Author, music producer, and friend of zap! bang! Magazine Oli Freke has followed up his book detailing the history of synthesizers with a drum machine anthology. Beat Gems is a visual history of the machines that have made electronic music pulse for decades. We caught up with him to find out more. "[Beat Gems] is a celebration of drum machines and their role in music culture and society." When we last interviewed you, we talked about your Synthesizer Evolution book. What was the response to that project? That was way back in 2020, but it's always had a great response, and still selling! I think the combination of line drawing and directory makes it a bit more interesting than a mere website which you could admittedly look this stuff up on. It's a real artefact - more important than ever! Is Beat Gems the next logical step for you? It was a classic case of one-thing-leading-to-another - I'd given a talk on the history of drum machines at SynthFestUK 2024, and I hap...
