OKSANA LINDE
Aquatic And Other Worlds BUH RECORDS
Venezuela’s answer to Delia Derbyshire releases debut album at 74
While Venezuelan
electronic music may
not register too highly on
people’s ‘must hear’ lists,
the story of 74-year-old
Oksana Linde is almost the
stuff that Hollywood movies
are made of. Born in
Caracas in 1948, Linde
began making synthesiserbased music in her 30s and was part of
a then-burgeoning local scene. For
whatever reason, that music seems to
have gone largely overlooked until
discovered by Luis Alvarado of
Buh Records, who has released this
collection which dates from 1983 to
1989. Early electronic and synthesiser
pioneers like Delia Derbyshire and Wendy Carlos are obvious
reference points, but also
Tangerine Dream, Klaus
Schulze and, more recently,
John Carpenter too. The
likes of Viaje Hacia La Luz,
Orinoco and Recordando
A Kitaro bubble and throb
away creating moods that
would appeal to fans of any
of the aforementioned musicians, while
the uptempo and eclectic Mariposas
Acuaticas shows a more playful side to
Linde. As a window into another time,
and indeed another continent, this is
a fascinating and enjoyable release that
begs the question: what other music
is there from Linde? And can we hear
it please?