Digital EP: Side B by Disco Antenna

Lots has been going on behind-the-scenes, so let me start with a quick update. Five finished songs for the new Manitou album are in the wings, and I'll be looking at releasing those now that the new Disco Antenna EP is complete. I've also been hard at work with the band No More Cries, arranging keyboard parts for their songs, and working with other local artists at Wild Bill's Studio.

Side B, as the title suggests, is the follow-up to Side A, the Disco Antenna release from last year. In due course both releases will be combined into a full album.


1. Disco from the Stars (suite) is a song that dates back to 2010, when Disco Antenna first became an entity. It was my attempt to write something in the disco style after Jimmy, my collaborator, and I had begun work on his song, 'There To Remind Me.' It existed as a rough demo for a long time, for which Jimmy provided some vocal ideas that eventually became 'Superstitious.' When I came up with a proper chorus for the track I decided the Superstitious vocals weren't really going to work. It wasn't until last year, and the success of the segue format of Side A, that the idea of making the two songs into one came about. There was just one problem ... it was such an ambitious undertaking that it was going to take extra time. But for me, it was worth it. We released 'Superstitious' as a single last year. I've since done some tweaking to the mix for this 18-minute 'suite.'

2. Prayer (suite). When searching the archive of Jimmy's material for another song to include on the EP, 'Prayer' jumped out at me. I'd actually suggested it would make good Disco Antenna material in an old e-mail. Unfortunately, between that e-mail and its rediscovery, Jimmy discovered he'd lost the vocals in a hard-drive crash. But all was not lost: he had the backing track and the original Orion session. It also provided him with an opportunity to write new lyrics for the verses. The demo was something like four minutes, maximum, and it wasn't my intention to stretch it out to 10 while adding my parts. I had, in the back of my mind, the idea to keep each EP under the maximum 24-minute running-time of half a vinyl LP. In this case, I had to go where the music led me.

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Instrumentation-wise, these songs include the usual Disco Antenna kit: Synapse Orion, Novation K-Station, Orchestra Silver, Roland HS-60, Ticky Clav, Crumar Performer, our patented secret mix of drum sounds, bass guitar, and tambourine. A Yamaha TG-33 guest-stars on Superstitious, and a Yamaha FB-01 guest-stars on Prayer. Oh, and there's some Minimoog V for good measure.

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: Half Life

After a bit of a delay, here is the fifth free single leading up to the Radioatomic album: Half Life. It features a 'proper song' and a couple of experiments I like to call sonic atmospheres.

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Half Life is perhaps my favourite song that I've written for the album. It was written in March of 2013 but not finished until this April. It started out with a basic loop made from a clock sample and a bass note from the Korg Monotribe. I called upon the K-Station for an arpeggio (and a few other sounds) you may recognise from other tracks, as I wanted to give the songs on this album a similar sound and style. The bulk of the lead sounds were made on the Roland HS-60. It wasn't long after I got it that I made this song, and I wanted to 'show it off' as it were. The Yamaha TG-33 also makes an appearance. It's a digital 'vector synth' designed for making evolving pads, but in this case I've just used its lovely bell sound. The drums are Alesis SR-16 samples which were initially programmed via keyboard but redone using the Alesis SamplePad to give them variable velocity and a few interesting frills here and there.

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March of the Rads is the earliest track I recorded for Radioatomic. It's essentially an aural journey into a radioactive wasteland. We hear the clicking of a geiger counter, getting faster as the radiation builds, the stark sounds of wind and other strange wiggly noises. I thought I was being clever, only to realise that Kraftwerk already did this in the 70's on the opening track to their album 'Radioactivity.' The geiger sound was realised on K-Station. If you apply a pitch modulation envelope to a sawtooth oscillator you can, with a bit of fiddling, slow the waveform waaaay down until it just becomes a click. Turning it slowly back up produced the backing track, which was then fed through a Danelectro Spring King (spring reverb pedal). HS-60 provides wind sounds and the weird wiggly radiation noise. Monotribe also makes a brief appearance and you can hear some radio frequency sounds towards the end.

Video: (coming soon)

Global Warning while doing research for the album I happened upon this youtube clip, filmed inside Sellafield THORP. At 3:50 you can hear the criticality alarm which sounds perpetually inside the building. I found the whole idea rather creepy and thought it would be a cool experiment to replicate the ambience using synthesizers. The blips were made on the Monotribe through the Spring King. HS-60 and K-Station each provide a layer of filtered noise to emulate the background hum of the industrial building.
 
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