Artifacts from the Archives

We are offering a FREE 349-page pdf compendium of Raymond Scott artifacts and ephemera, including previously uncirculated historic material. The contents of Artifacts from the Archives are intended as informational supplements to the Scott albums Three Willow Park, Manhattan Research Inc., and Soothing Sounds for Baby.

The chronological, annotated documents and images spotlight Scott’s career in the field of electronic music, from his 1920s Brooklyn high school days to his 1980s post-Motown years in Los Angeles. Much of the content focuses on Scott’s most productive period, from 1958 (when he began working on electronic music full-time) to 1972 (his first year at Motown). The collection features Scott’s handwritten and typed technical notes, photographs, sketches, correspondence, art, schematics, patents, circuit diagrams, vintage news articles, and family ephemera. The pdf is offered for download in two formats: high resolution (for viewing and printing), and reduced resolution, suitable for paging through on-screen.

Limited-Edition Color-Vinyl LPs

Basta's historic compilation of early Scott electronica, MANHATTAN RESEARCH INC., has been reissued in a tricolor 3-LP set by Music on Vinyl, under license from Basta. The newly designed package is officially available today. MRI, first issued in 2000, contains 69 tracks recorded 1953–69 — over two hours’ worth of Scott’s groundbreaking electronic work. Forays into abstract musique concrete are heard alongside film soundtrack collaborations with a young Jim Henson, and pan-galactic sonics seemingly beamed down from hovering UFOs. In addition, MRI presents some of the first TV and radio commercials to feature electronic music. ORDER: HERE

SOOTHING SOUNDS FOR BABY, Scott's 1963 proto-ambient music for infants and stressed-out adults, has been reissued in a 3-LP set by Music on Vinyl (also via Basta). Explore the overlooked roots of rhythmic minimalism, predating works by Eno, Fripp, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass. Limited edition of 1,000 copies on silver vinyl, with liner notes and download coupon for all tracks. Purchase link in Euros, but if you're outside EU, Paypal will make the conversion. ORDER: HERE

Don’t Overvalue The Present

LuvSound have released a new various artists collection of ambient music in tribute to Marc Weidenbaum, founder of Disquiet. Weidenbaum recently became a father, and the theme of the sampler is Raymond Scott's groundbreaking 1963 three-volume SOOTHING SOUNDS FOR BABY, which Marc declared one of the '16 albums that changed his life':

For a fan of electronic music, hearing this material by innovator Raymond Scott is akin to a comics fan discovering Windsor Mccay’s Little Nemo in Slumberland or Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix for the first time. The lesson is simple: Don’t overvalue the present. Often the innovations of the past are simply overlooked and under-acknowledged.

Listen to or download the new album here.

Jean Shepherd:"You'll Shoot Your Eye Out, Kid!"

Although best-known as writer and narrator of the classic 1983 holiday movie, A CHRISTMAS STORY, Jean Shepherd began a long radio career in 1948. He was not a traditional DJ who kept silent while playing records; he was a monologist who carefully chose music beds to underscore his unique narrative style. At least twice he pontificated over Raymond Scott:

 • In 1965 Shep, fascinated by Scott's SOOTHING SOUNDS FOR BABY electronic lullaby series, built an entire program theme around it, according SSFB perhaps its only airplay until the CD reissues more than 3 decades later.

 • The following year, Shep delivered one of his trademark rants about amusement parks as he spun "In An 18th Century Drawing Room," which Scott composed in 1937: listen here.

She's A Doll!

Volume 3 of Raymond Scott's groundbreaking ambient electronic album series, SOOTHING SOUNDS FOR BABY, features a track titled "Little Miss Echo." In 1962, about a year before the series was released, a high-tech doll of the same name was introduced by the American Character Doll Company. Built into the Little Miss's chest was a miniature battery-powered tape machine controlled by a knob styled to look like a bow; the device would repeat up to 25 seconds of speech.

