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Not so many tracks today – in fact I can only find two from this era!

This particular phase coincided with me getting a regular DJ set doing chillout. I had the slightly naive opinion that I could mix live performance with DJ’ing (armed with a couple of synths and samplers as well as a laptop full of MP3s) mixing with an early version of Tracktor DJ.

In practice, the gigs were a complete nightmare – manually tempo syncing hundreds of tracks (this was before Ableton Live made it a non-issue) and matching keys to be able to swap pieces in and out of the flow meant I spend all week preparing for the set.

The fact is, the average punter couldn’t tell the difference between something played live and some crap played straight off a “Best of Chill Out” CD. The last gig I just put Wish You Were Here on and sat drinking at the bar, still got paid though because the barman was a huge Pink Floyd fan.

The Climate Bass

Troubadours and Fairytales

Embryo - (c) 2007 lunar caustic

When I finally moved out of bedsitter-land and stopped sleeping on other peoples couches, I got a small flat in Poole where I began to rebuild my life after so nearly destroying myself.

Following the example of a number of people I had met in my wilderness years, my flat became a kind of open-house and a great community of friends used to call by at all hours of the day and night. We would smoke, drink, make tea and jam for hours with whatever instruments were at hand.

It was about this time that I started building my own recording set-up and just experimenting. Dave, Vlad and Jez were regular visitors – these tracks are about all I have left of that time.

I should probably point out that most of these tracks were originally untitled as they were just jams we did. The titles were just provided so that I didn’t have to work out what “untitled 087.wav” was…


Chemical

The Psychic

The Plan

Embryo

Tobacco but no skins

Vlad’s Piece

Jez’s Piece

8k

Here is the second Manitou album – the follow up to the well received “Looking for the Lost”. The album was never finished, much of this was played live in the studio as a “studio rough” and it’s a fairly basic desk mix. Having said that, I still think it sounds pretty good! It was recorded by Steve Smith at his Room With a View studio.

I asked Harry if he minded me putting this lot up for free download and he said,

“Personally I am of the opinion that it should be available for free download as widely as possible. Don’t know how everybody else feels about it but it might just spark interest and who knows what.”

so please feel free to share!

Manitou

Sorry I haven’t a clue

I can’t believe

Life in 625

Eat the machine

Mile below

Remember me

Here’s my thing

Dream time

Babylon calls

People need people

Crash

The Devils Music

Remote control

Big city

If I didn’t have you

She wants me

The 4AM set is chilled Acid Jazz, heavy on the breaks and grooves but light on the changes! It was spawned from a Jazz set my friend Dave Carson was performing, which I helped him out with a couple of times.

Taking recordings of live jams, then cutting them into loops and heavily processing the resulting samples produces some fantastic textures and grooves which are so different from the original songs – the new structures became tracks in their own right and we did a few gigs, with live sample performances (courtesy of Ableton Live and a Launchpad controller) mixed in with real guitars, synth, sax and flute.

Working on this stuff gave me a break from my more “prog rock” leanings, and allowed me to focus more on the production and sonic texture than I generally have been able to. It certainly has given me a new way of working, which I intend to use when I start writing again!

Downtown

Latin

Paparazzi

Lullaby

Smoking room

Same Head

There’s a place I know

Cognition

Blue Agave

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