Thursday Tunes

Larry Fast, who recorded during the 70s, 80s and 90s under the name Synergy, is the man to whom all the modern electronic artists, house mixers, trancers, and other masters of the synthesizer owe their careers. No, he didn't invent the synthesizer; that was Robert Moog. Mr Fast created the sequencer*, that magical box which allows a single artist to overlay multiple tracks, thus sounding like an entire orchestra, (or a flock of starlings with ADD, depending upon the artist in question).

But the sequencer was not his only contribution to music. Mr Fast recorded some truly unique pieces, and was pushing the boundaries of what synthesizers could do when Yanni was still in diapers. His music tends to be more energetic than his better-known contemporaries in the nascent electronic music field of the 1970s, such as Tangerine Dream.

This is from one of his later albums called "Metropolitan Suite." It is an homage to America, with various pieces displaying Fast's interpretation of how America evolved as a nation during the 20th century. The album is more representative of his mature style than his 1970s works, some of which had a Philip Glass sort of non-chromatic vibe to them. As he aged, Fast's style moved more in the direction of the symphonic -- for the better, in my opinion. This particular piece is called Steam and Steel Towers, representing the explosive growth and non-stop industrialization of the northeastern seaboard at the turn of the last century. The frantic pace of the piece combines with heavy-handed percussion to evoke the bustle of New York City, circa 1920.



* - There is some debate on this point, as the sequencer was one of those "ideas whose time had come," and multiple people claim to be its father. I tend to stick with Fast as the inventor, as much out of emotional attachment to his contributions to the field as due to any hard evidence.
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