Doug McKechnie
San Francisco Moog: 1968-72 Vol. 2
VG+ Records
/
2023
LP
26.99
VG+06LP
Printed inner sleeve w/ liner notes
Incl. VAT plus shipping / Orders from outside the EU are exempt from VAT
Tracklist
1Search for an Honest Man
2Meditation Moog 2
3Glide
4Live at the Family Dog
5Gyre and Gimble
6Moving
7Mr. Toad's Wild Ride
8Rumble Ramp Explosion

The first volume of San Francisco Moog: 1968-72 introduced the world to a trove of recordings from a little-known hinge point in electronic-music history. Vol. 2 brings to light the rest of tapes—and the rest of the story.

In 1968, Bay Area native Doug McKechnie got hold of one the very first modular Moog synthesizers ever made and began finding his own way to play it. Soon, he was hauling the finicky instrument around to perform improvised concerts at colleges and psychedelic ballrooms, as well as an ill-fated appearance on the bill at Altamont. Some of the performances were recorded, and the surviving tapes—never before released—capture a free-flowing, transportive sound that fills in the gap between the austere mid-century academic avant garde and the expansive cosmic suites of Tangerine Dream and the rest of the Berlin School in the ’70s.

Vol. 2 captures a wider range of sounds and moods, encompassing austere sonic experiments, early sequenced pulses, and melodic etudes.

“These pieces represent amazingly fully formed early approaches to the very idea of musical synthesis...arresting even to modern ears.” — Goldmine

“Presages both Tangerine Dream’s soundtracks and, in its most grimy moments, Acid Tracks.” — The Wire