I've been busy with International Electromatics recently, so this is the first new ACG song for a while. This song combines an after-hours, chill-out feeling with the drive of a dance track. In addition to the synths I wrote a string arrangement; getting back to my roots as an orchestral player I suppose... My old friend, the most definitely "sensational" Jon Paul sings the soulful backing vocals. I've mastered this with alot of 'bottom end' (courtesy of the JP8000)  so please play it loud!
This song is another of the "Cornish Cat-Tails" series... songs inspired by an incredible person I met at University. This series didn't exist before I started writing this, I just need an excuse to explain (justify??) why many of my songs are about the same girl.... Over the Rooftops, Coastal Town, Out of Reach, Without You, Memorial Park, Loveless, Belong, Wish....  
Hardware used - JP8000, Z1, TX802, Dark Energy, DW8000, Alpha Juno1. 
Written by R Cook

Running From The Past - Art City Glimmer

The song that started it all for us. This song's composition marked our transition from Cinema Dreams (through a year as 'The Loved One') to Thieves Like Us and now Milano Rovente. 

Three years at Uni obsessively listening to Scritti Politti, Aztec Camera (Love), Prefab Sprout, ABC, Jam and Lewis and 70s/80s era Prince led me to a new direction. Intricate arrangements, precise / sequenced synths, funky bass, soulful vocals and big choruses - these aims all came together in Thieves Like Us. Jon was really finding his identity as a vocalist and our resident tech-genius Rich B was able to facilitate the sessions with his Atari ST running Pro24 before we graduated to Cubase. Our equipment list consisted of two Fostex X26 four track recorders, one SM58 microphone, a Boss Dr Synth Module, a Yamaha DX7, two Fostex monitor speakers, a bass guitar, the Atari ST and the recording software. Rich B was also stepping out as a deeply impressive bassist having served his apprenticeship with local youth music groups and many gigs with his bands. 
This new version of Blue For The Girl (originally Blue 4 The Girl with a nod to the little Purple One :))features a fantastic bass performance from Rich B who also plays the tight and funky rhythm guitar lines. Jon gives a bravura vocal turn and I got to enjoy myself far too much using lots of synthesizers to make sure that one of our key songs could be re-launched sounding its best... I even dug out hardware orchestra hits from the JDXa as they were an integral part of the original; you can never have too many orchestra hits!
Written(1997)and Mixed (May 2023)by R Cook 
Produced by R Braithwaite & R Cook
Performed by Milano Rovente - 
Jon Paul - Vocals
R Cook - Synthesizers, Drum Programming, B Vox
R Braithwaite - Bass Guitar, Electric Guitar, B Vox

Synthesizer Hardware - Korg Prologue 16, Roland JDXa, Roland JP8000, Roland R8m, Roland Juno106, Casio CZ1000, Roland D50, Kawai K3, Yamaha RX17.

Blue For The Girl by Milano Rovente

Another revisited original Lovessence track is launched into 2023! The original version of this song was the last track we recorded in the Lovessence sessions towards the end of 98. By then Jon had too many other commitments and was unable to make the vocal sessions which meant that a song that was always meant to have his vocals had to wait until now for that to happen.
The arrangement on this song is complex and multi-layered - there are more than 30 separate tracks on this one. Funky Moog bass (from me) in the verse hands over to a beautifully fluid and funky live bass from Rich B in the rest of the song. Rich B also provides some funky guitar lines in the verse transitioning to Nile Rodgers-baiting rhythm guitar in the choruses. I programmed the drum track using a Korg DDD1.  I love the sound of this drum machine and I think that it gives the right amount of crisp electro 'thunk' to the rhythm track. The kick and snare are really distinctive and the hats have a heavy quality that the other drum machines we've used don't quite match. The DDD1 was also used on Mardi Gras and the forthcoming Cupid Love Theory.
The words are an ode to a teenage screen-crush and the way that this is often a substitute for the real thing whilst you are taking your first steps towards serious relationships. I was too young to see the famous brat-pack movies when they came around for the first time but caught Pretty in Pink on VHS in the 90s when I was around 15 or 16... I must admit I was more into the soundtrack than the film itself but MR was undeniably dreamy to a romantic, synth obsessed teenager from South Wales!
Vocals - Jon Paul
Guitar and Bass Guitar - Rich Braithwaite
Synthesizers, Drum Machine and B Vox - Richard Cook
Written (1998), Produced and Mixed (2023)by R Cook

