Wax on Wax #9: Electronic Oddballs
This week we're uncovering some true gems. We're looking at some of the odder, more eccentric electronic albums of the late 70s and early 80s. Some of these were incredibly hard to find until very recently, and we're living in a time where it seems the internet is uncovering lost masterpieces like this on a regular basis. Get ready for alot of Moogs, Juno 60s, Jupiter 8s, and drum loops. Here are four Electronic Oddballs.
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What albums do you want to see me tackle in the future? Got any theme ideas? Leave a comment below and let's discuss it! Enjoy.
The Secret Life of Plants was a book from 1973 that argued for the existence of plant sentience. Its authors claimed that through their various experiments, including hooking house plants up to a polygraph machine, they discovered that plants were capable of telepathy with each other and could feel emotions. Not surprisingly, these aren't even the weirdest claims they make in the book. They also state that plants are members of the same supernatural origin as fairies, gnomes, and other mythical woodland creatures. It's a book that was widely disregarded in it's time for promoting pseudoscience, despite becoming a best seller, and inspiring a documentary distributed by Paramount Pictures with an original soundtrack by Stevie Wonder. The movie (which I'm now desperate to get my hands on) features filmed sequences of the experiments conducted in the book, and apparently even shows the weird phenomena in action. For example, one scene shows a house plant hooked up to a lie detector test reacting negatively to its owners' thoughts of burning it. So as it happens, The Secret Life of Plants was not so secret at all and became a very curious phenomenon in the 1970s. However, one piece of work inspired by this book was very much a secret. Mort Garson's Moog synth symphony Mother Earth's Plantasia.
Mort Garson was a successful session musician, arranger, and composer all throughout the 50s and 60s. He composed and arranged hits for Julie London, Brenda Lee, Nancy Wilson, and other easy-listening pop vocalists of the time. Garson wasn't at the forefront like Quincy Jones or other more popular composers/arrangers of the time. Instead, Garson was one of the many people in the recording studio who provided the magic behind the scenes. He seemed content with his moderate success and had found a role in the music industry that suited his talents well. But once Bob Moog invented the Moog Synthesizer, everything changed for Garson in an instant. Garson's Moog compositions are some of the earliest and most influential pieces recorded on the instrument, including a twelve-part album themed after each of the zodiac signs. Composing for synthesizer seemed to awaken some kind of primal, occult like arousal in Garson. In addition to his zodiac albums, he also released an album called Black Mass under the pseudonym Lucifer in 1971, as well as Ataraxia – The Unexplained (Electronic Musical Impressions Of The Occult). Something about the Moog synthesizer inspired Garson in unexplainable ways, and his career trajectory was freed up in ways most composers in his position were never afforded.
In 1975 during the height of interest in The Secret Life of Plants, Garson composed a whimsical and sublime companion piece to the book called Mother Earth's Plantasia. The album was initially only available alongside the purchase of a house plant from a store in Los Angeles called Mother Earth Plant Boutique, or curiously if you bought a Simmons Mattress from certain Sears outlets. The idea for the album was hatched between Garson, Joel Rapp, and Lynn Rapp, the latter who were the managers of the legendary plant boutique in the 70s. The idea was for Garson to compose music for young plants to listen to as they grew up, and in turn, by having your plants listen to these mini Moog symphonies, it would help them grow. This exceedingly limited distribution model meant that Mother Earth's Plantasia did not have much of a life outside of the burgeoning Los Angeles house plant scene in the 70s. But those who received a copy knew that what they had was nothing short of remarkable. The legend of this album grew alongside his other early work until it was finally officially re-released in 2019.
