DOUG McKECHNIE - San Francisco Moog: 1968-72 Vol. 1 LP

Documents a missing link in the history of electronic music, as well as the little-known moment when psychedelic music went electronic.

In 1968, Bay Area native Doug McKechnie got hold of one the very first modular Moog synthesizers ever made and began finding his own way to play it. Soon, he was hauling the finicky instrument around to perform improvised concerts at colleges and ballrooms, as well as an ill-fated appearance on the bill at Altamont.

Many of the performances were recorded, and the surviving tapes—never before released—capture a free-flowing, transportive sound that fills in the gap between the austere mid-century academic avant garde and the expansive cosmic suites of Tangerine Dream and the rest of the Berlin School in the ’70s. This is not another corny old Moog record. San Francisco Moog sounds as fresh as anything by today’s analog-synth heads while bringing to life a lost moment in the development of the music.

“Astonishing stuff, pure early Moog electronics . . . vibrating with the joy taken in the discovery of the new sounds this machine was capable of.” —Electronic Sound

“Presages both Tangerine Dream’s soundtracks and, in its most grimy moments, ‘Acid Tracks.” —The Wire