The Fairlight QASAR & Trippy Norwegian/Australian Space Jazz

My thanks to our good friends over at MatrixSynth for bringing this one to our attention.

Before the CMI, before that monumental moment in time when music making changed forever, there was the QASAR. The QASAR was the brain child of Tony Furse and has a very important part to play in the story of the Fairlight CMI. The QASAR, a digital/analog hybrid that digitally synthesised waveforms, started life as a quite unique looking instrument, with its control surface elevated and presented above the main keyboard in an almost vertical plane.

Image courtesy of 120years.net

Image courtesy of 120years.net

The QASAR I begat the QASAR II, moving from monophonic to duophonic capabilities and used dual 8-bit Motorola 6800 microprocessors in a parallel configuration, but struggled to achieve its goal and ultimately never went into full production.

Image courtesy of 120years.net

The next iteration would be the M8, now housed in a more familiar mainframe case, and featuring additive FFT synthesis as well as a screen and lightpen, and even had a sequencer of sorts. Data could also be stored and recovered from built in 8″ floppy drives. Sounding familiar, right?

Image courtesy of 120years.net

Image courtesy of 120years.net

Image courtesy of 120years.net

Intrigued by Tony’s work on the QASAR, Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie saw its potential and decided to licence it to further their goal of creating their own synthesiser. After much work, refinement (reducing the size, for one!) and the addition of digital sampling, the Fairlight CMI Series I was born.

That’s a pretty condensed version of the story, more of which can be read about at the fabulous 120 Years of Electronic Music website.

But all of this wasn’t before some people got their hands on a QASAR and used it in a recording. Step in, Mr Sven Libaek, a Norwegian born, Australian based composer, who used it on his album, “Solar Flares“. Here’s some blurb about it…

Fresh from recording the legendary Inner Space soundtrack, 1974 saw Sven Libaek embark on Solar Flares, an amazing library recording for Peer International UK. Possibly best described as the companion piece to Inner Space, a polar vision in which this time the themes were inspired by the far reaches of ‘Outer Space’. A pioneering recording that featured the Australian designed synthesizer, the Qaser, a prototype of the first digital sampler, the Fairlight CMI. Although recorded in Sydney, it only saw a limited library issue in the UK and has since become a highly collectible LP. Expect Libaek’s trademark sound of sublime spacey jazz exotica. Featuring Australia’s finest studio and jazz musicians.

This album is now available to buy once again from Light In The Attic Records. And some kind soul has, albeit in a legally questionable fashion, posted the album on YouTube, so who am I to not share this with you. However, I would encourage you to buy this album, especially if you, like me, are a Fairlight enthusiast!

Enjoy!