The music on the record is no less sophisticated or complex than a lot of Garson's earlier more traditional work; it's only the timbres and the imagination behind the composition that has changed. Each song feels like a mini-movie with a different plant in the lead role like "Symphony for a Spider Plant" and "Music To Soothe a Savage Snake Plant," among others. I can't speak for any plants in my vicinity who may have been listening, but I find the music on this collection to be tremendously soothing and thought-provoking. Garson is using his skill as a composer to considerable effect on these songs, and at times I found myself completely transfixed by these recordings. I can't say they were particularly evocative of plants or trees, but they did feel positively alien. If we're taking the album at its word that plants can feel emotions and telepathically communicate, I can't think of a better way to describe such plant beings as anything other than alien. So in a sense, Garson precisely accomplishes what he set out to do alongside the philosophy outlined in The Secret Life of Plants. Mother Earth's Plantasia is a forgotten masterpiece of Moog magic and one that instantly rewards the listener with complex composition and retro-futurist soundscapes. I'd be lying if I told you I haven't been keeping an extra close eye on my snake plant after playing this album all week.
If you were to base whether or not you should listen to McCartney II solely on its reviews when it came out, you would probably go out of your way to never listen to it, and that's precisely what I did up until this week. When this record came out in 1980, the reviews were absolutely horrible, easily the worst of Paul McCartney's career up to that point. In retrospect, it's now regarded as a cult favorite synthwave album with many fans and musicians praising its inventiveness, forward-thinking, and embrace of new sounds. Every song on the album is catchy, listenable, and full of McCartney's charm as only he can deliver. I was actually expecting McCartney to lean even heavier on the drum machine and synth aspects than he does, and in a way, I was slightly let down because I'd been led to believe that this was some sort of ridiculous album like Neil Young's Trans. In reality, McCartney II dips its toes into the New Wave, and electronic waters cautiously, but with great skill. The album is somewhat sloppily recorded and performed, but that only adds to its character. The recordings never sound like anything more than home demos, which is exactly what they are, and that adds to its fascinating fly on the wall nature. I would compare this album positively to McCartney and Ram in that Paul McCartney alone is at his best when he knows he has nothing to prove to anyone. McCartney II has firmly earned a spot alongside his earlier, more celebrated solo work in my book.
Only once before had McCartney released an album that didn't have the support of another collaborator or band, and that was 1970's McCartney. That particular album heralded the end of The Beatles, and actually superseded the release of Let It Be. People at the time expecting a follow up to Abbey Road were sorely disappointed, as McCartney (like McCartney II that followed) was an album of home-recorded demos. The songs on that album were much more traditional and approachable than anything found on McCartney II, and fans would have to wait until Band On The Run in 1973 before they heard anything resembling the ambition McCartney displayed in the recording studio during his time with The Beatles. By 1979 Wings had finally split up, and although they were never more than a carrier for McCartney's solo songwriting, a chapter had closed on his career. McCartney was for the first time in a decade at a crossroads, and reliant on no one but himself. Recording alone in the creative safety of your own house not only seems like the natural next thing to do but necessary for someone who'd already conquered the world of music more times than he could count.
Many musicians whom I respect and love recommended that I give this album a listen. It was jarring to hear so much praise from people I respected while the horrible reviews of the record floated around my head. I really didn't know what to expect. The first song "Coming Up" is an incredibly fun first single in the vein of Talking Heads and David Byrne. It really sounds like McCartney doing his best sound-alike of "Life During Wartime" from Fear of Music, which had not surprisingly been released during the summer recording took place for McCartney II. I read particularly bad things about the album’s 2nd track "Temporary Secretary," and I will partially agree that it's one of the most annoying, but good songs I've ever heard. There is an insane, frantic synth sequence that anchors the track that sounds very discordant with the rest of the song. The line is minor, and Paul's chords and singing are major. It's a small thing, but that, coupled with the childlike, earworm refrain, honestly made me laugh out loud. There are fantastic bluesy numbers like "On The Way," and McCartney's synth explorations are great. "Frozen Jap" (yikes on that title) is one of the better electronic-based tracks that shows Paul really could do anything he set his mind to. I only wish we had an album of Paul in the studio attempting this synth style more seriously because even his brief flirtations with it are fantastic.
