This one slipped by me some­how. So let me flag it, in case it slipped by you too. Late last year, The Foo Fight­ers released online a free EP called Saint Cecil­ia, part­ly as a way to thank their fans for their stead­fast sup­port, and part­ly to help raise mon­ey for the vic­tims of the hor­rif­ic attacks in Paris. Record­ed over the course of 11 days at the Hotel Saint Cecil­ia in Austin, Texas–a hotel named after the patron saint of musicians–the EP just became avail­able in vinyl. Spin mag­a­zine calls Saint Cecil­ia the “Foo Fight­ers’ best record in years.” You can down­load it in MP3, Flac, WAV, and iTunes for­mats here.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Dave Grohl Shows How He Plays the Gui­tar As If It Were a Drum Kit

Hear Dave Grohl’s First Foo Fight­ers Demo Record­ings, As Kurt Cobain Did in 1992

1,000 Musi­cians Per­form Foo Fight­ers’ “Learn to Fly” in Uni­son in Italy; Dave Grohl Responds in Ital­ian

Lis­ten to The John Bon­ham Sto­ry, a Radio Show Host­ed by Dave Grohl

When I think of ear­ly drum machines, I think of the Roland TR-808, the machine that changed pop music in 1980. I also think of its sib­ling, the Boss DR-55, rivals like the E‑Mu Dru­mu­la­tor, and pre­de­ces­sors from the 60s and 70s like the Mae­stro Rhythm King. I do not think of the Rhyth­mi­con, nor did I know it had exist­ed until very recent­ly. I doubt many peo­ple have ever heard of it, yet it can prob­a­bly claim the title of the first drum machine—or at least first rhythm machine—ever built.

The machine came into being in 1931 when Amer­i­can com­pos­er Hen­ry Cow­ell—in search of a means of trans­lat­ing his increas­ing­ly com­pli­cat­ed rhyth­mic pieces—contracted Leon Theremin, inven­tor of the musi­cal device that bears his name. Theremin came up with the Rhyth­mi­con, “a quirky, clunky, key­board-based machine that was able to play com­plex polyrhythms in pre­cise loops,” writes Peter Hol­slin at the Red Bull Music Acad­e­my Dai­ly.

Although only three mod­els of the machine were ever produced—one now lost—and Cow­ell only wrote a cou­ple of pieces for the machine before los­ing inter­est, it remains, as musi­col­o­gist Mar­garet Schedel has point­ed out, “a con­cep­tu­al leap” in instru­ment design and a direct ances­tor of today’s rhythm and sequenc­ing tech­nol­o­gy. The Rhyth­mi­con was the first for­ay into what Schedel calls “inter­ac­tiv­i­ty,” mean­ing, Hol­slin writes that “you sim­ply press a key to acti­vate a sequence—much like you can do today with the arpeg­gia­tor of a key­board….” The Rhyth­mi­con used pho­to­elec­tric tech­nol­o­gy:

The keys were each con­nect­ed to a light that turned on when you pressed them. The lights then shined through a sequence of holes punched into two discs that rotat­ed via a motor. On the oth­er side of the discs was a pho­to­elec­tric sen­sor that, when acti­vat­ed by the pat­terns of light, sent the Rhythmicon’s unique sig­nals to a tube amp and thus to a speak­er and out to daz­zled audi­ences.

Audi­ences may have been impressed by the oper­a­tion, but they were con­sid­er­ably less daz­zled by the sound of the thing. One review­er in 1932 described its range of tones as “a cross between a grunt and a snort” up to “an Indi­an war whoop.” As the video above shows, the third ver­sion of the machine—built by Theremin in the 60s from junk parts—“sounds like it’s mak­ing geese calls.”

