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Baker's Dozen

While His Synth Gently Beeps: Benge's Favourite Electronic LPs
Luke Turner , February 15th, 2017 10:50

We know you all love a bit of synth porn so here's Benge's Baker's Dozen - a sort of synth erotica reading, if you will, as he guides you through 13 electronic favourites from Morton Subotnick to Else Marie Pade and George Harrison's Moog explorations to Air and Autechre. Benge photo by Ed Fielding

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John Carpenter - Halloween 3
I am a huge fan of Carpenter’s 70s and 80s soundtrack work with Alan Howarth. I virtually designed my studio with them in mind when I was starting out. It was the 1990s and people were chucking out all their analogue synths in the wake of new-fangled computer-based gear. I just wanted the biggest and most hands-on stuff I could find. I had a picture of John Carpenter and Alan Howarth stuck to my wall, surrounded by their room full of analogue synths, mixers, tape machines and FX units. I actually cut out a picture of myself and stuck it on top.

This soundtrack is for a Halloween film JC did not write or direct, its a really weird film about a company that manufacture possessed plastic pumpkins or something, but the score is fully Carpenter and is the best thing about it, apart from the opening credits which are worth checking out on YouTube for a classic dose of early 80s video design. The soundtrack album hums and buzzes with all those lovely analogue synths, they must have had so much fun making it.