I can see how McCartney II must have been jarring upon release in 1980, and it's definitely not the straightforward way to listen to Paul McCartney. But humor me and try this thought experiment for a moment. You're sitting with Paul McCartney, and he says to you: "Hey, I recorded an album all by myself at home, would you like to hear it?" Every person on Earth would say yes to that question. Imagine the gall it would take to then tell him it sucks. The man has blessed our brains with countless hours of bliss, and holding his feet to the fire for what are, basically, excellent sketches of ideas, is ridiculous. McCartney II isn't Sgt. Peppers and it's not trying to be, and that is something that I think early reviews of this album completely miss the mark on. They interpret Paul's laid back approach to this material as some kind of failing like he'd lost his power to create incredible music. They couldn't be more wrong. Paul McCartney is so gifted that an album he recorded completely by himself has more charm and great songwriting on it than most artists could muster on their best day. Give McCartney II a listen and enjoy how ahead of it's time it is. Paul stumbled into lo-fi and synthwave 30 years before it was cool without even trying.
Yellow Magic Orchestra
Yellow Magic Orchestra, the '79 debut album by the band of the same name, is like if you asked an exotica band to compose a soundtrack for Pong or Pac-Man. It's a specific, basically ancient type of video game music being referenced on this album. It's incredibly nostalgic at times and will effortlessly draw your mind to early 80s video gaming and simpler, happier times. The songs are also almost always completely frantic and full of over the top energy, with a few loungy ballads sprinkled in for good measure. There are parts of this album that are very chaotic, especially the introductory track. But don't fall for that sonic juke out. The truth is that Yellow Magic Orchestra makes their electronic elements sound incredibly fluid and natural. Seldom while listening are you actually hit over the head with the fact that you're listening to computer-based music as you get with Kraftwerk. Aside from the introductory track and the mid-album interlude, the computers running the show are rarely center stage. Yellow Magic Orchestra is hyperactive muzak processed through layers of computer synthesizers and clever arrangements. The music is giddy, excitable, meticulous, and infectiously poppy while managing to sound incredibly human in the face of a powerful computer engine driving the album.
The band was made up of Harry Hosono, who mixed and played synth bass on the album, Ryuichi Sakamoto who provided additional synths and piano, and Yukihiro Takanaka, who sang played percussion, and drums. The MVP of the album, however, is Hideki Matsutake, who's unassuming credit of "Microcomposer Programming" should not be overlooked. The Roland MC-8 Microcomposer is a very early, and powerful, sequencing tool that allowed the user to program musical sequences note-by-note. Much of the music heard on this album would not have been possible without this piece of equipment, and it represents a massive leap forward for music technology. Upon first listening to Yellow Magic Orchestra, I had to do a double-take on the year it was released. Typically these kinds of blinding fast synth runs would not have been possible before MIDI and other advancements that came about in the ensuing decade. There were only 200 MC-8 Microcomposers released, and this, in effect, was the secret weapon to Yellow Magic Orchestra. The Roland MC-8 put them in a rare league of a group of composers that had a computer-based piece of equipment that could actually keep up with their compositional complexity. Other similar bands of the time like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream acquired a number of these units around the same time, but none of them used them to quite the same effect as Yellow Magic Orchestra.
This album will certainly draw comparisons to Kraftwerk, but I think there is something here that really stands in stark contrast to their music, and that is the (albeit sparse) use of acoustic instruments. There are occasional flourishes of piano throughout the album that gives the record here a very human touch and makes it very unique amongst electronic music of this era. If Kraftwerk is The Terminator then Yellow Magic Orchestra is Robocop. Not quite full android, and enough humanity underneath its skin that it finds ways to connect with you faster than some of the rougher around the edges Kraftwerk releases of the same era. I wouldn't go so far as to say anything on Yellow Magic Orchestra is better than Kraftwerk. What I would say is that YMO is so different that it becomes hard to compare the two. The two bands are indeed using similar technology to achieve their respective sounds, but that's about where the comparison ends. Yellow Magic Orchestra stumbled upon making electronic music completely independent of their western counterparts, and that alone makes this a very interesting listen. They were using these electronic instruments as compositional tools; they were a means to an end that became a large part of the bands identity. If you're looking to branch out from the cold, dark, brutalism of Kraftwerk, and into more poppy electro music from the same era, look no further. Kraftwerk is the yin to Yellow Magic Orchestra's yang.
