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.

Evan : drums, keyboards, sequencers, claps, backing vocals
Gage : bass, claps, backing vocals
G : guitars, backing vocals, arrangements, claps
Xav : vocals, backing vocals, claps
Paul Kendall : who remodeled, in real time, the way I executed all my moog lines, for starters, giving me directing advice on the spot as I recorded


Production demos for this track were initiated by Colin Thurston (RIP), late-95 at Chippin Norton residential studios, with the team later augmented by Paul Kendall, who later took over duties and finalized this track for the 13th time in 9 months.
Colin had initially modeled my drumming a little after Iggy Pop's 'Passenger' drum sound, cause he was the original article and was in Berlin with Iggy getting that sound for him back when. Though I kept going on about the Linndrum snare sound lol. 
 ..When we later stopped working with Colin -due to the fact that he stood up to Xav one too many times, for starters-, he always remained super friendly with me and was pleased he had helped to shape the drums towards the final stages of this one. ..Not that I've ever been a proper drummer -or perhaps because of- but my toms never sounded like that by themselves lol.

This song is yet another example of why Xav should have founded the Church of G. ...G always took Xav's clunky want-to-rock-out-but-Im-far-too-cerebral songs, and arranged them into classic guitar-riff marvels throughout 4 mins of heavy-pop-protopunkprog rockout gems.
You could take most keyboards off from this song, stick those guitar stems up 2dB, and you'd probably never be able to close your eyelids again in the fashion you used to. ..Eat your heart out, 70s Genesis, Pistols, Korn, Zeppelin, Sabbath. G was able to place it all simultaneously in there, within 4 mins. And nothing was out of place / was never too much. You could still add guitar riffs and take plenty of keys off from this one in fact, and it'd probably be a better song.
..All those bridge / chorus guitars on this one, quite simply genius-level ideation and execution of mega guitar chops, which weren't there when Xav put the embryonic COY forth, for the band's consideration. ..There really probably should've been more of those choppy-intervention guitars - as designed and played by G. Cause that's quite simply what made the band (into) more than the sum of its parts. ..And G was -always- able to instantaneously come up with riffs big and small, modulations and arrangements which instantly and quantum-ly improved whatever track was being put forth by others. Him and Gage, best arrangers we had in the band. 

..As much as Gage came up with entire tracks, simply stemming an entire song from a bassline or a couple of piano chords, and later also on self-taught acoustic guitar. The song Another Car ACC, was ENTIRELY stemmed from Gage's bassline riff, as composed by her from start to finish, to the point of this riff just being carbon-copied by my moog during the choruses, cause why complicate something that drastically popsome - and this happened VERY often. 
..We switched from COY as single to ACACC, due to Gage's bassline awesomeness, and Rough Trade, starting with Geoff Travis, VERY much agreed, so enough said.

..Things like these were, and will always be, what made DexDexTer (into) what it was. 
More than the sum of its parts etc.
Are we clear, DexDexTer historians lol.

Paul Kendall, G, and Gage all have access to this -no longer private- playlist.
So should they disagree with the above narration of events, they can be bothered to correct it if, as, where needed. Lol
...Cause they were there, for starters. Knowhatimean.

COY - Produced by Colin Thurston and Paul Kendall

Produced by Colin Thurston.
Recorded for free, live in one day, for a Melody Maker promo,  at Protocol studios, London, early '96.

..We seemingly did a duran studio number on this one, in that we still didn't have it quite quite finished by the time we went in the studio. I remember it being a bit loose-ends in places, kinda like fashion show garments not quite sown solidly as of yet. But when we got to Protocol studios, somehow it all gelled and we more or less recorded the song live, including designing its outro ending, which I distinctly remember not being worked out, with everyone chipping in ideas on the go, including Colin. He was *quite* shocked and impressed we dared finish with a punky 3rd harmonic riff thing lol.

The song Gage recorded with Colin Thurston's bass chorus pedal, as used by him on the Rio album, and which, when we finished recording, Colin gave to Gage cause that's how impressed he was.
It don't get more romo than that.
Didn't use it that much, cause it instantly turned ANY bassline into save a prayer. Big massive old blue thing it was, classic gear. I think Gage used it on songs like Winter Again and April from then on.

The telephone dial upfront was a sample of my London number at the time, made with an early 'digi-dialler', which we thought hilarious at first, til I had to go ex-directories cause people figured out the tone/s and it had all gone fairly Smash Hits pretty quickly.

