“It was the first one, so there was a lot of learning to be done over the course of recording it. There was learning everything from the record industry itself, because there’s more to it than just creating music. You learn the ropes in terms of what the promotion and A&R people do. It was an exciting time, just getting the feel”. Larry Fast describing to Anil Prasad 20 years ago on his Innerviews website, about the first Synergy album Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.
There’s no denying that Fast has come a long way by taking the boundaries of synthesised music and as Prasad would put it in his introduction about Larry Fast as he “pushed the technology envelope”. From teaming up with Nektar for the Recycled album, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Renaissance’s Annie Haslam, producing FM’s 1980 album City of Fear, and contributing music for Carl Sagan’s 1980 television program on PBS entitled Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, a thirteen-part docu-series.
I first became aware of Fast thanks to his collaboration he did on Nektar’s conceptual album Recycled in 1975 after I had graduated from Junior College back in 2014 and I was spellbound from not just the story line, but the way Larry had embarked on this mind-blowing journey to give the band the power and driving force it needed by following it up to 1974’s Down to Earth.
Then, I had completely forgotten about Larry until this year when the Echoes podcast, hosted by John Diliberto did a special about the album Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra, and his interview with Larry. I went ahead and bought the album straight away after listening to Diliberto’s podcast with Fast.
Let me just say, I was spellbound after listening to this majestic piece of work that was originally released on the Passport label and it made me appreciate more and more of electronic music. I knew about others ranging from Wendy Carlos thanks to her work on Clockwork Orange, TRON, and Switched-On Bach, followed by Tangerine Dream, Cluster, and Klaus Schulze.
But Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra, was his own process to create his own music. “I loved what Wendy Carlos was doing”. Fast describes to John Diliberto on the Echoes podcast, “Classical of course was already in my bloodstream. And I loved that. And then not just Mike Oldfield but a lot of the progressive movement, I was still a childhood of the Beatles age. And still of rock and roll and soul in there, but somewhere I wanted to find a way to combine the two”.
The energy behind the first album, was like a cannon blast waiting to happen. From the moment ‘Legacy’ begins you feel this pulsating and intense turned medieval approach in what Fast created. It was like creating an alternate score for the Disney 1982 cult classic TRON that brings to mind in which Wendy herself would have appreciated and put in the film by making Larry a contributor in a parallel universe.
It did have this video-game like score that Larry was doing, but with a twist of lemon to his approach of the score. Then, comes his approach of Richard Rodgers’ composition ‘Slaughter on 10th Avenue’ which was featured at the end of the 1936 Broadway musical, On Your Toes starring Ray Bolger (Scarecrow, The Wizard of Oz). There had been others who covered it. From Buddy Cole, The Shadows, The Ventures, and of course the late, great Mick Ronson from Bowie’s backing band The Spiders from Mars during the Ziggy Stardust period.
But Fast himself adds in his approach to the composition with a sense of danger, a bit of Keith Emerson, a bit of Italian-like ‘70s texture, and epic boundaries to fill the gruesome scenery that occurred. It is glorious, rising, and mellotrons flowing into the blue skies, you can’t go wrong with that. The title-track becomes even more powerful as Larry takes it upwards by going back and forth with his technology on the synthesisers, making it sound like waves crashing, a massive tidal wave approaching, you get the idea.
It does bring to mind the golden-era of Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s work between Trilogy and Brain Salad Surgery before using a giant orchestra on the two Works albums, but Larry knew his progressive sounds to a T and sends shivers down your spine during the title-track. When I think of ‘Relay Breakdown’ I think of Pete Townshend’s Lifehouse and Quadrophenia demos he was making during that time frame.
But with a classical approach and going a little bat-shit crazy. You have to push those synths with a massive wave to get even further and further close to the edge when it comes to going up and up by reaching to the heavens and see if life is still out there in our solar system.
The closing track ‘Warriors’ finds Fast in a classical combination between the golden-era of Styx meets Kraftwerk’s Autobahn years with swooping sounds, synths going up and down the stairs, waltz-like momentum, and a score to the Sega Genesis video game, World of Illusion starring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. 50 years on, it is an incredible debut and the beginning of Larry Fast’s journey.
Ahead of its time, rewarding, and one of those albums that’ll be with you for the rest of time and into the future.
