Audio replaced 13/06/21

G's guitar on The Day After. F*** yep.
One of the few instances where Xav backed G, playing 2nd guitar during TDA, supporting chords / supporting choppy chord bass, and the reason G got even more experimental with the very end there. Which was great.
Also one of the songs where Colin Thurston's old bass chorus pedal unit later really shined, creaming this bassline to spatial perfection. 
And Gage's bassplaying here, against those off-kick drums, during TDA - it's like the swisswatch meets Mick Karn of bass-playing or something.

April 31st  & The Day After (1995 live cassette tape demo)

Left to right: Colin Thurston, Paul 'PK' Kendall, ..and a brilliant Australian studio assistant whose name I think was Neil / Neal. But I've been wrong before.
Roundhouse Studios, London Bridge, mid 1996.
Paul McCartney's studios back then, "yaknow".

Picture by Gage S.

This track was *very much* finalized by Paul Kendall's lone production.
He made my self-sampled, programmed drums, sound real, for starters, which is something we sometimes intensely pursued, for budget reasons.

Another song -recycled from an old synth track- mostly reworked from Gage's bassline riff, then rearranged / structured by Gage, G, and myself, drastically & overnight re-orchestrating all its sequenced stuff. 
I'd never seen a song transmogrify more than this, right before my eyes.

PIctured far right, my moog prodigy, and the 3.5" data diskettes box for my [exdemo] Ensoniq EPS sampler, next & atop - that sampler sounded awesome when it worked properly, the strings on Winter and most hammond / farfisa / digital sounds originally came from it, but being exdemo -and built by Ensoniq- it always had surprises in store and was itself sometimes resampled onto the S50.

Under both of those, the Emulator 4K which then was our studio novelty, but quickly got incorporated taking care of a lot of backdrop stuff as I slowly learned the machine operandus. 

Pictured far left, the display monitor for my [also bought on sale, in 1988, as 'old tech'] Roland S50, 12bit sampler. Best actual sounding sampler I probably ever had. Roland had done some clever algorithmic 'gap filling' computations on their AD/DA convertors, to compensate for the 12bit / 30Khz resolution, and the result was a truly umpthy + granular-sounding-like sampler, which handled like a multitimbral Fairlight III once I connected it to a small tv monitor with video input, pictured far left, but also had the crunchy gritty sound of the Emulator II / SP1200 12bit systems. So it became my trusty and potent sounding workhorse.
In the era of the all-in-one touchscreen coloured buttonpad digital controller, this may seem ancient, but it was the early days of the workstation. And 12bit still sounds better.
In them days, even drum machines with velocity sensitive pads were still a novelty. 

The Prodigy's Liam had the W30, the model that directly replaced the S50, and he felt the same way towards his, also for the longest time - as far as I know he still uses his.
Cause a 16bit Fairlight III sounded horribly unmusical compared to a 12bit S50 - and I didn't know this at the time and I wanted one. Lol.

'The reason Fellini's movies work, when the seawaves are represented with cardboard, is cause in art the cardboard version often works better, as symbolic representation' - Jean Michel Jarre.
The reason Winter's percussive sequence came out the way it did was the S50, first time I seriously sat down with it and plugged the individual outs + midi only Cubase, with an entire winter night in front of me, learning to like its digital filters and how to use resampling to 'self-oscillate' digital filters, assigning massive gated reverbs on the 4 outputs assigned to the few tamboura library samples it brought, mapping, truncation -such an important word in sampling tech then-, pitching them in extreme, as already '12bit cardboard replicas'.

Colin also had the later top model, the S770, and often lent it to George Michael - who spent rather a lot longer alone, in the studio, semi-engineering his own records, during the days of 2" tape, than he ever did 'being decadent'.

Colin would always also talk me into Kurzweil samplers, so had he succeeded, we'd have been more techy than Kraftwerk and YMO together lol.
I did get a Kurzweil K2600X years later - brilliant, and interesting 'sampling synthesis', but not for me.

