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The Brilliant Electronic Weirdness of Bruce Haack

Going deep with a self-taught electrical engineer and his wild gadgets and devices.
“Bruce has been informing me that electronic music perhaps is the thing of the 70s,” says an interviewer to open a 1970 conversation with Bruce Haack, the late Canadian musician who worked tirelessly to ease synthetic sounds into the mainstream through his work in children’s educational music. Little did the interviewer know.
Despite limited mainstream recognition, Haack’s quirky fusion of technology and sound was in fact part of “the thing” in the 70s, and it left a dent in the evolution of electronic music. Like composer-inventor Raymond Scott, he foresaw the ways in which electronics could be harnessed for entertainment and art and integrated into daily life. As Jeremy Larson outlined in a brilliant overview for Red Bull Music Academy, Haack invented devices including “the Mr. C, an analog synthesizer in the form of a robot programmed to play music for live audiences; the Musical Computer, a home-built digital/analog synthesizer and digital sampler encased in a suitcase that used sensors and skin touch to trigger lights and sounds; and most importantly, the Farad, a motion-controlled vocoder, named after Michael Faraday.”
Born in 1931 in Alberta, Canada, Haack got obsessed with music early on, playing melodies on his family’s piano by age four. By twelve, he was teaching piano and gigging with local bands. In the mid 1950s after graduating with a psychology degree from the University of Alberta, he headed to New York to attend the Juilliard School. He didn’t stay long at Juilliard. Instead Haack started collaborating with dance instructor Esther Nelson, leading to the creation of educational children’s music and the establishment of Dimension 5 Records.
Haack’s discography is both deep and weird. The “Dance Sing and Listen” series, beginning in 1963, introduced children to striking electronic compositions. In 1970, he released The Electric Lucifer, a concept album blending Moog synthesizers with themes of good and evil. It was his major-label debut with Columbia Records. Other works to track down include Captain Entropy (1974) and This Old Man (1975), which featured science fiction versions of nursery rhymes and traditional songs.
Haack’s music has been sampled by producers including J Dilla, Madlib, and Cut Chemist. Here’s Dilla’s track, “The Factory,” which uses a track from Haack’s album The Electric Lucifer.
That 1970 radio interview shows Bruce Haack in his element — a mix of keen intellect and unshakable belief in the potential of electronic music. When he introduces one track from The Electric Lucifer, Haack describes its success “in the underground and college scene in America.” He adds, “It’s kind of a heavy album. I suppose it’s classified as ‘head rock.’” He’s a thoughtful presence throughout, even if the interviewer regularly condescends. At every turn, Haack repeats his confident belief in electronic music’s future impact.
For a deeper look at his offbeat brilliance and the ways he reshaped sound, check out The King of Techno, a documentary about his work. It’s dated, yes, but offers some great footage and thoughts.