Roxy Music

Roxy Music fused Brian Eno's EMS VCS3 synthesizer experiments with Phil Manzanera's angular Fender Stratocaster work, creating a collision of electronic texture and raw guitar that had no real precedent. The VCS3's oscillators and filters gave early albums their alien atmospherics, while Manzanera's Gibson Les Paul on later records added a warmer, more muscular counterweight. The tension between analog synthesis and traditional guitar tone remained the band's defining sonic characteristic across their career.