A favorite of Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood and classical composer Olivier Messiaen, Andy Battaglia explains the origins and appeal of the ahead-of-its-time electronic instrument.

If history has taught us anything, it’s that the future is in the past. Even the most radical lurches or swerves, in retrospect, come to make sense. The wildest anomalies can seem preordained, even fated.

It’s especially true on the timeline of technology, in which the logical language of developers tells tales of tools being bettered and then bested – all in the service of ideas and desires said to be shared by all. So what to make of the Ondes Martenot, an enigma of an electronic instrument that is largely forgotten and yet, somehow, still only just now getting its due? +