Adventures in Electronics including ‘incidental music’ from Sgt Barnaby Combover’s Launderette is my 13th solo album release having also released three E.P’s. Following 2022’s ‘easy listening’ melodic synth album with occasional ambient qualities ‘A Sign With the Time’ which was created using the Roland Fantom 08 Work Station. With ‘Adventures in Electronics’ I decided that I wanted to mix things up a little bit. It was quite easy to create ‘A Sign With the Time’ with the Roland Fantom on which I have composed, arranged and carried out some production to a lot of my solo music since ‘2015 a Space Odyssey’ (although there have been tracks produced using other methods, laptop music and recordings of instruments etc). I decided to get some more gear to inspire the next release and as I’ve always been interested in the analogue synthesiser I figured it was time to invest in one.

Initially I looked towards small synthesisers to accompany the Roland Fantom, but pretty soon I started to think bigger and more mid-price in the analogue synth department (it used to be more or less impossible to find analogue synthesisers, but since the revival of interest brought about by television soundtracks using them to create an ‘authentic’ analogue synth vibe, all the large companies have started manufacturing analogue synthesisers again since about 2018). I bought a Novation Summit, which could be played as a stand alone instrument and has sixteen voices. I started trying to build my own patches on the instrument whilst ‘A Sign with the Times’ was still in the works. It took a while to create two multi-patches and one single ambient patch. I then started to think about what music I wanted to create on the instrument. In April 2022 I spent some time listening to Timewind by Klaus Schulze from 1975. Absolutely blown away by its melodic scope and atmospheric trance like vibe that built up in overlapping layers and achieved it’s intention to create an almost timeless atmosphere in about 30 minutes for the first part (Bayreuth Return) I figured I could attempt to do the same thing on the analogue synthesiser and even perhaps perform it live (as I now have a more portable instrument to play electronic music on). I did discuss the possibilities of performing music like this on the analogue synthesiser, the promotional side of making music is always the hardest part to be fair and what with having a busy life elsewhere the idea of live kosmische influenced space music from me eventually fell flat ( I even considered recording the album as a live album but this was a pie-in-the-sky notion).

I recorded the half an hour track I composed on the synth with ‘room to improvise’ in my living room in August 2022. I was also going to work on a ‘part 2’ to create a double album like Klaus Schulze. Unfortunately listening back to the 30 minutes recorded I felt it would be better to edit out parts of this long track and produce them as individual tracks. I also recorded a short experiment on the synth with a run of notes looped through the synthesiser using an upgrade on the Novation Summit which allowed me to pan sounds by using the knobs on the instrument this became the title track Adventures in Electronics’. The edited up sections from the 30 minute kosmische inspired analogue synth track became the three part ‘Pulse of Space’ and ‘Cyclone Tremors’ found on this album. While the rest of the 30 minutes I deemed a little too repetitive to be released as an album. Although I’m really pleased with the parts I have put out here.

The lack of a solid 30 minute track meant that the initial concept for the L.P had by now gone out the window. Since the first lockdown I had been recording shows for Soundart Radio from home on 'Logic' music production software. I often like to use ‘sound effects’ in the background and these sounds mostly come from attempts to create an ‘Avant Garde Pop E.P using Psychedelic Production Techniques’ as an undergraduate in Cambridge. During this time I spent a year working out how to record and produce various attempts at a conceptual E.P. I was going from recording to manipulating with synthesiser software most everyday. I was happy at the time with two of the tracks but pretty much disowned the rest of the E.P. ( a decision I now regret slightly as it would have been nice to hear these final two tracks with more mature ears.) One bounce down which was rejected for the E.P was called ‘Aliens Land in the Rainforest’. Created from studio recordings from 2007-2008 and using software synthesisers at the time to manipulate these recordings, ‘Aliens Land in the Rainforest’ was a stone cold mess, but the five minute track re-edited works nicely as transitions to make Sgt Barnaby Combover’s Launderette into a soundscape of sorts. I soon realised that using the same techniques used to get my dissertation done back in 2008, I could re-edit this piece and create some appealing music out of it which I did and the results were first aired on Soundart Radio on Sgt Barnaby Combover’s Launderette, being produced in the first instance in putting the program together. The other none analogue synth tracks on this release are:

Space Beacon Earth ( 2022 Remix)-The original 2007 track was the first track I recorded as ‘ambient music’ and I was blown away by the experience. Writing an enthusiastic text on Myspace about how liberating I’d found it, but not quite being able to understand why. I planned to make an ambient e.p (which I did and ambient music has formed at least part of a number of my releases, but this wouldn’t be until after my late twenties when I worked at a music technology college for a while, which put me back in touch with my electronic past). Having been interested by Tangerine Dream’s ‘Zeit’ here the track was remixed lowering the pitch and placing the whole thing in reverse which gave it a further otherworldly sound. I also used space designer reverb which wasn’t on logic when the track was originally produced in 2007.

Beacon Signal Earth pt.2- Was recorded for another project in 2008, using the same circle of fifths approach as Space Beacon Earth, really its Space Beacon Earth pt.2. It was recorded with a programmed drum running through the middle influenced at the time by ‘Oh Yeah’ by CAN alongside the Joe Meek production sound on ‘I Hear a New World in Outer Space’ (1959) to a certain degree. The track only lasted 1.30 and went from quiet to loud then stopped. It was used at a photography installation in London in 2008, which was good. The remix and re-edit uses space designer reverb (not possible in 2008) alongside this I send the track in reverse intersecting with it going in linear forward time at the mid way point. Adding more time to its running and creating an effect which is similar to what happens on ‘Oh Yeah’ by CAN from Tago Mago, but in a space music style.

Event Horizons Sunrise. Takes recordings from a shelved concept album I played on in Cambridge in 2011/2012 and acoustic guitar originally pt.3 of ‘Invisible Ocean, Floating Island pt’s 1-3’ which I released in 2014. It kicks of with a manipulated sound of my washing machine. The acoustic guitar track is reversed before it meets finger picked guitar and sound effects from the same Cambridge session going forwards creating a criss crossing effect midway through.

The 13th album an experimental release that mixes up the approaches a little bit. Using music recorded on the analogue synthesiser and sounds from Sgt Barnaby Combover’s Launderette. There was two piano tracks using themes from the 30 minute synth recording but I didn’t feel these fit well with this album (recorded on the Roland Fantom in July 2022, can be heard on Soundcloud). The cover is the Northern Lights over Reykjavik Iceland taken on a trip there in October 2022. This trip went some way to inspiring at least the mixing and production of the tracks on this release (thought it would be nice to create space music underneath the northern lights…) Regardless its an experimental release in places, but I’m quite pleased with it. live it up !