Wendy Carlos helped create electronic music as we know it today. Before synthesizers became shorthand for the future — before disco, before ambient music, before film scores sounded like outer space or our innermost dreams, Carlos was there, shaping the sound itself. Her groundbreaking 1968 album Switched-On Bach not only introduced the Moog synthesizer to the world, it redefined how music could be made, recorded, and imagined. She went on to score films like A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Tron, influencing everyone from the Beatles to Donna Summer, from classical composers to Daft Punk. And yet, her story has often been buried, complicated by her trans identity, her privacy, and a music industry that didn’t know how to hold space for both her genius and her truth.
For this episode I've invited my closest friend Lucas Grindley, who is a composer of electronic orchestral music. He is also the former Editor-in-Chief of The Advocate, the nation's oldest LGBTQ+ publication. We'll hear Lucas' original music and discuss the impact of Wendy Carlos, a towering figure in the world of music and also within the LGBTQ+ community.
You can hear Lucas' original music on SoundCloud, TikTok, and Youtube.
