Iconic composer and sound designer extraordinaire Suzanne Ciani made her way by Malmö last month to give a live quadraphonic performance at the culture house Inkonst, dedicated to experimental art and music. While being classically trained American Ciani entered the forefront of the world of electronics in the ‘60s when encountering synthesizer pioneer Don Buchla and thus the Buchla analogue modular synthesizer – the instrument which has become inseparable from her name ever since. After debuting with the experimental “Voices of Packaged Souls” in 1970, she has produced an endless string of masterpieces, all of which have contributed to the expansion and humanisation of the experience of electronic sound – and earned her 5 Grammy-nominations over time – through albums, films scores and commercials, such as one of her iconic ‘voice-over’ to the computerised washing machine.
After a 40 year break from performing live with the Buchla, she returned in 2016 and has been touring on and off since then. But no performance is a given, she tells Passive/Aggressive in Malmö. “The day it breaks is the day I stop. It’s not an automatic thing like, “oh, you’re gonna do another Buchla concert?” It’s like am I gonna do another?”
Ahead of her performance, we sat down with her for a conversation about being a female pioneer that has paved the way for a new generation of analogue aficionados.
Vanity Productions “Only the Stars Come Out at Night” (Posh Isolation, 2019) – review by Cameron Pagett
It’s early in the month of June 2018. It has been a warm day and the sun has only set from view when I sit down at the crude outdoor tables that dot the rough asphalt lining to the entrance to Mayhem where a group of about 120 people are gathered. It’s a fairly busy night. Most of the crowd is quite young and for some it is their first time in the smoky lowlit din of Mayhem. The room is filled with white lights and the last of the candles lit in the beginning of the evening begin to burn their last in the moments before one of the final sets of the evening.
The imposing figure of local music legend Christian Stadsgaard stands behind the controls table taking in the final moments of pre-set fog before bearing into a set that would take most of the room by surprise. After releasing the album “Only The Grains of Love Remain” in the late fall of 2017, It’s not certain if anyone but him and some close friends had heard the new material he was working on in the buildup for a brand new record. Easing into the beginning of the performance I nestle up to one of the many pillars dotting the Mayhem floor and take in the opening moments.
In just a few weeks, on July 20, we will see the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. With mankind setting foot in outer space, we ourselves have become aliens: An extra-terrestrial species roaming the universe, visitors from a far-away planet. Should Elon Musk’s fantasies of space travel and interplanetary colonialisation come true, then being aliens will become part of what we are as a species.
The Alien and the Familiar play a crucial role on Danish artist Ursula Nistrups release ”Cosmic Desert“ which was conceptualised by Nistrup and realised by sound designer Peter Albrechtsen. The album presents two sound pieces that originally were used in her solo exhibitions.
Soho Rezanejad “Torino” (Silicone Records, 2019) – anmeldelse af Nils Bloch-Sørensen
Soho Rezanejad gør altid sit arbejde grundigt. Intet ved hendes udgivelser er halvhjertet: Musik, videoer, promotion og koncerter – alt virker gennemarbejdet og kontrolleret. Fra selvudgivelse til ambitiøse tværmediale projekter. På mange måder står det i ret skarp kontrast til den måde, eksperimenterende miljøer normalt fungerer på, hvor det amatøristiske fejres, og fokus er på høj udgivelsesfrekvens. Rezanejad konceptualiserer og eksekverer kompromisløst.
En af hendes styrker i denne henseende er hendes evne til at vælge de rigtige samarbejdspartnere. Om det er som medlem af Lust for Youth, i valg af videoinstruktør eller sidste års remix-udgivelse “The Idealist Compilation”. Hendes nyeste udgivelse, det audiovisuelle album “Torino”, er bestemt ingen undtagelse.
Giovanni Giorgio Moroder er uden tvivl bedst kendt for sin discomusik. Manden opfandt stort set det, vi i dag kender som disco.
Hans musik var tidligere blevet brugt i andre film, men i ‘78 lavede Moroder sit første egentlige soundtrack, til Alan Parkers “Midnight Express”. Soundtracket blev, som nærmest alt andet han rørte dengang, et stort hit på dansegulvet. Og op igennem 80’erne stod Moroder bag en lang række af store filmrelaterede hits som f.eks: “Take my Breath Away” – indspillet af Berlin til Top Gun; “Dangerzone” – indspillet af Kenny Loggins til Top Gun; “Never ending story” – indspillet af Limahl til The Never Ending Story; “Together in Electric Dreams” – indspillet af Philip Oakley til Electric Dreams; “Call Me” – indspillet af Blondie til American Gigolo; “Cat People” – indspillet af Bowie til Cat People; “What a Feeling” – indspillet af Irene Cara til Flashdance; “Love Kills” –indspillet af Freddie Mercury til Moroders restaurering i ‘84 af Fritz Langs Metropolis.
I 2013 dukkede Giorgio Moroder op igen efter 20 års pause på Daft Punks “Random Access Memories” Herefter har han deltaget i en lang række remixes, computerspil, og alle mulige andre musikalske samarbejder. Men mest interessant er samarbejdet med Raney Shockne, og her især soundtracket fra 2018 til tv-serien “Queen of the South”. Læs resten
