Customer Reviews

Soothing Sounds For Baby: Electronic Music By Raymond Scott, Vol. 3, 12 To 18 Months

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Little miss echo" sounds as if it could have come off of one of Brian Eno's ambient albums. The same sensibility of slowly shifting synth tones is here. The pieces in this series vary from incredibly ahead of their time to witty (toy typewriter) to merely annoying. The fact that they were made in the early 60's shows what an original thinker Scott was. A tip: I first listened to this series on a small boombox. That was a mistake. When I played it on my main stereo system with my amps spread throughout my house, the effect was surrealistic and mindbending.

Composed & performed by RAYMOND SCOTT on primitive home-built electronic instruments which SCOTT began to design & build in the 1940s. As ambient electronic music, these albums predate -- yet are comparable to; BRIAN ENO/FRIPP, PHILIP GLASS, APHEX TWIN, & KRAFTWERK. The 3 vinyl albums were originally released by Epic & had been out-of-print for over 35 years!

I found this to be the weakest by far of the three SSfB CDs. I recommend either Vol 1 or 2 (four stars) before this volume.

I doubt you would really want to play this music for your infants, but then again- it would be a fun experiment. "The Toy Trumpet" will either annoy you, or, if you're like me, send you off squealing with childish delight. This is precocious, silly music for people with an affinity for cuteness. "Little Miss Echo," on the other hand, is a pretty, minimalist lullaby. Scott teases very relaxing, wave-like sounds from his machines for this one. The last track is a bit more of a mess...created with one of his contraptions that belts out sounds using a mathematical sequence...it comes off as very scattered and random. While I respect the concept, the result isn't so pleasing. Worth checking out, especially if you're a hardcore Raymond Scott fan, since there isn't a lot of his music available. Things are looking up, though, now that "Manhattan Research, Inc." has been released, and the "soothing sounds for baby" series is available again.