In his profile of Icon Steve Roach, Roach talks about the artist and music that inspired him to choose a life of electronic music making, Klaus Schulze’s Timewind:

I think when I heard Timewind it was really the album that hit the switch for me. There’s just a sound and a quality of the sound and a feeling that the sound gave me went so deep and cut through so many layers and was so direct, the experience of that music was so direct, it was so familiar.

Timewind is a 60-minute electronic epic, dedicated to Richard Wagner, that is made up of two (side-long) half-hour tracks, Bayreuth Return and Wahnfried 1883.

John Cage is the subject of a new museum exhibition in Barcelona. The exhibit looks at Cage’s works in various media and his impact on all forms of contemporary art.

The New Yorker’s Alex Ross shares his thoughts on the highlights of the exhibit – but also raises this conundrum:

The great oddity of twentieth-century art history is that while Rauschenberg, Jackson Pollock, and other radical postwar painters are almost universally hailed as masters, their works drawing huge crowds in museums, Cage is still often treated as a freak or a charlatan.

The distinction makes no intellectual sense, but there it is.

It is striking that someone as influential as Cage – as a composer, author, electronic music pioneer and artist – hasn’t found an audience that reflects his influence.

Ross is right. Many people that might appreciate Rauschenberg or Pollock would cringe at the idea of sitting through a concert of Cage’s works.

Maybe the answer to Ross’s conundrum is as simple as this: you can’t close your ears.

If you see a painting that’s confrontational, ugly or incomprehensible, you can close your eyes or walk away. You are in control of the experience.

At a concert of music by an artist like Cage, you can’t close your ears or move on to the next thing. You aren’t in control of your experience – you can just react to it.

This seems to be a fundamental challenge of electronic music (and to a certain degree, music in general); when anything is possible, how do you create music that is original, yet still has the power to seduce someone’s ear?

via disquiet; Image: fallwithme

What The Future Sounded Like is a documentary about the the people of EMS (Electronic Music Studios) a radical group of avant-garde electronic musicians who utilized technology and experimentation to compose a futuristic electronic sound-scape for the New Britain.

Comprising of pioneering electronic musicians Peter Zinovieff and Tristram Cary (famed for his work on the Dr Who series) and genius engineer David Cockerell, EMS studio was one of the most advanced computer-music facilities in the world.

EMS’s great legacy is the VCS3, Britain’s first synthesizer and rival of the American Moog. The VCS3 changed the sounds of some of the most popular artists of this period including Brian Eno, Hawkwind and Pink Floyd.

via bananimalistic:

Here are some impressions of the September Tour 2009 that Klaus Schulze did together with Lisa Gerrard.

via KlausSchulzeMusic:

Filmed by James L. Frachon – MyGale Films.Klaus will return live on the 20th and 21st of March 2010. Klaus will perform two nights Solo in Tokyo, Japan.

This excellent documentary looks at how a radical generation of musicians created a new German musical identity out of the cultural ruins of war.

Featured musicians include Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Klaus Schulze and Faust.

You can view the first part above. See the rest on YouTube – while you can.

Description:

Between 1968 and 1977 bands like Neu!, Can, Faust and Kraftwerk would look beyond western rock and roll to create some of the most original and uncompromising music ever heard. They shared one common goal – a forward-looking desire to transcend Germany’s gruesome past – but that didn’t stop the music press in war-obsessed Britain from calling them Krautrock.

Synth Britannia is a BBC documentary about synth music in the UK.

VideodromeDisco posted this to YouTube – so you might want to watch it right now.

Here’s a little something to get you in the mood for Halloween – Delia Derbyshire’s Nightwalker.

Derbyshire, best known for her 1963 arrangement of Ron Grainer’s Dr Who theme, has been called “the unsung heroine of British electronic music.”

via iiishtar, via Warren Ellis

This is a demo of a vintage Maplin 5600s analog synthesizer.

In the early 70’s, the Australian magazine Electronics Today International published Tervor Marshall’s designs for two partly digital, mostly analog, Electronic Music Synthesisers. the ETI 3600 and ETI 4600.

Both were made available as kits of components. Barry Wilkinson at ETI was responsible for the final packaging and kitting coordination. Maplin Electronics Ltd.(in the UK) subsequently picked up the designs, which they marketed as as the Maplin models 3800 and 5600s Electronic Music Synthesizers.

