Playing the best of all genres of electronic music means exploring new labels. Just last week, for example, we heard some wonderful stuff from Ember Music.
Playing the best of all genres of electronic music also means playing recordings of live performances and in the last few months we’ve heard concerts from Zion Train, Matta and Speak Onion.
Playing the best of all genres of electronic music also means exploring the history of electronic music, and the history of electronic music is remarkably dense when you consider just how brief that history is.
Quick sidebar: my net friend Jeremy Meyers turned me on to an excellent article by NPR‘s Michaelangelo Matos about how the major labels sold ‘electronica’ to America. It covers a lot of the same ground I’ve been exploring in the last few week’s on the show as well as some excellent reportage of big beat acts like The Prodigy and The Chemical Brothers.
My own history with electronic music probably began with Kraftwerk‘s Autobahn album back in 1974, but my relationship with electronic music really blossomed in the early 1990s with compilation albums like Waveform Records‘ AD series and Caroline and Astralwerks‘ Excursions in Ambience compilation albums and Beyond Records Ambient Dub compilation albums. Those albums really transformed what ambient and dub and electronic music could be and introduced me to a lot of other musicians and labels.
The last few months I’ve been exploring that period in the history of electronic music on solipsistic NATION and I’ve had the pleasure of talking with Forest from Waveform Records and Brian Long, who curated the Excursions in Ambience compilation series.
On today’s show we’re going to continue that exploration by talking with Kim Cascone about his From Here to Tranquility compilation album series from Silent Records and playing select tracks from those albums.
The From Here to Tranquility albums were particularly special to me because as much as I loved the AD and the Excursions albums, I didn’t think they were very ambient. The Tranquility albums, on the other hand, may have had a few chillroom rave type of tracks, but the thrust of the series was primarily ambient, and the ambient music that the Tranquility albums seemed to favor had a weird, science fiction vibe to it, which was a lot different from the psychedelic earthiness of Brian Eno‘s On Land album that I was used to. Nevertheless, the Tranquility albums challenged and shattered my preconceptions of what ambient music could be.
Each Tranquility album was special and each album further expanded the horizons of ambient music.
The From Here to Tranquility compilation albums are just one phase in Silent Records own history, which in turn is just a brief chapter in Kim’s life. Even so, those albums are magical and timeless and I’m really excited to share them with you, and if you’ve already heard them before, to re-introduce you to those albums.
We’ll have Kim back in a few months to dig more into the history of Silent Records.
Oh, and before I go, if you liked Tylervision‘s “The Last Human”, then you love his track ” Purdy Deyenol.”
See you next week!
- Makyo “Devabandha”
- Tylervision “The Last Human”
- Interview with Kim Cascone, founder of Silent Records
- Pelican Daughters “Aurascape”
- Michel Redolfi “Immersion Totale”
- Interview with Kim Cascone, founder of Silent Records
- Dialux Rouge “Zircon”
- Air “Wind”
- Robert Rich “Liquid Air”
- Interview with Kim Cascone, founder of Silent Records
- Psychic TV “Coumpletion 4a”