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Ian Boddy - Synth Artist · Electronic Music

• Hello and welcome to the Sound On Sound podcast channel about electronic music and all things synth. I'm Rob Puricelli and in this podcast I talk to Ian Boddy, who has been a fixture on the electronic music scene for over 40 years, whether it's as an artist, a sound designer or a label owner. That label, DIN, celebrates its 100th release this month with one of Ian's own creations, Nevermore. I wanted to find out more about this niche label. Why and how it started, and how it still remains a relevant and popular imprint to this day. But first, I wanted to understand more about Ian's musical roots, so I asked him where it all began for him. Gosh, well, um, I suppose I got into liking electronic music, which is such a huge genre. Anyhow, it was in the, uh, I remember Alan Freeman on BBC Radio 1 on a Saturday afternoon, can you believe that's like really mainstream. He played, um, the wonderfully titled Mysterious Semblance at the Strand of Nightmares by Tangerine Dream from the album Phaedra. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, I don't know, was I 15 or so? I had my little tape recorder, you know, on the off chance a good track came up to record it and it was like, what is this? This is like nothing I've ever heard before. It barely sounded like human beings had made this. It came from another, another planet. And I think shortly after that, there was a little local radio station, uh, uh, Bridges, it was called, on Metro Radio played some, uh, Klaus Schultz off Timewind, uh, at 1am after the news. Didn't even tell the audience what it was called. I think it was the only time I've ever phoned up a radio station to find out what some of it was called. It was called Tyneman. And I immediately rushed off to buy that as well. So those, those two tracks played on relatively mainstream, um, you know, which is not something that's popular anymore. Probably going to happen these days. That's when I first registered what electronic music could do in terms of painting pictures and sounds as a phrase I often use, take, take me to other worlds where your imagination can run off of itself. And then, um, I didn't do, um, music at all when I was young, but I didn't particularly like it. I did art. I was, I was quite good at art and science. So I think if you're good at art, you're good at art. And I remember doing art in my spare time when I was doing my A level Science, uh, courses, of course, all the, uh, career teachers said, no, you don't want to do art. No, you're never going to make any money out of art. You should do science. So I've had a trip to, uh, Newcastle university to do biochemistry. And whilst I was there, I discovered a wonderful place called SpectroArts workshop, which was like an open, open access that had photography studios and art gallery, cafe. Screen printing and I could do my art there. I could do screen printing and that was great fun until one of my friends at university went you do you do know there's a sound studio upstairs who've got kind of that gear that's that weird stuff that you have listened to that they've got those sort of things and I'm like have they? So I literally walked up the concrete staircase opened this studio door to be confronted by VCS3's Revox tape recorders and such like, and I'm like, this is quite interesting. This was like maybe 1978 and somebody showed me how to turn on a VCS3 and then actually get some sound effects out of it. And indeed, um, the sounded like the sound effects I had heard on that mysterious semblance of the Strand of Nightmares track. And. To not try to sound, I was hooked. It was like, wow, this is amazing. I really, there's something going on here that really artistically, um, really speaks to me and quite literally within a month I'd packed up all my screen printing stuff. I haven't stopped since. What was the next step after that? Did you start gigging? Did you start writing music? You know, what was the next outlet for you there? Well, again at Spectro, it was such a wonderful establishment. I slowly learned over a year or two myself how to use things like the VCS3, how to do tape echo, how to use a mixer, all those sort of things. And I just started to do some tracks and then I decided to do a concert. They did concerts. You're looking at an audience of maybe three, 25 or 30 people or so, I was terrified. I mean, just literally terrified. I had to go to the loo and be ill before I could go on and play. I was that nervous, but I just wanted to do it. So on stage with tape, tape loops and VCS3s, what could possibly go wrong? Um, but it was good fun. And then I think a little cassette label called Mirage heard about the fact that done these things and approached me and said, do you want to