Computer Musicians

Speaking of us two, here is a recent feature on us in Computer Music mag:

Cover Band

Wow cool we are are the front of Electronic Sound Magazine! And they put our new single on vinyl!! I do so love ES Mag. Very proud to be part of John Foxx & The Maths, the new album is out soon(ish) and its a corker!

Howling

The problem with not blogging so much as I used to is that things pile up and I have to do a load of posts about a myriad of subjects all at once. But they are all connected by the studio and they are all my beloved projects that I put my heart and soul into. From recording an album with one of my heroes, or building a wooden console to put my synths into, or making a video to accompany a new piece of music or synthesiser test, they all end up on here eventually - so thanks for being patient!

Anyway, here is a video that John and his son made for our (John Foxx & The Maths) new track Howl. This is taken from an album that will be released on Metamatic Records very soon...



And heres the album artwork - preorder it HERE

Mojo Mag

Speaking of Mojo - John Foxx and the Maths are featured in this months issue of the magazine. (Oh, I took that picture of Foxxy and Robin!)

Foxx Head

More work this week on the new JF&TM album with Foxxy. Things are coming to a head

(Sketch by JF)

Mathy

And also John and Robin were in the studio this week (and at the seaside). GOOOOD!



UPDATE - new pic added:

Foxxy Numaths

Look! We are playing a concert in Liverpool in July 2017. Alongside Gary Numan!

Machinations

There are a whole lot of new releases being prepared here at Meme Central. First up is the new John Foxx & The Maths long player The Machine, an album of mostly instrumental music based upon the stage play we created the score for last summer. See this post for more on that. The play itself The Machine Stops was a real success and even won some awards for being so good and the music was a big part of the show, it being set in a futuristic electronic dystopian nightmarish subterrestrial world. And its been recommissioned for a run in London which is awesome. Book your tickets NOW! (Here). And here is a link to our shop so you can pre-order the album

The Bunker Tapes EP

Underground Sound

Over the past few months I have been working with John Foxx on the soundtrack to a stage play based on EM Forster's amazing short story The Machine Stops, about a future where humans live underground and communicate electronically via Skype (seriously)

It seems like ages ago now, but back in May we went up to York to finalise the soundtrack and work with the cast and production team at the Pilot Theatre / Theatre Royal studio. More on the play later, but as part of the general build up to the play's opening we were asked to do a special one-off concert at the York Cold War Bunker. How could we turn that down!?! I love things to do with secret government projects and anything from the 1960s-80s period. If you have a few days to spare, check out this website. The bunker has a very small capacity so we decided to play a short (20 minute) set and do it 4 times to 4 different audiences. Weird idea, no? Anyway it worked really well, and the sound man on the night, Ben Eyes, made a decent recording of the performances direct through the sound desk and also with a stereo room mic. I have mixed and mastered it and it will be available on the MemeTune digital download site soon. Here are some pictures of us performing, taken during sound check by Ben Pugh

And here is a really well made video



What is really interesting about the York Cold War Bunker is that it lets you see "behind the curtain" and glimpse some of the mad things that go on without us knowing. For example, look at that last picture of Foxxy and I sitting in front of that awesome glass map. You see all those dots forming a grid covering the whole of the UK, approximately 10 miles apart from each other? They are all underground bunkers! Yes thats right theres a secret bunker very near you right now!!!

Are You Listening To Me?

Every so often something comes along that is so awesome that it's scope defies the limitations of a simple blog post, but here goes anyway. I have just produced and co written a track called Talk (Are You Listening To Me?) that is a collaboration between John Foxx, Me (i.e. The Maths) and Gary Numan. Let me repeat that: I have just produced a track that is a collaboration between John Foxx & The Maths and Gary Numan!

