Borrowing the title of one of his very recent albums, one attempts to convey on this blog, too the sad news of David Darling's passing.
The Grammy Award-winning artist, who was fondly called "the maverick cellist", has passed away on 8 January.
His albums transcended any and all rigid classification boundaries between genres and styles - and his collaborations with other illustrious musicians are simply too numerous to even enumerate here.
From cello performances to composing, from highly praised and unconventional teaching methods to sublime musical collaborations, David Darling has extensively proven that boundaries are artificial.
He easily moved from collaborations with illustrious jazz musicians like Ralph Towner and Terje Rypdal on the legendary ECM label to spiritual and philosophical works like The Tao Of Cello, from film soundtracks for trailblazing directors like Jean-Luc Godard and Wim Wenders to world music projects like Mudanin Kata (The Way Home).
His solo albums and collaborations are all the products of a kind and reflective soul - it simply was a perfect meeting between his personality and the phenomenally expressive capabilities of the cello.
He was heavily involved in music projects for children, with wide recognition from music educators and related organisations, too.
Instead of referring to and being confined by myriad artificial considerations on instrumental arrangements, genres, styles, and technology vs. traditional recording, David Darling has consistently embraced everything from the most ancient traditions to the newest technological achievements.
His music was released on labels like the legendary Hearts Of Space, as he imagined and conveyed sound worlds with instrumentations that ranged from some of the most ancient ethnic instruments to contemporary electronics.
Rest in peace... and amongst celestial harmonies that only he could hear and channel to us in his music.
Alan R. Pearlman, founder of, and creative genius behind, ARP Instruments has died on 6 January, aged 93.
Even as a student, after the 2nd World War he was dreaming of electronic instruments that could be real musical instruments for musicians, instead of laboratory curiosities. When he founded ARP Instruments, he started to put his dream into practice - and the list of his patents is impressive to this day.
When Moog and ARP Instruments were rival companies, ARP being the second most known synthesizer brand, even Bob Moog recognised the technical merits of ARP 2500. First of all, unlike Moog synths of the day, the ARP had famously stable oscillators - so it didn't need the notorious frequent re-tunings due to oscillators drifting over time.
Unlike the modular Moog, this ARP legend has employed a matrix system and special pins to achieve the patching, instead of a mass of cables.
Illustrious names used the ARP 2500 and its more affordable successor, the ARP 2600: Pete Townshend, Jean-Michel Jarre, Jimmy Page, David Bowie, Herbie Hancock, Jerry Golsdsmith, Jeff Wayne... and many uses of the legendary synths are as famous as some of these artists.
In Star Wars, the R2-D2 robot's whistles and bleeps were made via ARP 2600, and a few years earlier, the musical communication with the UFO that landed in Close Encounters of the Third Kind was made on an ARP 2500...
Jean-Michel Jarre to this day possesses and uses an ARP 2500, and he employed it on the recent live revival of his classic Oxygene album, too.
As a masterstroke, ARP has also released a charming and eminently portable synth, too - the ARP Odyssey. It was a duophonic, compact and quite affordable powerhouse of a synth has become another sought-after legendary instrument, featured on countless records. Everybody from Klaus Schulze to Chick Corea to ABBA to Billy Currie has used this synths that was ultimately made in three versions.
What can illustrate better the longevity of A. R. Pearlman's ideas and innovations than the fact that mighty Korg in 2015 has resurrected the ARP Odyssey as something that some abbreviate fondly as the KARP Odyssey...
To quote Richard Boulanger, "even at 90 and beyond, Alan R Pearlman was still dreaming of new circuits, modules, and controllers! Undeniably, Alan R Pearlman was an engineering genius. Everyone recognizes that his synthesizers were beyond brilliant. But I truly believe that the heart and soul in his machines drew their spirit and life from Alan’s musical virtuosity on the piano, his truly deep musical knowledge, his passion and enthusiasm for “all” music, and his nurturing and generous support for young composers and performers, regardless of whether they were into classical, avantgarde, film, fusion, rock or pop."
Korg ARP Odyssey
It is extremely rare to have a brilliant engineer and innovator with deep musical sensitivity and understanding of what a musician needs. On top of that, Alan R. Pearlman had superlative feel for ergonomic design, for aesthetic considerations - therefore his creations were true gems of electronic instruments, in the fullest sense of that word.
It is not overstating his and his creations' significance if one says that his instruments had life-changing impact on many, on both technical minds and on great musicians who embraced technology.
Rest in peace, relentless innovator and dreamer...
When Vangelis in the 1970s' European musical landscape has started to release electronic music albums that were not sounding at all as many have expected electronic music to sound like, there was no other synthesizer artist who achieved that level of fusion between vastly different ancient musical traditions and electronics.
At that time, he was a composer of synthesizer music of a rather special kind, with emotive and evocative imaginings that were blending anything and everything from elements characteristic of African tribal music (La Fete Sauvage) to Celtic ballads (see Irlande on Opera Sauvage) to Far-Eastern music (see the LP China) to "pure" ambient sonic paintings well before Brian Eno was heralded as the creator of ambient music (see Creation Du Monde on Apocalypse Des Animaux).
