SEAN WOODWARD

I first heard Dio with Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow on songs like “Catch The Rainbow” and later on one of my all-time favourite albums, Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell. Since then I’ve seen him many times live with Dio and Heaven & Hell and to learn today that he’s gone is almost like having a piece of your identity obliterated. It was like that with Kurt Cobain and John Martyn, like that when The Mission stopped touring but then ….

“nothing’s in the past, it always seems to come again”

Ronnie James Dio 1942-2010 ev

Where to start?

The orange and blue lit buttons of the Maschine were one of the first draws. Its like a Monome but with all the functionality, build-quality and power one comes to expect from NI already built in. I’d been going through the mental arguments for some time. Is it an MPC, is it stand-alone, is it more than an expensive toy?

Well I got my hands on one, unpacked it, ran the install and plugged it in. Burst of orange and blue lights and then the baby’s live. First off, started loading single-hits from my hard drive into the pads. With 16 pads and 8 banks there’s plenty to be going on with. Lost a few hours there and then playing around with the samples.

Fast-forward to the next evening and I’m starting to get a better feel for the device. Found the Sounds option in the the software, now we’ve got whole kits that are automatically mapped across the pads. Strarted recording some stuff. Nice auto quantization made it sound sweet. Trying to work out how the Scenes are used to build the track, wiped patterns out of the grid a few times! Found the Pads option to load instruments into the pads to overdub bass/brass/pads etc. Ok, seemed a little weak. Exported an arabian beat I’d made into Logic, threw down some plucked World Inmstruments from Logic and already its sounding cool. Again, several hours lost to the flow. I’m beginnning to understand NI’s “Get Lost in the Flow” slogan pretty well now!

This is just what I need to produce some of the beats for the N2L/EN2EL/N23L side-project. What I didn’t mention that before ? Ah well, you’ll have to wait and see. Let me just say I’ve been listening to a lot of Dre and Eminem recently so it’s going to be very different from the Gothick vibe – no guitars for starters! Well, the lyrics for 10 tracks are in the can so its back to the Maschine for some more dope beats!

I discovered Psychic TV in a round-about manner. After obtaining one of the books from Jhonn Balance’s personal collection at Threshold House I became interested in all things Coil. Their final album, The Ape of Naples became a staple diet of my in-car entertainment for many months and this led to Peter (Sleazy) Christopherson and Throbbing Gristle which of course led to Genesis P-Orridge. Why was that name familiar ? Casting my mind back it had cropped up in many of the zines of the Eighties, like Lamp of Thoth and Chaos International. Here was an individual I could relate to ! Forthright in his artistic living and versed in mail-art and the occult.

As all this journey was being undertaken in 2007, serendipity stepped in and Psychic TV played the Academy at Birmingham UK. Tickets were ordered in a flash and as they were so few people in the audience we got straight to the front and made sure we enjoyed what was a fantastic show. I’ve heard it said that PTV shows are more experiences than rock concerts and I can vouch for that. There was an immediate empathy for the people on the stage.

Edley certainly remembered us and he and Genesis were kind enough to sign this vinyl.

Here’s hoping 2008 sees more of the re-vitalised Psychic TV !