release a cassette? And I'm like, okay. So I recorded a few things in 1980, uh, images. I think it was my first little cassette came out, did another couple of cassettes that did more concerts in the Northeast. Then a little, um, local chain of record stores, believe it or not, um, offered to fund me to produce a vinyl record. That was The Climb in 1983. So that kind of takes you up a notch. Then the UK Electronica started, which were more like, uh, national, national Concert festivals specializing in this kind of music. So I played at the first one of those and a few more after that. And then eventually I started playing abroad and it just kind of escalated. You're, you're kind of known as a man who wears a number of hats and we'll talk about the record label in a little while. But I also, I think I first came across you as a sound designer. So, how did that come about and, and is that still, you know, part of what you do? It's a little bit part of what I do now. Um, I mean after the biochemistry I worked in the hospital for five years and it just wasn't for me, I just didn't like it. Um, so I basically turned my back on all of that and actually went to work for a little local music store who were doing these, um, the DX7, the Yamaha DX7 had just come out. In fact I recall I think it was one of the first UK to buy one and I had it at the very first Uh, UK electronic and Milton Keynes in 1983. And I remember the sounds magazine, uh, the newspaper kind of magazine kind of, um, review that whole festival. And when it came to my bit, it was like all about the DX7 and the amazing sounds that this was making, not the fact that there was some kind of bloke behind it, actually, who made the sounds and was playing the thing. So I was always kind of. Into making up my own sounds and indeed this music store that I started to work for they had these things called Sky Slip Roman Rams and one of the very first, um, sound cartridges for the DX7. So I did that for a while, uh, that kind of folded after a while and I had to work on the shop floor, which was a bit of a shock. And then in 1990, I got a job at Akai, which was a very Good gig to get, and I bumped into Ed Stratton from, uh, S0G, Time and Space, I think that might have been called then. Certainly S0G, and he just started putting out these sample libraries, so this may be 92 or so, and he kind of knew I did weird songs, and he said, well, we're doing these sample libraries, do you think you would do one? And I, yeah, not knowing how you did this, how on earth you edited it all together. Although obviously I had some nice toys with Adakai. I think I edited the first one with a DD 1000, which was certainly beyond my price range, but obviously I could get to lend her one of these things. And that was the Ambient Sample Library, which was maybe 93. I think it was the fourth one ever on a Zero G. So I got up there quite early on and then I did for a load of other companies. Camel Audio I did a load of stuff for then I got moved over to Apple. I've done a lot of stuff for Sonic Couture in the last few years. So it's something I've always done. And in my own work, I'm always making my own sounds. A lot of the modular gear I have, it's what you do. I don't do so much commercial. Sound design these days because there's just so many people are doing it. To be honest, it's interesting. You, you mentioned the DX seven, because that seems to come up in a lot of people's stories as being a kind of a pivotal moment, you know, some, some more than others, but you know, that synthesizer, uh, and the fact that, you know, a, it was difficult to program. So lots of people didn't want to do it. And B had the ability to load new sounds via cartridges kind of launched the whole preset and sound library market. Didn't it? It did. Yeah. I mean, it was, I mean, the first thing when you start using the DX7, there's the, the, the filter, where's the filter? There's no filter. So that's, that's, that's the first thing to get over. It is tricky or it was a tricky thing, but if you like most things, if you spend a bit of time with it, but, um, I've always seemed to have an ability to make weird sounds. I just like, I just love sound. Um, music and sound are two interchangeable things for me. And, um, Just something I've always done I guess So moving a little forward to 1999 you decide to start your own record label, I mean how How did that all come about? Um, came about with a pope conversation over a few pints of beer with a friend of mine called Sid Smith, who was a compatriot at Spectro all those years ago. And I, I'd kind of released a few things myself, but there were very sort of here and there, there wasn't really any plan as such. And, um, I was a big fan in the 1990s of Fox records. Um, and I liked the. Where they brought things out and