Larry Fast
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Larry Fast | |
|---|---|
| Origin | West Essex, New Jersey |
| Genre(s) | Electronic music |
| Instrument(s) | Keyboard |
| Years active | 1975 - present |
| Label(s) | Passport, Atlantic, Voiceprint, ABC Classics |
| Associated acts | Synergy, Nektar, Peter Gabriel, Yes, Tony Levin Band |
| Website | http://synergy-emusic.com/ |
Larry Fast (Lawrence R. Fast) is a synthesizer expert and composer. He is best known for "Synergy", his 1975-1987 series of synthesizer music albums, and for his contribution to a number of popular music acts, including Peter Gabriel's.
Contents |
[edit] Biography
Fast grew up in West Essex, New Jersey and attended Lafayette College in Pennsylvania, where he obtained a degree in History. There he took his previous training in piano and violin and melded them with computer science to become interested in synthesized music and to build his own primitive sound-making electronic devices.
He was introduced to Rick Wakeman, the keyboard player from the band Yes during a local radio interview, and traveled to the UK to work with Yes on their 1974 album Tales from Topographic Oceans. It was there that he got a recording contract with Passport Records.
[edit] The Synergy project
Fast recorded a series of pioneering synthesizer music albums under the project name Synergy. Some of this work was used as the basis for music in Commodore 64 and Amiga computer games, notably Rob Hubbard's score for the C64 version of Zoids, which was an unofficial cover of Synergy's Ancestors from the 1981 album Audion.
The first album in the series, Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra, was released as an LP in 1975. In the following decade, he released eight more Synergy LPs on Passport Records, all of which were later re-released on CDs. The tenth album in the series, Reconstructed Artifacts, was released in 2002, and contained completely new performances of select compositions from the previous albums, using modern digital synthesizers.
The albums in this series, with original release date, are:
- Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra, 1975
- Sequencer, 1976
- Cords, 1978
- Games, 1979
- Audion, 1981
- Computer Experiments, Volume One, 1981
- The Jupiter Menace (sound track of film The Jupiter Menace), 1982
- Semi-Conductor (compilation with two new tracks), 1984
- Metropolitan Suite, 1987
- Reconstructed Artifacts, 2002
[edit] Other music projects
- Fast is also known for his work with Peter Gabriel. He played synthesizer on records and on tour, and rounded out the production team on Gabriel's albums from 1976 to 1986.
- Fast toured and recorded with bassist Tony Levin (himself an alumnus of Peter Gabriel's band) as part of Levin's Waters of Eden band.
- Fast worked sporadically with Nektar, providing much of the dominating synthesizers on their Recycled album.
- Fast collaborated on the 1980's pop music project Iam Siam, which produced the hit She Went Pop.
- Fast contributed music to the Carl Sagan 1980 television program Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, and to the 1992 film Netherworld.
- Fast helped create the music for Tokyo DisneySea, a new Walt Disney theme park.
- As of 2006, Fast was touring with the Tony Levin Band.
[edit] Other Interests
Larry has done some work with designing listening devices for the hearing disabled. His wife had been working in the field for some time. He owns several patents for optical distribution using infrared audio technologies.
He is also part of a government group aiming to protect some of New Jersey's historic assets against developers.
[edit] External links
- Larry Fast's official homepage, containing his biography and discography.
- Synergy at Allmusic
- Larry Fast biography on artistdirect.com
- Synergy discography on artistdirect.com
- Interview with Larry Fast on innerviews
- Larry Fast interview at electronicmusic.com
- U.S. Patent 5548654, Infrared audio transmitter system, Lawrence R. Fast, Aug 1996.
- U.S. Patent 5596648, Infrared audio transmitter system, Lawrence R. Fast, Jan 1997.
