Monday 20 July 2020

Zoltán Jeney ‎– "Om" (Hungaroton ‎– SLPX 12708) 1986


John Coltrane's "Om", or anti-Om, as made on a Sinclair ZX Spectrum,by some cat called Zoltan!?....so that's either Zoltan, Cat of Dracula, or John Zoltrane?
Zoltrane, uses a french...yes French!!!?...synth called a 'Rsf Kobol',which if made to French manufacturing standards in 1986 would break down or fall apart as soon as you glanced in its general direction. I've never seen another artist use one of these who wasn't French....they like to buy French product do the French, no matter how crap it is. Then we have it hooked up to a computer designed by the idiot who produced the Sinclar C5 electric "I'm A Twat" sign on wheels.
I'm surprised the ZX Spectrum could handle the minimal repetetive sequence that plays continuously for fifty minutes.It must have used at least one whole kilobyte of the massive 128 Kilobyte memory that comfortably enabled kids to play Donkey Kong for hundreds of brain numbing hours.It obviously numbed the Brain of 'Sir' Clive Sinclair.....yes, this dick was knighted!?.....as he ruined his company with that ridculous plastic death chariot that he thought would revolutionise road transport.
The Commodore C64 was usually the home computer to go for concerning Electronic Mooozik production.Why' I've even used it myself,as my first sampler,and it had a built in synth called the 'SID Chip', which made unique lo-fi squelchy synth sounds. The ZX had nothing like that, so I'm at a loss as to why Zoltrane opted for this lo-tech device. Probably an importing beyond the Iron Cutain problem.Hungary only got Stockhausen LP's and ZX Spectrum's smuggled into it's musicians grasps.
They are likely all absolute whizzes at 'Donkey Kong' I wager.
Then came the Atari ST, with MIDI!?...just in time for the Acid House debacle.
Thanks to the Chernobyl disater,1986 was a good year for high background radiation levels,which made all Geiger Counters sing like a Nightingale on Crystal Meth. So ,maybe, that noise was Zoltrane's inspiration for this nursery rhyme from the reactor core of communist computer music.
I guess this could be referred to as a sequenced hypnotic drone,which it is,but I won't repeat it again; and it's certainly an easy way to fill up two sides of a vinyl LP.Kinda like an Avant-Garde Rock'n'Roll swindle,but,it being from a communist country,no money will have exchanged hands in the process.What is missing, is a robot chanting "Oooooommmmmmmmmmmmmm".....now that would have said something worthwhile?At least about the human tendancy to follow hive minded religions robotically.


Tracklist:

A-Om 1 (26:20)
B-Om 2 (26:12)


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Useful as a KGB torture tool, confessions made easily after 5 minutes. £45 on Discogs with 182 wanting it!

Cheers
Mike

Jonny Zchivago said...

I was talking after three minutes fifty.
Forty five quid is approx one pound for every minute of your life you'll never get back.That's Discogs for ya.

rev.b said...

Zoltán Jeney, there's a name I haven't heard to a long while. Sounds torturous. Sign me up. At least I won't have to pay some profiteer for the...pleasure?

Ricardo said...

Many thanks for this electronic Hungarian music! More titles, please! By the way, I used to make music with a Spectrum 128 (around 1988), even a more primitive machine than a ZX, I think. Thanks again! Ricardo

parmalee said...

I've got loads of SRAM and DRAM chips a lot smaller than 128k. I don't even remember all the plans I had for them (probably mostly drum machine and sequencer related though). I might just go all Conlon Nancarrow and compose a gazillion studies for long obsolete memory chips from the 80's--and none of em will sound a bit like Art Tatum.