Evan : drum programming, keyboards, sequencers, claps
Gage : bass, arrangements - as always, claps
G : guitars, backing vocals, arrangements, claps
Xav : vocals, backing vocals, claps

Flower Power - Produced by Paul Kendall and Colin Thurston

AR201222

2007, home studio, getting a tad electronic on a song Gage had originally composed on -self taught- acoustic guitar.
Featuring Phil Spector 'statement' samples from the documentary 'The U.S. vs. John Lennon'. No vocoder is required whenever sampling Phil Spector's speech, but I used one just for good oblique measure.
For educational purposes indeed.

Don't Ever Change - Sparking Toys home studio 2007

I've always loved this track, like most things Ric Ocasek AND Greg Hawkes ever did, together, so gave it a go as a studio project only. 

Ocasek himself approved of it a while after. Absolute legend.
Ric Ocasek was such a good producer and such a geezer, Weezer always asked for him. The Strokes seemed to agree too, from day one. Lol.
..I do do like The Strokes, and most of Julian's solo stuff is also just classic stuff.
And I do think Geoff did the right thing getting involved with them, even though I left that combo secret gig Gage and I got personally invited to, at Nottin' Hill Arts Ctr, back in 2000 or so -with the libertines, in lower case for a reason, cause there, I didn't agree at all, it's why I left early that night, lol- should Geoff ever read this - then again, why not, I was once also signed to one of his then main London labels, by himself, and that, had just seemed just so very unlikely, back then, too, for the longest time.

'Here lies Phil Linott, ..and why not.' SpTp.

Picture by Gage S.

Keyboards, drum programming - Evan
Bass - Gage + Evan (choruses)
Main vocals - Ben Woodhouse
Backing vocals - Helen Banham

Original song 'Heartbeat City' © 1984 by The Cars.

1984

Sparking Toys - Heartbeat City - coversion 2007

Though this track is a demo version, later mixed by Jerry Parsons, as part of a collaborative project now apparently licensed to BBC Radio England and BBC Continental Europe -cause I wouldn't know it from the royalties-, I like this demo version, as is.

For starters, I was never again able to get sine waves to feedback just like this, using a Roland Space Echo. The rest of the song but for the piano, came out of the first PPG Wave plugin I got hold of which also mimicked / incorporated the waveterm environment, so bass, pads, and drums all had an 8/12bit thing to them, which I further bitcrushed for good harmonic measure lol.

So even though the snaredrums sound like a scotchbrite on a frying pan, and if you don't like bright cymbals this ain't your song either, there's plenty other reasons I like this specific track as is.

Follow Your Bliss - Sparking Toys home demo 2007

Though this track is a demo version, later reworked & remixed together with Jerry Parsons, and later licensed to Peter Gabriel's CueSongs, I like this demo version as is.
This was also -always- Gage's favorite version of this track, she used to include this v version on her itunes playlist, a first ever, even once our reworked / finished version was done. Tells me something.

It's All C.o.d.e. | Encode - home studio 2009

Liberte Egalite Fraternite - home studio 2009

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyIY5_M4wTY

'..Billions of highly intelligent people, who are lulled into a state of sleep, by this conscious-less form of tele-vision. ..Then, I'm not free - and I need not talk about freedom, or living in a free society, or such issues as democracy.'
Graham Hancock, 2012

Biggest Extended

Prana

Featuring Gage's experimental bass filter pedal.
This track was around and ready, made by moi, with sequences and sounds already quite structured, during late dexdexter days.
Could've gone on either a dex or exdexes set, though I remember Xav specifically not wanting the track when I played the late band an embryonic demo of its sequenced stuff + my live keys.

..But the by-then-evolved version, did make live appearances aplenty, with ST.
..With choruses by Gage, who made a conscious effort to make this chorus more and more bent-akin to ACACC, since we had by then lost a reason to play such dex days track, but we both really liked ACACC's choruses, live, specifically, and so made a conscious effort to quasi-rescue them more or less as happened here, cause we also thought ACACC would be forever lost, pre-web days.
..But this track v much holds its own, that's why we played it, like this.
Hold Back The Rain is also half Hungry Like The Wolf, half My Own Way lol.

