Never for EverĪlso present at the sessions for the " Melt" album was a twenty-year-old Kate, fresh off the only concert tour in her five-decade career, aptly dubbed The Tour of Life she would contribute background vocals to "No Self Control" and "Games Without Frontiers". Indeed, Gabriel would use a microphone plugged into the Fairlight's sampler to capture everyday sounds such as glass bottles breaking that would end up on the record-by the end of Vogel's visit, he convinced the former Genesis frontman not only to buy the first CMI, but to also act as UK's de facto importer and distributor for Fairlight. "Peter was completely thrilled, and instantly put the machine to use during the week that Peter Vogel stayed at his house." "The idea of recording a sound into solid-state memory and having real-time pitch control over it appeared incredibly exciting," said Gabriel's cousin Stephen Paine, who was in the room. Much like the cover of that 1980 record, it was a facemelting experience for everyone in the studio that day. That summer, Vogel found himself in England demonstrating the machine for Peter Gabriel while he was at work on his third self-titled solo album at his home near Bath. Kate Bush collaborator Peter Gabriel demonstrating the Fairlight CMI "After four years of working around the clock," Vogel wrote, "we had the first working prototype of what was to revolutionize the music industry." That product would be the Fairlight CMI, introduced in 1979: an early sampling synthesizer and DAW complete with computer display, a QWERTY-style keyboard, floppy disk functionality, and a "light pen" stylus. Soon after, sampling as we know today was born. He recorded a split-second of piano from a radio broadcast, and discovered that playing said recording back at different pitches delivered a realism that differed from the piano presets of that era's synthesizers. The following year, they would join forces with the engineer and Motorola consultant Tony Furse, who introduced them to microprocessor technology.Īfter months of trial-and-error experiments, Vogel made a breakthrough in 1978 as he studied the harmonics of acoustic instruments. ![]() The pair would soon start a home business to manufacture synthesizers, naming it after the Fairlight ferry that passed on the Sydney Harbor which the home of Ryrie's grandmother overlooked. As Vogel tells it on his personal website, "Kim was very keen to develop a better synthesizer, and knowing my interest in electronics, he suggested we join forces… it was obvious that combining digital technology with music synthesis was the way to go." But what was the canvas that Kate used to turn these tales into sonic experiments? Origin StoriesĪppropriately enough, the story begins Down Under in Sydney, 1975: recent high school graduates Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie had recently discovered Switched-On Bach by Wendy Carlos, that 1968 classic of early synthesizer music in which Bach inventions and fugues are performed on a Moog. Not only does it remain among the British art-pop provocateur's boldest statements, but it would also be the first of several albums she'd produce herself.Īs a showpiece for her signature storytelling, The Dreaming's oblique sample-based palette pulled lyrical inspiration from a wide variety of suspenseful subjects-among them Viet Cong soldiers, Harry Houdini, and the struggle of Aboriginal Australians as depicted on the title track. Header photo by Chris Moorhouse/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.įorty years before Stranger Things re-introduced her single "Running Up That Hill" to a younger generation of curious listeners as the character Max's favorite song, a 24-year-old Kate Bush would release her fourth studio album The Dreaming.
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