Customer Reviews

Early Modulations: Vintage Volts

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The film "Modulations" as directed by Iara Lee had a rather bold ambition to document the entire history of electronic music, starting in its earliest days and working its way to the present. However, such an effort may be ambitious, but not realistic. Because of this, Modulations was enjoyable but certainly not the authoritative guide to electronic music. In fact, its soundtrack released by Caipirinha offering a seemingly random selection of tracks from all over the spectrum.

"Vintage Volts" is the sister release to the soundtrack and has proven much more effective as a guide to early electronic music. I expected these recordings to be more of a historical novelty in many cases, but on the whole nearly every selection on the disc is strong; so strong, in fact, that many of them sound "newer", both in their sounds and in their concepts, than most new electronic music. These composers also have the advantage of doing it all first. Morton Subotnick's "Silver Apples of the Moon," for example, is so brilliantly strange that it practically outdoes itself. The only novelty track really is Max Mathew's "Bicycle Built For Two," but its brevity makes it worth including, since it serves as a recorded document of some of the first voice synthesis technology. Only Luc Ferrari's "Tête et Queue du Dragon" manages to get caught up in itself, a noisy sound collage with no real flow to it in my opinion. "Vintage Volts" is essential listening for anyone interested in knowing where contemporary music came from; virtually all music now has been affected and/or influenced by what these composers were doing in their time.

This new compilation is long overdue. This CD shows exactly how futuristic the future of music looked for the electro-acoustic composers and music concrete musicians starting in 1947 and concluding in 1967. These compositions are still as groundbreaking and revolutionary and thanks to many smart young sampling electronica musicians, surprisingly somewhat familiar. The real strength of this cd is that while it is experimental, its entirely listenable throughout while remaining totally thought-provoking as to the possibilities of whats to come. These composers were working analog, totally hands-on and it sounds contemporary! Check it out now, and lets start this year, decade, century, and millenium off right: on the same page--looking ahead from a past that is still somehow beyond us.