Back in the 1970s my mom would take us to the library where we could check out "stuff." Of course with my early love for records, I combed through the LP albums and often checked out some records to take home.
One of these was a strange album called "The In Sound From Way Out!" (don't forget the exclamation point!). It featured 12 songs that featured sounds from electronic sources as well as instruments. The liner notes say the music was "carefully synchronized with music played by live musicians as well as....oscillators, tone generators and feedback loops." This was long before digital music or keyboards were the norm. I guess this was supposed to be music created by a computer...if I computer could create music!
I liked the record and wanted a copy of it. In those days that meant saying "everyone be quiet" as I would play the album on my record player. The sound would pick up into the microphone on my Radio Shack cassette tape recorder. This of course would mean when the dog barked or someone slammed the door, it would also be on the tape. Maybe that added to the electronic effect?
Recently I wondered if anyone had ever heard of this album and lo and behold it is actually available on CD! The story goes that back in 1966 when it was released, it took 275 hours of work to hand splice the sounds together to make this very off the wall album. It was the brainchild of Jean Jacques Perrey from France and Gershon Kingsley, a veteran of Broadway and classical music.It's hard to explain what the music sounds like, so listen to it here or here. It was quite crazy and thrilling to a young boy to listen to. Today it is just as crazy, although I'm not sure I would record it onto my cassette recorder again!
