Wendy Carlos A Biography by Amanda Sewell

 

The surprise success of the classical album Switched On Bach in 1968 came as a shock to essentially everyone - the record company, critics and even the creator. It also came at a time when Walter Carlos was transitioning to Wendy Carlos, a highly unusual and controversial situation at the time, although Carlos felt that it was insignificant and trivial and didn't want people to concentrate on it. Unfortunately for her, she was a true pioneer as well as a recording star and so this small part of her story was magnified to the extent that she basically went into hiding, although she did continue to put out work up until the 1990's.

This biography was written without Carlos' support or input and she even actively disparaged it before it was even released. That said, Sewell does her best to present an even-handed, respectful story of a musical and gender pioneer, with incredible research, copious footnotes and references from the few interviews that Wendy did consent to in the past.

From Sewell's description, Carlos was pretty much a genius at a young age and by her teens, she was building her own stereos and recording equipment, creating electronic music (influenced by the "music concrete" of Pierre Henry), and working on new musical concepts and scales, among many other innovations. In college she and the administration created a unique curriculum due to her unique visions, combining science and music, and she excelled and went on to graduate study in electronic music. From there she discovered an early synthesizer - the size of a room - and made initial contact with another inventor, Moog, and ended up collaborating on many musical innovations together.

At the same time, Carlos discovered ground breaking innovations in gender reassignment therapies and started looking into this for herself since her current existence, other than her musical work, was pretty solitary and depressing with continual thoughts of suicide. Harry Benjamin gave Carlos some relief and hope for the future. Sewell gives a bit of history of the medical side of gender transitioning, as well, which is pretty fascinating in and of itself.

While the transition is an important part of the story - if only for the ramifications on her career - which means that Sewell doesn't ignore it but does concentrate mostly on Carlos' music and her opinions on the continuing innovations in technology and music. Of course, none of her subsequent records match the success of Switched On Bach which frustrates Carlos, as it does most musicians who grow and who think their later work is superior to their earlier, more naive releases.

I think that Sewell does a terrific and respectful job throughout the book (although their is some repetition, as though the chapters were originally individual essays, as Melanie conjectures) and while Carlos is obviously a difficult and reclusive subject, she is also obviously brilliant, sarcastic, witty, and multi talented (she is renown for her eclipse photography, as well). She also does not want her work released on any current social media platform even though her CDs and LPs are out of print, so no new prospective fans can discover her work. Even her website seems to have fallen by the wayside.

In any case, until Carlos decides to tell her own story, this is well written, researched, informative and captivating.