And When The Girl Says - Milano Rovente

Two Seasons is a song about the disillusion that exists as you look back on your childhood from adulthood.  The two seasons in the lyrics are meant to represent the impossibility of reconciling the hope and potential of childhood and the ultimate loneliness of the realities of life. The song has a vocal-led first section that moves into a glorious electro-pop second section based on a bass line from the SH101 which builds with increasing layers of beautiful analogue synthesizers before being released into a reprise of the chorus. First recorded a few years ago, this became one of my favourites. For this 2023 version I have added layers of drums / drum loops on top of the original CR78 pattern (courtesy of the Waldorf Attack plugin), completely remixed and re-arranged the song from the ground up, added some Prologue 16 (which I bought after this song had originally been completed) and re-recorded the vocals and backing vocals.

Written, Performed and Produced by R Cook 2019 / 2023

Hardware - Roland Alpha-Juno 1, Roland Juno 106, Roland SH101, Korg Minilogue, Korg Prologue 16, Roland R8m, Roland JP8000.
Software - Waldorf Attack, Battery4, Groove Agent.

Two Seasons (Where Are The Stars?) - Art City Glimmer

I wrote this song so many years ago! 

I remember writing it one weekend and then excitedly showing it to Rich B during the break of an orchestra rehearsal on an ancient, mouldy and very out-of-tune piano. We recorded a version just after we finished Lovessence but lost the Pro24 files. We then re-recorded it once or twice more, never being quite happy with the result. I recorded an acoustic version a few years ago but the song has finally revealed itself with this version.
It has ended up as a crisp and punchy funk track with an arrangement full of space but with a fundamentally sad lyric. Although the title comes from a piece by Handel and is based on words written by Milton, I must admit that I saw the title on a re-run of the 80s TV series 'Bergerac' and liked it! They did feature the Handel song in the show so there is, sort of, an authentic link;) Although there is some artistic licence, the words are basically autobiographical, and with some recent events are all the more meaningful to me now than when they were written. 'I am a man of sorrows, holding yesterday because I sold tomorrow'... 
The earlier versions of the song were all ballads but there was something about the juxtaposition of the mood of the words with the funky arrangement that worked for me. Rich B, as ever, indulged me with only the faintest look of disbelief when I said I wanted to include this old hidden gem in our new sessions... but as a dry funk track. 
The song is built on a crisp drum part supported by a funky bass-line and some Nile Rogers-baiting guitar. I only took one synth with me to Rich B's West Wales studio (the Roland Alpha-Juno 1) and layered four (I think!) separate synth lines over the guitar and bass. No quantizing was used for anything other than the drums so all keyboard parts are 'live'. In a new turn of events it is me (!!) and not King Bass Mr Braithwaite who is popping and slapping like a Mark King wannabe but Rich B steps up with some pin-sharp rhythm guitar.
This is one of the key tracks of our rebirth - funky, synthesized, melodic, melancholic, introspective; very much our own sound! This song has taken something like 20 years to find its feet and actually reach a 'finished' version but it is now complete and one of my favourites of our songs.
Thanks to the likes of early ABC, The Kane Gang and early Sade for making very funky English pop; I recommend songs like Spirit, Tears Are Not Enough and Smalltown Creed :)

R Cook - Bass Guitar, Synthesizer (Roland Alpha Juno 1), Drum Programming (Roland R8m and Yamaha RX17), Lead Vocal and backing vocals.
R Braithwaite - Guitar and Backing Vocals
Written and Mixed by R Cook 2023 (2000),
Produced by R Braithwaite and R Cook
Recorded at Mill Terrace and Logopolis 2023

Man Of Sorrows by Milano Rovente

An Academy of Saints song.

