Digital Album: Radioatomic

At last, the album is complete. Releasing it in stages has been an interesting process, but I always intended it to be a cohesive work. Ladies and gentlemen, the first 'proper' album by The Manitou since 2008: Radioatomic.

Bandcamp player:

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that Radioatomic has been inspired by radioactivity and the Atomic Age. Production began in early 2013 and has taken over a year and a half to complete. That isn't to say it was my sole project during that time: two (as yet unreleased) soundtracks were tackled, and a handful of songs that didn't fit the theme are waiting in the wings for the follow-up.

The songs herein range from 'atmospheres' and experimental pieces to synthpop/electropop with a dark edge. They were created with a host of analogue and analogue-modelling synthesizers, virtual instruments, digital sampler software fed with 'found sounds' (field recordings, etc...), and a handful of drum machines and electronic toys (a track-by-track list of these devices can be found in the PDF booklet accompanying the release).

Track listing:
1. March Of The Rads
2. Electro Magnetic
3. Isotopes For All - Part 1
4. U235
5. Isotopes For All - Part 2
6. 96.1 MHz
7. Half Life
8. Global Warning
9. Nibiru
10. Radium Smile
11. Reactor Four
12. Atomic City
13. Cathode Ray
14. Fukushima Fifty
15. 96.2 MHz
16. A Robot In Every Home

These sixteen tracks all but fill an 80 minute CD, but the deluxe digital download on bandcamp includes seven bonus tracks: the single edits of five album tracks, an instrumental version of Half Life, and the electro mix of Atomic City. Thus every track released as part of the series of free singles is included in the package.

Also included is a 30 page .PDF booklet with liner notes, lyrics, and track-by-track artwork and instrument lists. For more detailed commentary on each track I suggest searching this blog for the keyword 'Radioatomic.'

The artists Atomic Shadow and Kraftwerk deserve special mention, as both heavily influenced this album. Specifically, it was #9 by Atomic Shadow that inspired me to browse the Prelinger Archive for public domain film reels, resulting in 'Isotopes For All' and 'Atomic City.' Kraftwerk have been an influence on my music from day one, but during production I realised that their 1975 album Radio-Activity had more than just its subject-matter in common with this project. If you haven't heard it I urge you to follow the link and do so.

Digital Single: Isotopes For All

The second in my series of free singles is Isotopes For All Parts 1&2. These two tracks date from earlier in the recording sessions than Electro Magnetic, and are a little more indicative of what to expect from the rest of the album.

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Isotopes For All - Part 1 was inspired in part by the works of Atomic Shadow. (If you haven't already, I urge you to give him a listen. He has a new album out called City of Chrome and Glass, which is very good). Further inspiration, including the monologue heard in the track, came from a 1953 educational(?) film called A Is For Atom. The naive and alarming nature of the film, juxtaposed as it is with the cute Disney-esque animation, prompted me to re-purpose it in a way that highlights the more disturbing elements of 1950's atomic-age thinking.

Snippets of the soundtrack were copied to cassette tape and the pitch modified manually with my Marantz PMD201 tape recorder. To my mind this further enhanced both the disturbing and comical nature of the monologue. Forming the basis of the music is some quirky synthesized percussion, rendered using the TAL U-No-LX softsynth. Weaving in and out of the track is a bassline constructed on the Korg Monotribe, and an arpeggio from the K-Station. In between the narrated sections, the Roland HS-60 adds some interesting sounds and the K-Station provides a second bassline.

Video:


Audio:


Isotopes For All - Part 2 evolved out of a desire to see how the music would sound with a more conventional beat. It was initially a three-minute recording (this became the 'single edit') of Monotribe bassline and K-Station arpeggio with parameters such as filter-cutoff manipulated in real-time, to which the instrumental parts and drums were added. An early version used the Monotribe's analogue drum sounds, but I found they muddied the mix. An 808 kit from the Boss DR-550 left room in the mix for some phased strings courtesy of the Crumar Performer run through a Small Stone phaser.

After receiving the demo, my friend Jimmy sent me an extended mix of the track he'd put together for fun. I liked it so much that I decided to make a longer version myself, and that's how it ended up two-and-a-half minutes longer. By this time the bass patch on the Monotribe (which has no patch memory) was long-since gone. I came close to replicating it, but it didn't have quite the edge of the original, so I used a mix of the original recording and the new.

Video (single edit):

Audio (album version):


96.1Mhz, an experimental 'atmosphere' was included on the e.p. to break up the two different versions of Isotopes Part 2. It consists of a recording of radio interference augmented by sound effects from the Korg Monotribe.