Who is this eccentric musician?

[Electric_Warrior]

I remember a few years ago hearing about, and watching a video on, a composer of experimental orchestral music who claimed to be from another planet. His music, though it sounded strange to our ears as Earthlings, was the music of his home. This fellow may have just passed away, which might have been why I was hearing about him, but I’m going to be careful not to say for sure. Can anyone help jog my memory?

[Ferret_Herder]

Sun Ra? He died in 1993, though.

[Electric_Warrior]

Nah, wasn’t Sun Ra, but the mythology is similar.

[Emily_Litella]

George Clinton? He had an album called Mothership Connection, and he said he came from outer space. He recorded some wonderful funk music.

[SawEverythingTwice]

@Electric_Warrior

I remember a few years ago hearing about, and watching a video on, a composer of experimental orchestral music who claimed to be from another planet. His music, though it sounded strange to our ears as Earthlings, was the music of his home. This fellow may have just passed away, which might have been why I was hearing about him, but I’m going to be careful not to say for sure. Can anyone help jog my memory?

Sounds like Karlheinz Stockhausen. A quick skim in the New Grove Dictionary yielded this:

@New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

In the late 1960s it became increasingly clear that his primary aesthetic motivation was spiritual and cosmic, rather than terrestrially political – even the use of short-wave radios in works like Kurzwellen and Spiral involved, as subtext, the idealistic hope that some transmissions might be extra-terrestrial
Essential to the last named, and indeed to many works from Kurzwellen onwards, was the composer’s increasingly firm conviction that there are other, higher intelligences in other galaxies with their own superior musical cultures, who will make contact with Earth, or have already done so…Stockhausen regarded himself as a receiver and transmitter of higher (supra-terrestrial) vibrations.

Bolding mine. I can dig through my books at home if you’re interested in more info.

[SawEverythingTwice]

Forgot to add- he died in 2007. He stirred up some controversy in 2001 due to his comments on 9/11- from Wiki

[Mike_Fun]

Sun Ra, George Clinton, and Stockhausen? Sounds like a great show!

Actually, Sun Ra didn’t die in 1993, he returned to Saturn.

[Electric_Warrior]

SawEverythingTwice, I think you may have got it with Stockhausen – but I won’t ask for the thread to be closed in case someone finds even better evidence that I’m thinking of someone else.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

You may be thinking of Bruce Haack.

Bruce was a Canadian composer who is known for his children’s music, and for his seminal work Electric Lucifer, which was finally remastered and released on CD last year.

Bruce didn’t claim to be from another planet, but he did refer to the children in his neighborhood who listened to his music as his “star children”, and he did incorporate a lot of hippy-new-age-Aquarius themes into his music, such as the concept of “powerlove”.

Bruce designed and built many of his own instruments, including crude synthesizers and samplers, despite having no formal education in electronics.

A documentary film was made about him in 2004, Haack …The King of Techno. My review at IMDB can be seen here.