..This particular song happens to be the only one which is not the master / band master recording - of all tracks uploaded onto this dexdexter playlist. 

This was somewhat styled into a proper romo number, production wise, by Colin Thurston, as he was aware of the label frenzy at the time, and probably thought making us sound like duran duran would report benefits I guess.
..Whenever I pointed out this song was getting fairly 80s production-wise, down to the choice of snares to be simultaneously triggered with Laura's real drums (recorded in Protocol's stone wall booth, a bit bright and a bit too stony reverby sounding), Colin always answered 'don't worry Evan, I know what record companies are after'. 
I'm almost certain he was after a cross between Talk Talk and Duran Duran, two of his old time productions. Whereas this song always reminded me of Feeling Called Love or most anything else by Pulp.
Horses for causes lol.
..We were never [gonna be] as good as Talk Talk, so that wasn't gonna be painted on by a second extra thick coat of a day's worth of production, but we sounded plenty better live, than Duran Duran any Wednesday afternoon lol. I've seen Duran live enough times, not saying this for free. And I think this was finished, recorded / engineered, mixed, and produced on a Wednesday, so the circle is now complete.

'You can play keys using more than two fingers simultaneously, so stop asking me about Nick Rhodes', Colin said to me during this very session.
I still personally prefer Tiger Tiger by Duran to India by Roxy.
Duran are/were [albeit perhaps once upon a time], an awesome, rocking and truly innovative & truly sophisticated band, whose studio catalogue is probably 3/4 genius level output.
..Not saying anything less than - I moved to Britain cause of, and Depeche, Genesis, the ELO, Ultravox, Tears for Fears, Orbital, Bowie, Eno. The Beatles. I absolutely love distinctly British music.
I criticize it, cause I'm now familiar with it, so the grass is always greener.
But I absolutely loved Britain, it was my welcoming, nurturing, beautiful home for 23 years - or perhaps rather London, as Jel P. says. Lol.
And I never heard harmonies like Simon Le Bon can cut them either, ever.

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

That's no cutout - that's Joan Collins with us at Harrods don't you know. Creatures Featured. 
She kinda behaved like a life-size cutout, anyway. 
First thing she asked us: '..So, who's Dex?'
Mmmyeah.

Creature Feature - Produced by Colin Thurston

G's track from start to finish.
Produced by Paul 'PK' Kendall at Mute studios, mid/late '96.

G's first demo rendition of this track, featuring Star Wars sampled-onto-cassette-then-meticulously-placed-dialogue, sprinkled as 'lyrics' throughout the song, was the s***. Cassette sampling. Get with it.

That bassline, throughout, is the most exquisite prog-metal-flamenco-disco-folk-pop bass I've ever heard. Jaisus.

Evan : drum programming, keyboards, sequencers
Gage : bass, backing vocals
G : guitars, backing vocals
Xav : vocals, backing vocals

Headlines Headlites - Produced by Paul Kendall at Mute studios

The song Gage composed on bass from start to finish, which prompted the switching single from COY to ACACC.
Bridges and choruses are basically JUST bass guitar, with everyone else more or less replicating the bass riff / allowing the bass riff to come through.  That's what I was doing with my moog anyway. 
Evsplaining - lol. 
G was instrumental with its modal and structural arranging. cause we quite cleverly recycled rather a lot of differing material in dexdexter, as only we could. ..More than the sum of its parts n all that.

This track was very much finalized by Paul Kendall's lone production, who for starters was awesomely patient with my drumming to a click track.

Featuring sampled 'rhythm-gonna-get-ya tween-screen-wipers' from our then manager's car. Raf had an awesome car, 'his office' -his actual office was located in central London in the same building George Michael had his town flat, and next to his publisher's office too, who got a politely uttered f*** off from us upon invitation to accept his publishing offer, but that's another story-, Raf loved feeling his car was good enough as an actual office so his cars had gadgets aplenty, and so we sampled the F out of it, right outside Blackwing recording studios. Indicators, every tiny little sound, the lot. And I mean SAMPLE - using Neumann & yesteryear Earthworks weird semi-mounted proper condenser-valve-hendrix stereo mics, as per Paul Kendall's suggestion. 
"..Well if you're gonna start running cable outside to sample Raf's car, you might as well go proper stereo mate."
Paul Kendall, The Cockney Eno.
I didn't even know my -then sota new- sampler had actual proper stereo sampling mode.
Probably looked like a car advert to passers by. Maybe it was. 
Those were the Monday mornings those were lol.

