WENDY CARLOS: EVERY ALBUM, EVERY SONG
Mark Marrington SONICBOND
A welcome dissection of the visionary electronic musician and composer’s work.
The slightness of Mark Marrington’s book, and indeed Wendy Carlos’s discography, takes nothing away from the importance of the artist in question. 1968’s Switched-On Bach was an influential game-changer, proving that synthesisers could be used for more than just novelty purposes. Carlos continued to push boundaries and defy convention with soundtracks such as A Clockwork Orange and Tron, and she was groundbreaking in other ways, too. Her gender affirmation is brushed over here, with Marrington more keen to explore the musician’s transition from the analogue Moog to the GDS digital additive synthesiser. Where musical and technical detail is concerned, this book is a triumph, whether it’s the genres explored on the global music-adjacent Beauty In The Beast or the extensive hardware and multifarious voices of Peter And The Wolf with Weird Al Yankovic.