ArtEfficient Intelligenz

[Calculated Event Concatenation]

Original picture by Xavier C.

Produced by Colin Thurston.

Recorded for free, live in one day, for a Melody Maker promo, at Protocol studios, London, early '96.

My cassette master version, pre-polish session.

Plenty of sonic issues with this old cassette recording but just cleaned it up a bit, cause I like this version, cause I can sort of hear the guitars, throughout.

Oh le musique industrie du le british disque and the phenomena commonly and gingerly known as 'someone else always making decisions on one's behalf'.

Laura Elle : drums

Evan : keyboards, sequencers

Gage : bass

G : guitars, backing vocals

Xav : vocals, backing vocals

Salvaged from Xavmania's dexdexter playlist, the sound here has phase to it, so must be from an old cassette. I kinda like this Protools-ed version and remember parts of this mixing process and adding a couple of fx on 16bit Protools as per PK's advice - who didn't know what to do with my drumming, and spent a long time editing this one. But hey, who doesn't get their drums edited this day and age. Even the news is daily gridded and quantized, let alone music.

I wasn't a horrible drummer, I was into rhythm since I used to drum the f out of my school desk age 10, competing with Mendoza, big chap who sat next to me, last row of the class so we 'couldn't be heard'. And I was sometimes on drums with the school band, though I was made to learn my basic chops on bass guitar - to the House Of The Rising Sun, first ever song that actually made sense to me, as far as music lessons go, though I was also *forced* to learn some Mozart around then, towards my piano studies, which is why I gave them up as soon as.

..More Vangelis, thanks.

Unless I'm mistaken, The House Of The Rising Sun is a not-even-overnight masterclass on chord progression, key & key changes, & harmonic relations, if nothing else. And it teaches you bass guitar, right there - there being a literal before and after.

So much later on, whenever we couldn't get band drummers to organically play along to live sequencers, I'd prerecord all my keys, and sacrifice for the good of the band and go hit things live, without any real technique - perseverance and willpower will plenty compensate.

..But studios -leaving one's primal drum chops forever registered to a metronome- were something else entirely. Rattle and hummish lol.

Remastered it a bit - added some low end bite and 'hi end def', considering.

As can be seen, we had just discovered Protools and digital manipulation of an entire audio track, so we kept demanding this Prodigy-tal treatment on a couple of sections, which we were advised wouldn't work, in time - and surely enough, they don't really. Lol.

There are sections of this edit which were done for good reason and did improve the track. So, this song ended up a fragmented version of itself. Very COY indeed. Relol.

Evan : drums, keyboards, sequencers

Gage : bass

G : guitars, backing vocals

Xav : vocals, backing vocals

Old cassette recording, so it is what it is.

This is probably the best fully live rendition of COY that remains recorded.

Weird mix, MOSTLY bass, no kick -I've taken plenty of bass out and still- and a few cabling crackles in there too.

Laura's 2nd kick mic/xlr -quite heavy for romo- seems the source of the taped crackle.

That's how fast we had to churn these out lol.

If there ever was a recording studio called Exotic / Tropic Studios in London, this demo may instead have been recorded there, cause the name springs to mind & I remember it being a different factory-like booth, and rushing two songs out in one day, out of this session with Colin, just to get Polydor and Sony a taste of the band.

Laura Elle : drums

Evan : keyboards

Gage : bass, backing vocals

G : guitars, backing vocals

Xav : vocals, backing vocals

Old cassette recording, so it is what it is.

This is probably the best fully live rendition of ACACC that remains recorded.

Weird mix, MOSTLY bass, no kick -I've taken plenty of bass out and still-, and a few cabling crackles in there too.

Laura's 2nd kick mic/xlr -quite heavy for romo- seems the source of the taped crackle.

That's how fast we had to churn these out lol.

If there ever was a recording studio called Exotic / Tropic Studios in London, this demo may instead have been recorded there, cause the name springs to mind & I remember it being a different factory-like booth, and rushing two songs out in one day, out of this session with Colin, just to get Polydor and Sony a taste of the band.

Laura Elle : drums

Evan : keyboards, sequencers

Gage : bass, backing vocals

G : guitars, backing vocals

Xav : vocals, backing vocals

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyIY5_M4wTY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyIY5_M4wTY

'..Billions of highly intelligent people, who are lulled into a state of sleep, by this conscious-less form of tele-vision. ..Then, I'm not free - and I need not talk about freedom, or living in a free society, or such issues as democracy.'

Graham Hancock, 2012

Made this for uni in 2015, was considering it as a surround sound remix, ended up as an intense stereo one. Didn't remember this, literally found it while looking for other stuff through drives, reminded me of Olivia Newton John, now passed, which seemed forever impossible, and the awesome team she and John Farrar always were.

Long live Olivia Newton John ✊❤️

For edumagicational purposes.

Original song 'Magic' © 1980 John Farrar & Olivia Newton John, as featured on the Xanadu soundtrack.

[See Through It All]

“Don’t play two notes if one will do, and don’t play one note unless you’ve got a reason.”

Mark Hollis, Talk Talk.

Original picture by Caroline E.

AR01032023

Punktronics.

Picture by Gage S.