From the 80s onwards, electronic music becomes mainstream and ubiquitous
Canadian electronic musician Aaron Funk alias Venetian Snares, 2008. Photo: Tuomas Vitikainen
In this episode...
Synthesizer bands of the 70s: Kraftwerk, The Human League etc and their equipment;
From hip-hop to house, techno, and IDM (intelligent dance music) to all the sub-, sub-sub- and sub-sub-sub-genres of electronic music of the 80s, 90s and later;
Karlheinz Stockhausen gives his view on this music in a blind test ... turns out the only one he liked came from his old student Irmin Schmidt and his band Can;
Analogue synthesizers make a comeback;
Laptops and the democratisation of music production;
Synthesiser programming: an interview with Phill Macdonald;
Alternative user-interfaces to the keyboard;
Where on earth are we heading? Peter Zinovieff, Brian Hodgson, John Chowning, Suzanne Ciani, Barry Vercoe, Morton Subotnick and Irmin Schmidt all put in their two cents, pence or pfennige.
Explore more of These Hopeful Machines
Written by James Gardner and Gary Steel, presented by James Gardner, produced by Tim Dodd and James Gardner for Radio New Zealand.
Scroll down for handy links and a bibliography.
Grateful thanks for help in the production of Episode 6 go to:
John Chowning; Suzanne Ciani; David Cockerell; Paul Doornbusch of Collarts in Melbourne for allowing us to use excerpts from his interview with Miller Puckette; Brian Hodgson; Glenda Keam; Phill Macdonald for the interview and the Korg demonstration recordings; Jono Podmore; Irmin Schmidt, Hildegard Schmidt and René Tinner for granting, organizing and recording the Irmin Schmidt interview; Gary Steel; Morton Subotnick; Barry Vercoe; Peter Vogel; Julia Woodward; Peter Zinovieff.
Links
- The BBC's documentary 'Synth Britannia' about the British synth bands of the 70s and 80s
- Kraftwerk on Tomorrow’s World
Bibliography
Joanna Demers
Listening Through Noise: The Aesthetics of Experimental Electronic Music
Oxford University Press 2010
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/listening-through-the-noise-9780195387667
Tara Rodgers
Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound
Duke University Press 2010
https://www.dukeupress.edu/pink-noises
Nick Collins and Julio d’Escrivan (eds.)
The Cambridge Companion to Electronic Music (2nd ed.)
Cambridge University Press 2017
https://www.cambridge.org/nz/universitypress/subjects/music/twentieth-century-and-contemporary-music/cambridge-companion-electronic-music-2nd-edition
Matthew Collin
Dream Machines: Electronic Music in Britain From Doctor Who to Acid House
Omnibus 2024
https://omnibuspress.com/products/dream-machines-electronic-music-in-britain-from-doctor-who-to-acid-house
Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner (eds)
Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music 2nd ed
Bloomsbury 2017
https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/audio-culture-revised-edition-9781501318368/
