Mere Pawns in the Great Space Race

Earlier this week NASA celebrated the 40th anniversary of putting some good wholesome American men on the moon. It was one giant leap for mankind, and one great big Nerr-Nerrr-Ner-Nerrrr-Nurrrrr to the Russians who had, until now, been lapping the USA in the great space race.

But no one spared a thought for the lonely cosmonaut, sitting in his rocket, orbiting the moon, watching the live footage on his miniature control panel. He thinks of his girlfriend down there on earth, as he whistles a forlorn little ditty into his Soviet-issue tape recorder…

Sometime in the early-90’s, a Berlin flea-market trader flogs a batch of old Soviet reel-to-reel tapes to Brezel Göring, he uncovers the crackly long-wave radio noise-laden humming of the love-sick cosmonaut, and Françoise Cactus pens an ode to all the long-lost space-men drifting out there in the cosmos.

Stereo Total – Cosmonaute
[buy Stereo Total: iTunes | Bungalow Popshop]

As the NASA moonwalk transmission came to a close, and the end credits rolled, a celestial melody of early electronic music wafted gently from the speakers. The French had hi-jacked the broadcast a little late in the day, but the spotlit-Moog majesty of this song lingered like the grainy shot of the Stars and Stripes flapping gently in the lunar wind.

Jean-Jacques Perrey & Gershon Kingsley – Pioneers of The Stars
[by Perrey & Kingsley: iTunes | Amazon uk]

ps. We will be dropping in these and more space-y music at L’Amour Electronique tonight: