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My good buddy over at Schneiderism has recently posted a number of robot related posts. This got me thing about out robot related music views here at the Siren, so I thought I’d make a little list of robot/technology related music and share a few thoughts on it.

Travel back to 1971. Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff release Zero Time, under the band name Tonto’s Expanding Head Band. I remember first discovering this record in a box of old LPs in the basement of my parents house. It must have been 1994 or 1995, I was probably around 13 or 14. The spacey art and strange song titles gave this album an other-worldly presence. It definitely did not fit in with the rest of the LPs. Upon first listening to it I was immediately convinced it was a message sent to us from the outer reaches of the galaxy. The music poured out like grape jelly from the speakers. It shimmered and twisted in the light. It was definitely from the seventies. I always gave Zero Time special appreciation, and it was one of only two records I took from my fathers formidable collection. The other was a Hamm’s beer promo. From these two records grew my own collection. It was as if they had mated and the weirdness that resulted was a combination of everything I loved about those two records.

After doing a little research into Tonto’s Expanding Head Band I found out that they are more well known than I had expected. The name comes from the synthesizer used to record the album. To the best of my knowledge no live instrumentation was used on Zero Time, only the TONTO synthesizer. This is where it gets interesting. TONTO stands for “The Original New Timbral Orchestra.” It was the world’s first multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer, and is still the world’s largest. Apparently its sound still cannot be replicated by contemporary digital synthesizers and samplers. It was used by everyone from Quincy Jones to The Doobie Brothers.

I like to think of TONTO as the musical equivalent of IBM’s Deep Blue, or HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. A massively influential piece of equipment that somehow grew so big it acquired a personality of its own. Currently TONTO resides at Mutato Muzika, the headquarters for Mark Mothersbaugh. Here’s what Mothersbaugh had to say about TONTO:

“Once upon a time, Tonto represented the cutting edge of artificial intelligence in the world of music – Robert and Malcolm are the mad chefs of aural cuisine with beefy tones and cheesy timbres, making brain chili for those brave enough and hungry enough. Consequently, back in the cultural wasteland of the Midwest, the release of Tonto’s Expanding Head Band was an inspirational indicator for starving Spudboys who had grown tired of the soup du jour. It was official – noise was now Muzak, and Muzak was now noise.”

No robot inspired music list could be complete without Kraftwerk. Starting in the early seventies and continuing today, Kraftwerk immediately gravitated towards new musical technology, and embraced it in a way that only Germans can. Totally integrating it into almost everything the band did. Their songs often deal with the ideas of man and machine, and I often wondered if they secretly dreamed of being robots themselves (this seems entirely German). They often seemed as only extensions of the machines they were using to compose and perform their music. On stage their lack of pretense and showmanship was a hallmark. There was no showboating or playing to the audience as was done in rock and roll. Kraftwerk was a machine. Each member doing their task in their assigned position. But, much of their music was based around improvisation, a decidedly un-robot like characteristic. It is as if the band, and their music is the manifestation of man’s identity crisis with technology. Wanting to be both human and alive at the same time as being efficient and unstoppable in doing what is required regardless of the circumstances. (This is a great idea for a movie! I’m thinking Harrison Ford as the lead and maybe Ridley Scott directing.)

More recently Captured By Robots! has taken this idea of robotic musicianship to new levels. The story goes that a man once created a team of robots to play in a band with but the robots revolted (as they are wont to do) and in turn imprisoned their maker, forcing him to play gigs in chains and humiliate himself of stage. This is about as far from Kraftwerk as you can get but the ideas, I think, are very similar.

And most recently Andrew Thompson has thrown his hat into the robo-music genre with his just released single “We’re In Business.” It chronicles his own relationship with a robot, and the troubles he’s experienced. Here’s the link to the video as a little treat for all of you who have read this far.

I’m sure there’s more than those listed here, and there’s sure to be more in the future. But let’s reflect upon and learn from those who have come before us, and take heed of our dealings with robots. They are not to be trusted.