Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith: Buchla and The Kid

Discussion and review on Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith’s 2017 album The Kid, as well as a little background on her instrument of choice, the Buchla synthesizer.

Links of interest:
A written review of 2016’s EARS

A little more exposition on Moog synthesizers

The Complex Retrofuturism of Traditional Synthesizer Music

Review and Discussion of Traditional Synthesizer Music by Venetian Snares (2016).

Links mentioned:

2018 Best of

S U R V I V E review

UPDATE:  My response to my own challenge.

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Looking Backward and Forward to S U R V I V E

In all of the eight years I spent in Austin, I rarely got out to see any music. Chalk it up to parenthood. Even when it came to SXSW, which has now grown into a ridiculous monster way beyond anyone's imagination, I only ever went to free shows, and I am pretty sure that I can count all of them I actually got out to on one hand.

During one particularly rainy SXSW afternoon I ventured out to see a band that, thanks to the recommendation of a friend, had become an unlikely favorite. The synth band S U R V I V E, who supplied the memorable soundtrack to a trip in Tuscon, was setting up a rare informal show at record store and personal browsing spot End of an Ear. Even without hardcopy, MNQ026 had uncharacteristically stood the test of time, clawing its way to classic status in my book, and I did not want to pass up the chance to see them for free up close. I got there a little early, so I had to the chance to talk with one of the members briefly, mainly to ask if it would be cool if I took some pictures of the band’s gear.

“Yes,” he said decisively, “it would be VERY cool.”

The band was clearly proud of their setup, and although I certainly don’t have the insight to make heads or tails of it all, I know enough to appreciate what they have assembled. What became more apparent when they began their performance, however, was the way in which they had total mastery over those instruments. Many of the artists that S U R V I V E call influences were experimenting with the possibilities of these instruments when they were new, but S U R V I V E knows what each instrument is capable of and uses it to compelling effect. It was a great show that was not done justice by the poor videos I took.

That was two years ago. Now, thanks to some of the band’s members being involved in the distinctive soundtrack to a delightfully retro-creepy Netflix series, S U R V I V E are as close to the big time as an experimental synth outfit can hope to get. Coincidentally, and even before their attachment to Stranger Things, they had recorded and set a release date for MNQ026’s follow-up, RR7349.

Of all of my September 30 new releases (and there were several), this was the one that I have anticipated the most.  Its predecessor's compelling mix of texture, timbre, atmosphere, and melody has kept me coming back, and it has been my hope that RR7349 could recapture the magic, so to speak.



The verdict? It seems that it has. RR7349 still sounds as if it is the soundtrack to a long-lost Blade Runner spin-off. It delivers on the nostalgia in terms of sound and structure, which is largely due the array of vintage instruments that the band employs, but is also harbors a nuanced melodic side that exists in a carefully crafted balance with its layered atmospheres. In this regard, it is remarkably consistent. Anyone who was brought up with the darker sides of Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream, and other 70s synth pioneers floating around the house will find a whole lot to like on RR7349.



So one of the regrets I have now that Austin is in my rearview mirror is that I am not as locally available for S U R V I V E's increasingly frequent live performances. They do seem to tour more readily, however, so it might be possible to catch them in the metroplex. Probably not in Denton, though. It’s safe to assume that they are too big for all that now. I’d love to be proven wrong on that, though…...

S U R V I V E: Staring Down an Invasion in Tuscon

My friend The Best Man and I have been promising each other that we would eventually crack the underground Austin synth scene. He recently discovered a band called S U R V I V E but alas, their album was only available in sold- out limited edition vinyl and downloadable MP3. As much as I value the suggestions of friends, this limitation would have probably kept them out of rotation permanently.

Last weekend, however, in a direct attempt to stare down my remaining apprehensions about heavy lifting, I attended a CrossFit Olympic Lifting Instructors Course in Tuscon, Arizona. This was to be a quick solo trip, so any music I planned to bring for the plane ride and layovers would have to be in soft format. It seemed like an opportunity to give S U R V I V E a shot.



This ended up being a smart move. While I still admit that I would like to see the album cover professionally printed and mounted in a jewel case, the content of the album is shady and immersive in a way that can best be delivered through earphones. I played S U R V I V E through my phone when I was walking around Tuscon, which ended up being quite a bit more than I had initially planned. Once I got a feel for the area between my hotel and CrossFit Works, I found that I preferred a 30 minute walk surrounded by distant mountains and an epic alien invasion soundtrack to an 8 minute (and $10) drive with an awkward Russian cabbie.



