School me on classic West Coast synthesis/Buchla albums

I’m looking for recommendations for classic West Coast synthesis/Buchla albums, particularly stuff from the 1970s, but modern albums are ok as well. I have a Korg Modular on the way, and I’d like to acquaint myself more with this style of synthesis.

This is the best one (for my taste) that I’ve found so far. Sort of reminiscent of Boards of Canada.

Edit: I assume this was a Buchla, but could be wrong (hence the, School Me title). :joy:

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Alessandro Cortini’s Forse 1-3 were made on a Buchla Easel.

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You’ll have to try very hard to find anything that will hold a candle to Morton Subotnick’s West Coast-defining Silver Apples of the Moon and The Wild Bull.

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The Wild Bull is awesome! Thanks.

I’ve noticed that the Buchlas can get almost achieve orchestral sounds: trumpets, horns, strings, gongs, anvils. Very different than the typical Moog brass sounds I’m used to hearing.

That album also makes me think of La Planète Sauvage for some reason.

I posted this in the Volca thread, but this also sounds very orchestral.

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Pauline Oliveros: Alien Bog / Beautiful Soop.

Compsed it on Don Buchla’s Box 100 system built for the Tape Music Center.

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:heart_eyes:

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Just digging into these, really cool stuff.

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Do you listen to the Source of Uncertainty podcast?
https://sourceofuncertainty.audio/

It has frequent artist or album profiles, including classic Buchla users like Barry Schrader (episode 12):

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Charles Cohen - Brother I prove you wrong

Anthony Child (aka Surgeon) - Electronic Recordings from Maui Jungle Vol.1

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Not sure about classics as in old classics, but to me this is a bit of a modern classic that uses pretty much exclusively west-coast modular hardware I think:

Second this

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Buchla GAS just went up about 6 levels. I could sell everything else I have, I suppose…

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Not an album, but I’ve listened to this Suzanne Ciani performance many times:

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No list of classic West Coast synthesis albums would be complete without Morton Subotnick

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Thanks, no I haven’t heard it.

Some noodle modular beauty

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Went to see Suzanne Ciani play in Manchester last night - she was good.

When she finished her set, she explained what equipment she had used (mainly Buchla and iPads) and then invited everybody on stage to take a look at them - which they did. And you ended up with loads of people climbing onto the stage to take pictures of it all. It was really bizarre!

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Thanks to sloppy auto-typo this is the first thing that popped up on my initial search…

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I find it somewhat impolite of you to drop this anecdote without any accompanying photos.

:upside_down_face:

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I think this is a fair comment

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Why thank you sir!

I had hoped to go to this show but sadly couldn’t make it. It’s been a fair while since I saw anything at Band on the Wall.

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