they had different roster of musicians and there was different, uh, collaborations and I kind of like that style. And I just wanted something which had more cohesiveness to it, where I could have a, for want of a better word, a marketing strategy, I suppose. I mean, certainly when I started out, I didn't have any huge. Goals for it. I still don't think I have to be honest. I wasn't, I mean, the music we're doing on Din and that I do is always going to be niche. So it's not going to be huge sales. So there's a lot of love in it, but of course it is possible to make a little bit of money from it. And I also wanted to have an artistic, uh, look, um, I kind of get fed up a lot of the electronic music albums go down the tired path of pictures of space and planets, usually badly rendered in some software or then I didn't want to have that. I wanted a much more abstract. So the, the, the art, the art look of Din is quite a unique look, I think. And there are no planets or spaceships or sci fi scenes on these things. It's much more, the much more pieces of art, I think. Do you ever bring your, um, artistic bent in terms of the visuals? You know, you, you said earlier that, you know, that's how you started. Do you ever bring that to bear to any of the releases? Are you involved in any of that kind of stuff? Actually, no, I'm not. I think there's only one of the covers have one of my images, not because somebody actually asked for it. I've always believed that, um, Something like design, but there's two things on a cover of a CD or a vinyl album. There's the actual piece of art, the image itself, but the actual, the actual design, the font, the way it's laid out. Now I'm not trained at that. Yes. I've got a copy of Photoshop. Yes, I could probably do it, but I would always prefer to use a professional designer and I've been using, um, a couple of German guys, uh, Bernard Vossenreich, certainly for a lot of years. He's a graphic designer. He knows what he's doing. And he just seems to have. That knack of using just the right font with just the right weight and just the right amount, and it just looks better than what I could do. In terms of the images, we've used a whole host of people's photographs on there. There's pieces of art. My partner, Wendy Sheed has a really good photographer and artist. I've used a lot of her images recently, which are kind of close up images of textures of things. So like the music, it's kind of left up to your imagination. There's a little bit of, um, um, Yeah, I guess that's it. It's not specifically giving you an image that this is what it means. It's more of an abstract, leaves it a little bit open to your interpretation. Who do DIN sign, or what's the criteria for an artist to make it onto your label? How does that process work? Uh, it has to sound cool. I don't know, it's very, it's very difficult to quantify this. I guess I curate DIN with my taste. As I said, this is niche, um, um, um, uh, music. Um, it's not, it's never going to be mainstream. I'm not trying to rule, take over the world or sell tens of hundreds of thousands of things. Nice though that would be one has to be realistic about this. So I guess it's curated with my taste, but I do like to push the boundaries at times. And it's not all about. Try to sound like a tan, like tangent. Dream used to sound like there's a whole host of artists out there who still seem to be stuck in 1973 sounding, try to sound exactly like those guys did, and there's no point. Yes, I reference those things sometimes on some of the things I released, but there's other releases that are a million mags removed from that and, um. Most of the artists on there I personally know, although a few have approached me. And it's just, I guess you have to trust your instincts. I have to use my taste, uh, and curate it with a degree of integrity, where you think something just works within the, the boundaries of your own. Parameters that I've set out. I mean, it is kind of vague. You just go where you're good. If somebody goes to the Bandcamp page, uh, for, for Din, you'll see that there are, I think, Nevermore, which we'll talk about in a moment, is the 69th Release on, you know, like the major sort of title releases, but then you've got other releases on the label, one of which is called tone science, which is very interesting. A lot of people, um, mention it, uh, as, as quite an influential or inspirational, uh, batch of recordings. Can you tell me a little bit about. To the tone science concept what tone science initially was a solo album that I put out and it was very experimental. It was an aleatoric Composition what I mean by that there's a randomness in there The I used mainly the surge system I have other things like the Roland 100 M um All 100 percent analog self playing patches where it's an incredibly