Whats more, I'm not sure GN has been on a track featuring so many vintage synths since he recorded Cars! (well, maybe a bit later than that, but you get the point). I do know that he is a big fan of Foxxy, and is on record as saying John was a huge influence on his early synth-based work. So I guess it makes sense that he would want to get involved in this collaboration, which is essentially a reworking of our original track Talk from our Shape Of Things album. So I sent Gary the individual tracks from Talk, and he added a brand new vocal part and some synth drones and then I added some more synth parts and mixed it all at Memetune Central. It will be coming out in a little while on a new album of JF collaborations including some new JF&TM tracks on Metamatic Records. You can pro-order it here

Now for some detail about the track itself just in case there are any geeks reading this blog. Here is a list of the synths used and some pictures and a video:

MOOG MODULAR. Used for the initial low sequenced parts and some drones

MOOG POLYMOOG - Layered top lines and main melodies

LINN LM1 & EHX DRM16 DRUM MACHINES - DRM16 comes in first, then the Linn does the main drums half way through

PAIA MODULAR - The weird sequence that comes in half way through

ROLAND JX3P - Layered top lines and main melodies

OBERHEIM FOUR VOICE - Layered top lines and main melodies

GRATUITOUS STUDIO PIC

Here is a little video of me playing a top line on the Polymoog:

There were also a plethora of vintage delay, flanger and phaser units used, as well as vintage EMT Plate and Lexicons because as Gary said '..the vocals need a shit load of reverb on them!'. So there you have it, hope you like the track when it comes out!!

Shelf Life

I've put some shelves up in the live room (on my model). These will house my keyboards. Music by John Foxx and the Maths, Buddwing from The Shape of Things

Mix Up

Got a couple on here...

MOONPAL-ESQUE tape1 by Disco_R.Dance on Mixcloud

Invisible Moments

Look at this amazing video made for us by Macoto Tezka. ILOVEIT!!



UPDATE: Here is his second video for us, Talk:



Here is the story:
November 7, 2013 Macoto Tezka. One day, I came across a very old, classic western-style building in a corner of Ginza-town in central Tokyo. A building stood at the location well over 80 years. It's one of a Tokyo's relics of the past that survived war-fire and many earthquakes. In the building, there are a couple of stairs around an old mechanical elevator. It used be an apartment but no one lives there anymore. Now galleries and antique stores occupy the building. Walking through a narrow passage, I thought about the past and imagined how people lived here. Imagery of old silent films flashed into my imagination. A few months later, I visited there again with my actor friends and a cinematographer. Because I couldn't think of a better location for John Foxx And The Maths videos. John's music has a feeling of "déjà vu". It's always fresh but somehow nostalgic. Silhouette of a figure that walks through an old avenue; vague, indistinctive face . . That is the image created by his music. But some images of my own memories also came up. Our cinematographer shot this film with a Canon camera. Before editing, it had sharply-defined shapes and vivid color, so I removed it all. Next, I adjusted the speed to express an eternal moment. Then I synchronized the music to the image and I found something was still missing. By watching the film for many weeks I kept asking myself, 'whats' missing'? Then an idea came up to my mind to bring the film to perfection. The gaps of 'scattered memories and missing time' need to be added. So I decided to attach these 'invisible moments' to fill the gap. The film was finished by these invisible moments

Simple Instrumental

Finally our (JF&TM) Simple Minds remix is out and I am posting about it - check out the full version here. And also there is a thing about it on the Quietus here. It was great fun doing this remix - we started from scratch on the modular synths (Roland 100M and Serge Modular - see this post I did a while ago about creating the percussion sounds on the Serge) and Foxxy added some vocals too. However, below is a video I just made for the instrumental version of the track - EXCLUSIVE!! I filmed the song being played through an old oscilloscope (green lights) and a modular synth (red lights) by pointing the camera through a cut-glass diamond shaped thing and a glass vase!

Mysterious Sounds

There were some mysterious sounds emanating from the studio last week...

Adults Only

Check out our remix of Adult's new single Tonight, We Fall. We had fun making it on the Buchla 100

Adults

Heres a mix by Adult, featuring one of out tracks. DARK-CORE