Rabz’ Radio Show February 2023: Electronica

The term “electronica” is used in this thread to define music that largely utilises electronic instruments, as opposed to placing it in any particular timeframe or referring specifically to any group of artists (as Wikipedia does). The use of electronic instruments and the creation of synthesised music has it roots in the early twentieth century. The term “electronic music” is also relevant here.

I first became vaguely aware of electronic music during the new wave period from roughly 1977 onwards. The contemporary progenitors of this style included the purveyors of “Krautrock”, for example, Can, Tangerine Dream and the legendary Kraftwerk. Krautrock had its spiritual origins in German Avant-Garde and the Bauhaus school of the Nineteen Twenties and Thirties (before it was, of course, shut down by the nazis).

Other styles related to electronic music included the mainly dance and nightclub-oriented sub genres such as Chicago House, Techno, Jungle, Acid House, Rave and Trip Hop.

Also related is the Ambient genre, popularized by the also legendary Brian Eno, who has managed to be a central figure in some of Rock’s most epic and groundbreaking releases, both as a musician and a producer. His work with David Byrne on albums such as “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” and the “Catherine Wheel” is among my favourite music, the latter being an absolutely epic musical journey originally used as a soundtrack for a Twyla Tharp Broadway dance production. Incredibly, I somehow managed to overlook it in last month’s thread on Albums.

Anyway, here’s a truncated list of some of my favourite electronic bands/artists:

Kraftwerk

Brian Eno

Massive Attack

The Crystal Method

Chemical Brothers

Ultravox

The Human League

Heaven 17

Groove Armada

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

Danny Tenaglia

Franky Knuckles

LCD Soundsystem

The two intro tracks for this month include:

Kraftwerk – Europe Endless

Groove Armada – Groove is on

Dishonourable mention: “Metal Machine Music”, Lou Reed (1975).

Again, barely scratching the surface here, Cats. No doubt there’s a whole heap of other bands artists that you’re just waiting to nominate in the comments thread. So, break out the Rolands and Theremins and go for it Cats, you know you want to!

68 thoughts on “Rabz’ Radio Show February 2023: Electronica”

  2. Dishonourable mention: “Metal Machine Music”, Lou Reed (1975).

    He should have been embarrassed but he always defended it.

    2

  6. Okay, not electronica as it is described itself as “Instrumental versions of the ‘Stones biggest hits”, but it sounds like electronica to me. Especially after my fifth glass …

    The Last Time

    1

  7. Ooh, shiny! I have liked electronica for a long time. One of the first LPs I ever bought was Oxygene by Jean-Michel Jarre. I think I might’ve bought it at a second hand joint, since the album cover is amazing, and it alone would’ve hooked me ‘way back then (especially if it was cheap).

    But the best thing is the music was chosen by Peter Weir for a fine Australian story. Including a young Mel Gibson:

    Gallipoli (1981) – Oxygene

    4

  12. I loved playing the Moog – a pal bought one and it was nights of endless fun.

    Rick Wakefield (Yes) and Tony Banks (Genesis) are my keyboard masters.

    Here’s Wot Gorilla? with Collins on drums.

    1

  13. Speaking of ahead of its time.
    From 1963

    Superb. I can’t imagine how they managed to do those visual effects in 1963. B&W too, we didn’t yet have colour TVs. I mostly watched the episodes from behind my parents’ sofa, it was so scary. Our television had doors on it, fine mahogany. They were serious objects d’art back then.

    Jupes – you got me looking up another big beast of electronica: the theremin. A staple of every bad scifi fillum of the sixties! Which led me to a very interesting little short SF from 1956:

    A Short Vision (British Film Institute archives, 6 mins)

    Features spooky theremin music of course. It’s interesting since it seems to be from the very start of the nuclear angst age, not so developed as Strangelove but you can detect the stirrings of that.

    2

  16. The Last Time

    jupes – that’s the song that landed the Verve in a whole heap of copyright trouble with Bittersweet Symphony.

    I’ll link the film clip again as I just love the song and the Ashcroft’s arrogant impervious swagger.

    4

  19. The definitive Chemical Brothers track and clip – fantastic song

    Serious choreography too!

    1

  20. Another song that utilised some serious technology as well as being an anthem for the ages – sums up how I’ve always felt about the urban rat race.

