Hollywood Records has released Moog, the companion double album to the Plexifilm documentary about electronic music pioneer Bob Moog.
Moog, inventor of the modern synthesizer, has been building electronic musical instruments for nearly half a century. Along the way, he’s made prodigious contributions to modern culture and music, including today’s electronic dance music scene. The feature documentary film. by filmmaker/musician Hans Fjellestad and producer Ryan Page, explores Moog’s collaborations with musicians over the years, and his ideas about creativity, design, interactivity and spirituality.
Hollywood’s Moog captures the film’s aura with an eclectic mix of original music by artists such as Stereolab, Meat Beat Manifesto, Tortoise, Money Mark, Jean-Jacques Perrey & Luke Vibert, 33, The Moog Cookbook, Plastiq Phantom, Psilonaut, Roger O’Donnell (The Cure), Bernie Worrell & Bootsy Collins, The Album Leaf, Pete Devriese, Bostich, Charlie Clouser, Baiyon and Electric Skychurch’all produced on Moog instruments specifically for the soundtrack.
“This CD covers an amazing range of music,” says Moog. “To me, this CD is a tribute to all the musicians who have used Moog instruments to express their musical visions.”
The set comes complete with a bonus disc highlighting classics such as Emerson Lake & Palmer’s Lucky Man, Yes’ Close To The Edge, Gary Numan’s Cars and New Order’s Blue Monday.
The film was shot on location in Asheville, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Tokyo and London and features appearances by Walter Sear, Gershon Kinsgley, Jean-Jacques Perrey, Rick Wakeman, DJ Spooky, Keith Emerson, Herb Deutsch, Bernie Worrell, Pamelia Kurstin, Charlie
Clouser, Money Mark, Mix Master Mike, and others.
“Synthesizers are different from other musical instruments,” explains Moog. “They don’t have fixed tone colors, like a guitar or a drum that we listeners can identify when we hear them. A synthesizer sound can be low or high pitched, or have no pitch at all.”
“It can be sustained or percussive, muted or bright, thin or fat, smooth or raucous, familiar or strange. It can evoke images of a symphony orchestra, a rising sun, a hoard of insects, an earth-moving chine, and much, much more. They enable a musician to shape sounds efficiently and intuitively, so that the synthesizer becomes a natural extension of the musician’s imagination.”
The track listing for MOOG is as follows:
- 33 – Abominatron
- Stereolab – Variation One
- The Moog Cookbook – Bob’s Funk
- Jean-Jacques Perrey & Luke Vibert – You Moog Me
- Psilonaut – The Sentinel
- Meat Beat Manifesto – Unavailable Memory
- Bernie Worrell & Bootsy Collins – When Bernie Speaks
- Electric Skychurch – Endless Horizon (I Love Bob Mix)
- The Album Leaf – Micro Melodies
- Charlie Clouser – I Am A Spaceman
- Plastiq Phantom – Sqeeble
- Bostich – Realistic Source
- Pete DeVriese – You Have Been Selected
- Money Mark – “Nanobot Highway”
- Baiyon – Mixed Waste 4.2
- Tortoise – Beautiful Love
- Roger O’Donnell – Another Year Away
Bonus Disc
- Emerson, Lake & Palmer – Lucky Man
- Gary Numan – Cars
- Jean-Jaques Perrey – E.V.A.
- Devo – Mongoloid
- New Order – Blue Monday
- They Might Be Giants – Baroque Hoedown
- Yes – Close To The Edge
