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[cosmolinguist]

It's not Sunday, but I woke up early this morning with one of the songs from this album stuck in my head, so I'm starting the day with my usual routine (vitamin D, laptop, SAD lamp) and the Velvet Underground and Nico. It's good for any morning, not just Sunday mornings.

When Andrew came downstairs he was talking about the Joe Meek CD box set he got for his podcast the other day, that's a CD of Joe Meek and then two more of electronica/weird spacey stuff from that era. So I said let's put one of those on; early electronica and stuff like Messiaen is one of the real overlaps in our musical tastes.

My favorite on the CD we played was a piece that sounds like someone hitting a sheet of metal with a spoon and noises that were no doubt made on an onde martenot or something but sound like someone making Scooby-Doo-ghost noises, "woooh!" It's great.

My day went downhill from there, but the morning was nice.

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

Congrats on a good start.

[worlds_of_smoke]

I'm glad that at least your morning was good. ♥ And I hope that tomorrow is better.

[cosmolinguist]

It was! Thank you.

[raino]

Joe Meek!!! I detect his influence in some finnish pop music of 1960s, and try to imagine how it must have felt encountering those new space-age electronic sounds for the first time. Especially if moving to city from countryside home without running water or electricity... what a contrast!

[raino]

Btw what’s the name if that collection?

[theandrewhickey]

The collection in question is the three-CD version of I Hear A New World that Cherry Red put out last year, which has both versions of the album on, along with stuff by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Varese, Messiaen, Stockhausen, Cage, Xenakis and more. Amazon has the title as I Hear A New World / The Pioneers Of Electronic Music (3CD Boxset)

[raino]

Thank you! Sounds excellent.

[cosmolinguist]

Yes I like to think about that too. :) Because it sounds a little strange and unexpected to me now, even though I also listen to electronica that's decades later than this. At the time it must have been totally new and alien.

[annofowlshire]

I’m with you on the SAD lamp. (Have it going right now.)

[cosmolinguist]

Last winter I was out early every day for work or uni so never got to use it much; I guess the one benefit of being home all the time now is spending a bundh of quality time wiht my SAD lamp!

[annofowlshire]

I tend to go into a near total shut down just after the season changes and then it takes a couple of weeks (or more) for me to figure out why and start getting under the lamp.

Luckily, Mr has recognized this pattern and brought it out a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t shut down yet (although I’m still not quite my usual perky self), hopefully we can avoid it this year.

[cosmolinguist]

Yeah I'm starting early this year too, normally it might be the beginning of November before I get around to the vitamins-and-lamp routine.

[otter]

May your next good morning turn into a good day.

I've gone exploring the Ondes Martenot -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtGAgEZNll0

[cosmolinguist]

I love it so much. I started watching that video and when she said "the ondes Martenot has so many roles in this piece" I was already wondering if it was the Turaangalila symphony, and when she got to "much of the time it's coloring the other instruments, the strings..." and I'm like yep, I bet that's it. :) And it was!

I'm a big fan of Turangalila, I went to see it a few years ago, and wrote about it here, with a different video demonstrating the ondes Martenot.

[theandrewhickey]

BTW I've been relistening to those CDs, and you'll be unsurprised to discover that the piece you liked best was by Messiaen. "Timbres Durees". It's not an onde martenot making those noises, though -- my guess was wrong. It's electronically treated tape loops created by Pierre Henry. I think the sound you thought of as a Scooby Doo ghost was probably the one that Messiaen thought of as a bleating goat -- a lion's roar (the instrument of that name, not a recording of an actual lion) treated with a lot of reverb.