VARIOUS ARTISTS

High Voltage! salutes the fearless electronic trailblazers and groundbreaking composers of the last century, who paved the way, sometimes against all odds, for futuristic sounds, music which knew no outer limits and advanced recording techniques which would later become the essential norm. Rather than presenting a cold selection of tracks, writer-DJ Kris Needs has tried to capture the spirit of adventure, mischief or discovery which gripped these boffins, obsessives and mad sonic scientists, tracks carefully selected to represent one of the most exciting periods in aural innovation while sequenced to simulate a roller coaster through the unknown. In keeping with the spirit of reinvention, running the tracks as a new joyride in its own right. High Voltage! presents highlights from the last century’s most influential musical movements, including European classical tradition-annihilators (Olivier Messiaen, Edgard Varèse, Iannis Xenakis), avant-garde technology manipulators (John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Halim El-Dabh, Vladimir Ussachevsky), musique concrete layers (Pierres Schaeffer and Henry), intrepid explorers (Sun Ra), synthesiser pioneers (Herbert Eimer & Robert Beyer, Otto Luening, Bülent Arel, Milton Babbit), atmospheric exotica foragers (Les Baxter), those who incorporated electronic music into film soundtracks (Louis & Bebe Barron, Miklós Rózsa) and ultimately used it to bring the pop mainstream into the space age (Joe Meek, Sweden’s The Spotnicks). In 2013, advanced technology defines and shapes the way music is heard, from the autotuned voices of top ten pop to deepest minimal techno explorations being carried out in bunkers from Berlin to Detroit. TV programmes and films are emblazoned in synthetic cuts and swirls, while down in the underground whole cultural substrata have sprung up around the increasingly infinite possibilities of noise creation, old school turntables traded in by laptop-toting DJs who now look like they’re checking their e-mails as they slide in the next track with corner-cutting nonchalance. The music here comes from a time before electronic circuits ruled the art of music and film, when furthering the creation of sound was not so easy, ranging from spookily desolate to cacklingly bonkers.