British artist Benge (real name: Ben Edwards) has been a leading, if under-recognized, light in the bright and bushy-tailed world of electronica since the mid 90s, releasing his own music and that of colleagues from the world over via his consistently excellent Expanding Records label. Benge's own music reveals a man deeply in love with synthesizers and the microcosmic worlds they open up; his myriad albums of glowing, melodious, rhythmic electronic music drink deep of its historical antecedents (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Kraftwerk, even British experimentalists such as Delia Derbyshire) in addition to the more compelling influences of post-techno dance music since melded into the wilds of IDM. Expanding's generally prolific run of releases may have slowed somewhat these last years, but the better for Edwards to work diligently on his own unique user-interfaces, an indulgence that now culminates in 20 Systems.
As Edwards' says in the disc's accompanying notes — a gorgeous, hardbound package, decked out in Expanding's well-known commitment to eloquence and attention to design, encompasses a detailed book with archival photos — 20 Systems was "created on 20 different synthesizers, one from each year between 1968 and 1988." He doesn't intend the collection of recordings to be "a comprehensive history of synthesizers"; however, "what you hear on each track is the pure sound of an individual instrument...I wanted to let the instruments speak for themselves as much as possible, to let the instruments influence the way I composed the pieces." Essentially, Edwards walks the listener across the span of his technological heritage, enabling his muse to intuitively interact with the various modules he "composes" with, but the remove he set up as an edict for the accompanying pieces acts as passionate homage to the instruments through which he functions.
The music itself is so poised between "non"-idiomatic creation and Edward's hands-off approach to sound design that the delicate balance he's erected between results in about as pure and glorious an example of organic/inorganic audio mixology as has yet to surface. The wealth of sounds on display reaffirms for those rampant enthusiasts why they embrace the textures of electronic music in the first place — Edwards' massaging of sounds out of his attendant machines is like synthetic foreplay, the noises they produce climactic and satisfying in the extreme. Naturally the "music" seems to broaden in sophistication as the years and equipment progress, but each piece nonetheless remains a full-fledged entity in and of itself. 1968's "Moog Modular" revisits old sci-fi stomping grounds with its ominous bass pulses; 1971's "ARP 2600" reflects the isolationism of astronauts adrift in endless galactic vacuum; 1975's "Moog Polymoog" redirects the illustrious synth sheen of prime-era Schulze and Jan Hammer in its quivering waveforms, as does the star twinkles of 1982's "PPG Wave"; 1994's "Oberheim Xpander" marks out the shifting, shimmery atmospheres that might be found on far-flung worlds. 20 Systems tends to play like the (now-fashionable, and collectable) library music recordings many artists provide for accompaniment to television and films, but Edwards' "tribute" to his beloved synth arsenal is much more than that: he exhibits his collection as equal parts treasure trove and fetish object, to the delight of both himself and us. Essential, necessary, and a core component for anyone calling themselves aficionados of electronic music and its many-splintered topographies.
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