S U R V I V E takes more than one page from Jean Micheal Jarre’s early playbook, particularly the ethereal and dynamic Equinoxe, Oxygene, and Les Chantes Magetiques trilogy. Jarre was playful and exploratory on these synth masterpieces. In contrast, S U R V I V E conjures a dark, ominous, and almost gothic tone using the gloomy synth sounds of late 80s Depeche Mode. While other electronic projects like the F*ck Buttons might use more contemporary technology to produce a broader variety of sounds, S U R V I V E does a whole lot more musically with much less.



S U R V I V E is one of several local synth bands that orbit around the Austin vintage synth shop Switched On, and they are so underground that they almost don’t exist. There are a few reviews of their sporadic live shows that indicate that their performances are epic. Aside from these, some links that lead to album download, and an intermittently updated Facebook page, there is very little about S U R V I V E online. I can barely figure out if or when they are playing next, but I would be interested in seeing them live.

From what I have seen, however, they seem to have some sort of following in Germany. While that’s not too surprising, considering the history of synth music in what is Kraftwerk’s homeland, I have never had to do a Euros conversion to purchase an album from a local band before.

Not too long ago, I became a bit snobby about listening only to local music, because I was convinced that it held the potential to stand outside of the agenda of the record industry. “Independent music” is, paradoxically, more mainstream now, and has its own political agenda that musicians have to navigate. S U R V I V E is one of those bands that purposefully fly under the radar, doing something not for fortune or fame, but because they have a genuine love for what they do. They are clearly passionate about the untapped potentials of traditional analog synthesizers and their current relevance, and their adoration of these instruments infuses their music with conviction.

"The Terror" of the Flaming Lips: A Phone Call from Venus

When the Mars rovers made planetfall, it reignited my childhood interest in the space program. For a brief period after Spirit and Opportunity set down in 2004, I surfed around the internet looking for other successful extraterrestrial touchdowns and found out that nearly thirty years prior, Russia’s Venera 9 successfully sent back surface pictures of the inhospitable surface of Venus. My imagination, fueled by a lifetime of fanciful sci-fi and computer-enhanced images, ran wild about what might actually be brewing underneath the planet’s thick, sulfuric atmosphere. The lander barely lasted an hour before it was reduced to slag, but it managed to return this panorama.

Great. More rocks. It could have been taken from a dried-up creek bed.

Although the reality is not as fanciful as my imagination might have been, these are still extraordinary pictures. They are particularly amazing framed as they are the Cold War space race, when first steps onto other worlds began unlocking the unbelievable realities that were previously relegated to fantasy.

Judging from the buzz around The Terror, I expected it to be similarly bleak. The Flaming Lips’ previous release Embryonic, which was a personal favorite album in 2009, intentionally moved away from the sunny shimmer of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and the classic Soft Bulletin.  As predicted, The Terror continues its predecessor’s exploration of the Lips’ darker side  For me, it brings to mind the time when 70s science fiction was televised through the now- archaic medium of UHF and VHF radiowaves. I remember a lot of sci-fi from that time, like Planet of the Apes, Space 1999, and Jason of Star Command, through a wavy, oversaturated lens.

These grainy memories resonate with the then-futuristic overtones of the now-ubiquitous Moog synthesizer.  The Terror capitalizes on the sense of post-apocalyptic desolation hidden within the cultural memory of these timbres, like a message sent by a Venusian castaway, inexplicably living within the inhospitable ruins of an impossible civilization.  It obliquely outlines the axis upon which a person begrudgingly accepts loneliness in order to survive, relating this experience though homesick phone calls blurred with static and yearning. There is a certain peace that may come when this kind of separation is accepted, but The Terror is not pretty enough to be peaceful, nor is it ugly enough to be bitter. It is the soundtrack to the liminal space between these two states of being.



These are hardly the impressions that made The Flaming Lips popular. In their more public side, the Lips have historically been uplifting either musically or lyrically, if not both. Like Daft Punk’s most recent album, however, The Terror is a challenging release, but it’s probably not a surprise to the dedicated Flaming Lips’ fan. While their more definitive albums were able to balance the cosmic positivity of Yes with the unsettling lunacy of Pink Floyd, they have always harbored an experimental and dark side. The Terror puts this aspect of the Lips on prominent display. It’s not a change in modality as much as it is a change in tone, which may make it a hard sell.  Its is, however, a decisively cohesive and successful artistic statement, and certainly worth deeper scrutiny.

The Jellyfish Family Tree Part 6: Cookin' With Beck and Mraz

Because Brendan Benson was never actually in Jellyfish, I set a somewhat daunting precedent when I included him in this series. Jellyfish’s members have contributed their talents to numerous projects, and to take them all into account might stretch this project on almost indefinitely. Although I have often used the presence of Jellyfish members to guide my listening choices, there are many albums that they have co-written or played on that I simply have not heard.  There are, however, some that have become favorites.

