Roger Powell - Cosmic Furnace - "Ictus / Lumia / Fourneau Cosmique"

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Imagery for this video is sourced from photos/scans of my original vinyl pressing (cover/jacket, labels, etc) of Roger Powell - "Cosmic Furnace" (1973) Atlantic Records SD 7251.

All sounds on this album are created on ARP synthesizers, programmed by Roger Powell, except for electric clavichord, electric and acoustic pianos.
The electronic instruments are:
ARP 2500: Percussion and complex filtering
ARP Soloist: Strings
ARP 2600: Brass & bass
ARP Odysseys: Reeds & fuzz sounds

Biography courtesy Wikipedia:

Roger Powell (born March 1949) is a musician, computer programmer and magazine columnist best known for his membership with the rock band Utopia.

Powell's musical career started in the late 1960s, programming analog synthesizers for commercials. Powell was the protege of Robert Moog (who created the Moog synthesizer). During the early 70's, Powell worked at ARP Instruments, ARP being one of the top synthesizer companies of the 1970s (and Moog's first real serious competition).
He also played keyboards and synthesizers with the rock band Utopia (replacing Jean Yves "M. Frog" Labat), led by Todd Rundgren and featuring players Kasim Sulton and Willie Wilcox, among others, from 1974 until its disbanding in 1985, playing, writing, and singing on ten of the band's eleven albums. For Utopia's live shows, Powell created the Powell Probe; the first remote, hand-held polyphonic synthesizer controller, which featured a custom-made shell used to access a complex stack of sequencers and other peripherals offstage, a device also used in a modified form by Jan Hammer.

His first solo album Cosmic Furnace was released in 1973 and described by Billboard magazine's reviewer as "...a fascinating, demanding LP that has all the hypnotic eeriness of the recent Miles Davis approach". He produced several additional solo albums, and was a touring musician with David Bowie and others.

In October 2006, after a long absence from music recording, Roger released Fossil Poets with musicians Gary Tanin and Greg Koch. The music is described as electronic / prog rock 'retro-futuristic'.

In March 2009, Roger released Blue Note Ridge with producer Gary Tanin. The music is described as solo piano improvisations.He occasionally performs with Bay Area folk musician and friend David Elias, plus other local, roots musicians. Informal live performances have been hosted and recorded at the San Gregorio General Store.

On September 7, 2009 Powell once again shared the stage with Rundgren as part of a re-constituted Utopia, with Tubes drummer Prairie Prince replacing Willie Wilcox. The band played an opening set for an album-length concert of Rundgren's A Wizard/A True Star. Powell was able to participate in the short tour after leaving Apple and before starting at Electronic Arts.
Programmer

A talented computer programmer, Powell developed one of the first PC MIDI sequencers, Texture. Originally developed for the Apple II, Texture allowed the user to manipulate patterns of notes and store them on disk. Soon after the MIDI protocol was introduced, Texture was ported to the IBM PC and the Amiga and utilized the Roland MPU-401 MIDI interface. Its celebrity users included Stevie Wonder and Bob James. Much of Powell's computer work pre-dated MIDI. He gave the first performance on an all digital synthesizer while working with Hal Alles and Gregory Sims at Bell Laboratories. Powell's talents led eventually to positions with WaveFrame (an "audio mainframe" synthesizer used by Peter Gabriel), Silicon Graphics and Alias/Wavefront.

From 1997 to May 2009, he worked for Apple Computer as a senior programmer and technical lead for audio within Apple Professional Applications. He currently works at Electronic Arts as a Senior Producer on emerging music technologies.
Writer

Powell wrote a Keyboard Magazine column on synthesizer technique for a number of years which were included in several books published by Hal Leonard - Synthesizer Basics, Synthesizer Technique and Synthesizers and Computers

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Roger
• Powell
• Ictus
• Cosmic
• Furnace
• Todd
• Rundgren
• Utopia
• Moog
• Synthesizer
• Apple
• Computers

[RMoribayashi]

Thanks are not enough! I'd only ever heard a tiny excerpt of this album on an ARP demo record that Roger produced. I used to give them out to prospective ARP buyers. It wasn't a flexi-disk, but a real vinyl disk in a paper sleeve the size of a 45 single, but it had a small hole and played at 33 1/3. I handed one to Todd at a Utopia concert with "Roger's ARP Demo" written on it's white paper sleeve. Still have a couple around somewhere.

[drprogensteinphp]

@RMoribayashi

Great story. I actually had an early 70's ARP demo as well, which along with Roger Powell, also featured Dave Fredericks. I'm not sure what became of it. I have boxes full of that sort of stuff put away in storage :)

Cheers!

[forneau]

Thank you very much for making this video of my first solo album. Very creative! Hard to believe it's been 38 years since I recorded this music... - Roger

[drprogensteinphp]

@forneau

So glad you enjoyed my video....thanks for the compliment :)

I've been a huge fan of your debut LP since its release...38 years ago?? Wow...how time flies!...

Though I have to ask you...how much of the music on this album was improvised (if any), and how much of it was composed before hand? Absolutely brilliant!

[drprogensteinphp]

Access "Ictus: The Primordial Pulse" click here: 00:00

Access "Lumia: Dance of the Nebulae" click here: 5:00

Access "Fourneau Cosmique: Alchemical Furnace of Cleopatra" click here: 10:10

[StringRamblerBale]

respect ... one has to find his way with so many buttons ;) thx m8

[drprogensteinphp]

@StringRamblerBale

Yep...easy to get lost in that electronic maze. It's easy to see how he eventually became a senior programmer at Apple Computers during the 90's/00's :)

[adewolf]

This is easily one of the bet electronic music albums ever. This is the best music Roger Powell ever did and it would have been great to see this performed live. I am so happy it got a proper CD release from Wounded Bird Records. Thanks for this powerful, beautiful music Roger.

[forneau]

@drprogensteinphp It was a mixture of composition and improvisation. Most of the pieces have a structure (chords / melody) that I worked out on piano beforehand. Lots of spontaneity though in the recorded layers. "Lumia" however, was mostly created by "noodling" on the 2500 and building up overdubs. Remember, too, that this was all done before drum machines and MIDI sequencers were invented!

[drprogensteinphp]

@vincentjacque

Yes...the ARP 2600 had a great bass sound. Too bad he didn't use the ARP 2500 for more than rhythm and percussion. It has such a monstrous sound. I've always felt that he really should have used it more in order to demonstrate its full capabilities :)

[vincentjacque]

Love the ARP bass sound!!! Sounds "clean" ! -)