Warm Hearted Oscillation

If you've read a few of my posts you may have noticed that I adore the analogue synthesiser. As we all said in 1979 - "get rid of those guitars, boys and girls, they are just so yesterday". I remember fondly that the future would be full of knobs and dials and the warm buzz of a heavily filtered VCO. In 1980 or 81, a friend - David Ayers - (now sadly lost to us) went to see The Human League live amidst their electro-pop hey-day and reported back disgustedly that "they didn't play a synth-bass! it was all plod, plod, plod on a Fender!" How dare they ruin our vision of space age bloops and bleeps (with a bouncy chorus) continuing on throughout space and time!

So it's about 25 years later and I suppose "the future" is now. I'd often fantasised about what exactly I'd be doing when the new millenium became reality but it surely didn't include the work I'm doing nor the blog I'm writing.

Ah well, in the lead up at least I had Kreidler to make me happy.

mp3: Good Morning City
mp3: Au-Pair

Both of these are from their 1998 album "Appearance and the Park" which I didn't actually hear until 1999 was underway. It became my touchstone album for the coming century as it mixed some lively synth sounds (probably digital but I didn't let that stop me liking them) with those pesky real instruments (mainly the slightly deadened but energetic drums). 'Au-Pair' utilises a blurpy electro bass whilst 'Good Morning' uses a proper one (it could be a Fender for all I know). You be the judge.

But this is post-rock after all so I easily became dissapointed with the lack of drive behind the songs even though you can tell Thomas Klein is whacking away at those snares and toms and kicks for all his worth. He may even have raised a sweat.

However, I doubt that Jeremy Dower would perspire:

mp3: Earnest Borg

This is from his delightfull 2000 album of ditties "Music For Retirement Villages, Circa 2050" (released on Chapter Music). It's a sort of faux-futuristic hallucination using analogue equiptment. Lots of quirky high pitched melodies and a walking bass line that Ya Ya Choral would have been proud of.

Back in the old world, The Reels dropped their guitars, kept their sweaty drummer and stuck with a 5 synth barrage of off kilter pop. Sort of like Kreidler would be but augmented with sweet, sweet harmonies.

mp3: Cancer
mp3: Quasimodo's_Dream

They kicked and screamed and yelled and fought with their record company and fans for years. At least they managed to release one great album and many memorable songs.

And then there was my stuff too:

mp3: philT - Slow
mp3: No Night Sweats - Dogs and Dogs

These obviously didn't set the world alight but I still think they sound pretty good. The solo track was 'released' on the 2-Tapes cassette "Aussies are Better Than Gerrys At This Sort Of Thing" with drumming by the redoubtable Mark Boswell. The NNS track never passed itself onto the world at large but, at least, it was made better by Polly from the Reels. He gave us valuable mixing advice to leave out one of the swirling synth tracks till the middle section and again right at the end. He was oh, so right - even if he had a fruit bat on his shoulder whilst berating us cruelly.