Mini reviews
Bright Sparks
Publisher I Monster and Bright Sparks
Price £15.99 (inc Monster album)
Contact via website
As we write this, there’s a growing hysteria (OK, on Facebook) that too many famous musicians are dying on us. Of course, they aren’t – we are simply in an age when our icons are of an age. But spare a thought for the people behind the gear behind the music, those who won’t be known for creating the albums but should be given a huge amount of respect for the tech behind them. Bowie’s Low – just one example – probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good, for example, without some of the individuals interviewed on Bright Sparks. These include Alan Pearlman from ARP, Herbert Deutsch (co-inventor of the Moog synth), John Bradley (Mellotron) and Peter Zinovieff (EMS). These people created the synths and keyboards that made some of the finest music in history. The band I Monster, backed by Dave Spiers and Chris Macleod, produced the film over years of tracking down the men behind the machines, and it’s resulted in one of the most poignant works you will see for so many reasons. The first is, as I have hinted at, many of these engineers are reaching their later years (ARP designer Dennis Colin died after filming). Secondly, many of them were far better at creating music technology than they were business empires – and all the better for it – so had to wait many years for the plaudits (and money) that they deserved. Lastly, we are in a new rush of hardware synthesis, a new dawn of hands-on music machinery. NAMM 2016 was all about the machines that these men created, and that makes this film even more important. It’s a living and lasting documentary – one that will be expanded and extended by Dave, Chris et al – and one that we should all treasure. Anyone interested in music and technology in any way should watch this and enjoy. Ignore the lack of too many edits – these enforce the rich humanity behind the electronics. In a world obsessed with money, these were people obsessed with something far more important – and this is their lasting document.
• Key Features
• Documentary featuring interviews with music and technology pioneers
• Features people