complex patch, where effectively the composition is the patch, which took me two or three days to get to work. It's not just noise, it's actually in a mode, a scale, and it basically plays itself. And it's random in the way that Water is if you, if you were looking at a stream or you watch the, the sea coming up on the shore, it kind of always looks the same, but it never actually is exactly ever the same. So if you put enough things into the patch, if it's complex enough, it will probably never exactly repeat itself. It's kind of static in a way. It doesn't develop like a composition where a human being would be playing it. It just does its thing. But I released that is it kind of split my fan base, I guess, down the middle. Some people went, wow, this is really interesting. We'd really like this. And other people went, where's the sequences? They were, they were very confused by it. And that was out for a couple of years and I did get a lot of good reaction. And I was quite happy to put it out. It was something very different, very different. And then the whole modular thing, I mean, I've never stopped using, um, modular since I first bought a Roland System 100 M1982 to use on the climb and I've still got the original five, the original rack of that. Obviously during the 1990s, these things were appearing in skips. People just didn't want to use them at all. Yeah, all the digital synths and you can recall things and then computers. Why would you want to use an analog modular synth where you couldn't store what you had in, you know, it could have noise and hiss and all that kind of stuff. And then of course, the, um, Eurorack format has really exploded, certainly in the last five to 10 years. So I'm sitting there going, Hmm, that's quite interesting. Why don't I? I do a series where I invite modular artists from all sorts, not just the new generation, but maybe some of the older artists as well to reinterpret what they do. Use some artists who are very experienced, also invite some artists who are just starting out and get them to do, um, five, six, seven minute track, just using modular no keyboards, no digital synths, no digital reverb, just, just using modular synths. Um, and I would curate the. Running audio of these and that would be Tone Science, uh, Volume 1. And then there's Volume 2 and up to Volume 5 and I'm almost finishing Volume 6 now. And there really have been, I think, a really lovely showcase for that whole genre or sub genre of the electronic music world at least. I hope so. We mentioned earlier that, you know, Bandcamp is your, your kind of shop window. How has the internet and services like Bandcamp benefited a, a label such as din? Well, Bandcamp is wonderful. I mean, Bandcamp flies the flag for independent musicians, artists, and, uh, record, uh, it, it, it's, it's really a one-off in that you see, you have to talk about the streaming side of things and you have to wonder why would somebody who can for 10 pounds a month if they want to have ad, ad free or even. They can have it for free if they want to have adverts coming in. They can have Spotify and they can have a listen to a million, billion, trillion tracks for free or 10 a month. Why would a person therefore go into Bandcamp and buy one album as a digital download for 7 and then, or whatever price it is, and you get a lot of people going, well, there's no point and you will actually. Because the person who buys the music like that of Bandcamp actually cares for the musicians and artists. They actually want to directly support them. They like their music enough to think that it's worth them playing their music. paying that. That's not to belittle people who listen on Spotify. That's fine. If you want to listen that way, you can, but it's well documented that none of us are ever going to get very rich, very quickly, very quickly, unless you've got a billion trillion players through a major record label. Um, so Bandcamp is a platform where People who love whatever genre of music, not just electronic music, all genres of music, can directly support their artists that they love by either buying a download or they can actually buy physical stuff on there. I can sell CDs and DVDs. T shirts and vinyl and whatever. And it's fantastic in terms of the things that it'll allow you to do. I couldn't have dreamed about in 1980 or so when I started out. So for example, if somebody buys online in the middle of the night, while I'm fast asleep, a vinyl record that may take a week to ship or to post to them, they can also immediately, like literally immediately have a digital download of that album. So they can listen to that whilst it's in the post. I mean, that's like. It's science fiction almost. It's so cool. Um, there's other things like over time, you build up a list of followers on Bandcamp. Um, then