This song is unashamedly influenced by the songwriters of the 'Great American Songbook' and some of the favourite artists such as Hue and Cry, The Bathers and Gary Clark (of Danny Wilson!).
The arrangement features voice, piano, guitar, drums, flute, muted trumpet, double bass, harp, a string section, a glockenspiel and an ARP Odyssey synthesizer.

The lyrics are about how sweet memories of first love / infatuation are dulled and stolen by the passing years. In the song, the person who held that particular torch for all those years (me;)) is told by the singer to rest now as no amount of revisiting of those treasured memories will change the outcome and each day they are farther gone. The love that you long for will never shine in those eyes whose image is being reclaimed by the past... it looks like the polka-dot girl is finally going to run away. Time has claimed her and all that's left is the keepsake of those first feelings.

Quite appropriately for the first (proper) release from my long-intended orchestral pop project the subject of the song is someone I met through playing in the local youth orchestras sooo many years ago! I never seemed to have the right words.

Written, Performed and Produced by R Cook August 2023

Keepsake - Academy of Saints

This song always meant a lot to me. I recorded it for my first project after the band originally drifted apart something like 13 or 14 years ago. I wrote it after the death of my mother and tried to cover some of my own personal beliefs in the lyrics. 

Recent events made me revisit the song and I've added a bridge with new lyrics; I've lost more loved ones since writing the song and it now means more to me than ever. 
To me, the 'Unknown Beauty of Goodbye' is two things. It is the beauty in looking back and re-experiencing memories when you've lost someone, remembering all those wonderful moments that are part of who you are and what your relationship was; reappraising and rediscovering them and cherishing them. It is also learning your 'new shape' after each loss and embracing the changing person you are, moving forward with the grief in the past but the loss as a part of who you now are. 

This always would have been a TLU song but I recorded it on my own and deliberately arranged it in an electronic style for my first album because, at that moment we did not exist as a band. That version is somewhere near the bottom of my Soundcloud timeline if you want to compare the two; I am still proud of that version.
 
The new recording is in a new key (B-Flat Minor...) with a guitar-focused arrangement and a much more organic sound. Rich and I worked on this song October this year, starting the recording in West Wales. I finished it in Newport at the start of November. As ever, his contributions are brilliant with a lovely Classical Guitar solo towards the end being a particular highlight.

Written and Produced by R Cook 2010/2023

Arranged and Performed by
Richard Braithwaite - Semi-Acoustic Guitar, Classical Guitar and Backing Vocals.
Richard Cook - Keyboards (Piano, Novation K Station, Korg Prologue 16), Bass Guitar, 12 String Acoustic Guitar, Vocals and Drum Programming (Kontakt).

The Unknown Beauty of Goodbye - Academy of Saints

An update of a track we first recorded a few years ago. Great vocal here from Jon. 
I kept the vocal, guitar and some keyboard lines from the original and reconstructed the song around them.
The new version emphasises the electronic core of the original. This is a romantic song of regret set in our home town; an elegy for an imagined future.

Written and Produced by Richard Cook 2019/2024

Jon Paul - Lead Vocal
Richard Cook - Synthesizers, Guitar, Drum Machine, Backing Vocals

For those of you into your gear, I used- Kawai K3, Roland JDXa, Korg Prologue, ARP Odyssey, Novation Bass Station, Yamaha RX11, Roland JP8000,Roland Alpha Juno1 and Roland Juno 106.

Confetti - Milano Rovente

This song embodies many of the different faces of dance music that I have grown up loving. There's a stone-cold ;) 70s soul string arrangement , smooth piano, a punchy 909 drum track, a pure House bass line direct from Chicago, pulsing rhythm lines from the synthesizers and brilliant rhythm guitar from Rich B. 
The lyrics are a true (and sad) story hopefully lifted up by the positive music. 
Written and Produced by Richard Cook 2016/2024
Performed by - 
Richard Cook - Synthesizers, Drum Programming, Vocals, Kontakt (Piano and String Arrangement)
Richard Braithwaite - Guitar

Never In Love by Milano Rovente

Our latest song is an organic blend of soul, funk and electronics. Written and recorded in January and February this year. 

