Replicant Collectors Edition
It was 1991, I was working in a laboratory with frankly the scummiest supervisors and managers you could ever imagine, so bad in fact that I could get sued for defamation by scum itself. They’re probably dead by now. Shame, such lovely people. I took a summer holiday up in the Derbyshire Peak District, taking along my newly delivered Korg T3EX workstation. I’d never had anything like this before and though I could maybe read the instructions while on holiday etc. It didn’t quite work out that way. The instructions were left alone and I just ploughed straight in instead. The Way, from The Gate and The Way; this was the piece I created while learning the T3. Took be around a day and a half all told. As soon as I got home I added The Gate to put at the start. Heartfire was the next piece, followed by Belvedere, Zweifarbig Bomber (Part 1 only at this time) and a bunch of other stuff which kinda went off kilter at some point. I did a lot of demo vocal songs at this time because I didn’t know which direction things were to go in yet. Among these would be Brand New Day, Heartful of Wonder, Over to You Baby Blue & Refugee. I was using a 4-track portastudio to begin with, but had changed that for an 8-track by Replicant time proper. Sayonara was the first piece which inspired the rest and pulled it all into a theme. After putting together a rough version of Replicant, it got sent to Ashley Franklin at BBC Radio Derby, who very kindly enthused about the project and gave me a very welcome break with some airplay. Not too long after that I learned that the Scottish label Centaur were interested in pressing the album to CD and releasing it commercially. Naturally I was very excited and although there was never any real possibility I would ever strike it rich this way, it gave me the perfect excuse to tell those sheisters in the lab to go f**k themselves. And so off I toddled into the realms of obscure British Electronica. My goodness did it set off a shit-ton of whinging and moaning. I had no idea EM peeps were so particular and politically correct. Naturally I didn’t give a steaming turd about any of this, so just said and wrote exactly what I wanted. Well I didn’t know anybody, they didn’t know me and so it was. I was arguing the toss with people I had no idea about. I wish in hindsight, that someone had just clued me in a little more but hey ho. I’m not about to write about all that malarkey anyway, so you’ll no doubt be relieved to know it’s all about the music.

Replicant
Let me tell you about my mother… 
My memory of these times is pretty lousy. I can remember taking ages to multitrack me playing those regimental style snares using sounds which weren’t exactly ideal for it. But then nothing was ideal. Those early workstations made a close approximation which was good for the time. And my T3 was limited to 8 tracks. I was using its internal sequencer only. It’s all I had pretty much.

Blonde in a Suitcase
It’s supposed to be about Pris (Darryl Hannah), from Blade Runner, although I am rather worried these days in case it gets interpreted as an ode to gory misogynistic murder.
The vocoder was simply the one built in to an old Boss SE-50 effects unit. That little unit wasn’t bad for its time and considering it was responsible for a lot of the reverb on Replicant, it holds up quite well after all the years.

Questions
I remember the opening tune was based on something I’d come up with during a Mark Shreeve gig a few years before. Note that the early workstations suffered from glitchy timing when using their internal clock. You can notice it’s a little bit wonky but hey ho. The old Youtube video of me playing this live outside Derby Assembly Rooms is still around.

No-one Can Hear You
Ah, the track nobody really took to. I still think it’s great and one of my favourites from the album. Perhaps it was a bit conventional sounding I don’t know.

Adios Amigo
A key track really. My first track of me imitating acoustic and electric guitars. I kinda got known for doing this. In this case it stemmed from my affection for Ennio Morricone scored spaghetti westerns.

Wasted
Gawd. This thing got argued over when I was releasing stuff on GPR. The dude in charge was a heck of a man-baby. Having got that material from Terraformer, he wanted this and he wanted it and the entire album taken down over it. It wasn’t going to happen. That, among a plethora of other things put me off working with them again. Poor little innocent track it was, about Zhora (Blade Runner) getting shot by Deckard. He thought it was about a different kind of shooting up. Some people.

Zweifarbig Bomber pts 1 & 2
Well Zweifarbig Bomber Pt 1 had been around in demo form for a while before I decided to expand it and added 2nd part, which was done with the internal T3 sequencer. Those parts weren’t edited together. Yeah I know the German on Pt 1 is lousy. Its translator was lousy that’s why!! Well she did her best and it can’t be worse than my pronunciation. I remember recording sounds off a console game to get the missile and targeting sounds. Now, back in the day people used to write letters. I got one from an RAF pilot who’d been listening to the album while out on routine patrols after Desert Storm ’91. I’m still impressed by that!

Cloudwatching
Got played to bits by Ashley at BBC Radio Derby and has been used as the ident for the namesake of Ashley’s original “Soundscapes” show by Paul Baker.

Sayonara
Originally composed in 1983, this was a reimagining as a Classical type piece. A bit ambitious for a T3 to attempt at the time but it kinda worked. Played in free time hence the occasional slightly missed cue here and there.

Belvedere
A song composed at around the same time as all the Replicant stuff. Apologies for the slightly glitchy T3 timing. It was the way it was. It’s really about, well MC Escher’s Belvedere, hence all the big weird words.

