Synergy: A Word Without An Anagram

September 7, 2014 6:35 AM

Synergy is the name of the project that composer/engineer Larry Fast gave to his series of space rock albums, based on his groundbreaking synthesizer work, and beginning with 1975's Electronic Realizations for Rock Orchestra.

Perhaps others may know Larry Fast better from his work with little-known British musicians such as Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush... but Synergy is his own baby - - still maturing to this day with the rumored birth of it's first new studio album in a dog's age.

The Synergy project consists of nine albums (so far) - - three of which charted on the Billboard 200 back in the heady days of the 70's.

posted by fairmettle (15 comments total)

I had that original 1975 album, and I had no idea it was anything but a one-off. I'll check these out, thanks!
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 6:43 AM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Thanks for this...I hadn't thought much about Synergy for a long time, but recently dug out my tape of Games and Audion. Great stuff; I think they used some Synergy in the original Laserium shows at Griffith Park Observatory in LA. Now I'm going to have to buy his stuff on media more recent than cassette.
posted by foonly at 6:51 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Neat - thanks! For Spotify users, the '75 album is here.
posted by easement1 at 7:24 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I was also first exposed to Synergy at Laserium, in SF in 1975 - changed my life. His third record was printed on clear vinyl, so cool. Lost track of him after Metropolitan Suite, thanks for the article.
posted by Rash at 7:44 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

"Gynegy's" doesn't count?
posted by Cookiebastard at 8:05 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

How about "Yes, 'nergy"?
posted by Renoroc at 8:17 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

My anagrams program (with the enable word list) spits out [grey, gyre], [syn] .
posted by Death and Gravity at 8:28 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Synergy - Cords (1978) full album
posted by hippybear at 8:32 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I got introduced to Synergy via the excellent The Music Of Cosmos album, which also introduced me to Vangelis. My life really hasn't been the same since.
posted by hippybear at 8:40 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I too thought it was a one-off. One of the few 8-tracks my dad owned that I listened to enough that I had to have it on CD decades later. I'll definitely dig into the other albums!
posted by Foosnark at 8:59 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Still have some vinyl Synergy, but nothing to play it on. Must have worn out Games back in the day because there simply wasn't anything else like it. Ran across Reconstructed Artifacts last year and bought it blind - it's fantastic.
posted by lagomorphius at 9:15 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Never heard of this before, and I liked a lot of prog/synth as a child in the 70s. It's proving to be great music to read MetaFilter by, and it's making me contemplate some pot, a dark room, and maybe headphones. Thanks, fairmettle
posted by benito.strauss at 10:30 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Most words don't have anagrams
posted by iotic at 5:07 PM on September 7, 2014

I had totally forgotten about this. Thanks for digging it up.
posted by 3.2.3 at 2:10 PM on September 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

How about "Yes, 'nergy"?

What kind of accent does that spelling represent?

Can you use it in a sentence describing the FPP?

With the right provenance, I think I can get on board!
posted by fairmettle at 6:34 AM on September 14, 2014