In the late 90s, Jellyfish and Imperial Drag keyboardist Roger Joseph Manning was a studio contributor on Beck’s Mutations, and was also a member of the performing band during the tour to support the album. Mutations is the release in which Beck revealed just what a chameleon he is. For artists like David Bowie, Madonna, and Prince, reinvention was a matter of course. Beck’s identity shifts were never quite as dramatic, but they were no less jarring. After the ramshackle hobo pop of Mellow Gold and the genre-bending whiteboy funk of Odelay, Mutations, a relatively atmospheric and somber offering, was a bit of a surprise.


When Mutations came out, I was already a fan of Beck. When I discovered that Manning made significant keyboard contributions to the album, however, it reframed the entire listening experience. By this point in his career, his experiments with The Moog Cookbook, a series of tongue-in-cheek parodies of 70s keyboard albums, solidified his status as the go-to torchbearer for classic keyboard sounds. Mutations has a somewhat retro feel to it, and undoubtedly Manning contributed greatly to this sound.

I did not follow the Moog Cookbook, but I did get into one of Manning's analog keyboard experiments.  In 2000, he, along with collaborator Brian Reitzell, released Logan's Sanctuary, a soundtrack to an imaginary sequel to the 1976 film Logan's Run.  I was particularly interested in this release because it featured a couple of collaborations with Jason Falkner that were pretty good, but overall its stylistic relationship with Jellyfish was tenuous at best.  



Despite his experimental side, Manning was always able to keep one foot in the pop realm.  Several years later, I became a fan of Jason Mraz's sophomore release, Mr. A-Z.  This album came to have special meaning during the Carrollton Period.  It will one day deserve its own posting, but I have to mention it here because I remember quite clearly being inexorably drawn to the funky analog bass sounds in Geek in the Pink.  I was hardly surprised when the liner notes revealed that Manning contributed keyboards to the track.



Again, Manning's resume has done nothing but grow rhizomatically since his days in Jellyfish - far beyond my ability to keep up.  Although he has played keyboards on numerous albums with a variety of artists, he remains a transparent contributor that, paradoxically, always lets his unique character shine through.  Undoubtedly, there will be fans who implore me to include their overlooked favorites, and I hope they will. Most likely, these suggestions will make their way into rotation in the near future.

To review the previous post in this series, hit me up here.
To jump to the next one, click here.

"Milliontown" and the Moog Keyboard

My wife and I rather randomly decided to take a trip to Inner Space Cavern in Georgetown this afternoon.  We joke that she has “carcolepsy,” meaning that she just can’t stay awake as a passenger in a moving car, which gives me the chance to get in some listening.  Yesterday, I planted “Milliontown” by Frost* in the player and if you are a fan of contemporary symphonic prog, it’s an energetic, melodic, and sometimes cacophonous example.  My recent interests drew my attention to keyboardist Jem Godfrey – here’s a quick low-fi snippit of him in action:

In addition to the Rick Wakeman-inspired lines like you see here, Godfrey also plays piano beautifully on “Milliontown.”  In my current listening, Mouse on the Keys is pushing the boundaries of piano on one end while my appreciation of Jean-Michel Jarre’s atmospherics has opened up on the other.  The piano affords a certain set of musical possibilities and limitations, as does the organ, the mellotron, and the moog synthesizer.  There are things that each of these instruments can do that the others cannot, which is why in the old days, the 70s prog-rock keyboard pioneers kept them stacked up in the corner of the stage.  Despite their shared “ebony and ivory” interface, each one is ultimately a unique instrument with a distinctive set of techniques.

The Moog synthesizer was particularly unique in this arsenal because its sound was entirely created by electric means.  When Bob Moog made the first synthesizers, they consisted of little more than dials and knobs – a sound/body interface that seemed to appeal more to engineers than musicians. He considered carefully the means by which players would interact with his instruments, and he eventually decided to use a piano keyboard.

This immediately boosted the popularity of the Moog synthesizer and added a whole new realm of musical potentials to the keyboardist.  However, when he attached that configuration of white and black keys to his instrument, he also attached hundreds of years of history and repertoire to the instrument.  The synthesizer became the domain of the keyboardist and the synthesist became primarily judged by their piano or organ technique.  Sometimes I wonder if the price that Moog paid for accessibility limited the synthesizer’s progress.  I don’t think that many technically proficient players were able to look at the Moog as its own instrument, but a couple did (although I really don't like Keith Emerson that much).

Now, of course, since any keyboard can make any sound, the stacks of instruments are less high, and it seems like “playing piano” has become more like a style of interacting with a keyboard than playing any particular instrument while synthesis has become a plug-in.  The distinctive instruments have collapsed into a single one that has all sounds ready-at-hand.  It seems that Godfrey, like the best prog-rock keyboardists, navigates this interface by sitting in the middle of the spectrum as a jack-of-all-trades - at least on "Milliontown."