Video
Game
Music

Suzanne Ciani – Xenon

Year: 2021
Catalog Number: FKSP020
Published by: Finders Keepers Records

Number of Files: 3
Total Filesize: 12 MB (MP3), 61 MB (FLAC)
Date Added: Sep 1st, 2025
Album type: Single
Uploaded by: IgoreshaZhu

Description

Greg Kmiec’s Xenon pinball machine was released in 1980 and marked a significant milestone in pinball technology and design. The expansion of microchip technology would provide new opportunities for sound designer and synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani, allowing for basic oscillator control and a wider scope for sampling capacity which could facilitate the higher frequencies of a female human voice and entirely reshape the concept of the machine in the process. By using state of the art Synclavier synthesiser technology and an invaluable experience in film scoring and record production Suzanne would devise a complete minimal music score for the machine, then dissect the piece into separate fragments that would be triggered throughout the game play adding an extra creative dimension in player inter-activity (potentially turning the participant into their own musical arranger). By incorporating her own infamous voice box (which had been the focus of a seminal David Letterman Show feature) Suzanne’s combination of a harmoniser and a vocoder also provided the first-ever female identity to a pinball machine which in conjunction with the games ergonomic design and Paul Faris’ figurative graphics (echoing the aesthetic of Rene Laloux and Roland Topor’s La Planète Sauvage) Xenon was able to add a degree of subconscious sensuality to its performance, a feature previously unchartered in arcade development.

COMMENTS

+ Comment

IgoreshaZhu

04:52 Sep 1st, 2025Offline

I'm uploaded fixed version, since i didn't liked actual release by Finders Keepers, where all sound effects in tracks 1 and 2 is reversed, comparing to original. I'm just fixed it using Audacity. I hope that maybe they will re-record the same album. Or maybe not.

Although I'm afraid that the album will soon be blacklisted due to complaints from Suzanne Ciani (the author of the music, which i liked) and the publishers themselves.