Digital EP: Side A by Disco Antenna

The Disco Antenna project is a collaboration with my friend Jimmy Aaron that's been in the works since 2009. If you've been following this blog you'll have heard Jimmy’s distinctive vocal contributions to my Gary Numan cover songs, and his programming talents on a remix of The Mechanicals. For this project we decided to choose a proper name for ourselves. This is our debut e.p., 'Side A,' released on New Year's Day 2015. It's a tribute to the disco epics of the past, drawing inspiration from the earliest proto-disco to late 80's electro and the dawn of digital sampling. As the title suggests, it represents the first 'side' of an eventual full album.

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1. Love Is Never Cold. When I revisited There To Remind Me (track 2) to prep it for release, I added an arpeggio that we both thought could be expanded upon. I combined it with elements from the other two songs, added some new strings and percussion and this is the result. It was by far the quickest and easiest track we've done: three days to flesh out the basics, two more days to add Jimmy's vocals and finishing touches. By comparison, tracks 2 & 3 are two of the most labour-intensive songs I've ever worked on. I liken Love Is Never Cold to an overture. Its laid-back groove is a perfect intro to the set.

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2. There To Remind Me. This is the first Disco Antenna track Jimmy and I worked on. We even released an early version half-heartedly back in 2010. It began with a vocal demo Jimmy had made, with a backing track created in Synapse Orion. I thought the song had potential, and my initial intention was to polish up the production and add a few ideas that had jumped out at me. It quickly ballooned into a longer and more complex creature. I picked-and-chose from Jimmy’s original synth parts, and added all the disco clichés I could think of. Perhaps I pushed the limits of good taste, but it was all done with sincerity. 

I relied heavily on Orchestra Silver for the strings. It samples real orchestral instruments and allows you to play them via MIDI. I favour layering at least two stringed instruments per patch, such as a viola and violin or violin and cello combo. On this track I had some fun with the pitch wheel to give the violin stabs a more human touch. On the outro I used some synthesized strings from the Yamaha TG-33.

Jimmy's drums, a kit based on the Roland TR-505, were augmented with some percussion from TR-707 and Alesis SR-16. The vocal samples were manipulated with the Akai S1000 (before it was retired from the studio). Bass guitar (both played and sampled), Lounge Lizard electric piano, and Novation K-Station round the track out.

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3. I Need You. This started with a complete backing track, carefully crafted by Jimmy in Orion and inspired by Giorgio Moroder’s distinct brand of arpeggio-laden synth programming. It took me to another dimension when I started layering my own parts over the top. I really felt like I was tapping into something magical. Because I was working to a rigid backing track you may find the song-structure a little unconventional. It threw me quite a few surprises. We recorded the bulk of this one circa 2013, then it lay dormant until I finished my album Radioatomic.

Orchestra Silver was again called upon for string duty. By this time I had acquired the Roland HS-60, so a lot of the synth parts were done with that. The electric piano was recorded hastily using an old stand-by patch I created on the K-Station, with the view that I'd redo it later with Lounge Lizard. But we both liked it so much that I kept it in. A funky little VST called Ticky Clav was used for the clavinet parts. Sampling duty was taken over by Shortcircuit Sampler. Additional percussion came once again from the Alesis SR-16,
and a tambourine recorded in-studio.

Audio: (Soon!)

4. Side A (Suite) [bonus track] is a continuous-mix of all three tracks. Even though the tracks are designed to blend seamlessly, not every media player takes this into account, so we decided to provide this bonus track so the listener can hear the e.p. as intended.

Audio: (Soon!)

I asked Jimmy if he had anything to contribute to this post, and he provided this short-but-sweet message for our listeners:

"Enjoy the beat, enjoy the music! May it bring back fond memories, and let you make new ones, with 'Disco Antenna'. XOXOXO."

Stay tuned for more video and mixes from us in coming weeks!

Digital Single: Atomic City

Production on the Radioatomic album has slowed due to summer activities, but hasn't come to a standstill. I present the latest track intended for the album: Atomic City, plus a remix.


Atomic City was a last-minute addition to the album tracklist and slow to crystallize. For a long time it existed only as the treated film clip passages and atmospheric sound effects. It was only when the arpeggios and chorus melody came along that things fell into place. The bulk of the sounds heard here were realised on MS-20 Mini, marking its debut on the album material. The K-Station provides the arpeggios, HS-60 the main melody, and tom-toms were sequenced with the SamplePad as usual.

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Atomic City [electro mix] came about when I sent the original track to my friend and collaborator Jimmy Aaron. He was curious to hear what it would sound like with a 4/4 beat behind it. The notion had also crossed my mind, so I gave it a shot. I turned it into a full-blown electropop track, and added some ideas that didn't make it into the original: such as the cut-up vocals towards the end. The new percussion elements were all created on MS-20 Mini. Also featured is the Lounge Lizard electric piano VST.

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The treated monologue and film clips are taken from the film 'Magic Of The Atom: The Atomic City,' courtesy of the Prelinger Archives.

Digital Single: Cathode Ray

Fourth in my series of free singles is Cathode Ray / U235. These both lean towards the experimental, so they were a lot of fun to put together. There's nothing like unleashing your 'mad scientist' side in the studio!

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Cathode Ray opens with a march-like rhythm created from snippets of a sample & hold patch on the Korg Monotribe. The Monotribe also provides a recurring bleepy filter sequence. A bassline, drone, and some percussion sounds recorded from a Toshiba radio form the backbone of the track. The Alesis SamplePad was used to sequence some Speak & Spell percussion and tom-toms. Novation K-Station adds some extra percussive sounds. I manipulated my voice with the Marantz PMD201 tape recorder to create the spoken word part. A very nice VST called Lounge Lizard provides the electric piano.

I should point out that the TV featured in the artwork is exactly as I found it. No TV's were harmed (by me) in the making of this e.p.!

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I did something a little different with the video this time. It's shot entirely with a 40mm macro lens and features some of the instruments and devices I used to make the music. My tin robot 'Mini Radiocon,' which you might recognise from the cover of 'Let's Build Mecha!', also makes an appearance.

U235 was the first track I made for the new album project, and my first experiment with the Korg Monotribe. Once I had a patch and a sequence programmed, I recorded several live improvisations, cut them into chunks, and assembled them into a track. I then created various percussion sounds on Roland HS-60, TAL U-NO-LX, and K-Station, and added in a snare from the Yamaha MR-10. HS-60 provides some other synth sounds, more Monotribe was overdubbed, and K-Station and Yamaha CS01 also provide some melodies. Electric guitar can be heard on the ambient sections (backwards). My voice was once again pitch-shifted with the Marantz PMD201.

The title refers to the only fissionable isotope of uranium to occur in nature. In the film A Is For Atom, which I sampled for Isotopes For All, U235 is represented by a frenetic cartoon character. The bouncy arpeggio reminded me of that.

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