20 tracks, showcasing 20 different synthesizers, one from each year, covering the period 1968-1988.
Twenty Systems is the latest release from electronica artist and Expanding Records founder Benge and marks his tenth solo album. This project combines an audio CD of new music with a full colour 60 page book containing photos and diagrams of the electronic instruments used, along with a detailed history documenting the development of synthesisers between 1968 and 1988.The booklet includes a foreword by Robin Rimbaud (aka Scanner)...
'Presented here are twenty pieces of music created on twenty different synthesisers, one from each year between 1968 and 1988. The purpose of this record is to demonstrate the development of the the synthesiser from the first commercially available systems in the late 1960s to the introduction of fully digital systems in the late 1980s. This is not intended to be a comprehensive history of synthesisers. However, the listener will hopefully gain some insight into the character of each instrument, and on a more general level experience the evolving sound of synthesis over the yearsWhat you hear on each track is the pure sound of an individual instrument. No additional processing, sequencing or effects were applied to any of the recordings. If a system was equipped with an in-built sequencer I made use of it on the particular track, and I often used the process of recording sound-on-sound, where a track is made up of multiple layers of the same synthesiser recorded in parallel. To put it simply, I wanted to letthe instruments speak for themselves as much as possible; to let the instruments influence the way I composed the pieces' Ben Edwards (Benge)
Have a listen to the sample tracks, track four is like a transition piece from kraftwerk.