Who is William Onyeabor? Who is he indeed? It's incredibly unclear to this day, and now with his passing, I believe this compilation and the other Luka Bop collections of his music will have to do. What we do know is that after (maybe?) starting a hugely successful Nigerian flour mill, and studying film in The USSR, Onyeabor made eight incredible albums from 1978 - 1985. After his final album, he renounced music altogether, refused to speak about it, give interviews or insight, and became a born again Christian. When will someone denounce these damn Christians for brainwashing all of our best musicians? We nearly lost Bob Dylan for good, and Al Green barely plays live anymore. It's a blight on rock n' roll. Who is William Onyeabor? is a compilation of his eight albums, and although this collection fails to answer the question in posits, the mystery is all the juicier because of it. Onyeabor's music was a mix of afrobeat, funk, early disco, punctuated by synths, drum machines, and Onyeabor's backing choir. It's most likely that Onyeabor is playing or programming nearly every instrument, as well as writing, arranging, and singing, but it's impossible to verify that assumption. Who is William Onyeabor? is like if Lee Scratch Perry, Parliament, and David Byrne made an album in a basement together. Somehow Onyeabor manages to hold the reins on so many converging styles, which result in some wildly unique dance music.
Look up pictures of Onyeabor. In his tiny, but especially jam-packed recording studio, you'll see him encased by synths, consoles, tape machines, instruments, microphones, and mountains of gear. He's no doubt the lion at the center of his audio jungle. Listening to his music, you can hear all the different tape loops that are running, many unusual synthesizers, and his absolutely virtuosic playing on the Moog. But the music isn't entirely electronic; there are plenty of acoustic instruments in the mix. But it's the way he's utilizing those instruments is what is 100% electronic. The comparison to Lee Perry is apt because Onyeabor controls his sounds in much the same way a Jamaican dub producer would. He lays down a repeating drum loop, then bass loop, and then begins to layer all of his other instrumentation on top. It's a genius way to come up with no-frills dance music. Like Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra, it's fascinating to hear two different artists on opposite ends of the Earth discovering similar ways to work. The main difference from Perry is that Onyeabor is less interested in manipulating his source music with effects than he is with producing relentless dance tracks.
Onyeabor was an eccentric man. He was often seen dressed in full western cowboy duds, which only adds to his mystique and bizarre intrigue. He never played live music, and he very rarely spoke to anyone about his music. His eccentricities show themselves in the form of track lengths here. Onyeabor rarely has any songs clock in under six minutes, and most are closer to ten. The beats are very repetitive, as are the hooks. But it made for the type of dancehall music that people all over the world were becoming really hip to. This is another album I'd put under "driving music" (I gotta do that blog someday). Driving music is robotic, monotonous, and infectiously groovy. It's about stripping away the complexities and getting lost in the beat, which with this album is easy to do. There are five-minute stretches of just groove before Onyeabor brings it back to another chorus. It's best to leave your analytical brain at the door when listening to music like this, your aim should be to almost disassociate and space out while you listen.
Onyeabor is a rabbit hole that I can't wait to get further down into. He's one of the most reclusive and enigmatic figures of recent music history, and his recent passing makes it all the more urgent to get your hands on his music. The Atomic Bomb! Band specializes in playing Onyeabor's music all over the world and features such luminaries as David Byrne, Damon Albarn, Pat Mahoney of LCD Soundsystem, Pharoah Sanders, and Kele Okereke of Bloc Party. The word is out on Onyeabor, and it has been amongst geniuses like these musicians I just mentioned for nearly two decades. Luka Bop, a label affiliated with David Byrne, has done an incredible job assembling Onyeabor's music on this collection. Luka Bop has gone above and beyond by actually pulling together all eight of his albums across two vinyl box sets, which can be found on their website. I'd like to think that Onyeabor would be ecstatic about the attention his music has received. I can't imagine walking away from music, only to have my body of work celebrated so publicly decades later and not being over the moon about it. It's every musician's dream. So while we may never really know who William Onyeabor is, Who is William Onyeabor? gives us every answer we'll ever need.
Check in next week, we’ll be covering Live Albums.
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