Video Details:

This sequence is based on his two transient trapezoid envelopes. It’s a very nice matrix synthesizer with many parameters …much more than an EMS VCS3. His Matrix has 30 x 30 contact points (900 in total) for complex I/O and control voltages. It has a built in spring reverb and an amazing cv controlled phaser. The “kick” come out from a RSF Kobol driven by the Maplin 5600 trigger.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This video, Truckstop Gondolero, captures Kraftwerk in 1971, back when they were still groovy.

via BVM0Experim0Indus0TV:

Live studio performance, 1971.

Artscape – Brian Eno In Conversation 2009 features some great vintage footage of Eno, then goes on to look at the last 30 years of his work and his work curating for the Luminous Festival.

Then take the time to listen to The Story Of Kraftwerk, an audio documentary that looks at the electronic music pioneers and their influence on musicians over thirty+ years.

If you don’t have time now, bookmark this page and give the documentary a listen later or download the MP3 and listen to it at your leisure.

It’s that good.

The Story Of Kraftwerk includes forty years of music, interviews with Kraftwerk and some of the musicians influenced by them from Bowie to Hot Chip.

via jaypee112233, M:Cast

This is some fantastic vintage footage of a young Kraftwerk, in 1980, performing Das Modell on German TV. Make sure you check out the crowd shots!

Amazingly, their current performances are amazingly faithful, both sonicly and visually, to what’s captured here.

Can you imagine how this would have blown people’s minds thirty years ago?

via goodtolove235abc

In the interview, Dolby shares some fantastic stories, like this one:

I remember word going around that the UK branch of the Musician’s Union was going to vote on a motion to ban synthesizers. A friend of mine from a band called Landscape told me this, and said we had to get some people down there because they were actually going to put it to the vote. The motion that was on the table was that synthesizers would be banned altogether, because they were taking work away from musicians. So ten of us went down there, one row of about 30, 40 people, and the rest of the people were like, out of work flugelhorn players, people who occasionally did West End musicals, and they were all half asleep. Each of the ten of us in turn got up and spoke very passionately and very articulately about how we felt it was progress and it was a good thing, and ultimately would lead to more work for musicians. Then it went to the vote and it got voted in! The British Musician’s Union had banned synthesizers! I think it was only afterwards that the executive manager of the Musician’s Union realised how impossible it would be to implement, so it was sort of swept under the carpet and we never heard about it again.

Kraftwerk interview, with Ralf Hütter July 8th, 2009.

Filmed during the Kraftwerk gig in the Manchester Velodrome 3th July 2009. With clips of Tour de France, Numbers and The Robots.

via twingokraftwerk

Short review, via Craig Thom:

This documentary attempts to cover the rise of German electronic and experimental music from the 1960s, centered on Kraftwerk. There are perhaps two documentaries here: one an overview of the career of Kraftwerk, and the other the development of native German music. I found the latter more interesting, but I enjoyed it all.

If your interest is just in Kraftwerk, you may not get enough out of this to justify the time. If you are mostly unfamiliar with German music from the ’60s, picking it up, as I did, with Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream and Neu! in the ’70s, then you may find the first hour as interesting as I did.

You can preview Kraftwerk And The Electronic Revolution below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

via vanelektrik

This is a promo for Kraftwerk’s The Catalogue, 2009 digitally remastered releases of their most important albums.

The albums include:

• Autobahn (1974)
• Radio-Activity – (German title: Radio-Aktivität) (1975)
• Trans-Europe Express – (German title: Trans-Europa Express) (1977)
• The Man-Machine – (German title: Die Mensch-Maschine) (1978)
• Computer World – (German title: Computerwelt) (1981)
• Electric Café (1986) – (here given its original name of Techno Pop)
• The Mix (1991)
• Tour de France Soundtracks (2003) – (now titled Tour de France)

Individual albums will be available Oct 5th, and the box set Nov 16th.

The Catalogue (German title: Der Katalog) will be available as a boxed set of eight albums by Kraftwerk that were released from 1974 to 2003. All albums were digitally remastered, with most of the cover art redesigned, including rare photographs in the liner notes that were not part of each album’s original release.

