I just did a Tosh Talks episode with my friend and translator Paul Knobloch, and he brought this album over to the house as a gift. He knows that I'm crazy about electronic music from the 1950s to 1970s. This is an album with music by four composers, who to this day, are unknown to me. George Todd, Saria Semegen, Thomas Wells, and Jan Greenwald. Looking up their names on Discogs website I don't find that many other recordings by these composers, which is a shame because the album is a delight.
"Satan's Sermon" is a work by Todd that is mostly done on a synclavier, invented in 1977-1978. A lot of bands in the 80s used the synclavier, especially in the recordings produced by Trevor Horn. Here, its use is totally expansive and driven by an Able 40 computer. It's digital meets analog. The music is dark since it is called "Satan's Sermon."
My favorite work on this compilation is Greenwald's "Duration 2" which was composed on the Nova 1200 Data General computer attached to Buchia 500 digital-to-analog synthesizer. It's a very slow piece that's meditative but has textures that reflect sinister or even cinematic touches of an Alfred Hitchcock piece of work.
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