    Let me go …

    1

  23. Btw the definitive track from Surrender is probably this one:

    The Chemical Brothers – Out Of Control (1999)

    I had to cheat and look it up since I worked out my copy of the CD is in my car, didn’t want to find car keys and go out just to find it.

    The whole album makes miles vanish when turned up to 11.

    2

  25. I mostly watched the episodes from behind my parents’ sofa, it was so scary.

    Oh yeah. For whatever reason, I was always more scared of the Cybermen than the Daleks. Freaked me out as a seven or eight year old.

    4

  27. Pls add leftfield to the list of groups. Rhythm & Stealth is a great album to play at 11 or louder.

    For electronic songs ahead of their time I feel love by Donna Summer is amazing. Fantastic version with everyone on stage at

    2

  34. I was dismissive of Gary Numan back in the day but geez I have been loving “Cars” more and more every year

    3

  42. I think I would have just called it new wave. Although some of these bands I would have just called “pop”.

  45. duncan – I loved that M83 song when it first around a few years back and it was very funny to see it used in that Letterkenny clip. Poor li’l Katie*, she deserved a lot better than Dierks.

    *As played by the exquisite Miss Mylett.

    1

  48. Oops…I missed it.

    Don’t know if it qualifies as electronica, as there are guitars used, but certainly Krautrock:

    Neu ’75

    Not only did they anticipate punk rock, but also ’80s synthesiser pop.

    Considering the doldrums the mid-70s were musically, it’s quite amazing.

  65. Kraftwork use the mighty Kawai K5000 additive synth from the late 90’s onwards. It’s a beast. I should know. I own the workstation variant. To this day there hasn’t been a more powerfull additive synth or softsynth made.

    For those who want to know, it’s based on 64 harmonic “partials”, that are based on third, fifth and eighth harmonics. Each patch has up to 6 partials. Where this beast goes hardcore is that there’s an ADSR envelope for each harmonic. Each A “partial” can morph into a completely different B partial, with the partial having an ADSR envelope on each harmonic. It allows the creation of pads that take minutes to evolve. They can start out dark and swirling, then ater 2 minutes erupt into a metalic scream out of nowhere. Just sutain the same note/s for all that time.

    It also has a rompler side where you can use the inbuilt waveforms in a typical subractractive manor. Like a moog. Additive has its limitations and one of them is poor attack transients, such as the start of a plucked string. So you blend additive and subtactive synth in the one patch.

    It has your usual hi/lo/band pass filter but also a formant filter. which you can fix the bias to an LFO, so it starts to sweep the audio spectrum. It can do your head in trying to program a patch our of it, but worth the effort to master it. Kraftwork were using 2 or 3 on stage at one point.

    It’s still a seriously cool bit of kit.

    1

  66. “Yello”?

    As for “Tangerine Dream, I was into “Phaedra” and “Rubicon” whilst at high school in the mid-70s.

    They actually toured Oz in 1975? and played at the dreadful “Mayne Hall” on the University of Queensland Campus. Gig was in full “Quadrophonic” with the Rhythm “loops” cycling around the four “stacks”. “Theatrical magic” was a bunch of blokes on stage with assorted ANALOGUE toys; tape machines, Moog and Buchla synths, etc. and lit by an assortment of desk lamps.

    They traditionally played in an almost dark auditorium, but, as one has come to expect, the “architect” of Mayne Hall was the appalling Robin Gibson, a sort of VERY “low-rent” Albert Speer; more into “stalinist Gothic” and the bane of my later existence as a sound tech in one of his “purpose-designed cultural centres”.

    Gibson apparently had “creative control” over his Bauhaus Bunker abominations, so, at Mayne Hall, the University was NOT permitted by contract / Caveat, to black-out the windows on the side of the building facing “the Great Court”, which was lit up like Christmas at night.

    The dank stench of the combustion of a HUGE amount of green, leafy material filled the room; not something I had anticipated. I should have, having read of the fun and games that went on when the band did a gig with “Nico” as guest vocalist in Rheims Cathedral a few months earlier.

    Crap venue, but it ran some interesting gigs; Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee; that was an interesting evening. Also, the very first Briz appearance of Split Enz in their “Mental Notes” days, complete with harlequin costumes that could only have been run up by eccentric Kiwi musicians with limited “dress-making” skills.. NOT your average “pub band”.

    1

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.