To mark the re-release of âReflectingâ yesterday evening, I've today given a few insights into the instruments and processes used during production.
All good things must come to an end, so it would make sense to do so with the final track on the E.P. - 'epick'. To this day I still haven't got a clue how I came up with that melody. Dez on the site 'Music Musings and Miscellany' referred to it as 'a half-buried bubbling synth loop like Rubycon-era Tangerine Dream beamed in from several light years away.'
Quite.
He concludes that 'Over this, the ondes Martenot sobs and cries, a haunted remnant from a lost civilization.'
High praise indeed.
At that time I was fascinated by the story of the drowned village of Llanwddyn, now the huge reservoir of Lake Vyrnwy (Cymraeg: Llyn Effernwy) with its fairytale straining tower, huge gothic dam and extremely unnerving sculpture park. One of these sculptures was of a man inside a birdcage which in place formed the ribcage of a giant bird. I took many photographs of these sculptures and the area, even turning some of them into a point and click website, now long gone. There were never any people in these pictures, I waited until no figure stood in the distance, in my imagination this was a world much like Vyrnwy finds itself now, quiet, still, almost abandoned. These photographs are included with the release.
A key part of the recording of 'epick' centred around a much maligned piece of equipment, the Oberheim OB-12. Years ago I picked up this curious analog modelling synth, a digital relic manufactured by the Viscount organ company on licence from Oberheim. Capable of some lovely tones, it is badly let down by some awful programming and presets. One of these is curiously named 'Shropshire', though sadly a cheesy, weedy lead is not becoming of reference to such hill country. A friend of mine, Hubbard, used his to create incredible electronic compositions, many I'm still in awe of. It's fair to say I generally struggled.
These days, turning the old beast on and playing around with a proper understanding of detuning oscillators, it's a pretty good synth, but it's quite a behemoth. So when I set it down on my bed nearly 14 years ago, pillows propping it up and the arpeggio which formed the backbone for 'epick' suddenly came out of my headphones, you can imagine my surprise. I still haven't a clue how I came up with much of it, I doubt anyone else does. There's some distant vocals in there, some processed and stuttered acoustic guitar, the Spawn does the bass. My girlfriend at the time very clearly and reasonably asking me stop 'messing about on it'. In the end I'm glad I didn't.
So here's to the OB-12, may your odd and cumbersome ways forever be ingrained as some 'Rubycon-era Tangerine Dream beamed in from several light years away.'
'Reflectingâ is available for free/donation on the Plenty Wenlock bandcamp page:
https://plentywenlockrecords.bandcamp.com/album/reflecting
