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Watch Synth Legend Suzanne Ciani Trace Her Legacy in New Interview

It was conducted by DJ Lance Rock at North Carolina festival Moogfest earlier this year.

Modular synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani today shared an extended video interview she took part in earlier this year at North Carolina music festival Moogfest. Conducted by former Yo Gabba Gabba! star DJ Lance Rock, the exchange covers the full breadth of the influential artist's career. The timeline extends all the way from her first encounters with electronic music, facilitated by meeting and working with synthesizer pioneer Don Buchla, to her resurgence in popularity of recent years.

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There are too many gems to list here, but some of the many things she discusses are working with Greek composer Vangelis in the early 90s, how Turkish electronic musician Ilhan Mimaroglu came to release her debut album, and the pros and cons of performing with electronic versus acoustic instruments.

Ciani sent THUMP a statement to accompany the interview via email, where she offers an expansive idea of a global commons. "I don't think we've ever been more aware of our 'connectedness' on this planet…our shared destinies…and yet that awareness causes us to shelter our own identities, to protect ourselves from each other," she said. "My hope for the new year is that we question our automatic responses and imagine what things would look like and how we'd act if we were not ruled by fear. Maybe we need a 'modular' paradigm of global politics: we all get patched together to make beautiful music."

Earlier this year, Ciani collaborated with ambient composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith on one of the year's most colossal-sounding synth records, and we learned how it all arrived from a chance meeting in a Bay Area town. We liked it so much that we made it our fifth favorite experimental record on 2016.

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