I'm watching some ancient documentary on NASA TV about the Apollo 11 launch, and the soundtrack is primarily a dissonant strain of electronic screeches, hums, and buzzes, and that fascinates me.
Like, all of this was so new to people back then. For many, just having electricity and a telephone was a very recent phenomenon, and now there's these enormous rockets that are going to fly to the Moon, and the entire world is struggling to come to grips with that kind of human capability.
Science in general must have felt so magical, and terrifying. Spaceflight, computers, and the Nuclear Age went hand-in-hand as harbingers of the death of the old world, and it feels like to me that uneasiness was represented in musical depictions of technology. It was here when it was solidified what the aural experience of modern technology was: a chaotic, seemingly random collection of beeps and wavering tones whose meaning was unfathomable to all but the genius among us. It was as if Technology Itself had come alive, was now speaking amongst Itself using alien words, and Humans would have to accept that they were no longer alone as the dominant intelligence on the planet.
Such soundscapes have all but vanished today, and I feel that, too, carries meaning about our relationship with science and technology.
He was an early pioneer in electronic music. He saw a real potential with the way you could electronically imitate real sounds and sensations, and really leaned into that. Most of his work is in advertising, but it’s still something.