Recorded nearly live in a basement studio, downtown Sacramento, to celebrate my finishing the very layered and labored-over "Village of the Apple Sun" album. This was me, Larry, Julie, Dave, Steve and Brad at Jason's place. One take. I re-did my vocals, then Lara added her bit, but otherwise, this is as it happened. Lovely moment for me, the closest to ripping off "Future Days" as I could manage!

In a Boat on the Sea

Ant, Steve and Vince cover the Beatles at American Legion Post 61, Sacramento. 1987?

Will Ant For Frond

Tell Me What You See - Psychedelic Love Cowboys with Vince, covering Beatles

From my latest, Oh The Joys We Live For, this track was originally intended for the aborted Christian Wife record. Huh! It was written on my beloved Prophet 6, and features Pro One bass. Bryan Poole, Sharron Kraus and Julia VBHB contribute sounds, too

Oh The Joys We Live For

Crystals

A quickly scrabbled togethering of slight bites from my forthcoming Stranger album. The pre-order campaign is now live and we thought you might wanna hear at least a little slab of sound!

Stranger snippy promo mp3 bnc

Inspired by my relatively recent discovery of the music of New Musik, this is a Prophet 5-heavy number, with Moog Grandmother handling the solo. I stole (sampled, really!) some Donneye guitars from the title track of the Power Pop!!! album and flangled them into this track...

04 - Anton Barbeau - The Never Crying Wolf Boy

07 Death And Divorce

02 Ant Lion

This is the original version of the song, released in 1999 on A Splendid Tray. I knew I wanted a huge guitar sound on this one and assumed a dozen layered tracks to get it right, but it's all down to two guitars. There's my weird red Strat through a Big Muff Pi and my Hagstrom Swede through my beloved Rat. Scott Miller sings harmonies here, and we recorded my lead vocals in his living room. Rick Lotter on drums. 

The Banana Song (orig. version with Scott Miller harmonies)

Off Allyson's debut, Bag of Kittens, all writ/produced by the artist formerly known as.

Alternate cover art shown here, photo Cynthia E. Jones/design Steven Cardoza.

I'm Just A Country Girl

Hints of the eternal Gary Numan in the descending line. VC340 strings as mellotron, Prophet 5 as Prophet 5. Doepfer DE does the ascending line. Pro One is the Bass and TR-8S is the tickybox. Samples include Laratron, Donneye, Himself. Now go outside and look at a flower!

Yin Yawn

This is the original 4-track recording of Go!, all synthpopp'd from 1985 (?), but with brand new vocals from this very 2015. YOW! 2 tracks of PolySix, one track of Micromoog (solo) and one track of Pro One bass. DR-110 drum machine. Yamaha MT-44 4-track cassette deck.

Go! (Orig 4 - Trk W New Vx 1)

Gözleme

Revolution 9

Mixed and mutha'd by Alan Schnauser Strawbridge.

In The Village Of The Apple Sun

In honor of my pending return to drought-wrecked California, here's something I wrote for Allyson Seconds' debut album, Bag of Kittens. I dunno, call me psychic, but I've been getting my money's worth out of these here End Times.  

Tie My Laces

Another ancient 4-track tune, somewhat dusted off! The lead vocals are circa 2015, but the rest, including the strained harmonies, are old skoo authentque 1985. Prophet 5, Pro One, Polysix, TR707... represent!
Available now on Antronica 2!

Rain Rain  (orig 4-track 1985/new vocal 2015)

Basic Flute Rock Tasty Teaser 1

Love Me Do

This cover was recorded for a Fruits de Mer comp, but this version has additional bass and drums.

Ziggy Stardust

Two new versions of an old song of mine. One version made entirely with Juno 6 (apart from vocals, obviously, and drum machine), the other with Prophet 6. No effects (except for a 27ms delay on the main chordal patch in Pro Tools to split the track into stereo), no EQ etc. I only used one oscillator on the P6, and both synths were recorded in mono. The bass tones both utilize a sub osc. The synth tones were kept simple so's to make it a fairer fight and an easier listen. This isn't a major undertaking on my part, more something I did out of curiosity, so be not too brutal in your gentle way with words! Hope you enjoy...

Mountain P6 Vs J6 - P6 Edition 3

Mountain P6 Vs J6 - Juno Edition 3

Original version of You Can Move a Mountain, from the Automatic Door. Su Jordan, Gabe Nelson, Kimberley Rew, Todd Roper all on board...

