The Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music [Collector’s Choice]

RELEASE
1975
LABEL
Collectors' Choice Music
GENRES
Electronica, Experimental Electronic, Modern Composition, Experimental, Noise, Process-Generated

Album Review

It's strange in the 21st century to think of Beaver & Krause's debut album as being the Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music -- an instructional recording on how the then-new Moog synthesizer could be used. Originally issued as a double album, it contained 68 short tracks over four sides; not bad considering the entire thing is only 48-minutes long. To hear these pieces in the current age is a bit of a wonder. The reason being of course, that it is the sound of the Moog itself without accompaniment or as an atmospheric instrument used to enhance other instruments in songs. Instead, these two pioneers demonstrated each module on the synthesizer, and selected from the four outputs of the Moog's oscillators (which in those days were unstable in terms of pitch and the machine had to be retuned): sine, triangular, continuously randomly variable, and sawtooth. They were used individually and in concert, and the sounds themselves were used as examples of what was possible. In 2006 Guide was reissued on CD by Collector's Choice CD with liner notes by Richie Unterberger; this is an exercise in ambience run amok, or turned 180-degrees. While there was no such thing as "ambient" music at the time, these pieces fold into something together, not as a random boatload of isolated sounds, but as a work, something to be engaged and considered not as historical artifact, but as music itself -- it's hard to believe that no one has used "Sequential Voltage Sources, Composition" in a dance record yet -- though many white labels sound as if they have. This piece has rhythm and crunchy high-pitched beats that seem as random as the tone generations and modes, which function as breakbeats do. Ultimately, this disc has to be heard to really be believed. It's a wonder of imagination, patience and execution.
Thom Jurek, Rovi

Track Listing

  1. Peace Three
  2. Sine Waveform: Slow Motion Audible Example
  3. Sine Waveform: Composition
  4. Sine Waveform: Harmonic Synthesis
  5. Sine Waveform: Non-Harmonic Synthesis
  6. Sawtooth Waveform: Slow Motion
  7. Sawtooth Waveform: Composition
  8. Rectangular Waveforms:Slow Motion Audible
  9. Rectangular Waveforms:Slow Motion Audible
  10. Triangular Waveform
  11. Triangular Waveform: Composition
  12. White Sound Composition
  13. Control Generators
  14. Sequential Voltage Sources
  15. Frequency Modulation
  16. Quarter Tone
  17. Ditone
  18. Portamento
  19. Periodic: Vibrato
  20. Periodic: Sine
  21. Periodic: Sawtooth
  22. Periodic: Rectangler
  23. Periodic: Triangular
  24. Periodic: Swept
  25. Periodic: 3 Square Waves
  26. Periodic: 3 Triangular
  27. Periodic: 4 Different Waveforms
  28. White Sound
  29. Transient: Up an Octive
  30. Transient: Up a 3rd
  31. Transient: Down an Octive
  32. Transient: Down a 3rd
  33. Ampiltude Mod
  34. Ribbon Controller
  35. Periodic: Tremelo
  36. Periodic: Sine
  37. Periodic: Sawtooth
  38. Periodic: Rectangular
  39. Periodic: Triangular
  40. Periodics Combined: 4 Square
  41. Periodics Combined: 3 Triangular
  42. Periodics Combined: 4 Different (s), (N), (L2), (V)
  43. White Sound
  44. Transient: Slow
  45. Transient: Rising Pitch
  46. Transient: Jagged Lines
  47. Ring Modulation
  48. Sine Waves: Tune in Parallel
  49. Sine Waves: Tuned in Opposite Direction
  50. Sine Waves: Sawtooth
  51. Sine Waves: L2
  52. Filtering White Sound
  53. White Sound - Broad
  54. White Sound - Sharp
  55. Low-Frenquency Sawtooth-Tuning Through Harmonics
  56. Composition-Tuning Through Harmonics
  57. Swept With Ribbon Controller
  58. Periodic: Sine-Timbre Vibrato Effects
  59. Periodic: Sine-Variable Rate & Depth
  60. Periodic: Sawtooth
  61. Periodic: Rectangular
  62. Transient 1
  63. Transient 2
  64. Transient 3
  65. Transient 4
  66. Tape Delay: Single Repeat
  67. Tape Delay: Multiple Repeat
  68. Peace Three (Recap)