An old school soul string arrangement sits above an analogue synth bass line (ARP Odyssey) and some 70s evoking wah-wah guitar. There’s also some funky Moog in there first appearing just before the first chorus then taking the solo after the middle 8. 

Sequencers meld with strings and guitar. We’ve always sought that blend of electronics with the organic and a healthy dose of soul in the vocals and this song epitomises our aims.

Lyrically, Saint Saviour is about coming to terms with the ghosts in your life whilst never really leaving those memories completely. How understanding, although often hard won, comes with its own pain. Saint Saviour is both a real place and a metaphor for the ‘city of ghosts’ that seems to get more desolate as time passes. 

Great vocal from Jon and a lovely 3 part vocal harmony arrangement from Rich B, performed flawlessly (!) by the fabulous 'Milanettes'. Everything else is me😁.

Jon Paul - Vocal
Richard Cook - Synthesizers, Drum Programming, Guitar and Backing Vocals
Richard Braithwaite - Backing Vocals

Written, Produced and Mixed by Richard Cook 2024
Backing vocal arrangement by Richard Braithwaite.

Blue-eyed soul electro funk:)

Saint Saviour by Milano Rovente

Brand new song for summer 2024. 

Milano Rovente exist at a place where britfunk, blue-eyed soul and classic pop meet. The arrangement exudes summer with a 70s wah-wah guitar lick percolating over a rhythmic britfunk inspired bass line. The song is enhanced by the twin attack of a string arrangement straight from classic soul records and a punchy brass section.  Jon sings lead on this one bringing his trademark soul and Rich B delivers another great guitar solo. 

It is a song about how, sometimes, despite building a life together, you might never really know someone. The singer of the song has often dreamed of, just one morning, taking a different turn and taking possession of their own destiny for the first time, finally being able to lay down the mask they have worn for years. Their life has been one of pretence out of necessity and self-expression has been supressed. 

The song is driven along by a slapping and popping bass which is evidence of too much time spent immersed in the fantastic britfunk sounds of the early 80s. Synthesizers provide delicate atmospherics with a paired piano and Rhodes defining the chords. The mood of the song is established in the angular verse gradually relenting through the backing vocal led bridge and a finger twisting chord change until it reaches resignation, realisation and release in the beautiful chorus; "how can it be after all this time, I'm still a stranger?"

Jon Paul - Lead Vocal
Richard Cook - Bass, Keyboards, Guitar, Drum Programming, Backing Vocals, String and Brass Arrangement.
Richard Braithwaite - Solo Guitar, Backing Vocals.

Written, Produced, Arranged and Mixed by Richard Cook 2024

Stranger by Milano Rovente

Inspired by the brilliant sounds of Brit Funk, this is a song built on a bassline that pushes aside any arguments;). I wrote and recorded this song quickly during a time of resetting my whole approach to life; like many of the new Milano Rovente songs, I found it an important part of the healing.
The arrangement is sparse with different instruments dancing around the bulldozing bass which was the first public outing for my slap bass playing. The kick drum stays out of the way and the guitar steps in occasionally to play an insistently funky rhythmic refrain. The synthesizers (including the brilliant Waldorf Microwave) are used as gentle spalshes of atmosphere. The song isn't fast but thanks to all the interplaying rhythms, has a swagger that makes it unique amongst our tracks. Only me on this song...

