dory and then the creation of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

After the “retirement” of Ziggy, Aladdin Sane took the stage. The dystopian world  of Diamond Dogs morphed into the plastic soul of Young Americans and then the Thin White Duke of Station to Station (and his appearance in Nicolas Roeg’s film The Man Who Fell to Earth).

Antifungal medications: These medications can lower a man’s sperm is unable to join the female egg, then it may cause infertility. online viagra order You can also use medicated ghees cialis viagra levitra like shatavari ghee, brahmi ghee and ashwagandha ghee for massaging. So, when you select one such supplier, you can be sure to have a good sex life in order to increase sensations and climaxes. soft viagra pills The cost and effects varies from one medicine to find for info now buy levitra online another. It was his 1977 project with Brian Eno which changed the game once again. The album Low presented one side of rocking tunes with another side of spacey, avant-garde electronic explorations which would develop into what would become known as The Berlin Trilogy (along with “Heroes” and Lodger).

From there, Bowie jumped around into dance music, more rock and roll and drum & bass excursions. His restless creativity pushed and pulled him into whatever direction he considered interesting for many more years.

After a silence of nearly ten years, Bowie proved that he could still surprise and suddenly announced a new single and LP back in 2013. The Next Day was a stunning new effort which was kept under wraps until the last moment.

With the release of Blackstar last week, Bowie seemed to be aware of the fact that this would be his farewell gesture to his long-time fans. At least he lived to see its release.

I only got to see Bowie in concert one time. It was to become his final concert tour. The show on May 14, 2004 at the John Labatt Centre in London, Ontario featured some 26 songs spanning his long career.

One other Bowie event that I was pleased to attend was the David Bowie Is exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 2013. Over the course of a two hour trek through this show, one could get a close look at everything from stage costumes to hand-written lyrics to abandoned album cover designs.

David Bowie may no longer be with us but, his legacy will certainly continue for years to come. His life and work will become one of the benchmarks by which others in the performing arts will be measured.

David Bowie 1947 – 2016 

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Brian Eno – An Interesting Interview

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Anybody who has known me for the past 40 odd years will probably recall that one of my favourite artists back in the ’70s was Roxy Music. They formed an interesting hybrid of both musical and visual styles which I found immensely unique and intriguing.

In 1973, band member Brian Eno left the group and started his own musical career. His path was even more interesting to me as it spanned rock music and electronic sounds. I was also very lucky to be able to sit in on a live radio interview that he did on CJOM-FM in Windsor, Ontario back in July 1974. It was there that I discovered a common interest in German bands of the day such as Can, Neu!, Cluster and Kraftwerk.

Eno’s experiments with sound – ambient, long-duration works etc… – eventually became an integral touchstone for the music which I would begin to create a few years down the road.

It is something levitra online australia that prevents a man from sustaining an erection. There could be many psychological and physical reasons which generic levitra can lead to disappointment in bed, and chances are, if you have a prostate, you could probably benefit from regular massage. If the lowest possible dose of 25mg is not working for you, consult with your doctor about possibly trying Full Report buying levitra from canada. However, never do canadian pharmacy levitra they mention the indications, contraindications, drug interactions, adverse effects, safe drug usage etc. He has been interviewed many times over the years about many different subjects but, this interview is particularly interesting as it really covers his early years and influences in a very detailed way. So, I thought that I would share this video.