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The uniqueness of some singers lies in their individual vocal timbres.
The chaotic influence of genetics and neuro-muscular harmonics seem to resonate
with appreciative listeners who don't feel a need to hear a trained choir-boy
performance. Face it, Bob Dylan is not Pavorotti!
Similarly, in the world of electronic music, the individual sounds of analog
instruments communicate in a special way with lovers of a wide range of
music, from acid-jazz to chill-out. Much has been written of the 70s influences
of guitar and synth bands like Stereolab. Even Sonic Youth used Bob Moog's
classic 60s invention, the Moog synthesizer, in their cover of The Carpenter's
"Superstar".
However, the analog sound is more than a nostalgic trend. It is a clue to
the modern music consumer's appetite for music beyond the sterile factory-preset
sounds of digital equipment. As in singers, the distinction between the
two is a question of timbre. Since analog equipment directly produces sound
by transforming electricity through voltage controllers and other circuits
rather than a digital sampling of zeros and ones, each moment will have
fluctuations due to environmental factors that produce variations in the
signal, and produce rich harmonics.
Keyboardist and engineer Byron Wong (of My Brilliant Beast) explains: "It's
down to a basic synthesis. A digital keyboard like a DX 7 works on a FM
synthesis principle, which is really based in ring modulation, versus a
pure tone generated by the analog gear. The thing with the Moog and more
current instruments, like something from Roland or Korg, is there's very
little between your ears and electricity, not electronics but pure electricity.
It's real voltage-controlled filters, real voltage-controlled oscillators
pushing energy through."
Wong's group, My Brilliant Beast, possesses a slow-groove mix of song and
rhythm that relies on analog keyboards and analog guitar effects boxes.
Their cover of Steve Miller's "Wild Mountain Honey", on their
debut EP from BMG, is a seductive 90s setting of the original's sinuous
Moog riff.
"The whole beat movement comes back to the primitive 'thud'" says
Wong. "The Moogs and the Arps thud better than the new stuff. St Etienne's
disco version of the 70s was the tight t-shirts and the hot wheels cars,
but I think that when we look at the 70s we're hearing the 'super fly' grooves
and the Tangerine Dream and the Eno elements."
Brian Eno, the former flamboyant keyboardist of Roxy Music, developed a
meditative "ambient" music, which came out of the 70s "cosmic"
synth movement, and is now appreciated as a seminal moment in the under-represented
communities of chill-out and ambient-techno. Eno also brought the avant
garde sounds of 60s electronic music of people like musique concrete pioneer
Pierre Henry into the rock world. Eno's use of the VCS3 (known as the Putney)
as a noise-generator and signal processor deconstructed the traditional
melodic use of keyboards, and paved the way for a brave new wave of bands
like Pere Ubu.
Current bands like Stereolab, Labradford and Canada's Change Of Heart are
currently rocking with analog gear, inspired by everything from 60s moog-muzak
to 70s trance-rock. Seattle synth and guitar bands are striking at the heart
of grunge with raw echoes of German trance-rockers Can and jazzman Sun Ra.
Like the now-passed musician from Saturn, Jessamine uses a Moog and the
well-known Farfisa organ (played through a tremelo pedal, a flange and a
phaser). Both Sun Ra and Can are quoted on the track "Don't You Know
That Yet?" from their Kranky label debut.
"I've always hated digital equipment," relates guitarist Rex Ritter.
"There was something about the sound that had really bothered me. With
the moog you can constantly change the shape of the sound, and it can be
continuous as well. The sounds can be so organic or liquidy, they can really
get into your gut."
Musical chords and their resulting harmonies have often affected the styles
of rock music as well. Pete Townshend once said that he would never play
a fifth chord because the third would be heard as the ghostly resultant
tone. At the far end of this spectrum is minimalist composer La Monte Young,
who composes never-before-heard chords by using the prime number frequencies
in the harmonic series. Chords made from prime number frequencies are non-repeating
fractions, and therefore result in complex tones. Young's drone piece made
from prime number frequencies, "The Romantic Symmetry (over a 60 cycle
base) in Prime Time from 112 to 144 with 119/Time Light Symmetry",
produces a complex grid of standing waves so richly microtonal that you
hear a different chord just by turning your head a couple of inches!
German musician Peter Kuhlman (aka Namlook) is attempting to bring this
kind of pitch control into the world of analog gear by designing MIDI software
that will enable these instruments to play in "just intonation",
which are natural sonorities not heard in Western "well-tempered"
scales. With the help of keyboard makers and musicians, including the AWOL
Kraftwerk and electronic music pioneer Oskar Sala, Kuhlman debuted his new
just chords in the "Subharmonic Interference" piece recorded live
at Berlin's Interference Festival (released on his Fax label as Namlook
VII). In a fax interview with British musician/journalist David Toop, Kuhlman
stated: "The sound of the subharmonic chords has a certain flair you
can't describe. It is warm and ancient and perfect harmony at the same time."
Kuhlman also lured the inventor of the VCS3, Ludwig Rehberg, into the studio
to record two CDs under the name "Putney". Rehberg still produces
his synths, vocoders and ring modulators, all used exclusively on Putney's
various range of musical styles.
Unbeknownst to experimental music grant-givers, the most complex music one
can hear is often found at raves and techno clubs! John Cage would have
loved acid techno, a short form of the Detroit slang for sampling called
"acid burn", the term having nothing to do with LSD. Techno is
a rhythm-based music whose minimal melodic lines feature notes with constantly
varying pitch, thanks to low-pass filters on the Roland 303. These indeterminate
riffs, played at high volume, create a new harmonic experience in each slice
of the 360 degrees of sound. When some electric-age genius programs the
just-analog rhythmic version of La Monte Young's chords, the experience
could have us all dropping out and tuning in!