It was ready to go live as an instrumental, with Rachel on guitar, by 1998, played live by the 3 piece instrumental 'early' version of ST, previous to taking Mark on vocals circa 2000/1.

..I must say, ST's music was whole without any vocal participation.
ST actually peaked as a fully functioning, instrumental, live rockprogpunktechpop 3 piece, in London, during post britpop, post romo, post lad, pre-fischerspooner days. 
Go figure.
Must also be said, famous as ST got at a certain point, twas majorly down to the way Rachel managed the band.

..Must also be said, Mark did feature, on most demos he sang on, extensive expert use of his [then as much as today] state of the art, Eventide floor pedal, with harmonizer, sampling, delay-sampling, and precise digital modelling of early AMS-style 'timed/quantized-sampling', to then, the latter re-trigger back them phrases, double-triger-ing his own harmonies, sometimes as 'simple but precise short wave reflection Elvis-like early echo chambers' - which kinda accurately also mimicked studio-double-tracking, as programmed by Mark.
..And all of it done while he sang, triggering different effects / sampled backing voxes / just previously presang-mpled vocal harmony licks while the rest of us kept quiet, done rite there and just then.
Quite effing precise and engineer-like methodical, Mark was with that Eventide kinda 'mini H3000 floor Harmoniser', I guess - a box I'm familiar with, Paul Kendall knew those well and I'd observe him while he worked, aplenty, on H3000/40000s, much to his annoyance. 
And Colin was really, really, really familiar with older Eventide 900s - ask Simon Le bon. Ask Limahl, ask Mark Hollis, ask Phil Oakey. ..Or Bowie, cause Colin first used an Eventide on him during Heroes, as Tony Visconti got hold of early, ground breaking gear.

Mark's Eventide pedal was also a beautifully weird piece of state of the art tech, made mostly out of desperation by the end of its blueprint process, cause it was such an expensive piece of live gear. 

This Eventide Black Hole, or whatever the name was, did look bulk-ishly basic, though digitalish and with a small LCD screen, but like Rachel's 'standard' 2-unit Marshall fuzz / distortion / compressor pedal (which she gave to me and I have in the studio upstairs to this day, got its shelf of honor), did much more than it seemed it could at first sight, if ye werked it.
..I have the somewhat plugin version of it too these days.
..However. Mark, manipulating the real thing, live, as one would with a moog Taurus pedal, was something else, an actual orchestral maneuver in the dark, while singing live, both during most these demos and also when playing live til mid 2002 when we parted ways.
No wonder Mark has plentifully collaborated, sound wise, amongst whatever other capacities, with Roisin Murphy, post Moloko.

Other songs do feature Gage & Rachel on harmonies / backing vocals.

Evan - keys + drum programming
Gage - bass
Mark Rutherford - vocals
Rachel Johnson - guitar

UNB - Sparking Toys 2001 live cassette demo

Liberte Egalite Fraternite (Edit) - home studio 2009

Shape Of The Spiral

The Ensoniq EPS, that sampler was awesome when it worked and I remember I couldn't get enough of that sitar, as it shows - the EPS' digitally resonant filters simply mesmerized me on that one.
That choir sound was from it too - best sound ever, after EPS filtering + resampling it sounded kraft and mello lol.
..I mean I'm always having a go at ensoniq, but the tools themselves were awesome *when they worked*. My expanded EPS was very problematic.

Over The Sea - live cassette demo '91

Shabda

Shruti

Alankara

Swara

No copyright whatsoever is claimed on this specific musical work.
This is for obvious spoken word reasons.
For educational purposes only and indeed.

Mandala [Another World Is Possible]

Vocals by B. Woodhouse.
Bass, keyboards, drum programming by Evan.
Drum programming, engineering & mixing by J. Parsons, 2005.
2025 remaster by J & E DigicallScaffoldings.

