welcome to X E N O N

August 23, 2021 9:58 AM

Suzanne Ciani Creates the Soundtrack for a Pinball Machine (slyt)
posted by overeducated_alligator (16 comments total)

thank you! i saw and played Xenon for the first time last weekend and thought it was unusually weird and cool.
posted by qbject at 10:32 AM on August 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

Great! Love this type of video that are a bit more in depth...little time-capsules...

Thanks for the post!
posted by zerobyproxy at 10:34 AM on August 23, 2021

Sound chips are new. Today we hear Suzanne's voice for five seconds. In the future, women with sound chips in their earrings will listen to Beethoven's Symphony [...in Peter Ustinov's sonorous voice]
posted by fairmettle at 10:50 AM on August 23, 2021 [2 favorites]

This is wonderful. I remember Ciani from a brief (7 minute!) appearance on 3-2-1 Contact when I was a kid in the 80s. I forget how lucky we were to have such thoughtful, patient, scientific TV as kids.
posted by colossal at 11:13 AM on August 23, 2021 [5 favorites]

Love to see the tech/memory constraints influencing the creative process here, so delightful!
posted by internet of pillows at 11:14 AM on August 23, 2021

Suzanne is still making music today; a new EP is expected in late September.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:35 AM on August 23, 2021 [7 favorites]

This was my favorite pinball machine back in my 1980s arcade days.
posted by briank at 11:43 AM on August 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

I met her a few years ago, via a good friend of mine who was her studio assistant in the '80s. She's had a fascinating career, with many phases. I actually first learned about her when she recorded some New Agey solo piano albums for the Windham Hill label.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:45 AM on August 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Fantastic video and fantastic game. Though I'm not generally a Bally fan I really like this one and it's entirely because of the sound. It was fun to see the development process a little bit here.

This is wonderful. I remember Ciani from a brief (7 minute!) appearance on 3-2-1 Contact when I was a kid in the 80s.

I kept thinking there was something very familiar about her voice and the synthesizer work. That is where I had heard her before! We were indeed very lucky to have 3-2-1 Contact and similar shows.
posted by Clinging to the Wreckage at 12:05 PM on August 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

For something a little looser, here she is on David Letterman's morning show around the exact same time as Xenon's release.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:11 PM on August 23, 2021 [5 favorites]

This artist (though it was the new-agey music, not this specific stuff) is the music we listened to in pre-natal classes for our first child.

That kid graduated college last spring, and I have rarely thought of Ciani since then. I guess she deserves another chance!
posted by wenestvedt at 12:35 PM on August 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

Ciani talking about her current instrument The Buchla 200e (yt) and expressing her preference for the original Buchla 200 (pdf)
posted by otherchaz at 1:11 PM on August 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

Self-link, but here's a (rather good, if I may say) episode of KCRW's Lost Notes podcast about Ciani. You should also consult the proper film documentary, A Life in Waves.
posted by mykescipark at 1:39 PM on August 23, 2021 [5 favorites]

This pin was in the basement of my freshman dorm* at the College of William and Mary in 1985. "Welcome to Xenon" was a greeting/shibboleth among us. And if you are only going to have one pin, and it's 1985, this was an excellent choice.

* Yates Hall, for any W&M folk here
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 2:26 PM on August 23, 2021 [3 favorites]

She recorded a really good buchla session with fellow buchla devotee Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and it’s quite good.
posted by sleeping bear at 8:24 PM on August 23, 2021 [1 favorite]

This is an amazing video, thank you! I’ll have to keep an eye out for Xenon once pinball is a thing again, because that looks like a fun table too.
posted by Callisto Prime at 11:16 PM on August 25, 2021