Subnostr

People don't appreciate what it was like before the digital recording revolution. I was doing industrial stuff at the time and having to deal with the limitations of recording on 4-track cassette was incredibly frustrating and it was nearly impossible to get a big sound, just as I'm sure it would've been difficult to get a nice, clean ambience. Of course, now the young folk romanticize all that stuff.

66a6db0e... 2y ago

Yeah it would've been very hard to get a big sound on the old 4-track cassette machines. I started that way - the cassette machine, a basic drum machine with presets only, a home keyboard from Argos, and a CD player with an A-B repeat function, which is how I did looped samples. It was a headache. A lot of trial and error whilst wearing the tape down with every pass. Thems were the daze! I can't imagine trying to do industrial stuff back then. It was only the brilliant Akai sampler that eventually opened things out for me in terms of beats. And what a godsend those things were!

I'm not sure how I managed to get a clean ambient sound with the kit that I managed to get hold of - it wasn't much (but a huge leap forward from the 4-track stuff). I think I must've been a bit flukey or maybe it was because it was all new...the DAT machine with clean heads, new cables, new Mackie mixer. It has to be said that Portrait Of An Invisible Garden was mastered beautifully by one of the most experienced mastering engineers around and it was pressed on high quality vinyl which helped a lot. But still, the clarity in the original recording was somewhat anomalous.

These days I'm on a mission to avoid that level of clarity. Everything sounds so perfect now. It's not good for my head. I love imperfection in music, especially ambient music. Having said that there's no accounting for a 'perfect' production if you're making something for a 50K sound system. You wouldn't want to burn people's ears, I suppose.

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Discussion

Martialis 2y ago

Well, when I say "industrial", I mean more of the earlier sound - Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse etc. Nothing particularly sophisticated or high fidelity but you still want it to have some body. My inability to get decent recordings led me to focus more on live performance and improv, which is fun.

66a6db0e... 2y ago

I get you and yeah you need some depth in there. I love improv and as much as I enjoyed the small number of gigs I played the technological limitations of playing electronica live back then rapidly became frustrating. Totally different story now though, of course. Have you seen what Beardyman does? Amazing. It's gone flipmode.

Martialis 2y ago

I got in the habit of designing my stuff for performance at the outset and found that working within strict parameters suits me, particularly as the gear grew more affordable and elaborate. I can't get my head around what some people are able to achieve these days - it's incredible.

66a6db0e... 2y ago

You have quite a bit up there on the ol' BC. I've only heard a few tracks so far. It's very intense and you're totally right - It's situational music. Very powerful stuff. I've got your profile bookmarked and returneth I upon mood highs and such in phuture times. Nice one brother.

Martialis 2y ago

That's very kind - thanks for listening! Yeah, there's a fair bit there and a lot more that I haven't bothered to upload. I've been at it since I was 16 and that was a long time ago now!

I've dabbled in other genres too. I was in a shoegaze band in my mid-teens and recently played multiple instruments in an improv Krautrock-style group for a decade. I've also made a lot of bad techno/ambient/IDM that hopefully no one will ever hear.