Wrote some whiny self-indulgent stuff on the other site. Go check it if you’re interested.

Hans Wurman – Moog Strikes Bach (Complete Album Download)
I’ve often shared Moog covers albums, and I think it’s something I’ll continue to do until I stop finding weird Moog covers albums.

There seem to be hundreds of these out there, many of which were released in the years immediately following the surprise runaway success of Wendy Carlos’ Switched On Bach.

At first taste, Moog Strikes Bach would appear to be an exceptionally derivative example of this trend. Shit, it even has Bach in the title. And while this album does owe the entirety of its existence to Hooked On Bach, there’s actually a lot to like here.

For starters, it’s not really a collection of Bach pieces, despite what the title says. There’s only one Bach composition on here. The majority of the album is actually Mozart, but I guess they couldn’t come up with a “funny” pun with his name. The Mozart stuff is good, but of all the tracks on this record I really prefer some of the less covered ground. This is the first Moog album I’ve come across that has interpretations of Prokofieff and Rachmaninoff on it, so it gets points for originality if nothing else. Also the “Variations on Paganini” track is a 10 minute banger that features some really crazy and out-there synth work that I feel was a little bit ahead of its time.

I tried to dig up some information on Hans Wurman, but I could only gather the odd bits and pieces. He was a composer and pianist, but I don’t think he ever released anything of his own commercially. But he did love him the Moog. In addition to this record he released a Moog cover of “Carmen” and a collection of Chopin Moog covers as well.

He’s also credited as an engineer and performer on a few other Moog releases as part of the Electronic Concept Orchestra. I actually own two of their releases, Moog Groove and Electric Love, and while both feature some truly amazing covers, I can’t really recommend them.

Outside of that, I can’t find much on him aside from a pair of credits at the IMDB, including one for a horror movie called Bog about a giant gilled monster. Gonna have to dig that one up.

Like I said, this is a pretty great record, and a big step up from the typical rip-off rush job Moog records that were coming out at the time, especially in the classical market. Get your Moog on and give it a go.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 27th, 2015 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Complete Albums, Moog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.