Vintage Synthesizer

The Oscar-winning Japanese composer performs his latest album live in Stephen Nomura Schible's intimate concert film…

On June 29th, 2023, Jeremiah Chiu walked into the Vintage Synthesizer Museum (VSM) in Highland Park, Los Angeles, with no plan more specific than “let’s fire this stuff up and see what happens.” Exploring the VSM’s vast collection of classic, rare and staple synthesizers, he would sequence, trigger, and layer the machines together with help from VSM founder/curator Lance Hill.

With their debut album “we are Kant Kino - you are not” released in 2010, the Norwegian duo took everyone by surprise and got elected to be the best EBM discovery of the year by many. Three years later, their “father worked in industry” CD reinforced their position with an even more matured production style brilliantly mixing stomping beats and melodic synths. Don’t we say that “all good things come in threes”? Well, KANT KINO definitely confirm this saying by offering us “Kopfkino” the 3rd installment signed by this epic EBM franchise.

Copenhagen based Delayscape, aka Flemming Kaspersen, has been releasing electronic music since 2005 on various netlabels. 2010 sees Delayscape’s back catalogue, over five years of work, brought together over two discs: Morse Disco. The album is divided into two subtitles. First up is Music for Dancing at Home. What meets the listener is a deep, rich, collection of analogue notes and pads. The beats are clean with vintage synthesizer tones guiding the listener down an almost forgotten path of electronics. Simple constructs are built to form soundscapes of warm chords and squelching undercurrents, such as in the title piece “Morse Disco.” The tracks have a number of influences embedded in them. There is a clinical aspect in here, almost a Drexiyan feel, that lies alongside autumnal analogue bars that sound straight from Suction Records or the hand of Bochum Welt…

As the years go by, miracles become a rare commodity even to dream about , let alone witness, whether in politics (no messiahs anywhere!), in romance (a seemingly prehistoric concept) or in the arts (boring!!!!!). But , somehow in Progland (where fairytales often coalesce with legends), there is still the spark. Who would of ever imagined that this once-seminal band of the timeless Italian School of Progressive Music, after decades of poppish dirge (by opposition to their earlier monuments), would one day , 30 years later, deliver such a riveting recording!..