Oth­er, lat­er rhythm machines were designed specif­i­cal­ly to recre­ate live drums, rather than sim­ply make rhyth­mic sounds. One notable entry in the his­to­ry of drum machines is the Cham­ber­lin Rhyth­mate, a tape loop drum machine designed in 1949 by Har­ry Chamberlin’s key­board com­pa­ny. Meant to accom­pa­ny an organ play­er, the device con­sist­ed of 14 tape loop record­ings of real acoustic jazz drum kits, along with per­cus­sion instru­ments like claves, cas­tanets, and bon­gos. If you’re famil­iar with the work­ings of anoth­er ear­ly elec­tron­ic instrument—one that caught on in pop music thanks to the Bea­t­les—you’ll rec­og­nize the mech­a­nism here as near­ly iden­ti­cal to that of the Mel­lotron. Cham­ber­lin invent­ed that strange, lat­er elec­tron­ic instru­ment using the same tech­nol­o­gy as he had for the Rhyth­mate.

After the Rhyth­mate came the Wurl­itzer Side­man, designed for the same purpose—to give organ­ists a rhythm sec­tion. Cre­at­ed ten years lat­er in 1959, the Side­man is known as the first mass-pro­duced drum machine. (The Rhyth­mate sold at most 100 mod­els in the six­ties.) Its tech­nol­o­gy recalls that of the Rhythmicon—it uses a series of vac­u­um tubes that pro­duce a “sequenced” sound as a rotat­ing met­al disc makes con­tact with them. And as you can hear in the demo above, the Side­man hard­ly seems to be an improve­ment on Chamberlain’s tape loop machine; though its con­trols have much more vari­a­tion, the machine’s oper­a­tion is also much nois­i­er, in an almost indus­tri­al way. We’ve like­ly all seen vari­a­tions on this design in old organs from the 60s and 70s, which began to come stan­dard with some form of elec­tro-mechan­i­cal drum machine built in.

It would take near­ly a decade after the Side­man for the devel­op­ment of drum machines that musi­cians deemed wor­thy of using as fea­tured instru­ments. One such, the Vox Per­cus­sion King from 1966, became inte­gral to one of the defin­ing moments in elec­tron­ic pop, Kraftwerk’s “Auto­bahn” (above) from 1974. By the ear­ly eight­ies, the flood­gates of drum machine tech­nol­o­gy had opened, and dozens of com­mer­cial mod­els burst onto the scene. But despite all its short­com­ings, that very first rhythm machine, the home­ly Rhyth­mi­con, set mod­ern music on the road to “inter­ac­tiv­i­ty,” as Schedel writes, extend­ing “performer’s musi­cal capac­i­ties” and “antic­i­pat­ing the inter­ac­tive com­put­er music move­ment by sev­er­al decades.” Yet anoth­er rea­son to remem­ber the genius of Leon Theremin.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

All Hail the Beat: How the 1980 Roland TR-808 Drum Machine Changed Pop Music

Rick Wake­man Tells the Sto­ry of the Mel­lotron, the Odd­ball Pro­to-Syn­the­siz­er Pio­neered by the Bea­t­les

Meet the “Tel­har­mo­ni­um,” the First Syn­the­siz­er (and Pre­de­ces­sor to Muzak), Invent­ed in 1897

Sovi­et Inven­tor Léon Theremin Shows Off the Theremin, the Ear­ly Elec­tron­ic Instru­ment That Could Be Played With­out Being Touched (1954)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

As the title sug­gests and the lyrics con­firm, Mar­vin Gaye’s 1982 R&B hit “Sex­u­al Heal­ing” had but one thing on its mind.

The Hot 8 Brass Band, above, brings an added dimen­sion to this—forgive me—seminal song, trans­form­ing it into some­thing joy­ous and life affirm­ing.

They deserve it. In their 20-year career, the band has weath­ered a stag­ger­ing array of hard­ships. Sev­er­al mem­bers have died unex­pect­ed­ly and way too soon, includ­ing 17-year-old trum­pet play­er, Jacob John­son, exe­cut­ed dur­ing a home inva­sion, and a 22-year-old trom­bon­ist, Joseph Williams, who was shot by the New Orleans police offi­cers who stopped him en route to play a church funer­al. Anoth­er band mem­ber lost both of his legs in a hor­rif­ic acci­dent. The group was dis­placed by Hur­ri­cane Kat­ri­na, which dam­aged their homes, killed one member’s grand­moth­er and brought a halt to pay­ing gigs.