Bass Guitar, Electric Guitar, Synthesizers, Drum Programming and Vocals - Richard Cook
Written, Produced and Mixed by R Cook 2023

How Can We Call This Love? by Milano Rovente

The first collaboration bewtween myself and the writer (and good friend) Mark Lewis. We both love old school EBM, Front 242, Front Line Assembly, And One etc. I had too many EBM tracks without lyrics and Mark fancied having a go at writing lyrics... the rest is history. These lyrics were written for an existing backing track but when I read them I felt that they were too good for the that track so I wrote new music for them. One of the best things I've done.... in my opinion...
Written by R Cook / M Lewis

Love Song (For A Number) - International Electromatics

My favourite song from 'The Sand Reckoner'. An electro ballad for all those with electronic hearts. Tried to use the vocoder in a sort of 'Friends of Mr Cairo' way mixing it behind the vocals to get that Roland VP330 effect. Once again the Moog Little Phatty provides the beautiful analogue bassline and the JP8000 comes up trumps with some lovely pads. The lyrics are about the fact that if you love deeply, then loss cuts more deeply, but that the love, whilst you have it, is worth anything... there's a bit of atheism in there too.
Written by R Cook

Damaged - Art City Glimmer

Another one of the tracks sung by Bethan taken from the Take Me Home EP. Richard Braithwaite provides some beautiful, restrained guitar over a gentle pulsing backing. I used an 808 emulation for the drums and the bass is my trusty Moog. I am very proud of this song and feel privileged that Bethan and Richard made such brilliant contributions. This was one of the first songs I wrote about the girl who inspired more than a decent amount of my output(!). I think she ended up in Mansfield..... the lyrics say it all and work just as well from a woman's point of view.
Written by R Cook

Over The Rooftops by Semantics

machinesforliving is an independent outlet for my music projects. 

Songs are also available on Art City Glimmer's Bandcamp page.

I was the keyboard player and songwriter in Thieves Like Us, however, as the band became more electronic I felt that the original idea of the band playing sophisticated, funky, soul-pop in the style of Scritti Politti, Hue & Cry and Jam & Lewis had changed calling for a rebranding. I took the name of the first band I had formed in school and we became 'semantics'. In this form we completed two albums of electronica with a final album completed by me more or less on my own- 'Take Me Home', one of the few group tracks on that final album is the earliest track on this page.

Following the drifting apart of the band I started recording electronica as 'Art City Glimmer' and formed an EBM project (International Electromatics) with my friend, the writer MM Lewis. We shared a love of Old School Electronic Body Music such as Front 242, D.A.F. and Front Line Assembly. With lyrics provided by my old friend I indulged my darkest EBM dreams in the studio and between 2011 and 2021 we produced 23 singles of pure EBM. Some are featured on this page but all of them and their b-sides are available on the International Electromatics page.

Enthused by some individual collaborations with the two other members of Thieves Like Us  around 2020, we relaunched the group with a new name (Milano Rovente) and two projects. One is to re-record our debut album 'Lovessence' with the technology we now have so it can finally sound as it should have done and the other was to record a new set of songs. Some of the new songs have been written specifically for the reunion whilst others have been picked from recordings made over the last 20 years. These songs were always meant to be TLU songs but we didn't exist as a band when I wrote them.

PROJECTS
Art City Glimmer: 2010 - Present. Solo electronic pop.

Milano Rovente (formerly Thieves Like Us): reactivated 2021. Funk, soul, sophistipop collaboration with Rich Braithwaite and Jon Paul.

International Electromatics: 2011-2021. EBM project with MM Lewis. Currently on hiatus waiting for new lyrics😁!

Outlier: 2022-Present. Sample-based hauntology project. Sound sources include 1930s movies, obscure library music, 70s easy listening, 20th Century classical, cult TV, dance and electronica.

Academy of Saints: 2023- Present. Orchestral and chamber-pop project. 

Stars of the Silver Age: 2012-Present. Exclusively analogue synthesis-based occasional project. Lockdown album written, recorded and mixed across 4 days using just an SH101 and a Volca Beats. All tracks from that available on own Soundcloud page.

Red Sky: 2018-Present. An umbrella, soundtrack / ambient project for the orphan instrumental music I have produced.

machinesforliving

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