I recently revisited an album that populated my youth: Music for Robots. It comes from Forrest J Ackerman, Vampirella co-creator and editor/writer of Famous Monsters of Filmland, and Frank A. Coe, sound-effects innovator/composer for Blood Shack, Kiss Me Quick! and The Wizard of Mars.
The 1961 album is predominately a spoken-word exploration, written and narrated by Ackerman, enhanced by Coe's lively sounds and in its final phase, placating, Krell-ish frequencies. Through this inspiring blend of reverberations, Ackerman leads the listener on a trip through time, per enjoyable, "Tin Age" history lessons on robots and androids, covering the earliest, reputed examples, including a walking, wooden Venus with mercury blood; a flying, wooden pigeon; an automated, talking head; and Leonardo Da Vinci's metal lion, venturing straight into the amazing, reconnaissance devices of the modern age.
As a bonus, Ackerman essays the avant-garde, literary examples of manufactured entities, including Karel Capek's breakthrough play, Rossum's Universal Robots, aka R.U.R. (where the term, "robot" was born), ultimately segueing into such cinematic staples as Fritz Lang's Metropolis (Ackerman's favorite movie); Aelita, the Queen of Mars; The Day the Earth Stood Still; The Colossus of New York; Devil Girl From Mars; Robot Monster; Tobor the Great ... and of course, that ever-popular, unofficial, Star Trek pilot, Forbidden Planet.
Another portion of the album is speculative, with a "Tales from Tomorrow," time-travel jaunt into the distant year, 2050, where the listener is treated to a tour of an omniscient, robotic industry, defined by Isaac Asimov's pragmatic Three Laws of Robotics.
When all is said and done, Music for Robots is both quaint and prophetic, well worth a listen in this age of burgeoning A.I. One will find that society's present concerns were also concerns decades ago, though now the world is all the closer to the possible blessings and curses of a robotic (re)volution.
In addition, Music for Robots was a springboard for my interest in (and appreciation for) Michael Ferentino's prevailing, musical project, Bedtime for Robots. Like the latter, the 1961 opus is entrenched in the past in order to envision the future, implanting ideas that are at once scientific yet spiritual at heart.
One can experience Ackerman/Coe's audio essay at YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj8XaD5_pQE&t=580s
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