Yes, it's 'Jazz'.....impressed?...nah,me niether.
But it's more than that, It's Jazz with an Early Electronics flavor......Now you're 'Hip',all the way from the original hipster to the modern hipster all in one package with free beard grooming kit.
Gil made the "Andromeda Strain" Soundtrack, which featured rather more Electronics as played by a bunch of chimps at Twycross Zoo.The same Zoo which had a chimp who could gob a ball of rancid saliva at a chump,this chump,doing monkey impressions over 50 metres away,effortlessy. A bit like a Jazz Trumpeter.
It has been mentioned on the wonderful interweb that yours truly has no idea how difficult it is to make free-form electronic soundscapes,especially in the early 70's. Well, I have a lot of idea how difficult it is to make electronic sounscapes with fuck all money,in fact I'd say it would be nigh-on impossible.An accusation made by someone who makes electronic soundscapes about someone who doesn't because everyone does nowadays is rather irrelevant anyhow. Yes, a bunch of chimps with a VCS3 could make a wonderful noise,but, like me, they have bugger-all money to buy one,even the budget Behringer version.
Here we find our Gil making glorious Free Jazz improv with ...yes,Electronics, to show how hard it is to make improvised Jazz music...and the key word here is 'Music'. Basically any discerning pond dweller can make a complete racket,but at the expense of the music.....that's the hard bit. Make all the soundscapes and funny noises you want, but makin' melodies ain't easy, buying a synthesizer and switching it on, is.
This album is great, and as a bonus you can impress everyone as to how intellectual you are at the same time.Jazz is, Jazz was,chacachacaaaaah!
Tracklist:
1.Blue Quasar 15:15
2.Elgin Marble 4:15
3.Man With The Flashlight 11:40
4.Jog Falls Spinning Song 6:15
One the very few records whose sleeve cost 200% of the gross profit,and the hexagonal ,unique in itself,record inside destroyed your turntable if you forgot to switch it to manual......how cool's that?
Jazzer and electronics dabbler Gil Mellé,was commisioned to make a weird electronic soundtrack for one of the most painstakingly boring science fiction movies this side of Tarkovsky's 'Solaris',which also had a electronic soundtrack too ,did it not, by Eduard Artimiev?
A tiresome science-fiction techno-thriller documenting the efforts of a team of scientists investigating the mysterious outbreak of a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism/Virus.Hmmm,where have I heard that before?These ambient style horror electronics are really the work of the Synth rather than the 'artist'. Give a chimp a go on a EMS synth and something similar will emerge....you don't even need an infinite number of Chimps either....maybe one or two,or just one aging Jazzer looking to move into soundtrack work.
This was the first all-electronic soundtracks ever released,but not the first to be commisioned.No-one thought anyone would want to listen to this stuff in their homes until the seventies.It's sonically challenging, ominous and discordant. Like a haunting electro-acid patchwork of analog synthesizer experiments...but,experiments that could be done by the infinite chimp that resides in all of us.For that reason alone this should be praised;and then there's the packaging,and the stylus mashing record shape.Which makes this all quite perfect.It's a perfect soundtrack for a film about containing an outbreak of an extra-terestrial virus,and perversly turns out to be the perfect soundtrack for these times...there's a virus outbreak apparently that's slaying 0.004% of the human population....run for your lives,but wear a mask, disinfect your hands,and listen to the soundtrack of "The Andromeda Strain" while you're running,not dying.
Tracklist:
1.Wildfire 2:41
2.Hex 3:57
3.Andromeda 2:33
4.Desert Trip 4:14
5.The Piedmont Elegy 2:22
6.Op 2:43
7.Xenogenesis 2:40
8.Strobe Crystal Green 4:45
