Chrome Canyon...like the future sounded in 1976

Morgan Z Whirledge, ex of the wildly theatrical Apes & Androids, has a new synthy, crescendo-happy project called Chrome Canyon, whose first album Elemental Themes has been getting a work-out on my stereo lately. It's futuristic, but in that cool, slightly retro way of old sci fi movies -- very likely because of all the theremin.

In an interview at Percussion Lab, actually a pretty interesting piece, Whirledge says:

I knew I was in love with this retro-futurist idea of music à la Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, Wendy Carlos, etc... but I guess until I actually got myself some analog gear I wasn't really able to find the right sound. Once I got my first analog synth (a Juno-60) and started to mess around with it I realized that I was making a lot of this spacey, cinematic sounding stuff and thought I should give it a serious shot and put some stuff out just to see what happens. I feel like it was the first time I was making the unabashed nerd music I had always kept bottled up. Hence, Chrome Canyon was born.

The new album is out this week on Stones Throw Records.