Stray Landings

The name ‘EMS’ seems to crop up a lot these days. The historic studio is famed for its pioneering work in sound art and ‘text-sound’: some of the earliest examples of experimental electronic music owe EMS for their creation. But a sizeable chunk of the most exciting music from 2017 also seems to have been made here. From Jesse Osborne-Lanthier to tuuun to Punctum, they have all seemed to have some of that EMS magic brush off on recent releases. So what is it about EMS that is so special? Well, on a superficial level, it houses some classic vintage synthesisers, most notably the Buchla. But much, much more important is the social infrastructure that underpins the space. Thanks to 100 years of Swedish Socialism, anyone can book time to use the equipment, sign up to classes, and blossom as an electronic musician. As Daniel M Karlsson wrote, the studio stands as “a monument to common ownership guarded from those who would seek to tear it down on principal”. But how did we get here from the avant-garde studio of