it's got several thousand on there. And when the new release comes out, or if I've got something to say, an offer or whatever, concerts coming up, I can let those people know. Via a message and it's instantaneous within the not much more time than it takes me to type that message out and press and go. If I do a concert, say in Manchester or Birmingham, I have got one in Birmingham coming up soon. I can send a message not to all the Bandcamp followers because if somebody's in the States, a concert in Birmingham is not much use to them. Um, I can, Say I only want to send messages to the bank and followers within a hundred miles or two hundred miles of that City, so it's it's very very I think it's very good and a lot of people do support it, which is excellent Yeah, and I think also when people buy from Bandcamp, they do so because, I certainly do, because I know that the artist and the label get the majority of that money and it's not split and, you know, sent over, you know, record labels, various divisions, you know, more of that, I guess, goes into your pocket. Well, it does, yes. I mean, obviously, it doesn't stop a major record label being on Bandcamp, but I don't think the majors will, but, uh, Um, as, as a record label, uh, Bandcamp take a relatively small percentage. I think it's 10 to 15%, a little bit for PayPal, I suppose. And the rest goes to you. And then I can share it out with the artists and it's certainly you can make more. There's been these Bandcamp Fridays where they've actually even waived the Bandcamp fee to, um, get people to go and buy the pieces of music more. To support it more. And I think that's really worked well. Although it means all your sales tend to come in one day and not for the rest of the month, which is a bit of a bug bear sometimes, but, but, but yes, it's, it's a very good system and it really isn't, it really stands alone. I hope nothing happens to it because there's nothing quite like it, to be honest. So, let's get to the 100th DIN release, which is why we're here today. It launched at the beginning of October, and it's called Nevermore, and it's the 100th release on the label, even though the catalogue number, I think, is 69, if I'm not mistaken? I will explain this if you wish. If you wouldn't mind, that would be fantastic. Yeah. Okay. So the DIN69 is the main record label. And that means it's been 69, um, CDs out. Some of them are on vinyl, but more mainly on CDs. Yes, DIN still believes in CDs, folks. It hasn't, it isn't, it isn't dead yet. Uh, but there is a sub label called DINDDL, which DDL quite trick, trickly means digital download, download, download. And that is, that is download, that is digital only, um, albums. And there's been 26 of those. And then there's the five Tone Science albums. And I think if you add those all up, you'll find it comes to 100. So what was the inspiration behind Nevermore? And was there a reason that this was chosen as the 100th release? I'm sure the fact that I'm on it's a complete coincidence. Um, It was well, obviously there's been a pandemic, as we all know. Uh, certainly last year I had something like six, seven concerts lined up. They all got canceled, which was a great shame. Although in the, in the great scheme of things, concerts canceled is not that big a deal compared to what some people have had to endure. But, um, uh, a very famous, uh, ambient musician called Steve Roach from the States set up, um, um, this. Uh, three day online festival called sound quest in, I think it was in March and, uh, I've known Steve a little bit over the years and he got in touch with me and asked me if I would play a set, uh, an hour long set and I said, yes, I would record the set. It wasn't streamed live. Cause it was people from all over the world. It was recorded here in advance. And then I'd sent over the video to Steve and his team. And then over the, over the three nights and days that this event was on, these concerts and other people's were streamed. And I think during my performance over the weekend, he got up to almost, I think it was over a thousand people online on YouTube at the time. At once at one stage, which is fantastic. Um, I, I, I thought, well, I want to record what I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm doing. Cause I'd try out lots of new ideas. I didn't want to use a laptop. I use just the, um, uh, modular gear. I use the big surge Eurorack stuff. I use my French connection on the Martino, uh, uh, Adelaide keyboard, the Moog, Korg Summit, a few keyboards like that, a few effects. So I multi tracked it, went through a nice mixer and I multi tracked it to a hard disk drive. And that meant, uh, I, I, it was a complete live re, re, re, re recording. And as I just played for an hour, it kind of moved through different phases and moods. Um, but I had a