Moog Cookbook, The

The 1968 release of “Switched on Bach” by Wendy Carlos exploded on to the music scene. The first album to fully popularize the moog synthesizer, the electronic-classical album sold over one million copies. Since then countless artists have attempted to recreate the amazing musical combination of the moog and popularized music with mixed results. The Moog Cookbook, artists Brian Kehew and Roger Joseph Manning Jr., have found the contemporary answer to “Switched on Bach” with their self-titled album. Despite vast advancements, The Moog Cookbook uses the moog, invented by Robert Moog, a technology almost half a century old. Although the moog originated solely as an instrument for recorded music, through technological advancements, such as a sequencer, the synthesizer became a live music instrument. The Moog Cookbook takes this technology and recreates recent rock hits into electronic art pieces.
In their self-titled album, the Moog Cookbook have covered such works as Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” and even released a music video for their cover of “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden. Most of the cover material comes from the two previous bands and other contemporary grunge and rock bands such as Weezer, Green Day, Pearl Jam, and the Offspring. Moog Cookbook is able to take these teen angst ballads and translate them into a completely new experience. With almost no vocals but for a few samples such as in “Come Out and Play” (an Offspring cover) and “Free Falling” (originally by Tom Petty) it offers a completely musical approach to these songs that almost provides an antonym to the original. Where there are voice samples, it both helped and hurt the integrity of the track and album. For instance, “Come Out and Play” makes good use of the voice samples only using them sparingly for the instantly recognizable “gotta keep ‘em separated” line. However, the voice samples in “Free Falling” are entirely over played; seemingly the only bearable use of them in the song is the “free falling” vocalization. Some songs take a while to recognize the material from which they are covered such as “Buddy Holly” which takes almost a minute and a half to build up into distinctly recognizable Weezer cover material. “Are You Gonna Go My Way” cover starts off with such promise, but very quickly digresses into what can only be described as creepy electronic circus music.
Artists Brian Kehew and Roger Joseph Manning Jr. were brought together of all things by a classified ad, Brian was selling another electronic instrument, the Optigan. Brought together by music, the two soon found common interests in electronic music, including older albums using the moog. Together they set out to create one of the best and most contemporarily appealing moog albums in “The Moog Cookbook.” Taking just a week to finish recording (in Brian’s basement no less) it is easy to see where in some places their artistic creativity would have shown better given more time could have helped the two produce something truly spectacular, however there are quite a few gems in this album that make it overall a joy to listen to. Like Wendy Carlos with “Switched on Bach” the Moog Cookbook brings a refreshing, enjoyable face to moog artists that connects with contemporary music.