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Trevor Horn: Digital Sampling with a Sense of Humor

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Thanks so much to Jaco & Co. for turning me on to this fantastic three hour (!) conversation with production hero Trevor Horn:

Hearing Horn’s ’80s production work when it was new and still otherworldly had the hugest influence on me, as his sound transformed my teenage daydream goal of rock star to music producer. When I heard Frankie’s Welcome To The Pleasuredome (with its insane technical details in the CD liner notes), Propaganda’s A Secret Wish, and – especially – (Who’s Afraid Of) The Art Of Noise? I had to know exactly how these recordings were made. This led me down a rabbit hole that I’m still enjoyably descending.

Fondest memory of the time: via Art Of Noise, learning about this thing called a ‘digital sampler’ and then, mind blown, writing down a long list of all the household objects I would sample once I eventually acquired one. That record rewired my brain and the way I listened to everything around me. And, before you ask, I, unfortunately, have no idea what happened to that list.

One of my favorite parts of this conversation (hosted by Trevor Jackson who gets some delightful anecdotes out of his subject) is when Horn talks about his Fairlight CMI sampler, bought using “Video Killed The Radio Star” royalty. (An aside: this made me think how different music production history would be if that record hadn’t been a hit!) Horn reckons that he was the only prominent Fairlight owner who treated the device with a sense of humor, the other early UK Fairlight-ers being Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. This was cool to hear as the fun and levity that Trevor Horn (and Fairlight engineer / Art Of Noise member J. J. Jeczalik) brought to sampling was one of my attractions to this work, and shaped how I approach my time in the studio. I think you can hear this in my own music.

Trevor Jackson’s musical selections in this show lean toward rare remixes from the period and it’s fascinating how prescient they were, and how Horn somewhat humbly downplays their brilliance. I was reminded of this stunning (and, yes, humorous) 1986 remix of Frankie’s “Rage Hard” which I hadn’t heard since it was relatively new, and I’d totally forgotten about it:

Previously.

The Art of Alan White

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After playing on famous albums by George Harrison and John Lennon, drummer Alan White joined Yes just before their next tour, on three days’ notice. That’s notable because those Yes songs (and Yessongs, a live set culled from that tour, is the first album Alan played on) are complex, baroque beasts filled with time-switches and dastardly riffage from which no instrumentalist can escape. He passed the audition and was Yes’s key skin-pounder for the rest of his life. And that life, unfortunately, ended for Alan White this week.

I’ll argue that Alan White is one of the most influential drummers of our time, though I bestow the title fully knowing that his influence is involuntary. You see, Trevor Horn bought a Fairlight CMI sampling keyboard with his formidable “Video Killed The Radio Star” royalties, setting him back a cool £18,000. “You could buy a house,” he says about that purchase. But Trevor sniffed the future. He parlayed this new device to help get his early music producer jobs — bands not only enjoyed Trevor’s production chops but also exclusive access to this wizardry machine. Malcolm McLaren and ABC came calling.

Trevor assembled a team to help out on those two productions, with Gary Langan on engineering duties and JJ Jeczalik managing the ins and outs of the frustratingly complicated Fairlight. The great Anne Dudley also appeared, contributing string arrangements and keyboard expertise. This crew then worked on Yes’s 90125 album, home of the breakout song “Owner of a Lonely Heart.” Yes’s dated prog-rock pomposity unexpectedly gave way to Trevor’s unmistakable sonic touch.1Yes’s previous album Drama is also worth a listen as it’s where Trevor Horn first collaborated with the band — as their lead vocalist!

As legend has it, JJ Jeczalik and Gary Langan were lingering in the studio after a Yes session, fooling around with the Fairlight. They thought it would be novel to take a discarded drum track from Alan White and feed it into the Fairlight’s Page R sequencer. Wikipedia claims (and I have no reason to doubt) that this was the first time an entire drum pattern was digitally sampled.

Fast forward a few months, and this production team formed The Art of Noise around these Fairlight experiments with the assistance of writer and media wrangler Paul Morley. And, as a result, that’s Alan White you hear sampled, cut-up, and processed-to-hell on the seminal songs “Close To The Edit” and “Beatbox.”

Not only is it likely that Alan White was the first drummer to get captured in a sampler’s Phantom Zone, but those beats went on to inspire whole genres of hip hop, breakbeat, big beat, and so much more. I doubt there’d be a Bomb Squad without Alan White and that night of Fairlight tomfoolery, and, really, that’s all you need to know. Today’s music wouldn’t be the same.

Curious about this vintage alien technology called a Fairlight CMI? Someone made a video with the sampler and replicated the creation of “Beatbox.” The display graphics seem right out of a dashboard screen on the USCSS Nostromo:

Fairlight CMI Screen

Side tale: When I heard (Who’s Afraid of) The Art of Noise? I was instantly obsessed. I couldn’t figure out how this music existed, and I needed to know. In my knowledge quest, I learned about this amazing new thing called a digital sampler. I had to have one, but I didn’t have £18,000 lying around. So I made a list of all the things I’d eventually sample once I got ahold of one: household appliances, my friends vocalizing, various neighborhood pets, and so on. When I finally got my first sampler, a Casio SK-1, I was frustrated by its limitations and couldn’t act on over 90% of my list. But it was still a formative blast. That weird little keyboard and a few tunes sampling the drummer Alan White were responsible for pushing me down the music production path.

