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Article from Electronics & Music Maker, March 1983 |
Richard Burgess, Roland Orzabal and David Lloyd
Landscape
"I think there's still room in modern music for computerised instruments such as the Linn or the Simmons percussion sequencer, and for a full size acoustic drum kit. I don't use the Linn myself, because being a drummer if I want the sound of real drums I'd just as soon play them, because I think programming is a pretty tedious process. Although we've used the MC4 a lot, I'm getting back into truly acoustic things again, like utilising the natural sound of a room to create a sort of super-acoustic sound. I think it's going to be another 25 years before we have machines that can actually create music."
"Landscape was never actually a jazz band. We started out as a group who wanted to reject a certain number of the cliches that were present in mid 70s rock music, and about a year later we discovered there were a lot of other bands trying to do the same thing in a different way. So we sort of became allied with the punk scene, but what we were trying to do was to make music that was sophisticated in the same way that jazz is sophisticated."
"I'm not ashamed of the jazz tag, although I don't believe it's justified, because I feel that in the long run people want to hear musicianship."
"I had a hand in the design of the Simmons electronic kit and we've used the SDS 3 and SDS 5 quite extensively, in conjunction with the MC4. Originally we used an MC8 connected to an ARP 2600 or a Roland 100M modular system, and created each percussion sound from scratch. I really felt the need of a full-sized kit though, and that's how the SDS 5 came about."
Compression and noise gating on individual drum sounds to suit each piece.
"On the last album we worked in two studios, starting off in a 16 track called Alvec because I really liked the sound quality of 16 track. We started all the tracks there and then moved on to Utopia and did the final overdubs. In some cases we used a 16 and a 24 track machine and worked with both until we were ready to mix down."
Tears for Fears
"As I'm primarily a guitarist all my songs are written using the guitar and translated to keyboards. I use synthesisers for orchestration, dynamics and general experimentation. I also believe that the future of popular music will rely heavily on electronics and digitally sampled sounds, as used in the Emulator and Linn drum machine. Synthesisers have yet to realise their full potential as extremely emotive instruments and not the 'cold' inhuman instruments they are often labelled."
Roland met Curt Smith, the other half of Tears for Fears, in their hometown of Bath at the age of 13. After some success (including a Spanish hit) with Graduate, they secured a deal with Phonogram as Tears for Fears with a demo version of 'Suffer the Children'.
After radio sessions for Peter Powell and John Peel, their second single 'Pale Shelter' became an American club hit, and their third 'Mad World' did well in the UK charts. Their live performances are supplemented by keyboard players Ian Stanley and Andy Davies and drummer Manny Elias.
Roland Jupiter8, Roland Modular System 100M, Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, Korg Poly Six. "The Jupiter 8 gives me the automatic delayed vibrato that I prefer to the modulation wheel type, for instance on the Prophet. The Poly Six's chorus, on ensemble setting, beefs up the effects and gives a nice fat sound, particularly on chords. The System 100M is useful for discovering unique sounds."
"The Roland MC4 is useful for multi-layered sequences. The Sequential Circuits Poly Sequencer is the only one compatible with the Prophet 5."
None in live situation.
Directly injected.
The Sleep Exchange, Bath. Engineer: Ross Cullum, with producer Chris Hughes.
Uropa Lula
"I like to work on an instrument for days on end and really get to know it. When I'm composing I generally go for a rhythm pattern first and work around that, so I use the Sequential Circuits polysequencer and a Roland CR 5000 rhythm machine, for its lifelike sound, as composing devices. One of our singles has a sequence 5 minutes long on it; I use a click track to drive the Sequential Circuits Pro-One more than using an MC4."
Uropa Lula was formed in March 1981 by David Lloyd with Alan Dias (bass) and Hilde Swendgaard (business co-ordination). Andrew Edge joined on drums in January 1982, and 'floating members' include Claudia Martin (vocals) and Paul Fromm (vocals and keyboards).
The band's first performance was at The Venue in London in May 1981, and this was followed by a session on Capital Radio and further appearances at the Moonlight Club, Heaven, and the Embassy. A contract with Arista resulted in their first single 'Our Love Has Just Begun.'
Roland Jupiter 8, Prophet 5. "I've used most of the polysynths with cassette interface, and I've filled cassettes with programmes for the Prophet 5 and Jupiter 8. Eventually I'd like to build up a complete library including tapes for the Oberheim polyphonics."
Roland CSQ 600 triggering ARP Analogue Sequencer driving ARP Odyssey. Analogue sequencer gives a 16 step pattern while CSQ 600 programmes volume for each step.
Trident, for "feel and atmosphere".
Electro-Harmonix Memory Man and guitar effects for home use, although too noisy for the studio. "You can get bogged down with a lot of effects — the simplest things work best."
Teac 4-track, a TR808 for conga and tom sounds with the Clap used as a snare, "The best I've found on any drum machine".
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