Suzanne Ciani "A Life in Waves" Documentary KickStarter Project

Xenon pinball machine backglass

In the early 80s, i spend many hours behind a Bally Xenon pinball machine at the camping-site in Maria Laach, Germany that we visited every year.

The Xenon is a beautiful machine with amazing futuristic graphics on the backglass and the playfield, and besides that... those amazing hypnotizing sounds and that sexy, female voice...*

More than 15 years later i found out that the music and sounds were created by Suzanne Ciani, and slowly i got to know more about her music and life as a female electronic music pioneer...

Brett Whitcomb, a documentary filmmaker from Houston, Texas. has started a new film project called, "A Life in Waves" about Suzanne Ciani.

"The documentary, co-produced by long-time Beastie Boys keyboardist Money Mark, chronicles Suzanne Ciani's life and work. 

Utilizing a wealth of Suzanne's archival footage, the film will be a nostalgic, visually-compelling look at one woman's journey, and the trials she had to overcome to succeed in a traditionally male-dominated art form."

You can donate/find more info about this KickStarter project at 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2100662212/suzanne-ciani-a-life-in-waves

I am really looking forward to this documentary, and i hope they will get the funds together...

The campaign ends on Wednesday, Dec 10th 2014 10:07 PM CET.

Suzanne Ciani's official website: http://www.sevwave.com/
Suzanne Cianni on Twitter https://twitter.com/sevwave
Check her out on Facebook (with some awesome classic gear-pictures)
,or read her blog HERE (although she hasn't updated in a while)

* You can learn more about Ciani's involvement in the Xenon pinnball machine at her official website, which has a lot of information about this game.

(including this amazing 'making of Xenon' video and soundpacks)

These Hopeful Machines Radio Documentary

'These Hopeful Machines' is a New-Zealand electronic music -documentary that was broadcasted earlier this year during the Sound Lounge radio-programme

Sound Lounge brings you a balance of hardcore avant garde, atmospheric soundscapes, up to the minute contemporary, early 20th Century and a touch of art pop on a weekly basis.

In the documentary presenter James Gardner traces a personal path through the evolving world of electronic music in this six-part series – and meets some of the people who made it happen.

The show includes exclusive interviews with Suzanne Ciani, David Cockerell, Bernie Krause, Morton Subotnick and Peter Zinovieff and many more.

Finally all episodes are online, you can find them at http://www.radionz.co.nz/concert/programmes/hopefulmachines

Update November 3: (via an email from the producer)
"Over the next few weeks the website will be expanded to include full transcripts of the interviews, as well as photos, links and a few bits that there we weren't able to include in the programmes as they were broadcast.
I'll let you know when the expanded website is up and running."

BookTip XIII: Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer

I have had 2 whole weeks off from work this holiday season, so i had enough time to read a few interesting synth-related books.

The first one i read was 'Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer' by Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco.
It's a very interesting book (368 pages) that was published in 2004, and that tells the story about Robert (Bob) Moog, synthesizers from the mid-60s to the mid-70s in general and about the Moog company and its products.

The book has a foreword by Bob Moog himself (he passed away a year after the publication of this book) and the writers have spend a large amount of time and effort into making it.
The book is filled with stories by musicians, technicians and other pioneers from that era where everyone seemed to share a same passion for analog synthesis.

The list of interviewed people for this book is too large to mention, but it includes people like Don Buchla, Suzanne Ciani, Keith Emerson, Rachel Elkind, Tom Oberheim, Alan Pearlman (from ARP) and many more.
That's a very impressive list, and the whole book is written in a chronological style, filled with many anecdotes and interesting facts, what makes it fun and easy to read.
A must-read in my humble opinion, if you are interested in this kind of stuff, of course...

Info: http://books.google.nl/books/about/Analog_Days.html?id=3hjvWzkMK-sC …
Harvard University Press, 15 nov. 2004 - 368 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0674016170

Find my earlier BookTips HERE
My next BookTip will be published somewhere next month.

CD-Tip VII : Lixiviation - Suzanne Ciani

My latest album-tip is a very recent one, released a little over a week ago.
This album, a compilation of older works from multiple grammy-winning composer/synthplayer and pioneer Suzanne Ciani gives us a nice overview of her electronic works from the years 1969-1985.

From the Finders Keepers Records blog:
" With a sonic portfolio that boasts commissions for the Xenon classic pinball machine, the sounds for the Meco Star Wars theme, the Atari TV commercials and the electronic sound effects in the original Stepford Wives film (amongst many others) the mutant electronic music CV of Suzanne Ciani is proof that in a 1970s commercial world of boys toys, monopolised by a male dominated media industry, a woman’s touch was the essential secret ingredient to successful sonic seduction. 
A classically trained musician with an MA in music composition this American Italian pianist was first introduced to the synthesizer via her connections in the art world when abstract Sculptor and collaborator Harold Paris introduced Suzanne to synthesizer designer Don Buchla who created the instrument that would come to define Ciani's synthetic sound (The Buchla Synthesiser). 
Cutting her teeth providing self-initiated electronic music projects for art galleries, experimental film directors, pop record producers and proto-video nasties Suzanne soon located to New York where she quickly became the first point of call for electronic music services in both the underground experimental fields and the commercial advertising worlds alike...

...Lixiviation complies and recontextualises both secret music and commercial experiments of Suzanne Ciani made for micro-cosmic time slots and never previously documented on vinyl or CD. 
This is the first sneak peek of the early Ciani metal music and non-pop that later went on see her nominated for multiple Grammy awards for her later achievements which brought synthesiser music to the new age movement."

The album contains 16 tracks, but only five of them are longer than 2 minutes, up to a track that lasts a little over 9 minutes.
Besides those nice longer tracks it includes some of her work for TV-spots like the famous Coca Cola 'Pop-and-Pour', music from a few Atari-spots and previously unreleased live bits like the wonderful 1975 Buchla live concert-track.
The longer tracks remind me of her 1982 'Seventh Wave' album that is still my favorite Ciani album.
The CD includes a booklet with an introduction by Andy Votel and track notes by Suzanne Ciani.
Overall it is a very nice compilation from this ' Diva of the Diode', a must-have for the collectors.

Check out an extensive CD-review at Pitchfork.

Here's a preview, a track from the CD called 'Liberator', that she made for an Atari TV spot.
  SUZANNE CIANI - LIBERATOR by Finders Keepers Records

Pubished by Finders Keepers Records. More info HERE
Catalog nr. FKR053CD/LP - total playing time: a little over 34 minutes (!)

Suzanne also recently (re)launched her Twitter account, follow her at @sevwave
or check her out on Facebook (with some awesome classic gear-pictures) or read her blog HERE