multi track recording of it, so I could get a much better mix. And then I kind of thought, Hmm, this has come out quite well. Uh, perhaps, perhaps I should release this at some point in time. When should I release it? Well, look, the 100th release will be coming up in the, the autumn. So, um, Yeah, that seemed like a good, a good opportunity for me to blow my trumpet for once. The music on Nevermore, where does that come from? Was it, uh, was it improvised partially or totally? Uh, was there much of a composition process before you did that performance? It was a bit of both. Um, I mean, I'm using, I mean, some of them, uh, modular synthesizers. These are very sophisticated in terms of a hard, um, One of the, the 10, 10 bit box micros in there. So I had samples in there, which was sounds I'd prepared ahead of time, just various loops and things. And I had various sequences stored in various places. I had various, it was a complex patch. I mean, you're looking at a lot of modular gear here with lots of voices that I could bring in and out. But the actual performance was improvised. I've got recordings of it as practices and they're never quite the same. It never comes out. The same twice, a really, um, a lovely, um, point in time came in the, what became the title track when I was actually doing it, I didn't know it was going to be called Nevermore, didn't have the titles at that time. They often come out later. And I was playing this solo. I don't know if you know about the French connection cable, the analog system, French connection, which mimics know in terms of you've got a wire. Well on, on the right hand and that is like glistens over the pitch and you've got a rocker switch on the left hand, which usually control the volume and also maybe filtering stuff, but you can actually get it to play just the regular keyboard. And I switched this. So I was playing the regular keyboard with my right hand, playing a lead line whilst using the rocker switch to make the volume go in and out. And I, I came up with a theme, a really lovely theme on the title track that I never. Played during the rehearsals. It just happened there and then, and you can almost see me. I mean, I've got my back, you can see me playing it. You can almost see me going, Oh, I quite like this. I'm going to play this a few more times. And it was one of those things, which sometimes those things only happen when you play live. And although there wasn't a physical audience there, I was so lost in what I was doing. It was still a nice, a nice point in time. I've seen you play, um, that instrument, uh, SynthFest, uh, I think it was probably the last time that there was a physical, uh, SynthFest, so that must be 2019, I think. I think it might, I think Leon's motto had it the first one, it was actually the first one. Yeah, because I remember seeing what, it is fascinating, it really is, because it's this, it's very unique sound and a very unique feeling. Is that something that, that you kind of gravitate to, you know, odd machines that play things in a nonconformist way, you know, rather than your traditional Western keyboards, that kind of thing? Yeah, I, I, I guess so it's, it's, it's, I've had it for about 12 years now. I was doing research on it and I worked with, um, an American musician called Robert Rich, who, um, is sort of a compatriot, Steve Roach. And Robert, uh, you often use as a pedal steel guitar with a, um, he plays in a very gliss like style and has this beautiful. gliss sound you can, you can, you can use a bottle top on it and pedals and got a beautiful, almost like a female voice sound. And I thought, yeah, it'd be really nice to have a synth, a keyboard that could do that. But how could, how do you do gliss on a keyboard? Well, the theremin is obviously one way, but it's notoriously difficult to play. And Leon's Mart is this beautiful instrument from around about the same time. The theremin was originally invented. Late 1920s and the analog systems, French connection. I think it was Johnny Greenwood from, uh, um, radio head who commissioned them to do these, cause they were using, uh, on smart nose and he wanted a one that you could use if he's modular gear live. And, um, It's, it has this amazing ability to, um, do this perfect total gliss on a keyboard because you're right, your fingers in a, in a metal ring on a, a wire on pulleys, which you, you move up and down in front of the keyboard. So it's easier to get your pitch right compared with, uh, um, Theremin. Although I still usually have a little guitar tuner there to keep us in, in, in check because it can drift sometimes, but it's lovely. If you want to put vibrato, you just waggle your finger and you won't. Fast, you want fast vibrato, you waggle your finger faster. It's like playing a string instrument. It's like, you