In the early 1970s, electronically produced music was a novelty and little else. The first Moog synthesizers hadn’t even been sold until the mid-late-sixties, and were mostly used as an addition to acoustic and electric instruments. In 1972, even pioneers like Kraftwerk were still diddling around in their basements and finding their sound, with no mainstream recognition.
So, in a nutshell, great innovations in music performed on analog machines were barely just appearing on the horizon, when a guy called Fred Miller told himself: “Why not skip the whole innovation part and go straight to where the future of music will inevitably lead us? Why not give the people what they want, now?
And why, why not ask some woman to pretend having sex and moan over my elevator-approved synth jams for 45 minutes?
Fred Miller’s 1972 The Sounds of Love, A to Zzzz: Sensously SINthesized is, in it's essence, the answer to one of those questions that nobody other than Fred Miller ever asked. The LP features five works performed on Moog synthesizer, including two pieces by impressionist composer Maurice Ravel. On all tracks, the stale-sounding, flat synth carpets are accompanied by - as described on the back cover - "the recorded verbal ‘offerings’ of two very emotional, ardent lovers."
Honestly though, I can only make out the voice of one woman on this record, and her "offerings" reflect the timidness of the synth playing, while she seems very concerned with remaining in the background. The feeling that she herself realized this was a bad idea even while still recording her uncredited "performance" is hard to pass by, and the longer you listen, the more embarrassment you feel - for her, and for yourself. I would really have loved for this album to be anything more than a ridiculously novel concept with lazy execution, but anything more than that is left to be desired.
Iron Noder Challenge 2017