“We’ve been digitally transferring all of Kraftwerk’s original recordings and sound sources from our badly degrading master tapes while our engineers, Fritz and Henning, have been working in parallel to remaster our early albums for re-release. So for the first time, our recordings will be available in crisp, clear Kling Klang sound with all the fold-out covers and images our label at the time either messed up or wouldn’t pay for. There will be some alternate mixes of tracks and some unedited versions, but unfortunately we don’t have much unreleased material. We never recorded extra songs or twenty different versions of the same song. We would complete a song and then move forward, always keeping very focused on one Kling Klang project at a time.”

via fantomas44

David Vorhaus Analogue Electronic Music 1979

In this historical video from 1979, American-born UK synth pioneer David Vorhaus talks about two of his analogue inventions – the MANIAC analogue sequencer, and the Kaleidophon.

via JeffreyPlaide:

The MANIAC (Multiphasic Analog Inter-Active Chromataphonic (sequencer)) was an analogue sequencer having variable step lengths, and the ability to split sequences into several smaller groupings giving considerable sonic potentiality. Addition and subtraction of events was possible, as well as the possibility to chromatically correct the output during performance. David could program his MANIAC sequencer to play a background rhythm or combination of musical events, to then improvise over the top with another instrument or synthesizer.

The Kaleidophon was a double-bass-like instrument using four velocity-sensitive ribbon controllers instead of strings. The instrument is played entirely using the left hand, leaving the right hand free to manipulate the sound via a number of controllers and a joystick.

David speaks about the processes of making electronic music, and the developments that such possibilities can provide for the imaginative electronic musician. This excerpt is taken from the BBC 1979 documentary entitled “The New Sound of Music” hosted by Michael Rodd.

The Beatles have updated their site, to coincide with the release of The Beatles: Remastered, – a new release of their original catalog, remastered – and The Beatles: Rock Band.

The site is all that – as much a reflection of how we view our own history as it is a history of the band.

The photo above, of The Beatles meeting the Moog synthesizer, is just one of many gems in their photo archive. The Moog made appearances on Abbey Road’s Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, Here Comes The Sun, & Because.

Mike Vickers (formerly of Manfred Mann) was employed to program to Moog during the Abbey Road recording sessions.

Other treats at the site include video from Magical Mystery Tour and other seldom seen footage, a historical timeline and an interactive discography.

The site isn’t obsessively deep, but expect to loose track of time if you visit.

The Beatles Rock Band & The Beatles: Remastered

The Beatles: Rock Band lets you pick up the guitar, bass, mic or drums (but not the Moog) and experience The Beatles’ extraordinary catalogue of music through gameplay.

From the early touring days in 1963 Liverpool to the immortal, final performance on Apple’s rooftop, fans can follow in The Fab Four’s footsteps as they traverse the globe during the height of Beatlemania, unlocking real photos and videos of The Beatles – some never before seen by the public. The Beatles: Rock Band introduces three-part vocal harmonies to gameplay and features 45 songs on-disc.

Three albums from The Beatles’ epic catalogue will be made available for purchase and download including Abbey Road (1969), Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and Rubber Soul (1965). The Beatles: Rock Band will be available for Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system and Wii console from Nintendo.

The Beatles’ entire original recorded catalogue has also been digitally re-mastered for the first time by a dedicated team of engineers at EMI’s Abbey Road Studios over a four-year period. The new CD releases include 14 re-mastered stereo titles available individually or collected in a box set, as well as 11 mono titles released in a limited edition boxed set.

All of the re-mastered stereo CDs are packaged with replicated original UK album art, including expanded booklets containing original and newly written liner notes and rare photos. For a limited period, 13 of the stereo CDs are embedded with a unique mini-documentary about the album.

Brian Kehew and Larry Fast discuss their experiences with Moog Synthesizers and their interactions with Bob Moog.

From the Museum of Making Music opening weekend for their new Moog exhibit.

Note: This was captured via a live streaming service, and takes a couple of minutes to really get going.

The Museum Of Making Music’ The Legacy Of Moog exhibit opened this weekend.

Synthtopia reader David (unfrostedpoptart on Flickr) made it to the Moog exhibit and shared this fantastic set of photos. You’ll want to click the full-screen button on the slideshow for these images!

The exhibit captures some key moments in electronic music history.

If you made it to the show or the opening weekend festivities, let us know your impressions!