The Automatic Door

You Can Move a Mountain

An update on the ongoing Prophet 6 vs Juno 6 remake of You Can Move A Mountain. This version has far more P6 added, plus some DSI Evolver and a bit of proper 808. Represent! From Antronica 2, released Jan 2018 on idiot (US)/Gare du Nord (UK).

Mountain P6 vs J6 - All In final mix from Antronica 2

I'm In Love With A Girl (Big Star cover)

Long story, but to celebrate finishing the very layered and labor-intensive VIllage of the Apple Sun album - two years in the making - I booked a session in a small basement studio in Sacramento. My idea was to blow off steam with a bunch of fine players, knock through pretty much anything that we could find and rock for a few hours in stoned kraut-commune style. I'd booked Dave Middleton and Steve Randall on guitars, Brad Cross on drums, Larry Tagg on bass and Julie Meyers on keys. We tracked a couple tunes and then landed on In a Boat on the Sea. We were all pretty freaked with how beautiful it was - truly inspired/tuned ensemble playing. Gorgeous to this day. Anyway, it was such a good session that I booked a follow-up. Only, Larry couldn't make it. I asked Erik Kleven and he said yes. Erik had played on Village and we'd settled into the best groove together ever by that point. Having him pop 'round my house for sessions was lovely. But I had forgotten how tense he could be in a proper studio, and when he arrived for the second kraut-style scene, I knew quick it was gonna be a different night from the Boat session. Erik was barking questions about the songs - what key? what do you want me to play? Etc. Reasonable questions, of course, but given the intended loose nature of the session, my answers didn't sooth his mood. Also, the weed we had for the second session had a certain cursed quality. Edgy and maybe a bit paranoid. We knocked through a few things - I don't remember what songs we even did. Nothing felt great, and in fact, this was actually more what I'd imagined the first session might feel like. We got maybe three songs on tape and were just about to pack up when I started strumming The Gambler. There was a Kenny Rogers songbook open nearby and I could just barely make out the words and chords. Erik, bless him, picked up on the tune quick and I asked the engineer to hit record. What you hear is what we played. We all loved it and the night's work was saved! It makes a perfect b-side to In a Boat on the Sea, at least in my perverse world. Hope you dig.

The Roundup

The Gambler (Kenny Rogers cover)

Remake of a 20th century Ant classic, depending. This features Andy Metcalfe on bass, Michael Urbano on drums.

02_Magazine Street

This is the album version of this song, in wav format. Myles Boisen did the mastering here.

01 Little World

This is teenage me, again, trying, again, to turn my Yamaha MT-44 4-track cassette deck into a 24-track Studer. The results are sufficiently epic, maybe!

Antronica 2

Valerie's Waiting

Final mix, far as I know! Extra synths - isn't that what you want? I don't know what you want. What do you want??? Hello!

Clubbing in Berlin

Just Passing By

"One of the most inventive minds in pop music today." - Louder Than War

"File in the buried treasure bin alongside XTC, Robyn Hitchcock, Julian Cope and The Bevis Frond." - Stewart Lee, The Sunday Times

"Anton Barbeau is a true contemporary psychedelic pop guru. A tireless artist with more than 20 albums published, he was born in Sacramento and currently resides in Berlin. In these years he has worked with members of XTC, Bevis Frond, Cake and The Soft Boys. His music combines psychedelia and luminous pop in the best tradition of Syd Barrett , Beatles , Robyn Hitchcock and Julian Cope ." 

"Cerebral, memorable, melodic but also adventurous and inventive." - Monolith Cocktail

Anton Barbeau is one of the most insanely talented and creative people currently making music in the undercurrents in the world of music. - babysue

"If you like the cosmic rock, and love to dive into the lyrics of the songs but do not get you a trip as space, Anton Barbeau is ideal to feed your mind and awaken your next poet Beatlesque."

"Anton Barbeau is simply a genius bursting with melody, whimsy, beauty and weirdness." - Clive Dee

"Prolific, pretentious, precocious, intelligent, quirky, nasal, amusing, annoying to some, pop genius to others, and never ever boring—this, my friends, is the cumulative description of northern California's musical auteur Anton Barbeau." 
—PopMatters

"He's a genius like Julian Cope" - Johnny Normal

Anton Barbeau

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