BRUCE HAACK: KING OF TECHNO
Philip Anagnos
USA 2003, 70 mins
http://www.haackmovie.com

Bruce Haack was one of the most musically and lyrically inventive children’s songwriters of the ’60s and ’70s. Despite—or perhaps because of—his intended audience, his music was unusually expressive, combining homemade analog synths, classical, country, pop and rock elements and surreal, idealistic lyrics. Haack’s innovations and desire to teach still sound fresh, making his music a favorite with fans of analog synths and esoteric recordings. Contemporaries like Raymond Scott and followers like Luke Vibert and Add N to X championed his unique musical vision, which embraced concepts like “Powerlove” and turned household appliances and even body parts into synthesizers and modulators.

According to Bruce Haack: King of Techno, Haack was an impossibly cool guy, a cult figure known only to the avid consumers of his dozens of loopy records and cassettes with titles like Captain Entropy, Funky Doodle and Way Out Record for Children. Philip Anagnos vivacious documentary about this amazing performer, musician and inventor features appearances by Haack worshippers such as Modest Mouse, Money Mark (otherwise known as the fourth Beastie Boy) and Mister Rogers, on whose show Haack made a memorable appearance demonstrating his crazy synthesizers. Haack is an almost-lost treasure ripe for rediscovery, and Anagnos’ terrific film will send you out humming “School for Robots” and scrambling for his records.

—Heather Phares, AllMusic.com

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