Scott had two young daughters at the time, and I speculated they might have owned the doll, but they don't recall it. Considering his lifelong fixation with all aspects of sound recording, it's likely Scott was intrigued by the novelty toy. Perhaps he was inspired by this creepy TV commercial, or maybe it was just a coincidence. At any rate, Raymond would be shocked to know he himself is now a doll.

Dubby Sounds for Baby

Boston-based musician/producer DJ Flack (aka Antony Flackett), who is the father of young twins, has released DUBBY SOUNDS FOR BABY. The mix mashes tracks from Trigga, Mouse On Mars, & music from Raymond Scott's original SOOTHING SOUNDS FOR BABY records.

>> Listen: here

Lullatone Will Rock You ... To Sleep

THE NEW YORK TIMES reports:

Lullatone are a husband-and-wife team based in Nagoya, Japan, who revere the electronic music pioneer Raymond Scott the way House reveres Facetti. Taking Scott’s 1963 Soothing Sounds for Baby albums as their starting point, Lullatone have developed a hypnotic, childlike sound that attains a lapidary brevity in their sound stamps (basically audio logos) for the Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

Lullatone's newest collection, We Will Rock You… to Sleep (an introduction to Lullatone), is a sampler CD with tracks from all of their previous albums, including one track from their upcoming disc of loops for babies.

Sleepytime

On March 12, a compulsively dedicated and immensely talented Raymond Scott devotee named Adam O'Callaghan directed and performed in a monumental cross-genre Scott centenary concert at Concordia University, Montreal. O'Callaghan recruited 50 or so acoustic and electronic musicians — students and professionals — in various ensemble settings.

The program offered repertoire from Scott's 1937-39 cartoon-jazz and 1948-49 chamber-jazz Quintets; orchestral works; the composer's elegant but rarely heard 1950 Suite for Violin & Piano; tunes from the idiosyncratic 1960 Secret Seven album; and pioneering proto-electronica from Manhattan Research Inc. and Soothing Sounds for Baby. The proceedings included re-enactments of Scott's 1950s electronic TV commercials and a rhapsodic replica of a Space Age Scott invention, The Fascination Machine. The concert was a mind-boggler, never likely to be duplicated. Dozens of performance videos from the concert are on YouTube. One performance (just posted) was particularly stunning and unexpected — a surprise collaborator accompanying the trio Unireverse on Scott's electronic lullaby, "Sleepytime" (from Soothing Sounds). The guest arrives onstage three minutes into the performance.

Old school goes new school

Raymond Scott's electronic music productions from the 1950s thru the 1980s have achieved greater public recognition since the artist's death in 1994 than they did during his working life. In 1997, his 1964 infant lullabyes, Soothing Sounds for Baby, made their CD debut to wide critical acclaim. Manhattan Research, Inc., a 2-CD set of vintage Scott electronica, received an equally warm welcome upon its release in 2000. MRI's long-awaited sequel, covering the early 1960s thru the late 1970s, is planned. The as-yet untitled collection will be co-produced by Gert-Jan Blom and Jeff Winner. Ergo Phizmiz, who hosts The Phuj Phactory on WFMU radio, is editing together an hour of Scott electronica reinvented by today's DJs, mixologists, and technophiles. The program, entitled "Cyclic Bits: The Raymond Scott Variations," airs Wednesday, May 16, and will feature Frankenscott creations by:

Bebe del Banco (Japan) Felix Kubin (Germany) Margoo (Italy) Satanicpornocultshop (Japan) Orionza (Japan) Credreq (UK) Ego Plum (US) Listen With Sarah (UK) Chief Huri Upa (UK) 4,000,000 Telephones (UK) David Fenech (France) I Love Audrey (UK) Fireworks Ensemble (US) and others ...

The contributors were granted permission to use samples from MRI and SSFB, and the program will be garnished with extracts from Scott's original recordings. An album of the full remixes might be released later. montage by EsoTek