Descent (1988)

'Descent To The Moon' by Chesley Bonestell (If you like this painting, check out this book!)

I created this spacey, Jarre-like piece using some very primitive equipment. To me, it evokes an image a lot like the above Bonestell painting. The "multitracking" was achieved using a Panasonic boom-box with two cassette decks and "mic mixing" capability, which allowed you to mix in an external audio signal while dubbing stuff from one cassette to the other. Though primitive, this was a big breakthrough for me at the time, because it allowed me to overdub by some method other AIR MULTITRACKING!

It's probably pretty apparent that I was listening to Oxygene a lot at the time!

Recently I read it into the computer and managed to remove a lot of the hiss with CoolEdit.

Hear it: (1210K mp3)

Equipment used:

Panasonic boom box with MIC MIXING_(tm)	Casio SK-1 (this has become a popular keyboard for circuit bending. Check out these wild YouTube videos!
PAIA Roctave Divider pedal	Washburn AX-9 analog delay pedal
KMD Stereo Chorus	Fundimensions Sound Gizmo

Speaking of Chesley Bonestell...

This has nothing to do with music, but...in the 1950s, Chesley Bonestell and rocket designer Werner Von Braun did a series of articles for Collier's magazine predicting what a lunar lander might look like in the future:

This series was published years before Sputnik.

Now NASA is designing a new space transportation system for returning to the moon. Here is what the lunar lander looks like:

Pretty amazing, I think.