The MARK’S VINTAGE VINYL page features something from Mark’s collection of recordings from over the years. Most of it is on vinyl – hence the name – though there will be a few entries from his CDs (remember those?).
Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestrations, by Synergy
- First studio album by Synergy – pioneering electronic music artist Larry Fast – released in 1975.
- I’ve referenced my love of electronic music in several earlier posts. The early days of synthesizer music was nothing like the computer generated sound of the genre today. My first exposure to it goes to music by Yes and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, where synthesizers complemented classic rock music within a band setting. I then learned of all-electronic music when I discovered Switched On Bach by Walter Carlos, who performed famous Bach pieces on his synthesizer. This led me to Synergy, the electronic music project by Larry Fast.
- The fullness and clean sound that Electronic Realizations has is amazing, especially since the technology at the time required analog recording, forced onto vinyl. I almost always listened to it with headphones – it allowed me to get completely enveloped into the sound, plus it prevented me from getting the strange looks from anyone nearby that didn’t like electronic music. I guess I wanted to hide my inner music-nerd!
- Given that there was absolutely no way that the album would get any play on the radio, it still managed to reach #66 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and it remained on the chart for 18 weeks. As part of his Synergy project, Fast went on the release eight more albums in the 70s and 80s. I own 5 of his albums on vinyl, and I have access to the others via streaming.
- Fast also gained fame in his contributions to albums and concerts by Peter Gabriel from the mid 70s to the mid 80s. He also contributed synthesizer work for other artists, and his music has been used in films and video games.
- Here is Larry Fast describing the making of the album. Super interesting if you want to learn about the earliest days of electronic music. Everything was done one note at a time – the technology at the time did not allow for two or more notes to be played simultaneously. There are small clips of music from the album in this. If you’d like to hear more, you can play the entire album on YouTube.