Original track Never Let Me Down, by Depeche Mode © 1987

Sparking Toys - Never Let Me Dawn

Saptaka

AR240725

Where's my differentiated left & right, rather than a midpan amalgamation of the stereo spectrum, SoundCloud, thankyou. 
..It's 11€ a month, you take from moi. 10 yrs now.
..I'd expect stereo to be stereo, for that price - but maybe it's me 👍

Original track, Bette Davis Eyes - An Actual Work. Of. Art. 
Written and composed by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon in 1974. 
It was recorded by DeShannon that same year, but made popular by Kim Carnes in 1981.

Original Picture By Caroline E.

Better Days Besides

Peter - Broken Forest [Artefficient Intelligenz RePeAter SW/NE ReEdit]

https://soundcloud.com/brokenforest/peter

Peter - Broken Forest [Artefficient Intelligenz RePeAter SW/NE ReEdit]

Guitars by Genius G  @ Stumpy Music.
https://soundcloud.com/stumpymusic

Original track, Bette Davis Eyes - An Actual Work. Of. Art. 
Written and composed by Donna Weiss and Jackie DeShannon in 1974. 
It was recorded by DeShannon that same year, but made popular by Kim Carnes in 1981.

Original Picture By Caroline E.

Better Days Besides [Stumpy Intelligenz]

Keyboard strings were processed with Alan Parsons' old EII, as given to me by Jel Parsons back in 2007. Beautiful actual analog filters.
Bass and sequences were mostly PPG v2.

2 + 2   [2008 demo - 2025 remaster]

Ekaagra

Laura Elle : drums
Evan : keyboards, sequencers
Gage : bass, backing vocals
G : guitars, backing vocals
Xav : vocals

Rescued from Laura Schellino's playlist.
The sound couldn't be worse, and megamono at that - don't know how that could be, but that's the files she uploaded.

So it is what it is, I've rescued the sound as much as.

Cannot remember the name for the studio we did these Colin-produced demos at. Pretty sure it was pre-Chippin Norton residential studios, a pre-demo of the demo, as desired by Polydor - cause Chippin Norton being residential, twas 5k a week.

ACACC - 1995 studio demo - Engineered & Produced by Colin Thurston

COY - 1995 studio demo - Engineered & Produced by Colin Thurston

Guitars By Genius G. https://soundcloud.com/stumpymusic

Original track, Is There Something I Should Know, by Duran Duran | Tritec Music  © 1983

Original picture by Caroline E.

iTSiSK [Stumpy Intelligenz]

Guitars By Genius G. https://soundcloud.com/stumpymusic

Original track, West End Girls, by The Pet Shop Boys | Columbia Music ©1984

Original picture by Caroline E.

WEG one  [Stumpy Intelligenz]

Guitars By Genius G. @stumpymusic

Original track, West End Girls, by The Pet Shop Boys | Columbia Music © 1984

Original picture by Caroline E.

WEG two  [Stumpy Intelligenz]

ArtEfficient Intelligenz is a composer multi instrumentalist whose trajectory includes work with producers Colin Thurston (Human League, Bowie, Iggy Pop, Eno, Tony Visconti, Talk Talk, Duran Duran), and Paul Kendall (Wire, Piquet, Depeche Mode, Erasure, Recoil, Goldfrapp). 
His work has also been personally praised by producers Dave Allen (Human League, Wire, The Cure, Neneh Cherry), Ian Little (Roxy Music's Avalon, OMD's Dazzle Ships, Duran Duran), Stephen Lipson (GJ's Slave To The Rhythm, Propaganda, McCartney, A.Lennox, S.Minds), Chrissie Hynde, or Supergrass. ..Where the strange ones go.
 
Evan has played live at legendary venues like London’s Shepherds Bush Empire -supporting Pulp during the Common People tour at their request-, or the old London Astoria. He has studied sound production, synthesis, programming, composition and audiovisuals his whole life, having charted with a few hard-tech productions, while also long-time studio collaborating, at his request, with J. Parsons, who engineered and produced some of Alan Parsons' projects.

Master Of Nothing. Cue Metallica.

ArtEfficient Intelligenz

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