News & Updates — space age

There are so many interesting artists born on July 15 that it is impossible in my schedule to write pieces about them. So here are some shorties, along with a video or two for each. --Francis Bebey / July 15, 1929 - May 28, 2001 This unique Cameroonian composer and his interesting DIY synth-pop crossed with traditional music has been justly making new fans in recent years. --James Jacson / July 15, 1932 - Aug 10, 1997 Happy cosmic birthday to James Jacson, one of my favorite characters from Sun Ra's Arkestra. Jacson is the one who was instructed to...

Happy birthday to the Greek-French composer Iannis Xenakis, he of a million ideas. From chamber ensemble to reeds to percussion to electronics, game theory, computers, orchestral and architectural, he was, in my opinion, one of the most exciting and relevant on the so-called 20th Century composers. He took up arms against the British during the Greek civil war and had half his face blown off, losing an eye. After that he was exiled to France, as he was sentenced to death in Greece for his Communist actions. He sought to utilize his expertise in mathematics and architecture in his music...

The Canadian electronic music pioneer and instrument-builder/inventor Bruce Haack has a birthday today. An inspired creative person, the man participated in a wide array of projects. Early on he played jazz & Ukrainian folk music, participated in authentic pow-wows, hosted a radio show and got into tape & electro-acoustic music in the '50s. He also worked as a pop songwriter for the Dot & Coral labels, as well as composed for dance & theater. He built several musical toys including synths, samplers, a vocoder and music-playing robots that could perform in concert. He made several high-concept children's records, recorded electronic...

Louis Barron together with his wife Bebe were early pioneers of American electronic music and created the film score for MGM's awesome 1956 Sc-Fi flick Forbidden Planet. The "electronic tonalities" of the soundtrack made it the world's first entirely electronic film score. Louis Barron was an electrician who custom-built his own circuits which the couple overloaded. They generated the sounds using a ring modulator, and they further fucked with the sounds by manipulating the tape and adding reverb, etc. They improvised along the way, trying to craft the sounds along to the actions of the characters as best they could....