Matthew Bate - What the Future Sounded Like (2006)

Kratak dokumentarac o začecima elektroničke muzike u Engleskoj, ponajprije o Electronic Music Studios.

What The Future Sounded Like.

Post-war Britain rebuilt itself on a wave of scientific and industrial breakthroughs that culminated in the cultural revolution of the 1960’s. It was a period of sweeping change and experimentation where art and culture participated in and reflected the wider social changes. In this atmosphere was born the Electronic Music Studios (EMS), a radical group of avant-garde electronic musicians who utilized technology and experimentation to compose a futuristic electronic sound-scape for the New Britain.
Comprising of pioneering electronic musicians Peter Zinovieff and Tristram Cary (famed for his work on the Dr Who series) and genius engineer David Cockerell, EMS’s studio was one of the most advanced computer-music facilities in the world. EMS’s great legacy is the VCS3, Britain’s first synthesizer and rival of the American Moog. The VCS3 changed the sounds of some of the most popular artists of this period including Brian Eno, Hawkwind and Pink Floyd. Almost thirty years on the VCS3 is still used by modern electronic artists like The Emperor Machine.
What The Future Sounded Like colours in a lost chapter in music history, uncovering a group of composers and innovators who harnessed technology and new ideas to re-imagine the boundaries of music and sound. Features music from Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, Roxy Music and The Emperor Machine.

     

   

   

    


While Moog is a household name, the UK’s Electronic Music Studio is a kind of "forgotten chapter" of electronic music history, as the documentary above suggests. EMS is significant not just for technological innovation, but musical experimentation — not to mention their cheeky British sense of humor and topless nude women crawling toward synths in their ads. (That and the best synth slogan of all time, "Every Nun Needs a Synthi.") For whatever reason, there’s likewise very little online documentation regarding the late Tristram Cary — even though the likes of Pink Floyd, the Moody Blues, and King Crimson made use of the VCS3 synth he co-designed.
Above is a brief trailer for the provocatively-titled documentary "What the Future Sounded Like." (As seen on Music Thing and recommended to us by Christian Haines, lecturer at the Elder Conservatorium of Music in Adeleide.) Tristram and others are featured in this film; I haven’t seen the 27-minute documentary yet but definitely will be picking up a copy whenever I can (it doesn’t appear to be availale yet).
The documentary has a page on MySpace, which has more background on EMS for us Yankees who know so little about it. If you’re really lucky and at SONAR in Barcelona in June, you can catch a live screening. And EMS itself lives on. - createdigitalmusic.com/