
Electronic music pioneer Simeon Coxe has died - jacquesm
https://pitchfork.com/news/silver-apples-simeon-coxe-dead-at-82/
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jacquesm
If his name doesn't ring a bell with you maybe Silver Apples does?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1xOZyBc2Ck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1xOZyBc2Ck)

~~~
cyjyar2
Silver Apples were a musical UFO of the 60s: came out of nowhere, flashed on
many people's radar, and then vanished.

RIP Grandmaster Serialized Oscilloscopes.

More info on their too-brief moment of fame:
[https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/apr/09/silver-
apples-...](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/apr/09/silver-apples-
electro-stars-hendrix-stereolab-portishead-john-lennon)

~~~
jacquesm
I find it interesting that I know an enormous number of bands that were
influenced by Kraftwerk, but I'm pretty sure that a lot of Kraftwerk was
inspired by Silver Apples.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I don't think Kraftwerk were ever quite that psychedelic, abstract, or naive.
(Meant in a good way.)

It's more likely Silver Apples influenced early Tangerine Dream and other
Krautrockers through the scene around the Zodiak Arts Lab in Berlin.

~~~
jacquesm
Kraftwerk is plenty abstract, they just put a very slick sauce over it and
were much better at marketing themselves and running a business.

Some digging around turned this up:

"Obviously inspired by artists like the Silver Apples German artists/musicians
Conrad Schnitzler and Hans-Joachim Roedelius started The Zodiak Free Arts Lab
in an old building in West Berlin in the Halleschen Ufer, Kreuzberg. In fact
it was (and still is) a theatre called the Schaubühne but at night the duo
could use parts of the building.

The Zodiak was sub-divided into two main performance areas, one of which was
painted completely white and the other completely black, and was filled with
all kinds of instruments, amps and speakers which people could more or less do
with as they pleased. Here, musicians were allowed to experiment with free
jazz, psychedelic rock and avant-garde styles. Conventional forms of music
were frowned upon: a phrase frequently used to describe the spirit of the
times was that "songs were considered bourgeois."

Among the many artists and bands who passed through the Zodiak in their early
days were Ash Ra Tempel, Geräusche (Noises), Plus/Minus, Curly Curve, Per
Sonore, Human Being, The Agitation later Agitation Free, Klaus Schulze and,
most significantly, Tangerine Dream. The club played an important role in the
development of a style of music that would later be called krautrock. Acts
like Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Amon Düül, Can and Neu all originated from
the lab and would take up tape loops and synthesizers as an important part of
their act. "

The timing works out just about right, and I hear a lot of 'Autobahn' in
'Oscillations'. It'd be nice if someone asked while there is still a chance.

------
shortformblog
Silver Apples is one of the most out-there musical acts ever created, and
Simeon’s willingness to take risks that were bold even for the famously bold
timeframe in which he created makes him an icon that remains essential even
today.

------
dfischer
Off topic but related: anyone have examples of novel things to play with in
electronic music / generative? I recently got an itch to experiment with some
analog synths and some hardware / software hacking to make music. Novel or
just... fun!

~~~
pmoriarty
Check out:

\- r/musicprogramming [1]

\- #opensourcemusicians on the Freenode IRC network [2]

\- VCV Rack [3]

\- Supercollider [4]

\- Overtone [5]

\- ChucK [6]

\- Awesome live-coding [7]

\- Muffwiggler Forum [8]

[1] -
[https://old.reddit.com/r/musicprogramming/](https://old.reddit.com/r/musicprogramming/)

[2] - [https://freenode.net/](https://freenode.net/)

[3] - [https://vcvrack.com/](https://vcvrack.com/)

[4] - [https://supercollider.github.io/](https://supercollider.github.io/)

[5] -
[https://github.com/overtone/overtone](https://github.com/overtone/overtone)

[6] - [https://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/](https://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/)

[7] - [https://github.com/pjagielski/awesome-live-coding-
music](https://github.com/pjagielski/awesome-live-coding-music)

[8] - [https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/](https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/)

~~~
aasasd
Modular synths seem to be in vogue lately, both in hardware and in software
like VCV Rack.

Though I'm told that this started some years ago, possibly in the 2000s—maybe
it's just that I finally figured out how it's supposed to work, with the
Android daw Caustic. The app Hexen looks particularly impressive, but haven't
tried it yet.

~~~
munificent
_> possibly in the 2000s_

Late 90s. It was Dieter Döpfer's creation of the eurorack standard that really
kicked off the modular synth revival (though of course with anything, a lot of
stuff was in the air and Döpfer was also in the right place at the right
time).

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shams93
Wow the more creative you are the more harsh this society treats you. We are
highly creative people not because we were born in the us but despite the fact
we were born here.

