The title of this collections comes from the name of the computer that I held so dear to my heart for so long. The Atari ST, where ST supposedly stands for 'sixteen thirty-two'.
This collection of tracks is perhaps a more varied offering than in the past. Others may disagree, but the intention with this album was to have a little bit of everything I like. Influences, and lets be honest here, its easy to spot the influences in my music, are Mike Oldfield, Tangerine Dream (late 70s, early 80s) and Jean Michel Jarre.
The 52 minute long album is available from me as a paid download mp3. The download is provided as a bundle of 'high quality' 320kB/s mp3 files and one m3u file. It is priced at 2GBP. Paypal is the preferred route for most buyers, please e-mail me here for my Paypal details. Once you send the money to me I'll send you your own personal links to download the album files. No artwork is provided with this version.
The album is also available through MusicZeit both as a 256kB/s mp3 or as a CD quality FLAC download. New artwork has been made especially for Musiczeit customers.
Track Listing
I have included some 30 second sound snippets of some of the songs. Just 'right hand mouse click' on the blue name and 'save as...' to download the mp3 file. All files are around 400KB.
Y Garreg Wen I was asked to write a piece of music that reflected the Celtic origins of Cumbria and this is it. Starts moodily with the Oakley Modular and builds up with Rachel's ethereal vocal work. The Welsh language lyrics are loosely based on John Ceinog Hughes' (1832-87) poem of the same name.
Ident Sporadic Jarre influences at the start, but it quickly becomes a sequencer driven stormer. But is that a DX-7 slap bass I can hear?
Halls Fell: The Bell Mike Oldfield inspired work, but based on my own track 'Hall's Fell' first written in 1987. The task of this track was not to waiver from the four chords used in the original 1987 track. Rachel again provides the odd vocal bit. That's odd as in occasional and not odd as in...
Halls Fell: Balloons Exactly the same chords as the previous track but with a different feel to it completely. The main 'ethnic' drum pattern comes from a preset rhythm from a Solton home keyboard called 'New Age'! My five year old daughter provides the 'balloons' bit.
Halls Fell: StoneTrance One version of this track originally appeared on the Drumlin album. Again its the same chords as the other two 'Halls Fell' pieces. This version of StoneTrance is made using different instrumentation, but actually ends up quite similar to the old Drumlin one in many ways. Most of the synth work is the Oakley Modular and a TX-7.
Strata Intended to be a Tangerine Dream type track and it shows with definite shades of 'Through Metamorphic Rocks' on the TD album 'Force Majeure'. This was almost entirely done with the Oakley Modular mulitracked into the Akai DPS12. My rather simplistic guitar playing can be heard in the background along with an infinite sustain effect provided by feeding back into a digital delay.
Shadow Dedicated to loyal customer, analogue synth nut and friend Innis McAuslan who died shortly before this track was written late in 2002. Its mostly Korg 03r/w with the Oakley modular doing the synth bass and synth lead. I actually wanted a real saxophone to play the lead, but this version has me doing my Wakeman bit...
The Search for Pink September The fastest track on the CD if you don't count Strata. This track is modern day trance inspired and a lot of fun to put together. I had the need to write something like this after repeatedly hearing Paul Van Djk's 'Hello Moto' track on television at the time.
Other stuff...
All midi sequencing is via the Atari STe running Cubase V3.1. My guitar is a Aria Pro Les Paul copy with a dual Don Tillman pre-amp. Outboard effects are Yamaha FX500 multieffects and a Behringer Ultrafex 2.
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