Retro Electronica
Funny how things go - the same day that I was mixing Jean Michell Jarre's "Oxygene" with Tangerine Dream's "Atem" this timely article about the early pioneers of electronic music appeared in the Guardian: Kings of The Cosmos
Everything you know about electronic pop is wrong. Years before Gary Numan and his electric friends, before the chart-popping porno-disco of 'I Feel Love by sexbot diva Donna Summer and pulsating producer Giorgio Moroder, before even Kraftwerk's serene electra-glide down the Autobahn, the trailblazers of synthesisers in pop were a bunch of long-haired hippies and slumming classical composers. Pioneered by Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and Walter Carlos, then popularised by Tomita, Jean Michel Jarre, and Vangelis, this genre - space music, some call it, or analog-synth epics - has been almost completely written out of the history of electronica.Of course nowadays we are spoilt for choice - all the more reason to listen to the pioneers now and again - which is why I was mixing the "old school" synth music to start with ...
Tags: electronic music, tangerine dream, walter carlos, space music, synthesisers, the future is history