Brass has heal­ing pow­ers too, to a degree that became appar­ent when the band returned to New Orleans, play­ing free, spur-of-the-moment shows for Kat­ri­na evac­uees still stew­ing in shel­ters around the city. The media took note, set­ting off a chain reac­tion that led to an appear­ance in Spike Lee’s doc­u­men­tary, When The Lev­ees Broke. Their UK record label, Tru Thoughts, signed them on the strength of their “Sex­u­al Heal­ing” cov­er.

As Ben­nie Pete, Hot 8’s band leader and tuba play­er, told Esquire:

When real­i­ty strikes like that you can’t real­ly do noth­in’ but be stronger. We got stronger from it. We leaned on each oth­er. The music has been there to help us. You have to rise to the occa­sion. And then you keep answer­ing ques­tions, being inter­viewed about it. You got­ta keep reliv­ing it. But on the oth­er side, you under­stand that peo­ple who aren’t from New Orleans wan­na know what we’re going through, they’re con­cerned. So it’s our duty, part of our job to be able to suck it up and deal with it, and spread it to the world. It hurts you on the inside to keep on reliv­ing these sit­u­a­tions but you owe it to your mates, to get their life sto­ries out there as far as you can.

I expe­ri­enced some queasi­ness mid­way through the video, when the band leaves their sparse­ly pop­u­lat­ed out­door rehearsal area for a more pub­lic thor­ough­fare. I saw plen­ty of enthu­si­asm among the gath­ered crowd, but no black faces out­side of the band’s.

Uh…

A lit­tle research reveals that the video was shot not in New Orleans (where I have nev­er been), but while the band’s 20th Anniver­sary tour paused in Brighton (Eng­land) where Tru Thoughts is based.

Not want­i­ng to be guilty I checked the cen­sus records. In 2011, Brighton was 94.3% white, with the Black and Black British com­mu­ni­ty con­sti­tut­ing just 0.8% of the non-white pop­u­la­tion. And while geo­graph­i­cal­ly, it’s not exact­ly the oppo­site end of the earth from New Orleans, it is far enough that Pete can claim the video as a metaphor for how far the band has come:

It is a great moment cap­tured, and it also shows as a band we are deter­mined to live out our dreams and for­tu­nate enough to be able to share them with the world; a lot of brass bands, and oth­er musi­cians for that mat­ter, for some rea­son or anoth­er do not get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do so.… And the ulti­mate to top it off is to be trav­el­ling inter­na­tion­al­ly while doing it, you know, being a few black kids from a lit­tle town down south in New Orleans, to go from prac­tis­ing our music in a local park to trav­el­ling abroad play­ing sold out shows is a beau­ti­ful thing to say the least.

To round off the anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion, Tru Thoughts recent­ly released an album of “Sex­u­al Heal­ing” Hot 8 remix­es. It’s a love­ly idea, this trib­ute, but for me, Hot 8’s posi­tion is secure. So for that mat­ter Gaye’s (whose orig­i­nal video is below).

Spo­ti­fy users can lis­ten to the “Sex­u­al Heal­ing Remix­es” for free here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Mar­vin Gaye’s Clas­sic Vocals on ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine’: The A Cap­pel­la Ver­sion

Guns N’ Ros­es “Sweet Child O’ Mine” Retooled as 1920s New Orleans Jazz

Miles Davis Cov­ers Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” (1983)

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday

Pho­to of Karl­heinz Stock­hausen by Kathin­ka Pasveer via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

