Following on from the previous post I looked up the source of the sample in the Paloma Faith track Upside Down and was surprised – it was from the Optigan.
‘That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time…’ /OB1
The Optigan was a home organ, really a kid’s toy made by Mattel, a sort of early sampler that ran off optical discs, a hybrid of a pre-digital home organ and Fisher Price My First Record Player. that was unreliable and wonky – something that gives the discs lo-fi charm. It was really a consumer version of the Mellotron – also featured in this video – which also had reliability issues but was more successful and worked off tape loops.
The professional version, the Orchestron was more reliable and used by Kraftwerk as well on three of their major 70’s albums, as well as Yes on tour and Rainbow as well, and later Arctic Monkeys (?!) Fleet Foxes and Semisonic.
They turn up in the most surprising places. Kelis’s Trick Me is formed from samples from the Mellotron, the clone Chilton Talentmaker guitar disks were heavily used by Jon Brion soundtrack for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind, that aforementioned Paloma Faith’s track uses the Optigan’s ‘Champagne Music’,
(I do wonder given the Chilton Talentmaker‘s chord buttons if it was used by Boards of Canada for The Campfire Headphase… it would be just like them to start there and then make it impossible to recognise).
The Strokes used the Cha Cha Cha! disk for a track on their 2013 album, which weirdly sounds more like Avalanches than ‘Last Night’? That’s not a criticism, I love this.
Lily Allen used ‘Nashville Country’ for ‘Not Fair’ and ‘Pop Piano Plus Guitar’ on ‘He’s Not There’. The Clash used one in Sandanista’s ‘Version City’ and the same loop was also used by Crowded House in Chocolate Cake as mentioned in the video,
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard used one on Sketches of Brunswick East II and rather more obiously Blur used the Waltz Time (3/4) disk on ‘Optigan 1’.. Ed Harcourt, Dr John and Devo too.
But Aimee Mann?! She’s not really known for lo-fi electronica or woozy folk-fi?
Less unsurprising is Goldfrapp using it for the folky Seventh Tree yet I was both surprised and not surprised it was used by Sparklehorse, as both tracks I know well like the Lily Allen. It’s perfect for the woozy lo-fi nature of his work and I suspect inspired Jon Brion’s soundtrack as this was released in 2001, using the same Guitar 3/4 disk loops. In fact Radio Clash and mashup favourite ‘Dark Night of the Soul’ by Dangermouse and Sparklehouse also features the Blues Sweet and Low disk.
Really surprised HAINBACH hasn’t done a video on the Optigan, seems like it would be right up his street. But like the Optigan and Pixelvision and all that early junk tech that I was fascinated with as an art student he’s making tape loops with magnetic card audio recorders – they still had these at school when I was a kid, although I don’t think we ever used them, I think we used compact cassette in our language tests.
And yes I know it was used in Baby Driver! It is slightly strange that such a banal educational/office tool from my youth that lay dusty in the corner is now being used for experimental music, then again I could see the abiility to ‘scratch’ tape is attractive.
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