Left to right: Evan, Paul 'PK' Kendall, Xav.
Roundhouse Studios, London Bridge, mid 1996.
McCartney's studios back then, donyano.
Recording G's guitars / backing vocals / harmonies.
Amidst our travels from Chipping Norton residential studios, to Protocol studios, to TownHouse studios, to Blackwing studios, through London Bridge studios, to Mute Records' studios.
..What an easy going band lol.

This track still sounded like absolutely unfinished, UN-tethered, worthless cr*p, by the time we took it to Mute records. 
The fact that this track finally ended up sounding like this at all, it must be said, is down to Paul Kendall. Which wasn't easy either technically, nor due to the fact that Xav, by this time, was behaving towards everyone like a cross between Danny Kaye and Godzilla on m*th. 
This song was *not* fun to finish, or be present for, let's just say. 
These were the very last chords we ever played together, to start with.
Those very last ominous outro suspended chord/notes, which were very much PK's decision after he noticed Gage going haywire bending down her bass neck & note at the very end -and which Xav didn't want at all-, should give the mood of the time away. 

So ALL credit to Paul Kendall - I cannot stress enough just how S*** this song otherwise sounded.

Picture by Gage S.
..Who also developed yet another inhuman bassline on this track. 
That m8 section. I remember watching Gage come up with that bassline, thinking it was awesome, and when it came to recording it at Mute, having to collectively convince her to play less notes, as ended up recorded, cause it just went speed metal-like otherwise, and we were always after something more akin to INXS for that m8, as per her original idea.
..Gage, during studio time, at times transformed into somewhat of a speed metal bassplayer, almost performing orchestrally, like a fast cellist, coupled with John Taylor's or Paul Webb's sensibility for an impossibly sophisticated riff. 

I do remember Colin Thurston being *SO* impressed with Gage's bass playing, he used to tell me 'why on earth does she keep going on about John Taylor? I used to have to dub John's takes many times, even during the 'Rio' sessions... he couldn't have dreamed of playing what Gage does, in one take, least of all with the red light on'.
..And I still find this fascinating, cause we had both certainly grown up idealizing Duran and the bassline on the Seventh Stranger etc. 
..I learnt half my bass chops by playing along to JT back when, so wtf is going on lol.

Colin had recorded 3 classic albums with Bowie too, back in Berlin days, and with Iggy, and the early Human League, and Talk Talk. ..Colin v much knew his s***. He had seen rather a lot of studio time and 'stars' through the years, and knew just who did what and who didn't - he never gave Xav much extra time of the day.
Whereas Colin chose to stay with Gage and I during recording periods, upon our invitation.
..And we kept pestering him with duran trivia requests lol.

Evan : drum programming, keyboards, sequencers, moog solo
Gage : bass, backing vocals
G : guitars, backing vocals
Xav : vocals, backing vocals
Paul Kendall : who -literally, on this one- modeled in real time the way I executed all my moog lines, giving me directing advice on the spot as I recorded that very moog solo. That moog solo was literally executed by more than one mind. And as G and Gage were there too, asking for more of this or less of that, it's also fair to include them. That was one intense so-lol.
Fully executed -as improvised- on Gary Numan's old minimoog - so also once played by Ultravox's Billy Currie, as he was Numan's keyboardist for a long while - my absolutely inspiring hero whenever it came to these sort of weird guitar-like keyboard solos. ..Once I had sampled its worth, I exchanged my fairly useless DX7 for a bunch of analogue synths, including my moog prodigy, back in '89, cause Billy Currie.

Supa Bupa - produced by Paul Kendall at Mute studios

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

British Love - Sparking Toys 2001 live cassette demo

Different version of Winter Again - more moog and less of other stuff, 1998.

Winter Again & Blue Planet - Drums, Bass, Synths - live cassette demo - Sparking Toys 1998

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

Evan - keys + drum programming
Gage - bass
Rachel Johnson - guitar

Orange Basf - Sparking Toys 1998 live cassette demo

Not For Sale (PunkRock) - Sparking Toys 2001 live cassette demo

Not For Sale (PunkPop) - Sparking Toys 2001 live cassette demo

Evan - keys + drum programming
Gage - bass
Rachel Johnson - guitar

Rachel and Gage, rockin' this one out live.
Oh. OH.

Original track: Dancin', by The Tubes, as featured on the Xanadu soundtrack.
Original samples and original song © The Tubes, 1980.

Dancin', coversion - Sparking Toys 1998 live cassette demo

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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