Organic Intelligence XLIV: World-Building-For-One AKA DIY Synth Music for Getting Off-Planet – The Quietus

In this month’s antidote to the algorithm, exclusive to tQ subscribers, Jennifer Lucy Allan guides us through a selection of transportive releases from DIY synth voyagers of the near past
Floating in a netherworld of bedroom synths and home duped cassettes, the artists in this list exist in a nebulous sub genre of my own creation, one defined as much by quality of execution and mood as by style. Largely lo-fi, ephemeral, and hard to pin down in many ways, I recommend taking your own route through this music. It should be a solo mission; a choose-your-own-adventure through an infinity of bedroom synth music, via a universe of defunct blogs like Mutant Sounds; old WordPress catalogues of electronic music; magazines on tape like INKEY$, bootlegs CD-Rs on Creel Pone, important waypoints marked by jaunts into the catalogues of tape labels like Colin Potter’s ICR.  
Much of this music was originally on tape, made in a period around the 1970s and 1980s when it became feasible to have a synth in the spare room and conjure galaxies on which to travel the spaceways after work. It’s a specific type of electronic music I can best describe in the negative – not ambient, but not getting anywhere near dance music either. Sometimes it feels like music for when Tangerine Dream seems too expensive and cerebral. It exists in a Venn Diagram with the Berlin school of electronics that flourished around Klaus Schulze and his ilk, as well as early DIY new age material like the music collected on Light In The Attic’s I Am The Center box set. Crucially, the zone I’m trying to articulate here doesn’t feel like it has a specific psychic function or spiritual dimension like Wilburn Burchette’s Music Of The Godhead or Important’s recent box set of Meredith Young-Sower’s Meditation music, although both of them fit with the theme texturally speaking. 
One easy way to tell where you are is to check whether there is someone’s home address on the label, or a list of synths used are listed on the cassette labels – the closer to the middle of this universe you are, the more likely an equipment list is to appear. For the most part I don’t know much about who these people are; I have no idea about their place in the world or their politics. The only person about whom there is much information is Venezuelan musician Oksana Linde, who has been unearthed by Buh Records more recently. As with so much self-released music pre-internet, I am indebted to those who have spent their time seeking out the good stuff and uploading it to YouTube, without these patient souls, these gentle and sloshy oceans of sound would be forever lost.  
One easy way to tell where you are is to check whether there is someone’s home address on the label, or a list of synths used are listed on the cassette labels – the closer to the middle of this universe you are, the more likely an equipment list is to appear. For the most part I don’t know much about who these people are; I have no idea about their place in the world or their politics. The only person about whom there is much information is Venezuelan musician Oksana Linde, who has been unearthed by Buh Records more recently. As with so much self-released music pre-internet, I am indebted to those who have spent their time seeking out the good stuff and uploading it to YouTube, without these patient souls, these gentle and sloshy oceans of sound would be forever lost.  
Rick Crane – ‘If The Saucers Should Land In The Jungle’
(ICR)
Jennifer Lucy Allan is back with new electronic music from Peru, wobbling organs and off kilter synths from Japan and Arizona, plus the Hardy Guidey Man doing covers of the Rolling Stones in this month’s staycation in The Zone
In our latest antidote to the algorithm, Stephanie Phillips guides us through the South African girl groups who resisted apartheid oppression through the joy of their song
In this month’s antidote to the algorithm Puja Nandi celebrates five pioneering artists, from Asian Dub Foundation (pictured) to Osmani Soundz, who enriched the soundtrack of the pre-millennial UK by mixing drum & bass and electronica with the sounds of the Bengali diaspora
In our latest antidote to the algorithm, Jonathan Wright visits his younger self in 1980s Canada, when goth was on a rise as steep as his backcombed hair
In our fortieth antidote to the algorithm, David McKenna takes us back half a century to Naples, where the influence of a nautical culture and American military radio created a music scene as fertile and chaotic as the city itself
In the final antidote to the algorithm of 2024, Daniel Spicer takes tQ’s subscribers back to the sweet yet sorrowful sounds of festive doo-wop
In our latest antidote to the algorithm, Joe Muggs hymns the potent legacy of broken beat and picks five tunes where you can find it today, from D’Monk to Kokoroko and Jorja Smith (pictured below)
It’s back nearly a quarter century in this month’s antidote to the algorithm as Luke Turner revisits the heady Monday nights at Trash, where the arch and exotic rhythms and deadpan chat of electroclash soundtracked cheap booze and rent of early 21st century London
In this month’s antidote to the algorithm, Mat Colegate goes deep into the bloody realm of Italian schlock scores – Goblin! Libra! Daniele Pattuchi! The soundtrack to that film about PCP maddened animals attacking Frankfurt!
In the latest antidote to the algorithm that is the Organic Intelligence newsletter, Miranda Remington guides you through the hectic sounds of Tokyo’s wildly diverse and noisy underground
In this month’s antidote to the algorithm, exclusive to tQ subscribers, Jennifer Lucy Allan guides us through a selection of transportive releases from DIY synth voyagers of the near past
Here’s a playlist of everything we’ve covered at The Quietus this month, compiled for the listening pleasure of tQ’s subscribers
At the forefront of an underground British guitar scene that’s thriving against all odds, Ex Agent have delivered an idiosyncratic, ever-shifting, and excellent new EP exclusively to tQ subscribers
In our latest antidote to the algorithm, Stephanie Phillips guides us through the South African girl groups who resisted apartheid oppression through the joy of their song
In this month’s pod Luke Turner and John Doran celebrate two of the finest records of the c21st thus far
In April’s essay, Jonn Elledge explains why everything you thought you knew about the popular self-sufficiency sitcom, first broadcast 50 years ago this week, is wrong.
Here’s everything we’ve covered at The Quietus this month, compiled for the listening pleasure of tQ’s subscribers
Serial collaborator and Propellor Orchestra leader Jack McNeill’s long-awaited debut solo album is released today exclusively for tQ subscribers, a record that draws deep on his surroundings in Cumbria, but subverts our expectations of the clarinet as an instrument that hymns the pastoral
In this month’s essay, Jeanette Leech seeks to reclaim the legacy of Elastica’s vastly underrated second album from prurient mutterings about drug addiction and the collapse of Britpop, celebrating Mark E. Smith collaborations and the birth of M.I.A.
In this month’s antidote to the algorithm Puja Nandi celebrates five pioneering artists, from Asian Dub Foundation (pictured) to Osmani Soundz, who enriched the soundtrack of the pre-millennial UK by mixing drum & bass and electronica with the sounds of the Bengali diaspora
This month John and Luke head all the way back to 1904 to experience the thrills, chills and outright horrors of a modern compendium of ghoulish tales
Exploring the subtle microcosms in rock music then bending them to his will, Ryan Walker interviews Mike Vest about Brain Pills, his new band with Nick Raybould and Adam Stone whose debut EP is released exclusively to tQ subscribers today – a gathering of tales, tunes and feedback
Start each weekend with our free email newsletter.
You have successfully joined our subscriber list.
If you’ve read something you love on our site today, please consider becoming a tQ subscriber – our journalism is mostly funded this way. We’ve got some bonus perks waiting for you too.
Sign up for a weekly delve into the tQ archives.
You have successfully joined our subscriber list.
Sign up for our free Friday email newsletter.
You have successfully joined our subscriber list.

source