know, um, a cello or something. That's how you play that. If you want vibrato, you, you, you, you waggle your finger. So it's that immediate physical contact. And as I said, the left hand has a rocker switch. You don't use a conventional envelope. You are the envelope. You make the volume. Go up or down in going back to the cello. For example, sometimes a good cellist can put so much emotion into one note. They can hold a note for a long time, but by varying the dynamics, the vibrato, the tone of what they play on that one note. And it's quite difficult doing that just on a synth, but on the Onsmartner keyboard. I can do that. And it's very expressive and it does also give me a, I guess, a slightly unique. Oh, is there such a thing as a slightly unique voice? What I mean is I'm sure there's a few other people using these things, but I haven't heard that many people use it. Uh, and you can also go wild. You can do some crazy sound effects and big glissandos and all sorts of things. So it's a, it's a great thing. It looks, it also looks good live. I mean, when you play live, I like it to be entertainment. It has to be entertaining. And, um, whether you like it or not, sitting behind a laptop isn't the most entertaining thing to watch. Whereas when you see people do physical things on stage, I always think it has more of a connection with the audience. Do you find the degree of expression or maybe the lack of degree of expression in modern synthesizers quite frustrating? For many years, there were not many synths that had those kind of features. It was keyboard and knobs and that was it. Are you a big fan of expressive synthesizers? It depends. It depends on what you want to do. Um, It's neither better or worse than a non expressive synthesizer if you want to be Really cold and dry and have a craft where you can kind of vibe the very lack of expression is what makes it cool So it's not all about it The music should drive what you do Not the other way around although we all know technology has a huge effect on what you can produce I've always believed that the music should drive what you do So if you want to be expressive something like the jones martin or french kick Connections is a wonderful thing. If you want to do really cold, hard, analog beats, maybe you don't need that expression because you need some really tight, you know, things being absolutely nailed down to the beat sometimes can be an exciting, exciting thing. Do you plan to do any more of these live performances and record them and release them as an album in future DIMM releases? Possibly, um, I did another couple of smaller streams. In fact, um, there is another album coming out in November, if I may talk about this, because it has a very unique thing about it. We all know about the VCS3, and, uh, mentioned about the VCR 3. For those who don't know, it's that weird L shaped thing with what looks like a little battleship's pinboard on it. Uh, much beloved of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop for Doctor Who sound effects, and was the first synth I ever used, in fact, in Spectro in 1978 1979. I picked up one for, I'm not going to tell you how embarrassingly cheap it was in 1993. It's certainly worth a few quid more than that. Now, But I've done an album which, where I just use the VCS3, it's notoriously difficult to keep, to keep in tune and with a little few tricks and a lot of patience and time and multi tracking, of course, it's just the VCS3. I did use some sound effects like, uh, or effects units like tape echo, spring reverb, uh, uh, uh, and analog phaser. There was a few helping hands from, um, Eurorack, things like sequencers, LFOs, envelopes, but no sounds. The only sounds come from the VCS3, and that was quite a challenge to, uh, to do. So that, that's going to come out on a, um, a Greek label's putting that on a vinyl release. I'm going to do a digital version of that with, Two extra tracks, which were from live streams. What's been your favorite didn't release over, over the last 22 years. I know it's, it's like picking your favorite child, but is there one that really stands out to you as either, you know, maybe that was the most successful or the most, uh, satisfying release, uh, that you've ever. But that's an old, well, it is an impossible question. It depends whether it's one of the titles that I'm on or just a solo one, or whether I'm one of the other artists, I really could not pick out one, but I suppose you're going to make me. So Axiom, which was done in 64, my last studio album in a way is a distillation of everything I've done. So it's, it was out on vinyl as well. So it's only about 42 minutes long, Tracks per side. It's very analog. I use lots of modular the Matriarch the move matriarch, which I love and I went overboard in terms of recording everything from