You may hear the phrase “elec­tron­ic music” and think of super­star dub­step DJs in fun­ny hel­mets at beach­side celebri­ty par­ties. Alter­nate­ly, you may think of the mer­cu­r­ial com­po­si­tions of Karl­heinz Stock­hausen, the musique con­crete of Pierre Hen­ry, or the oth­er­world­ly exper­i­men­tal­ism of François Bayle. If you’re in that lat­ter camp of music nerd, then this post may bring you very glad tid­ings indeed. Ubuweb—that stal­wart repos­i­to­ry of all things 20th-cen­tu­ry avant-garde—now hosts an extra­or­di­nary com­pi­la­tion: the 476-song His­to­ry of Electronic/Electroacoustic Music, orig­i­nal­ly a 62 CD set. (Hear below Stockhausen’s “Kon­tact,” Henry’s “Astrolo­gie,” and Bayles’ spare “The­atre d’Ombres” fur­ther down.)

Span­ning the years 1937–2001, the col­lec­tion should espe­cial­ly appeal to those with an avant-garde or musi­co­log­i­cal bent. In fact, the orig­i­nal uploader of this archive of exper­i­men­tal sound, Caio Bar­ros, put these tracks online in 2009 while a stu­dent of com­po­si­tion at Brazil’s State Uni­ver­si­ty of São Paulo. Bar­rios’ “ini­tia­tive,” as he writes at Ubuweb, “became some sort of leg­end” among musi­cophiles in the know.

And yet, Ubuweb reposts this phe­nom­e­nal col­lec­tion with a dis­claimer: “It’s a clear­ly flawed selec­tion,” they write:

There’s few women and almost no one work­ing out­side of the West­ern tra­di­tion (where are the Japan­ese? Chi­nese? etc.). How­ev­er, as an effort, it’s admirable and con­tains a ton of great stuff.

Take it with a grain of salt, or per­haps use it as a provo­ca­tion to curate a more intel­li­gent, inclu­sive, and com­pre­hen­sive selec­tion

It’s a fair cri­tique, though Bar­rios points out that the exclu­sions most­ly have to do with “the way our soci­ety and the tra­di­tion this music rep­re­sent works” (sic). And yet, as dis­ci­pli­nary bound­aries expand all the time, and his­to­ries broad­en along with them, that descrip­tion no longer holds. It would be a fas­ci­nat­ing exer­cise, for exam­ple, to lis­ten to these tracks along­side the his­to­ry of women in elec­tron­ic music, 1938–2014 that we post­ed recent­ly, for exam­ple.

Also, there’s clear­ly much more to elec­tron­ic music than either celebri­ty DJs or obscure avant-garde com­posers. Many hun­dreds of pop­u­lar elec­tron­ic com­posers and musicians—like Bri­an Eno, Kraftwerk, Bruce Haack, or Clara Rock­more—fall some­where in-between the worlds of pop/dance/performance and seri­ous com­po­si­tion, and their con­tri­bu­tions deserve rep­re­sen­ta­tion along­side more exper­i­men­tal or clas­si­cal artists.

All that said, how­ev­er, there’s no rea­son you can’t curate your own playlist of the his­to­ry of elec­tron­ic music as you see it—drawing from the astound­ing wealth of music avail­able free at The His­to­ry of Elec­troa­coustic Music. Or con­sid­er this col­lec­tion a ful­ly immer­sive course in “tra­di­tion­al, west­ern avant-garde elec­tron­ic music” from “the area of Europe-Amer­i­ca,” as Bar­rios puts it. As that, it suc­ceeds admirably.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear Sev­en Hours of Women Mak­ing Elec­tron­ic Music (1938- 2014)

Pio­neer­ing Elec­tron­ic Com­pos­er Karl­heinz Stock­hausen Presents “Four Cri­te­ria of Elec­tron­ic Music” & Oth­er Lec­tures in Eng­lish (1972)

The Fas­ci­nat­ing Sto­ry of How Delia Der­byshire Cre­at­ed the Orig­i­nal Doc­tor Who Theme

Two Doc­u­men­taries Intro­duce Delia Der­byshire, the Pio­neer in Elec­tron­ic Music

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness