PSB – Love comes quickly


Here’s a basic output of a PSB ”LOVEQUIK” disk. It’s from a Page R sequence playing back all 8 channels with the audio output recorded into the computer and mixed together.

The Fairlight Instrument file on this disk, LOVECOME.IN, contained the following voice files used in the Page R sequence:
•Track 1 – QKIK.VC
•Track 2 – QSIM.VC
•Track 3 – QHAT1.VC
•Track 4 – QHIHA.VC
•Track 5 – QBASS2.VC
•Track 6 – QCLAPREP.VC
•Track 7 – QBASS1.VC
•Track 8 – QTIMCOW.VC

For more info on this sequence see:
http://synthroom.com/fairlight-cmi/psb-fairlight-disks/psb-lovequi/

PSB - LOVEQUIK - 130714

This is a demo of a song that I started writing in April 1997 on my old Yahama W7. You can probably hear that I didn't quantize my playing and the recording is pretty rough, because I simply hooked the synth up to my PC's sound card and didn't do any post recording clean-up. Sadly, this song only exists on a floppy disk, which my W7 can't read because its disk drive is broken. I don't have any of the music written down and can only remember some of the chords.


What Is This Thing Called Love?

I created this track using the Mac version of GarageBand in April 2007. I'd just finished reading "The Right Stuff" by Tom Wolfe so my head was full of tales of daring test pilots, astronauts and rocket planes. XLR-99 is the name of the liquid propellant rocket engine that powered the North American X-15 as flown by a certain Neil Armstrong amongst others. As a child I always thought the X-15 was a cooler-looking plane than the better known Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.


XLR-99

Closing track of my new vinyl LP 'HOME' released at the end of June 2018
Pre Orders Open Now at http://theurgencyofchange.com

Debut 12" Single on The Urgency of Change
TUOC01

FALL IN LOVE NOT IN LINE - Preview

Off the wall (Moplen remix)

This is one of the earliest electronic tracks i wrote and was inspired by by Erik Satie's Gymnopedies.  I loved the dreamy feel and simplicity of these piano pieces.  Erik Satie was a maverick, his music was widely criticised and scorned by criticsat the time, with some even daring to suggest he could not compose.  Yet to me and indeed many others over the 150 odd years since there is a graceful beauty and simplicity in his Gymnopedies. He can arguably be called the father of Minimalism as one can see a direct link between his compositions and the work of 20th century minimalist composers such as Terry Riley and Phillip Glass and the amibient works of Brien Eno and Aphex Twin.

Lullaby For Erik

I find inspiration for music all around me.  For ‘Peace be Upon You” this started out as a search for a bass sound to use in my attempt at remixing John Topley’s tune “The Things I Could Say” (https://soundcloud.com/johntopley/the-things-i-could-say), a work that is still in progress. 
 
I was introduced to Indian classical music by a friend via Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan’s recording of the duet for sitar and sarod “Raga Mishra Piloo”.  I was deeply moved by its scale, harmonics, drones and complex rhythmic patterns, it gave me a deep sense of inner peace.  As I grew older I realised that inner peace, or to put it in a more western way, peace of mind, is the truest measure of happiness.  

A couple of years ago I discovered that Electroharmonix had created a sitar simulator guitar pedal, the Ravish Sitar.  It was this that I used to create the drone sound that runs throughout the track.

In my late 20s. I was fortunate enough to see Ravi Shankar in concert at the Barbican in London, a venue with gorgeous acoustics that befitted the music.  I also got to see Dave Brubeck play there years later, another musician and composer who searched beyond the boundaries of his own culture for musical inspiration (Check out his Time Out and Time Further Out albums), as did his contemporary, the Jazz composer, musician and educator, Yusef Lateef (his Eastern Sounds album should be heard by everyone before they die). 

I came across Yusef Lateef after hearing his composition “Syn-Anthesia” played by the Cannonball Adderley Sextet, of which he was then a member and on which he switched from tenor sax to oboe on the ‘Cannonball Adderley Sextet in New York’ album.  It is an intriguing piece and a testament to the generosity of Cannonball Adderley, who regularly featured compositions from the many musicians that passed through his band.

Sadly, Yusef is no longer with us, but his music lives on as and inspires today.  In recent years the UK has seen a huge renaissance in Jazz, one of my favourite artists is the Clarinettist, Arun Ghosh who infuses many of his compositions with influences from his Indian cultural heritage along with many other contemporary western musical styles, just listen to his “Lal Qil'ah (The Red Fort)”, or “Gypsies of Rajasthan” (on his “Primal Odyssey” and “A South Asian Suite” albums).  

It was thinking of the Moslem expression “peace be unto him” when reflecting on Yusef Lateef’s music that led to the name of this track.  “Peace be upon you” is a phrase that appears in Judaism, Christianity and Islam and has many associated forms, all of which emphasise a wish for the recipient of the greeting/prayer to experience peace.

For the middle section of the tune I wanted to create the kind of groove that when I hear it I want it to just go on for longer, for example, the middle section in Kraftwerk’s 1978 track “Neon Lights”, Chic’s break in their 1978 12-inch disco classic “Le Freak” and the bass line in War’s 1975 classic “Low Rider”.  I wanted something that you could really lose yourself in in a hypnotic way for a couple of minutes and reflect on what peace means to you, a bit like Can’s 1973 “Future Days” track off the album of the same name.

Aside from the drone sound the rest of the tune was composed in the elegantly realised Nano Studio app.  I have Fergus, from Manilla Filters (https://soundcloud.com/manillafilters), to thank for introducing Nano Studio to me, if you have not tried it I can’t recommend it enough.  

The drum sound used in this track was Nano Studio’s Chip Tune pre-set and is highly reminiscent of the sounds from those 1980s 8-bit video games.  I have Stuart Maconie and his Sunday night Freak Zone show on BBC 6 Music to thank for introducing me to a whole sub-genre of electronic music where people still compose using just 8-bit samples.

Like I said at the beginning, I find inspiration for music all around me, I hope you enjoy the track.

Peace,

Marc

My Tunes

Peace Be Upon You

Miracles - Sunshine Jones Revision

I first went to Barcelona back in the 1990s with my girlfriend and fell in love with the city. Ten years later my girlfriend (same one) took me there again for a birthday surprise where we spent a weekend in a beautiful hotel overlooking Las Ramblas.  Fast forward another 15 years or so and my wife (still the same one) and I took our two children there to give them an opportunity to experience one of the most incredible cities in the world.  

Situated on the Mediterranean coast Barcelona has so much to offer: rich in history and constantly at the foreground of art and culture – just think Gaudi, Picasso, Dali and, my personal favourite, Miro (did you notice the correct grammatical use of the comma after ‘and’ Mr Rees-Mog).  Then there is the beach at Barceloneta, The Neu Camp (for those who love football), the beautiful old town, magnificent cathedral, fantastic markets, Gaudi’s park and buildings and even a children’s theme park that is open throughout the summer. Oh, and there are lots of little cafes and bars just to sit and idle away time in (note again another correct usage of a comma after ‘and’).  All of this just in the city of Barcelona itself, if you have the time explore the region as well. Figueres is a must see, especially Dali’s Museum. They still honour the siesta in Figueres, a truly wonderful tradition.  Even the weather is fantastic most of the time.  

The picture that accompanies this song is a section of my favourite Miro painting the English translation of the title is "The Harlequin's Carnival".  It was painted in 1924-25.

I started writing this Homage to Barcelona in nano Studio 1 on my iPad Mini 2 on the flight from England.  I worked on it whilst there in fits and starts in our rented apartment, on the train journey to and from Figueres, and on the flight home.  Then life got in the way of finishing it, as it so often does.  I needed something to lift the last half of the piece aside from the swirly keyboards.  Inspiration, as I’ve said before, is all around me and this time it was the death of my mum from Alzheimer’s earlier this week; she looked so peaceful at the end. This led me to try heavenly voices (which like the swirly keyboard sound came from my Roland XV5050).  The heavenly voices really lift the piece and move it to an almost dreamy, trance like state, thank you mum, I’m glad you are at peace now. 

I hope you like it, and if you haven't been to Barcelona yet make sure you go at least once in your life.

Peace and love.

Marc, 28 July 2019

Homage to Barcelona (V8)

This tune started life as an attempt to create an Ibiza style rave rune which was going to have a Spanish Guitar melody courtesy of my old friend Jonathan.  However, life got in the way of this, though it may still happen someday.

I started working on it again the day after my birthday.  I was travelling back from London on the train after little sleep, having gone to see Fat White Family play with another friend, Harry, the night before.  It was while doing this that the “The clock is ticking” lyric popped into my head as it fit with part of the melody.  This gave me an idea of a theme.

The next thing that happened was the UK General Election, the result of which was not anywhere near what I wanted.  I am a committed Europhile and have a left of centre political and economic viewpoint.  I’ve yet to find any argument from an economic perspective that Brexit is a good idea which has stood up to critical analysis. I understand that critical analysis is not the approach that many people on either side of the Brexit divide used to make their decision.  

I do not believe the new Government will deliver the changes that so many Brexit voters want to see because the cause of their concerns (overstretched NHS, overstretched social care, lack of affordable housing, lack of employment opportunities that pay at least a living wage and addressing the funding shortfall in education, especially for those with additional needs to name a few) are not the fault of the European Union or EU internal migration.  

I anticipate another 5 years of worsening levels of poverty and an increasing divide between the wealthier elements of society and the poorer and between the young and the old.  Worst of all I foresee an emboldening of the racist minority that seek to capitalise on people’s dissatisfaction and their desire to return to the “good old days”, whenever they think they were.  

It is at times like these you need to critically assess why you believe what you do to see if those beliefs stand-up to scrutiny and can be demonstrated, in the Socratic sense, to be based on sound arguments.

As you can guess, I had enough of a subject to write about, hence the darker mood of the music and the lyrics. The lyrics just lent themselves to a spoken word delivery. I shy away from the word rap as I am not a rapper, that said I did try to aim somewhere between the Beastie Boys and Eminem at first, but ended up nearer Des Lynam (A BBC Sports TV presenter from years gone by who once did a rap for charity).  So, I just used my normal voice and some slight distortion / reverb.

As with many of my tunes this was composed entirely on Nano Studio 1 on an old Ipad Mini 1. The Lyrics are below. 

You wanna take things back
To the old school days
When your shit was better
Than today

You’ve dropped your shoulders
Your pace it’s slowing
Your looking backwards
Not where you’re going

Life wasn’t great then
Nostalgia’s illusion
A trick of the mind
A state of confusion

We shape the future
By our decisions
But fear of change
Is clouding your vision

All that’s born 
Is destined to die
The question to answer’s
How’d you spend your time

Like King Canute
Before the tide
If you don’t engage
You’ll be swept aside

Accept these truths
Life moves pretty fast
The only constant is change
Nothing ever lasts

Open your eyes
Time to decide
Evolution has one rule
Adapt or die

The clock is ticking
The clock is ticking
The clock is ticking
Counting down for you

The clock is ticking
The clock is ticking
The clock is ticking
It’s time to choose

It’s time to choose (x8)

What Is This Thing Called Love?

John Topley

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