Random bits of collected sound, spliced together with brutal carelessness.

Slight echoes (pun thoroughly intended) of Joe Meek's introduction to "TELSTAR" in these sounds.  Hardly surprising: they were made using similar techniques.

Recorded in 1974 using the Vortexion WVB

EDITED HIGHLIGHTS

In the wooden pews we rise together slow
Choir lifting dawn in a warm golden glow
Hands reaching high through the storm we knew
Soul fire burning in a bright breakthrough
The Hammond hums like heaven turning keys
Bass line breathing steady with the breeze
Here in this house of hope our hearts renew
Under moonlit rafters we find our groove

Sanctuary groove lifting us in light
From old church memories to a community bright
Drums and keys rising till the soul ignites
In the warmth of our gathering the world takes flight

Sunday morning laughter drifting through the hall
Band hits the break and the whole room stands tall
Joy moving freely where we all belong
From quiet whispers to a dancing song
The groove becomes our shared declaration
Hammond swelling loud in liberation
In that rising breath of a united floor
We taste a freedom we have waited for

Sanctuary groove lifting us in light
From old church memories to a community bright
Drums and keys rising till the soul ignites
In the warmth of our gathering the world takes flight

Let the Hammond swell like halos in the air
Let the guitar call back in a soulful prayer
Cymbals shining softly as redemption nears
We are one we are strong in the rhythm we cheer

Sanctuary groove lifting us in light
From old church memories to a community bright
Drums and keys rising till the soul ignites
In the warmth of our gathering the world takes flight
Sanctuary groove our voices unite
In the cradle of the groove we claim our right

Sanctuary groove

My face arrives before I do
My shadow stays behind
Two breaths collide in a hallway
Neither one is mine

I am the crack
and I am the thing that breaks
The mirror calls out numbers
that do not match my name
I wear three silhouettes
all stitched wrong
each one tugging at
a different future
A voice tries to speak
but fractures into dust
before it leaves the tongue

Identity peels off
in thin translucent sheets
I stack them
I lose them
I chase the wrong one
down an empty stairwell
Walls tilt
clocks melt
pronouns misfire
My reflection shifts tempo
and walks away
without waiting for me

I am split
I am splitting
I am the echo of a self
still negotiating its borders
Nothing holds
Everything rewrites
A name dissolving into static

Inside a room made of unspoken versions
I meet myself
but he is taller
and he is tired
and he is someone I do not recall
He asks if I remember the fracture
I answer yes
but the word leaves in two directions
both wrong
both true

Horn screams sideways
tearing vowels from the air
Piano collapses
keys scattering like broken identities
Drums stutter
heartbeats refusing alignment
My body replays old memories
out of order
out of sync
out of self

I am split
I am splitting
Echo on echo
layer on layer
A language cracked open
by the roar of becoming
Nothing fits
Everything reveals
A self made of fragments
bleeding into each other

Night folds inward
I follow a version of me
I have never met
Footsteps overlap
I multiply
I vanish
I return
as something unfinished
something unnamed
something finally allowed
to be broken

I am splitting

The entire sound is in my hands. I write cyber poetry, produce, and compose every track ready for Immersive 3D. Every beat is crafted for spatial and next-gen headphones.
Intimate lyrics, total immersion, every track.

For 30 years I kept unfinished demos to myself, never letting them out. Now I finish what I start and release it the moment it’s alive.

I use every tool available, human or machine, as an instrument.
Technology doesn’t replace creativity. It expands it.

Playlist 1:
HOW D'YE STOP THIS THING?
We were an electronic family.  As children of a Radio Ham, my brother and I grew up surrounded by magic boxes full of glowing valves and high voltages, our ears thrilling to the ethereal sci-fi soundscape of the short wave bands. Hardly surprising, then, that we should both develop a fascination with audio, electronic music and recording technology.

One of those magic boxes was a half track mono Vortexion WVB tape deck. In the mid 1970s I used this machine to record a number of bizarre pseudo-musical cacophonies involving tape-loops, home-made oscillators and found objects. For these purposes, the Vortexion's most useful feature was a switch which turned off the erase head.  This enabled me to overlay new sounds directly onto an existing track.  The only problem was that, being mono, there was no other track to bounce to, thus no way I could overdub in sync with myself:  I had to rely on the delayed output from the playback head. This is why most early tracks involve vague drones and random sounds.  And, of course, as I would be recording over the original track every time, each new take was an irrevocable step; a one-off; no going back !

Playlist 2:
A SOUND SPANKING
In 1981 I bought a ReVox G36 (all-valve predecessor to the A77) which could do track-to-track overdubs, and from 1981-84 I used this machine to record numerous songwriting demos.

Then, as it is all too fond of doing, life got in the way and the songwriting got shelved. The tapes lay in their boxes undisturbed until 2001, when I got my first computer and discovered the capabilities of digital editing.  I overhauled the G36, dug out the tapes (some of them by now rather fragile) and set about digitising their contents. The results were then re-worked as multi-track edits, adding new vocals and, in certain cases, a number of MIDI-synthesized instruments - all the ones I could never have afforded to own 20 years earlier. ;-)  These recordings are the basis of this set.

New tracks tagged #tape edits