Various
ANS Electronic Music
UK COLD SPRING CSR307CD (2025)
From the same label that brought us a reissue of Musical Offering in 2023, here is another collection of “vintage” Russian electronic music composed and performed on the ANS synthesiser. This originally appeared in 1969 as a ten-inch record on the Melodiya label in Soviet Russia – original issues of those mono beauts are pretty collectible now, needless to say.
We noted last time how the ANS synthesiser operated using a unique method of rotating glass discs and photoelectric methods to “read” the markings printed on the discs, effectively enabling a way for a composer to “draw” their music without having to execute a score. This time, we hear pieces by Eduard Artemiev (still perhaps the most famous name here, due to his Tarkovsky soundtracks), Stanislav Kreitichi, Sándor Kallós and Alexander Nemtin. The label are keen to point out the connection with some of their fave industrial / underground acts, such as Coil, Clock DVA and The Anti-Group, all of whom have laid their pallid mitts on this machine. Cold Spring also update the cover art with “Spirograph” images by Abby Helasdottir, that do indeed evoke computer drawings of the late 1960s. The collection is quite a mixed bag, though. Many listeners (including myself) will probably gravitate to the outer-space vibes of track 01, ‘Music for the film “Cosmos”’, jointly realised by Artemiev and Kreitichi. It satisfies our cravings for imaginary endless flights to the outer reaches of the galaxy, and never once produces any associations with “kosmische” music such as Tangerine Dream. Plus it’s a substantial listen at 12:17 mins, where the rest of the collection offers shorter poppy tunes.
‘Intermezzo’ by Kreitichi is jolly but rather kitschy, almost an easy-listening ditty which could just as easily have been created with a Farfisa organ and a beatbox. For all I know, DJs and fans of Library Music records thrive on this sort of thing. His ‘Echo of the East’ is a tad more adventurous, as if Les Baxter or Arthur Lyman had been born into an alternative space-travel future and composed music for day-trips to planet Mars. Alexander Nemtin plays a Bach chorale for one of his contributions, and it’s interesting to compare this with Walter Carlos and Switched-on Bach, which came out on CBS the same year. Carlos tends to go for a near-crystalline precision in his many-layered and labour-intensive assemblages; Nemtin’s version feels more human, but also near-indistinguishable from a church organ in places. (As a footnote we might add that the original Solaris movie did feature a Bach composition as its main theme, and also that the music of Bach was included on NASA’s “golden record” sent into space on Voyager 1 in 1977.) His composition ‘Tears’ is more modernist and atonal, but even here he strives towards some form of harmony, and was evidently left untouched by the extremes of modernist experiments by Stockhausen or Koenig.
‘Northern Tale’ by Sándor Kallós is one of the gems in the bowl; it’s one of the few pieces here that seems to have a life outside of the synthesiser, and its fairly obvious he added a number of pre-recorded tapes to the finished item. Its episodic, semi-narrative nature puts me in mind of 1970s York composer Richard Orton for some reason – but maybe just the word “Northern” has triggered me. Kallós was partially Hungarian and had a prolific career creating incidental music for theatre, cinema, and ballet.
Given the rarity of the original 10-incher, it’s good to get this authorised licensed edition appearing on CD for the first time (although the occasional sonic distortions make me wonder if it’s a needle-drop). From 7th April 2026.