Wendy Carlos - 1974 - Switched-on Bach II

Carlos saw the Moog voice as valid on its own terms, which may be one reason why this album still stands out today, when compared with some of the more flamboyant work that followed from others, such as Isao Tomita -- everything here is musical, with no sound effects to speak of until near the finale (and even that is restrained); and the Moog is working in its own "voice," rather than overtly imitating other, non-electronic instruments.

Wendy Carlos - 1972 - Sonic Seasonings

The same year Carlos finalized the score for A Clockwork Orange, the composer recorded a double album named Sonic Seasonings; it was a complete turn away from the majestic synthesizer soundscapes and classical inspirations that had marked the movie score. Instead, Carlos recorded large amounts of environmental passages to produce a work that cycled through the four seasons. Beginning with bird calls and a thunderstorm to mark "Spring," Carlos phrases the synthesizers only in terms of the nature sounds heard. They rarely interject themselves, and the result is closer to a nature recording with occasional effects than a synthesizer recording with nature sounds. Of course, there was no precedent for "nature," "environmental," or even "new age" music in 1972 -- Sonic Seasonings was basically the genesis for several entire genres of music two decades later. As part of East Side Digital's Carlos CD reissue campaign, Sonic Seasonings was issued as a two-disc set, including the original LP plus a second disc of "natural" recordings, originally begun in 1986 and known as Land of the Midnight Sun.

Dr. Schluss' ratings:
Quality: 5 out of 5
Trip-O-Meter: 5 out of 5
(I should probably mention that this album happens to be one of my all time favorites; thanks Pablo!)

Wendy Carlos - 1972 - A Clockwork Orange

Quality: 5 out of 5

Even before Carlos knew of a film project concerning A Clockwork Orange, the composer had begun work on a composition (Timesteps) based on the book. It's the best piece of music in the score (and one of the most famed in the early history of electronic music), fitting in well next to late-'60s minimalist works by Terry Riley as well as the emerging Tangerine Dream (pre-Phaedra). Carlos also pioneered the effect of synthesized vocals (known as a vocoder), and their eerie nature perfectly complemented scenes from the film.

Much of the rest of A Clockwork Orange is filled with rather cloying synthesizer versions of familiar classical pieces (from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, Rossini's The Thieving Magpie) similar to Carlos' previous Switched-On Bach recordings. Still, it's worthwhile if only for Timesteps. A Clockwork Orange was originally released as a Warner Bros. soundtrack, containing only film cuts (which edited Timesteps down from 13 minutes to only four). Though Carlos released another version with more music, that issue was superseded in 1998 by the release of A Clockwork Orange: Complete Original Score by East Side Digital in the label's comprehensive reissue program.

Wendy Carlos - 1969 - The Well-Tempered Synthesize

Quality: 5 out of 5

Pressed for a sequel to Switched-On Bach, the unexpectedly hot-selling breakthrough album for the synthesizer, Wendy Carlos temporarily shelved plans to move out of the 18th century and instead came up with an album that is, in some ways, even better than its famous predecessor. Her instrument rack had grown larger and more flexible and her technical abilities even sharper in the year since SOB came out -- and the improvements are audible in the thicker harmonies and more sophisticated timbres, all without losing the zest and experimental zeal of the earlier record.

Here, she revisits J.S. Bach and imaginatively translates the music of Monteverdi, Handel, and especially Domenico Scarlatti into the electronic medium. Excerpts from Monteverdi's "Orfeo" and "1610 Vespers" serve as the gateway and closing benediction, respectively, to this collection, and four Scarlatti keyboard sonatas are given dazzling treatments (the sonata in G became well-known in the '90s on a Christmas TV commercial).

There is a mini-suite from Handel's "Water Music" at the center of the album, and the densely orchestrated yet still dancing treatment of Bach's "Brandenburg Concerto No. 4" serves as a signpost as to how far Carlos had come in only a year.

Wendy Carlos - 1968 - Switched-on Bach

This late 1968 release seemed innocent enough at the time; and actually, it was a sincere effort to use a then newly-practical interpretive instrument, the Moog synthesizer, in a decidedly traditional musical manner.

Indeed, at the time, it was simply extending -- in a somewhat more forward-thinking direction -- the kind of attention that had been devoted to Johann Sebastian Bach's music as early as 1782, barely over 30 years after the composer's death, when Mozart wrote a set of string trio arrangements of some of Bach's keyboard works. Heard 40 years on, the approach here seems very tame and formal, but in 1968 it offended some Baroque purists (of whom there were relatively few) and a lot of classical music Luddites (of whom there were a lot more); but it still became the first classical music LP ever to be certified for a Platinum Record Award, by selling to hundreds of thousands of mostly younger listeners who didn't normally buy classical recordings.

Wendy Carlos had come up with an artistically valid and musically legitimate approach to the most tradition-bound of all classical music that made it not only palatable but exciting to a generation of listeners more inclined toward the Beatles than Beethoven (much less Bach). Carlos' use of the Moog's oscillations, squeaks, drones, chirps, and other sounds was highly musical in ways that ordinary listeners could appreciate, itself a first in the use of this instrument, and was characterized by -- for the time -- amazing sensitivity and finely wrought nuances, in timbre, tone, and expressiveness. Carlos saw the Moog voice as valid on its own terms, which may be one reason why this album still stands out today, when compared with some of the more flamboyant work that followed from others, such as Isao Tomita -- everything here is musical, with no sound effects to speak of until near the finale (and even that is restrained); and the Moog is working in its own "voice," rather than overtly imitating other, non-electronic instruments.

On the downside of the ledger in the eyes of many serious listeners, this record and its success were also to "blame" for any number of excesses by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Rick Wakeman (especially The Six Wives of Henry VIII which, to be fair, was his best album), Tomita and others, and helped foster the multi-keyboard musical barrages mounted by ELP and Yes, for starters. [Switched-On Bach has been reissued several times on CD, including an audiophile version and, in 2001, an edition with one bonus track.] -allmusic-