tom dissevelt & kid baltan: the fascinating world of electronic music

Since it was established in 1914 the Phillips Research laboratories (NatLab) in Holland has given us the very first artificial reverb, tape recording, stereo, the cassette tape, CD, DVD, Blu-ray, and the songs of Tom Dissevelt and Kid Baltan. You see, back in the Cold War, with the arms race and the frequent threat of annihilation via an atom bomb, technology had developed something of an image problem. Consequently, Phillips brought in some composers, in the hope that their technological music could put a human face on the new toys. The result was like "Song of the Second Moon" -- the first piece of electronic pop music, recorded in about 1957. It was produced over a couple of days by Dick Raaijmakers (aka Kid Baltan), pressed as a single and given away to visitors to the lab. Despite the tune's lofty status in the pantheon of electronic music, Raaijmakers was inexplicably demoted to assistant to fellow composer Tom Dissevelt. However, the duo proceeded to record 20 or so tracks over the next three years in what was a quite laborious process. The Philips label, however, released several tracks by the duo spread over a couple of sometimes-futuristic library music compilations like The Fascinating World of Electronic Music. Get this piece of future music now.