“Vinyl provides an entirely different listening experience to any digital audio medium; it captures the spirit of the original studio recording and adds that analog magic. Having something physical with large format artwork brings meaning as well as helping to simulate visual cues, lending a part to play in the wonder of vinyl.”
“I was brought up in the seaside town of Southend-On-Sea, Essex, England. Growing up with musicians around me, strangely, I never really took much of an interest in playing an instrument until I was 15 years old. I was first turned on to records by my Father, who would play a lot of ’70s and ’80s rock/prog on vinyl, but his biggest lust was The Beatles (he is actually a renowned historian of the group and has worked with Paul McCartney on a few occasions).
I have a love for synthesisers and this has inspired my taste in music equally as much as the influential music that my Father would play throughout my formative years. Recently, records such as Piero Umiliani’s Synthi Time, Air – Moon Safari, Broadcast – Work And Non Work and a lot of synth-based library music from KPM have strongly influenced the music I have produced. Anything by Piero Umiliani and Mort Garson is going to be right up my street. I prefer writing music with distant memories of these albums as it makes for a more organic and personal feel to the sounds I create.
Another big favourite of which I have taken influence from would be the Raymond Scott compilation titled Manhattan Research Inc., the album containing samples of Scott’s work from the ’50s and ’60s intended for soundtracks, commercials, and his own technical and musical experiments. Akin to Bruce Haack, he designed and constructed his own synthesisers, sequencers, and drum machines for the purpose. Bruce Haack’s album Farad: The Electric Voice has to be up there with my most cherished vinyl reissues in recent years. The record is wild—one of the best vocoder sounds I’ve heard (he built it himself and I think it was motion-controlled?). The track “Party Machine” to me sounds almost like an Aphex Twin track, Proto-Techno made in 1978!
The fact that you can’t just skip through songs as easily as on your phone makes the whole vinyl experience much more rewarding. You’re listening to the album from start to finish, as the artist intended. This is something the digital age is lacking. With vinyl, you’re in it for the ride and it projects the idea of “the album” as one piece of art. I’ve always fantasised about releasing my music on vinyl, as it shows a sort of quality you would find hard to capture elsewhere.
Our new single, “Queesh,” holds inspiration from Jeff Lynne’s ELO, French psych-pop, and other ’70s pop. Other tracks on our upcoming debut album draw influence from ’70s Italian Library music (Ennio Morricone, Piero Umiliani).
—William Cunningham
“I grew up in Muswell Hill, North London, surrounded by a very creative family.”
“My Grandfather, Cy Grant, who was from Guyana, gave me classical guitar lessons from a very young age. He was the first black person to appear regularly on British television, singing the news every night on TV in Calypso style. He recorded a few of his own records on vinyl. When I was younger I never really listened to them, but since his passing, I’ve been retrospectively looking in to his past discography, and it’s not only warming, but also inspirational to listen to. From this upbringing I’ve always had a love for listening to classical music and Brazilian Bossa Nova.
I first bought a record player when I was 17, borrowing ’70s and ’80s pop records from my parents’ collection. My favourites at the time were David Bowie’s Station to Station, Low, and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. These records really shaped my musical taste growing up. When I started university I began purchasing lots of records online. I remember buying seven of John Lennon’s albums for £10—a steal!
A few years down the line, I started working at Juno Records in Camden, London. It’s basically a huge warehouse of records with every kind of music you could imagine. This allowed me to expand upon my collection and I’d bring home a new album every week. I now treasure all these records that I accumulated over the three years working there. Some of my most favourite include reissues of Mort Garson’s The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds, Plantasia, and Piero Umiliani’s To-Day’s Sound.”
—Sasha Moxon
Deluxe Edition, the debut full-length release from UK’s Caramel arrives in stores on November 22 via DuoPoly Records.
