1990 – 4 song EP as Aeroplastic Voice
This EP took me about a year to complete. The songs had existed in one form or another for most of that time but I struggled to get the tools I needed and to get things to the way I wanted them (as if any artist ever actually achieves that). In the end it all came together fast as that is how I like to work.
I used a Casio CZ-1000 & Alesis Quadraverb effects unit sequenced by a Casio SZ-1 sequencer for all sounds including drums, and a Fostex X-26 4-Track tape machine to record it all.
Tubeway is the first song I ever wrote. I recorded it a few times as I got better studio technology. The first recording was using the condensing mic on the front of my portable tape deck in my lounge room. That was a nasty sound but I knew I liked the song. The idea of living in The Tubes came, of course, from Gary Numan and his Tubeway Army but in many ways as the years went by it really became my own vision. Also note the strange drum rolls. I didn’t really work out how to make normal drum rolls till about 20 years later so my style became know as a Drum Attack instead.
Technocrat is interesting as it uses only a few notes descending in the scale of D Maj. It is obviously very much Kraftwerk influenced but what only a few may get is the influence of the Patrick Cowley album Megatron Man I purchased for my brother but never gave him. The title actually came from the dictionary as I was looking up technology related words. That struck me as a good one, someone who rules through technology.
Tracks on Plastic Anger Aeroplastic Voice Sampler