Synths. People have them. As a matter of fact, lots of different people have them, and in most circumstances, there’s a marked difference between the folks who know how to expressively control their equipment and the folks who don’t. M. Geddes Gengras is one of those musicians who knows a thing or two or five-thousand about synths. In fact, Gengras is such a master of his equipment/sound that he’s become an in-demand sideman and collaborator, having worked with everyone from Sun Araw and Pocahaunted to Akron/Family and Warm Climate — and it’s easy to see why when listening to Gengras’ solo work.
As made apparent by Collected Works Vol. 1, The Moog Years, Umor Rex’s forthcoming compilation of his early work, not only has Gengras always displayed a knack for wringing a number of sounds out of even the most minimal of setups, but he also always knew how to craft beautifully varied soundscapes in the process. In many ways, “Magical Writing” might be one of the best distillations of Gengras’ craft on the record. It pits a subtly shifting sustained harmony against various electronic glitches & whirs that slowly give way to more drones, before the atonal sounds eventually bring back more abstract timbres. On this track and others — check out “Resistor” and “10.17.2009 (for ccg)” via the label’s SoundCloud — Gengras clearly realized the massive potential that synths had to create completely modern sounds, and it was his ability to actualize this potential that put him high among the synth gods of his time.
Collected Works Vol. 1, The Moog Years is out on vinyl and digitally August 20 via Umor Rex. Stream “Magical Writing” here:
• M. Geddes Gengras: http://mgeddesgengras1.bandcamp.com
• Umor Rex: http://www.umor-rex.org
More about: M. Geddes Gengras
