The March release from Bowers & Wilkins Society of Sound is an album called Undercurrents. It was recorded, especially for Society of Sound, at Real World Studios by The Will Gregory Moog Ensemble.
Will Gregory is a composer, producer, keyboardist and woodwind player. He worked with Peter (and Nick Ingman) on the orchestral arrangement for The Book of Love from Scratch My Back, and has also worked with artists as diverse as Tori Amos, London Sinfonietta and Portishead. At the end of the 1990’s he formed the duo Goldfrapp with Alison Goldfrapp.
The inspiration for setting up the Moog Ensemble was Will’s re-discovery of an album by Walter Carlos that had been hugely influential in his formative musical years:
“I was listening again to “Switched On Bach” a few years ago and was struck anew by the amazing clarity and detail the synthesiser brought to Bach’s composition. I wondered why no one had attempted to assemble a group of keyboardists to reproduce this effect but in a live performance rather than as a studio multitrack. All the character and individual sonority of the separate voices but performed in real time as a living breathing ensemble, each musician sculpting and evolving their part as a reflection of their personality and musicianship.”
“All the folk in the Moog Ensemble line-up are long term friends and colleagues with whom I have enjoyed making music from all walks of musical life. Although fantastic instrumentalists, many do not usually play keyboards, let alone esoteric 70s instruments festooned with bizarre arrays of switches, sliders and knobs.
A vision for how this group might evolve comes crucially from how we see new music being written for it. We believe there are endless uncharted places these instruments have yet to take us. The new pieces included here are only the first steps”.
Read more and hear The Will Gregory Moog Ensemble