Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach

Description

So much, popular and scholarly, has been written about the synthesizer, Bob Moog and his brand-name instrument, and even Wendy Carlos, the musician who made this instrument famous. No one, however, has examined the importance of spy technology, the Cold War and Carlos's gender to this critically important innovation. Through a postcolonial lens of feminist science and technology studies, Roshanak Kheshti engages in a reading of Carlos's music within this gendered context. By focusing on Switched-On Bach (the highest selling classical music recording of all time), this book explores the significance of gender to the album's--and, as a result, the Moog synthesizer's--phenomenal success.

Roshanak Kheshti is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies and affiliate faculty in the Critical Gender Studies Program at the University of California, San Diego, USA.

Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach is the type of entry that keeps me coming back to the 33 1/3 series. Khesti's work has completely opened up my mind and understanding of what the Moog should be as a musical instrument and what Wendy Carlos hoped to accomplish by recording music as she did. * Bearded Gentleman Music * Roshanak Kheshti, the author of the new 33 1/3 book series entrant Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach, says Carlos was and remains a "foundational presence" to electronic music-and that the brief public acknowledgements she often garners today fall far short of the full story. * Reverb *