Xav can be heard 'squishing out a laugh' during the m8's 'window up' sample, cause the noises were getting hilarious as the window glass was drying up after many sampling attempts, and cause that's how good of a time we used to have in dexdexter, back when everyone seemed to remember that we are always, firstly, human, and then, perhaps, and only ever temporarily, popstars.

If I remember right, Blackwing studios somehow had walkie-talkies we used to communicate outdoors and sample accordingly.
We were scientists, we were.
Making our own beats out of window wipers and indicators.
Eat yer hart ut, Kanye.

The 'weird' bubbly sound that starts up the song was a sample taken from Xav's DX11 keyboard, cause he had one, and was really competent with it - it being FM synthesis, which ain't no joke. His sounds and sound experiments on his DX11 were second to none, aside from Xav being a proper piano player anyway - so we decided to sample this one as a 'front joke', basically. 
It was a way of saying 'here, this is the first sound you get, let's see how romo this one is'.
Xav and I were both really fond of a certain documentary featuring Phil Oakey talking about 'irreverence through sound', while sounding rather a lot like Sean Connery. I think this was a/n homage to that. 

Evan : drums, tambourine, keyboards, sequencers
Gage : bass, backing vocals
G : guitars, backing vocals, arrangements - moog related, bridges, choruses
Xav : vocals, backing vocals
Paul Kendall : who remodeled in real time the way I executed all my moog lines, for starters, giving me directing advice on the spot as I recorded

...Had you played the tambourine through this track, you'd have also listed it. We more or less all had a go at the tambourine at some point, cause it was the most tiring thing ever recorded lol. It may not even be all of / only my tambourine that made it to the last printout of the track, so we should perhaps get a lol-yer.

Artwork & cartoons by Mike Vegas, known for Adam & Ants and Tears For Fears album artwork. 
If only people knew just how much every detail on such cartoon depiction metaphorically pre-encapsulated all actual band dynamics - down to a t, actually. Synecdoche much.

Another Car Another Car Crash - Produced by Colin Thurston and Paul Kendall

Salvaged from Xavmania's dexdexter playlist, the sound here has phase to it, so must be from an old cassette. I kinda like this Protools-ed version and remember parts of this mixing process and adding a couple of fx on 16bit Protools as per PK's advice - who didn't know what to do with my drumming, and spent a long time editing this one. But hey, who doesn't get their drums edited this day and age. Even the news is daily gridded and quantized, let alone music. 

I wasn't a horrible drummer, I was into rhythm since I used to drum the f out of my school desk age 10, competing with Mendoza, big chap who sat next to me, last row of the class so we 'couldn't be heard'. And I was sometimes on drums with the school band, though I was made to learn my basic chops on bass guitar - to the House Of The Rising Sun, first ever song that actually made sense to me, as far as music lessons go, though I was also *forced* to learn some Mozart around then, towards my piano studies, which is why I gave them up as soon as.
..More Vangelis, thanks.

Unless I'm mistaken, The House Of The Rising Sun is a not-even-overnight masterclass on chord progression, key & key changes, & harmonic relations, if nothing else. And it teaches you bass guitar, right there - there being a literal before and after.

So much later on, whenever we couldn't get band drummers to organically play along to live sequencers, I'd prerecord all my keys, and sacrifice for the good of the band and go hit things live, without any real technique - perseverance and willpower will plenty compensate. 
..But studios -leaving one's primal drum chops forever registered to a metronome- were something else entirely. Rattle and hummish lol.

Remastered it a bit - added some low end bite and 'hi end def', considering.
As can be seen, we had just discovered Protools and digital manipulation of an entire audio track, so we kept demanding this Prodigy-tal treatment on a couple of sections, which we were advised wouldn't work, in time - and surely enough, they don't really. Lol. 

There are sections of this edit which were done for good reason and did improve the track. So, this song ended up a fragmented version of itself. Very COY indeed. Relol.

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

DexDexTer Chemistry Of Youth 1996 Candidate Mix, remixed by Paul Kendall at Mute Records

Solo un mometo de tierno silencio, hazme sentir tu ser natural

Richard Barrett - Natural

Pisto Richard Barrett

Músico multi instrumentista, cantador, compositor y arreglista. Creador de musical popular de vanguardia y diferentes estilos musicales. Concierto/recital.

Talleres compilación musical, producción. interpretaciones, bajo guitarra Teclado y batería. colectividad para acceso a la música.

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.

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