Automat, "Droid"
Ladies, Gentlemen, *humans of all species and/or version numbers, Machine Intelligences! The Spacing Guild Guide to Good Music is proud--nay, thrilled!--to bring to you, courtesy of our brethren at Mutant Sounds, a Totally Booty-rockin' Electro Jam from 1970s Italy--"Droid", by Automat! (Make click to the left to experience the specialness!)
Here's a brief description of Automat blatantly stolen from Mutant Sounds:
Their 1978 album is a rather unique example of instrumental electronic music from Italy, totally built on synthesized sounds and rhythms, it's in the same rank as contemporary works by Kraftwerk and Jean Michel Jarre, whose Oxygene was recorded in the same period and released just a few months before this, so it can be an interesting surprise for fans of this musical style.Side A is totally taken by the long Automat suite by Claudio Gizzi, while the B side contains three shorter tracks by Musumarra. One of these, Droid, was a leading theme on the brazilian Globo TV.
The album art, viewable on the Mutant Sounds page linked above, depicts a pastel android peering at his own very human reflection, Narcissus-like, in a pool of water--but when I listen to the track "Droid", I can't help but envision a classical, Golden-Age metal man storming through a vast factory full of lasers shining through banks of mist, followed by an army of humans in tight-fitting jumpsuits, newly freed from servitude to the evil Machine Lords, as plasma bolts shoot through the air with analog BEEYOO BEEYOO sounds. Very Battlestar Gallactica meets Logan's Run, with perhaps a little Zardoz thrown in--I mean, one can never go wrong with a strapping silver droid in a bright scarlet banana hammock!
This post marks a first for TSGGtGM, as well--our first downloadable mp3! We'll be bringing you more out-of-print, hard-to-find goodness in times to come.