While Vangelis was the most notable exception to what dominated the European electronic music scene of the time (Berlin School, French School, Synth Britannia, etc.), something happened on the other side of the Atlantic, too a decade later.
It demonstrated that even when it was not emerging from close-by ancient European and Eastern musical roots, electronic music of similar DNA could be born in the most unexpected ways. It did not emerge from the academic environments of major cities like New York, nor from some intellectual West Coast movement's creative laboratory. Minimalism in the 1980's was a success already, often relying on electronics, too, Detroit techno was making strides, space ambient was very much active (Michael Stearns's seminal works, for example), Wendy Carlos long before rocked the world with classical reworkings... then something very different turned up...
Richard Burmer was born in 1955 in the town of Owosso, Michigan. He studied music composition in college - but established himself as a thoroughly imaginative sound designer for none other that the legendary E-mu Systems. The mere mentioning of the name Emulator is perhaps highly sufficient to summarize what era-defining instruments he created sound banks for.
However, in the 1980's he did not stop at the level of technical creativity - his first album Mosaic, beyond its electronic prowess, had tracks that already heralded what was about to come.
Delicate and atmospheric compositions like Under Shaded Wateror the superbly sensitive electronic reworking of the Medieval music piece Lamento di Tristano already in 1984 told us that Richard Burmer is not embarking on an ordinary electronic music voyage.
His side-stepping of existing US-based electronic music of the time was actually achieved via superlative artistic sensitivity and a seemingly effortless blending of music from distant European centuries (Medieval and Renaissance era) and state-of-the-art electronics.
One could very much dare say that in the same way that Vangelis for a long time represented a unique voice in the electronic music landscape, Richard Burmer created a unique sound in the American synthesizer music vista.
His approach was and still remains rare: synthesizers were not seen as merely trailblazing sound generators, nor as instruments that would end up defining what music one was "supposed to" create with them... Hence we cannot find any forays into trendy electronica in Burmer's discography...
Richard Burmer viewed synthesizers as instruments that can connect and blend musical traditions from vastly different historical periods and geographical areas.
His album On The Third Extremeis a spellbinding work for those who like Eastern and Far-Eastern music flavors, Renaissance (specifically) and Early Music in general, all seamlessly combined in evocative and passionate soundscapes.
The track The Forgotten Season could be at home in any Early Music show that airs songs from the troubadours of the early Renaissance period. Celebration In The Four Towers brings us moods and sonic visions that would find themselves at home in a grandiose scene of some Medieval-themed historic or fantasy movie. Magellan brings us Eastern influences and driving ethnic percussions, fused with that emotive sound world that Burmer could produce with such immediate impact.
Turning To You is an example where ambiental, later labelled as "new age", soundscapes can be abstract, atmospheric and emotionally evocative at the same time.
We have a technically extremely competent engineer-composer-performer, who did not get lost in the enticing possibilities of the instruments, and did not end up putting the instrument in front of the artistic intent.
Instead, Richard Burmer had started from musical worlds that had central aesthetics that were diametrically opposite to the, then still novel and path-finding, electronic music - and leveraged the possibilities of the new instruments to make boundless and poignant musical journeys across unexpected expanses of space and time.
If his electronic music made us dance, it did that in the style of ancient music of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. If his music made us dream, it did that with nostalgic, often uniquely elegiac, evocations of idyllic landscapes - hence compilations like Shining By The River are very aptly titled.
Richard Burmer passed away in 2006, aged only 50 - a memorial page was established on his official website, and the 12th anniversary of his passing is on 9 September.
Hot summer months can make us think of the Electronica festivals springing up all over the Northern hemisphere - but they can remind us of his wonderful sonic journeys, too, which often evoke idyllic summer vistas.
Edgar Froese, the founder of the electronic legend, well, almost institution that was and is Tangerine Dream, passed away three years ago, on 20 Jan 2015.
As a prominent and eminent figure of what became known as the Berlin School, he has navigated through almost five decades of tumultuous musical, technological and social changes with his band.
As a figure of speech, we can probably say countless studio and live albums, a long list of illustrious soundtracks have been created, plus of course numerous solo albums.
A quintessential characteristic of his philosophy and that of the music of Tangerine Dream has been the fact that technology never took over and never became the ultimate goal. It always served a purpose as a mere creative tool, as revolutionary as it was in Edgar's and his band mates' hands.
Edgar would be very happy to see the band today and his legacy - and he may well be extremely happy at, as he put it, another cosmic address he moved on to in January 2015.
The 50th anniversary album, Quantum Gate, which was also reviewed here has been a great success.
The number of not just electronic but rock and other music magazines that have almost re-discovered Tangerine Dream was a joy to see.
The return to improvised live performances and the release of these lengthy pieces are a superb renaissance for the fans, who last heard such concert pieces several decades ago.
The current members of TD, Thorsten Quaeschning, Ulrich Schnauss and Hoshiko Yamane, have taken Edgar's overall musical and creative philosophy successfully into Edgar's posthumous period.