the analog Modulars, there's a few plugins, but not very many And it just seems to be especially the track Omicron, which opens the album. Just if, if, if you had to play one track by me, Omicron, the opening track of Axiom, listen to that first. So what are the plans for the next 100 releases from Din? Have you, is that future mapped out or are you just playing it by ear? Uh, well, you know, it took me 22 years. I'm in my, I won't tell you how old I'm 62 now. So that would make me 84. Gosh. Well, you know, it's not impossible. Maybe I can do it a little bit quicker than that. I don't know. It's not getting any easier to run an independent music record label with putting out niche records and CDs. It's, it's not getting any easier. Whether we like it or not, fewer people are buying physical things, vinyl, Being an exception, but even that's become more difficult with all the delays, because now the major companies are going, Oh, we'll have a bit of that. So we're going to flood all our things into there. So the small independents have no chance of getting their vinyl records anytime in the next nine months. I don't know. We'll have to see. The internet's changed everything so much. Who knows what's going to happen in the next 20 years. I'll just keep doing, I don't think I'll ever stop doing music. Yeah. At all, I can't ever see me doing that. Whether I want to do it, uh, is a record label or whatever, I don't know. Time will tell. I'll just take one step at a time and then try and enjoy what I'm doing, even after 40 odd years of doing this stuff. And what's coming up in your immediate future in terms of performances, you, you mentioned, uh, uh, A gig coming up in Birmingham soon. Um, have you got any other plans? Uh, not that, you know, it's probably not the most ideal time to make plans. Well, it, it hasn't been obviously all the contests last year were canceled. The one in Birmingham with the seventh wave festival. Um, I'll be playing that. Um, That's just almost like just dipping, dipping my toe, getting back into actually playing live. Uh, I'm going to do it for, uh, just the, um, um, modular system and the Moog. I think I'd have a relatively small setup for that possible concert, uh, next year in Liverpool at the capstone. Again, I hope there's a possible concert in the States, but everything, you just don't want to say too much. You don't want to commit too much. Cause it's still a little bit up in the air. Um, In terms of Din, I think I mentioned before, I'm getting to the point of being able to finalize the ruling order on Tone Sign 6, um, after Din 69's Din 70. And right the way back to that meeting I had with Sid in the pub, I always had this idea that every 10th album there would be a, um, Sampler album of the previous nine discs and I call them index. There's like a din an anagram There's something going on there. I must have worked all ahead of time So i'm going to stick to that plan So din 70 will be index or seven and that'll be a sample album of din 61 to 69 a couple of other things planned for din releases next year But I don't want to say anything quite yet because it's a little too early to spill the beans on those And just basically keep going Just keep keep going indeed and just the final question. Um, you've got a A fair amount of gear in your studio there. What's your favorite thing at the moment? What's really? Inspiring you, uh to make more, you know more music Well, i'll answer it in two ways and the first way is a bit of a And that for me, all the gear together behaves as one huge instrument. So quite often they're all interacting together. So, but that's a bit cheeky, really. I think the Moog Matriarch, I bought that relatively recently and that's a lovely keyboard. Uh, it's, I just find it, although it's not true, Polyphonic, it's paraphonic, even that means when you play chords, strange things can happen with the order of the notes. So you're never quite sure what's going to happen. And it has a lovely warm sound, whether I like it or not. And when I do like it, my musical heritage is from the analog days. That's what appeals to me. So I've got nothing against digital synths and I use plugins where I need plugins, but my heart is always going to be in the analog domain. Fantastic. Ian, congratulations on 100 DIN releases, and here's to many more. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening, and be sure to check out the show notes page for this episode, where you'll find further information along with web links and details of all the other episodes. Before you go, make sure you visit the Sound On Sound podcast page at soundonsound. com forward slash podcasts where you can explore all the other great content playing across the other channels. I'm Rob Puricelli and this has been a Failed Muso production for Sound On Sound.