The Chase
Something written around the Linear Functions time in the early 80’s. Not committed to a final version until Replicant time. I never really like it on account of it’s wonky timing and not-quite-right electric guitar solo at the end. I’ve faded it a bit early on the updated remaster. Meh!

Heartful of Wonder
Whoah! I’d kinda forgotten about this vocal demo. Oh yes, here be singy bits. About as effective as dragons to certain followers of Electronica. Sorry about that but at this time I was still creating vocal pieces alongside the mostly instrumental Replicant stuff. The vocals on this ain’t exactly in the Autotune era. So basically it’s demo. It’s a bloody good demo and I really like this song and its uplifting energy.

Zweifarbig Bomber Pt 1 (demo)
I remember carting a CDR of this over to Big Bob’s place and hearing him got a bit mental over it. If you didn’t know Big Bob, well he was this guy called Robert and he was Large. He’d been born and raised in every place he felt like at the time, been in every chapter of the Hell’s Angels etc.. You didn’t really want to argue the toss over it. He did help me out massively with these early albums in terms of PR.

Over to You Baby Blue
Singy thing. I’m sure this demo song was about somebody I didn’t like. But I can’t remember at all now. Yeah. Slightly psychedelic feel to it with a sold enough sounding backdrop.

Brand New Day
This is a song I remade in recent years. This is the remake. The original was written just prior to the Replicant sessions and doesn’t sound much different aside from it’s dated sounds and wobbly vocals. And no, I have no great preference for Procul Harum, it’s just how the inspiration swung that day.

The Gate & The Way
I explained this one at the top of the page. It took a couple of days to create this as the first piece I ever did using a workstation sequencer. Yes it is fairly basic sounding and the timing gets wobbly, but it has a lot of relevance for me, musically.
How it all came about. I was on holiday near The Manifold Valley in Derbyshire. It was Midsummer, it was ridiculously hot & humid and each few steps you’d get some insect in your mouth. And it was just before sunrise. I was lodged precariously up inside Thor’s Cave, expecting to feel somehow different because I’d picked a clever time to be there. Well not really, as just at the crack of sunrise the entire cave erupted in a hideous cacophony of what turned out to be roosting birds waking up and flying out by another exit. I didn’t know that and I practically shat myself. Terrified out of my wits I slipped and nearly fell down the steep ledge there. So basically, I gave up and went back to where I was staying in order to start The Way. Because… Copium!
The Gate - I added this wee poetic ditty on the front once I got back home.

Heartfire
Composed right after the above piece. Still learning how to bend notes on the T3 without them sounding glitchy. Also my first attempt at manual drum playing. Okay it was quantised and fixed but I actually remember playing it.

Refugee
The last vocal demo I did during the Replicant Sessions. It wasn’t intended for any special use. Fairly poignant lyrics all considered.

Sayonara ’83.
My original composition done in 1983 using just a Juno 60 and an SH-101, and Akai GX4000D and a cassette deck for bouncing. Cleans up rather well.

Adios Amigo and Sayonara (Live @ Derby Guildhall last century).
No secret I’m not that keen on me playing Replicant stuff live at this time. As if synth keys aren’t big enough and as if I hadn’t already been to Specsavers! I do like the little variations I did though.

Cloudwatching 2012
Produced for Paul Baker’s Soundscapes show at the time. I hadn’t intended to do a full version but I did anyway. I like it but it’s somewhat simplistic inasmuch as that lovely counterpoint from the original isn’t there. It was also a bugger to remix and master for this set. I used over 48 tracks for this thing and it sounds… erm I dunno but a ton of shit got buried in here :-)

Adios Amigo 2012.
I did this after Cloudwatching 2012 just for the crack. I really didn’t like this at the time because it wouldn’t mix down nicely. I’ve got better tools at my disposal these days and have picked up another ten years’ knowledge since then. It’s now my favourite of these two because I like how I got the drums.

Sayonara 2022.
I think a lot of people have been hoping I might do this one day. Nah, you won’t be disappointed. It’s a good one, I spent time to A) study my own Replicant arrangement before considering changes and B) not add more tracks than was absolutely necessary… plus maybe a few for good measure. And because it was influenced by Vangelis, I’ve made sure you know this. You’ll see.

Remastering the original album and other tracks of the time.
I only have use of the album master, not my session takes. I don’t think they are lost, but they are certainly awol. Okay, so the hard road then. It’s not easy trying to work with someone else’s finished product but nor is it entirely rocket science, plus I have the toys for the job.

Right, there wasn’t exactly an organised path in my process, more like happy accidents. For instance I was able to do big things with the bass this time because of a trick I discovered on the multiband limiter plugin I used. I can’t exactly describe it but it helped a lot! Across all frequency ranges it seemed to give me the ability to pick a detail out there, or mask it to an extent. Then there’s a far better, more conservative take on field widening this time ie: narrower bottom end for fatness and consistency, wider top end for better ambience and detail, nothing done with the mid-range. This was all done at 32bit before mastering to 24bit.