There is something remarkable happening, and Edgar would be, we can be sure, all too happy to witness this: unlike bands like Yes, who without a defining figure joining them live have really lost their way and leading to rather mechanical live album releases, Tangerine Dream is continuing with vast bursts of new creativity.
While the sound stayed instantly recognisable, it is a TD of the 21st century and with state-of-the-art, but musically functional as ever, technology.
On a personal note, I first came into contact with Edgar and TD's music as a teenager, beyond the Iron Curtain. I like to always point out for people who could access any music at any moment in any circumstances, that getting my hands on such music was a lengthy but rewarding adventure... and what escapism it was!
However, I would never have thought that more than three decades later I shall be treated to fresh and invigoratingly scintillating Tangerine Dream albums that have the unmistakable presence of Edgar's musical spirit still.
While remembering with sadness Edgar, there is joy in witnessing a quite unique phenomenon in the contemporary music scene.
Rest in peace, tremendous wizard of sounds, of time and space - and very glad to still have You with us in the continuing story of the phenomenon called Tangerine Dream!
Ikutaro Kakehashi has passed away at the age of 87.
One wonders what other opening sentences can be written... Yes, he was the founder of the absolute legend that is Roland Corporation, the inventor and maker of an astonishing number of instruments that not only shaped, but also created, entire musical genres.
If one says TR-808 or TR-909, then one means the birth of hip-hop and Detroit techno. If one says Juno or JP-8000, well, not sure where to even begin to enumerate the impact of these keyboards. If one says Jupiter-8, then one is basically lost for words.
But then... he was also one of the two godfathers of MIDI, the standard for the way in which musical instruments and computers can digitally talk to each other.
So much quasi-sensationalist and utterly tendentious (plus ill-informed) press has asked the question: is MIDI out of date, is MIDI limited...
MIDI was and still is an absolutely breathtaking future-proofed invention of a standard interface that outlasted countless others, and it is still going strong.
There was the invention of sound recording, which we take for granted now without realizing what it meant to be able to take music from the performer into the homes and hands of countless people who maybe never ever had the chance to see or hear that performer....
Then there was the birth of MIDI...
How many of us can truly realize nowadays what it meant to be able, for the first time, to record an improvisation - not in sounds, but in actual musical score terms of what was played, and then be able to change and layer on top of it, building up vast arrangements?
How many nowadays truly realize what MIDI allowed suddenly, in unprecedented ways, in terms of capturing the details of a performance and then giving the musician the ability to edit all the musical information it captured, all the keyboard and controller events during playing?
Also, in terms of an interface, it is the genius of future-proofing. Since the decades of its inception, and the decades since it was turned into practical reality by the likes of Ikutaro Kakehashi, MIDI has managed to allow vastly different instrument of vastly different core technology to talk to each other seamlessly.
The evolution of electronic instruments, studio gear and music software has been mind-boggling since MIDI was born, and it still allows all these immensely different gadgets to talk to each other in a standardized way.
A technical Grammy award given to him and Dave Smith is just the tip of the iceberg of significance and recognition...
Entire musical genres would not have been possible without Kakehashi-san and his immeasurable contribution to musical instruments.
Active to his very last years,he never stopped thinking about music, musical instruments, and musicians... "I Believe in Music" one of his book titles says... very, very few people can say that apparent cliche to be actually true and not only an expression, but also a living proof of one's life's body of work...
Isao Tomita, a Japanese synthesizer pioneer who achieved world fame with his over 20 studio albums, has died age 84.
He literally brought synths to Japan, and apart from his soundtrack work, his unique and even today unparalleled electronic re-imaginings of classical works made his name globally recognised.
Tomita was the first Japanese artist nominated for Grammy, actually four Grammys (for his 1974 Debussy-inspired album Snowflakes are Dancing).
One must say "re-imaginings"... His synth transcriptions of Debussy, Ravel, Mussorgsky, Bach, to pick just a very few, are light years away from what one traditionally understands as transcriptions.
One critic once said that Tomita's works were "too perfect" - even if unintentional, this was a perfect compliment. The synthesizer poems were musically perfect, following in every detail the original scores... However, where Tomita truly set himself apart from the other electronic artists who chose to re-work classics was his unparalleled way of projecting the works into a mesmerising astral sound world, perfectly capturing the original works' artistic intent and mood.
It is perhaps a sacrilege to purists' ears to say that Tomita often augmented the original works' emotional effect.
Whilst sometimes he has taken more liberties with the materials, combining different sources into compositions on a certain theme (as he did on the Kosmos album for example), his faithful electronic re-imaginings of e.g. Debussy and Mussorgsky are to this day unsurpassed.
In a way that extremely few synth artists managed in the heroic '70s and '80s, Tomita demonstrated that electronic music can indeed be deeply human, emotional, thought-provoking and imagination-stimulating at the same time.
As a personal note... must say that as a teenager listening to electronic music as fantastic escapism from the realities of a totalitarian dictatorship, for me Tomita, too, was one of the synth artists I must remain forever grateful for the sonic journeys they took me on.
Isao Tomita kept working into his 80s, even before his passing he was working on Dr. Coppelius with premiere scheduled for November this year.
Tomita passed away of heart failure, surrounded by his family.
