Halifax-based Rich Aucoin used 162 synthesizers across four albums of instrumental music over five years.Allison Seto/National Music Centre
For his four-album, multiyear project Synthetic, pop-electronica party starter Rich Aucoin used vintage synthesizers housed at Calgary’s National Music Centre. Some of the instruments were set up in proper recording studios, while others were relegated to basement workshops at the music museum.
More still were part of active exhibits: walls of knobs behind velvet ropes. Aucoin and engineer Jason Tawkin, the NMC’s manager of collections access, wore headphones and recorded in plain sight of visitors. Imagine tech-savvy kids walking into a gaming museum and encountering two grown men earnestly playing Pong.
In addition to using NMC instruments, Aucoin travelled to the Vintage Synthesizer Museum in Los Angeles for the project. Using the famous 1970s synth TONTO – an acronym for The Original New Timbral Orchestra – or a Roland Chroma Polaris from the 1980s in L.A. was both a step back into time and into a futuristic experience.
“Just being in the presence of them feels like so much history, and it was so interesting to see the complexity and the size of these instruments,” Aucoin said from his Halifax studio on a video call. “The sounds felt fresh, though.”
Synth-driven music first gained widespread notice with the release of Wendy Carlos’s debut 1968 album Switched-On Bach, which was a collection of the Baroque composer’s pieces performed on a Moog synthesizer (invented by synth icon Robert Moog). In 1977, producer Giorgio Moroder brought the Moog to disco with Donna Summer’s top 10 hit I Feel Love.
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Today, in the age of computers and now artificial intelligence, classic synthesizers seem quaint and artisanal in comparison. A resurgence in old-school technology has resulted in popular events such as Machina Bristronica, an annual festival of “knobs, buttons and discussions” in Bristol, England. Yet the British Musicians’ Union voted to ban synths in 1982, fearing the machines would replace live performers.
Aucoin, 42, used 162 synthesizers on four albums of all-instrumental music that took five years to make. Recording started in 2020 during an NMC artist residency. The first two “seasons,” or chapters, were nominated for electronic album of the year in the 2023 and 2024 Juno Awards.
The new Synthetic Season 4 might be the most ambitious of the lot, with 103 unique synths employed. The initial idea was for the four albums to represent the energy levels of a party that ramps up on Season 1 before winding down to an ambient conclusion. But that’s not what happened.
“I kept ramping up,” Aucoin said. “Season 4 really didn’t calm down in the way I thought it would.”
His enthusiasm can be excused. In the early 1970s, synthesizers were the cutting-edge new toys of popular music. Rick Wakeman, keyboardist for the rock band Yes, once told MusicRadar magazine: “I suddenly had an instrument that could give the guitar a run for its money.”
In an interview with Melody Maker in 1971, the Who’s Peter Townshend recalled using three makes of synthesizers to record the band’s landmark Who’s Next album and the tracks Won’t Get Fooled Again and Baba O’Reilly.
“The sight of a Moog synthesizer smothered in patch cables brings me to a state approaching orgasm,” he said.
Aucoin understands the giddiness: “There was a newness and excitement with these synths fresh out of the box. I imagine it felt like the next evolution of the rock genre.”
Not just rock, but R&B and pop. TONTO was built by British musician-engineer Malcolm Cecil. The first (and still the largest) multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer was used on albums by Stevie Wonder and the Isley Brothers.
TONTO is a famous 1970s synthesizer built by British musician-engineer Malcolm Cecil.Allison Seto/National Music Centre
Aucion first took notice of synthesizers when the French electro-pop duo Air released its Moon Safari album in 1998. “It was the first time I heard a record that allowed the synths to take the lead,” he said. “It was super interesting to a 15-year-old kid.”
His use of synths such as the Ondes Martenot (conceived in the late 1920s by French cellist Maurice Martenot around the same time as Leon Theremin’s namesake instrument) is not retro for retro’s sake.
“A historic synth can be manipulated and compressed and driven,” Aucoin said. “Suddenly it can sound as modern as any another synthesizer made in the last 10 years.”
As for the initial fear when synths first became popular that the circuitry was soulless and would replace flesh-and-blood musicians, Aucoin believes synths have life to them.
“You can try to bend them to what you want, but they will meet you in the middle. It’s almost like a collaboration.”
Rich Aucoin performs Synthetic at Halifax’s Seahorse Tavern, Nov. 29.