🔗→ Previously: Digital Sampling With a Sense of Humor

Too Drummy for Ambient

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Grooving to Amapiano → Prodded by Awesome Tapes From Africa, today I’m immersing myself in the South African genre of amapiano, defined as “a township-developed style that fuses elements from a number of different club-ready genres from across the decades.” This DJ mix by Teno Afrika is an overview of what amapiano is all about:

But Uwami, a fantastic new album by DJ Black Low, is really connecting me to this sound. Some of the production flourishes — especially the in-your-face percussive electronics — are especially provocative and attention-grabbing. I haven’t listened to a tune and remarked, “oh, shit!” to myself in a while. I did that a couple of times within the first few songs.

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ZZT Records in 1982 → This eight-minute ‘documentary’ on Zang Tumb Tuum (more commonly known as ZTT Records) is a fascinating time capsule. What a find! I’ve written about my ‘80s obsession with producer Trevor Horn, and ZTT is commonly known as his label. But, as the video shows, co-runners Jill Sinclair (also Horn’s wife) and music writer Paul Morley played a part, too. I love when professional units (labels, bands, companies) consist of distinctive personalities, each taking on a unique role. In ZTT’s case, Sinclair is the grounded business mind, Horn is the producer and resident nerd, and Morley is the prankster and creative spirit. Morley seems relegated to the background in this video, but he was crucial to the look and feel of ZTT. The Dada and futurist-influenced aesthetic and winking pseudo-corporate speak filling liner notes, label press releases, and manifestos were all Morley’s doing, no doubt. All of this conflicting but complementary energy created a classic record label that’s worthy of study and admiration. 

Also: I wonder if Rod Stewart was aware of what Horn said about him here when Horn was hired to produce a Rod Stewart album.

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Ausklang – Chronos → Soaring spaciousness abounds on Chronos, an album from the Berlin-based trio Ausklang. The band’s not quite moody enough for post-rock, a bit too drummy for ambient, and way too heady for indie-rock. They’re somewhere in the middle of all of that, probably closer to what I hesitate to call “soundtrack rock.” Ausklang are like a Popol Vuh for the drone-footage age, replacing the ecstatic mysticism with shoegazey optimism. 

The pieces are primarily improvised, the best bits edited together, and then overdubs added — a songwriting process pioneered by fellow German space cadets CAN. But while CAN gloriously sprawled and looped, Ausklang build and erupt. The title track, for instance, is a subdued slow-end jam that blasts itself into reverb-drenched guitar lines and cymbal crashes near the five-minute mark. And then there’s the gorgeous “Future Memories,” lulling the listener with a beatific guitar-then-piano melody before a Slowdive-like upward swell washes everything away.

The band performs a two-hour improvised ambient set every week at The Zionskirche, a 19th-century neo-romantic church. This aspect of Ausklang closes out Chronos via two beatless tracks that combine light drones, guitar atmospherics, and hopeful piano. Thus the album’s sequence mirrors the band’s dynamic sense — the tracklist progressively glides and thickens before floating down to a gentle landing. The album is so satisfying upon reaching the end, it’s tempting to replay Chronos from track one and fly again.

User-Centric Dreaming

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User-Centric Dreaming → The user-centric streaming royalty model — explained and critiqued here — was the focus of a new study by the National Music Centre in France. Using data from Deezer (who are publicly open to exploring this model) and Spotify (who aren’t but might be shifting), the study determined a small advantage for niche artists, offset by the amount of major label back-catalog material that makes up the majority of streams. Here’s Stuart Dredge in Musically:

There is plenty more to parse from this new study, such as the likely increases for genres like classical music, jazz, metal and blues (and corresponding drops for streaming’s biggest genres: rap and hip-hop). Meanwhile, catalogue music is a beneficiary, which – again, as indicated in previous studies – is one reason why user-centric might not be the redistribution of revenues from major labels to independents that might have been expected.

The user-centric model dispenses of the system of pooled royalties that go out to artists streamed on platforms like Spotify. Instead, a listener’s subscription money only goes to the artists that a listener streams. So, if you listen to nothing but Merzbow1preferably at an ear-splitting volume on Spotify Premium for 30 days, then all of your $9.99 monthly subscription fee goes to Merzbow.

This model may not change the royalty pay-outs much, according to the study. But I’m still into the model for two reasons. First of all, I feel like it would give listeners more emotional investment in the artists they stream. I want to think we’d feel an additional connection with our listening choices, knowing that our streams contain direct support for our favorite artists. Though it’s worth noting, the much-maligned per-stream rate isn’t likely to change.2Though, as a Spotify Premium subscriber, if you only listened to one Merzbow song in a month, then that single stream is worth $9.99. Crazy, eh?

Second, and more significantly, the user-centric model would destroy the shadow industry of stream farms. These are the “pay X amount of dollars for ten thousand streams” folks who load songs into a wall of smartphones, playing a song on each repeatedly to increase stream counts. These plays also theoretically increase the royalties paid to the farmed songs, but it’s at the expense of other artists legitimately streamed on the platform because of royalty pooling. Under a user-centric model, if the stream farm pays $9.99 for a premium account, then the only potential royalty from that account comes out of that $9.99, even if the song is looped a kazillion times. And it won’t affect the royalties of valid artists.

As the Musically article points out, right now, this is all pie-in-the-sky thinking. That’s because for the adoption of the user-centric model, the major labels — many of whom are Spotify shareholders — would have to agree to it. As the model helps niche artists, even slightly, the majors are not going to let this happen.

Anyhoo … want to grok some more pros-and-cons on user-centric streaming? This analysis of how the model changes an artist’s digital marketing strategy, via Bas Grasmayer and his excellent MUSIC X newsletter, is an illuminating read.

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Daniel Lanois on WTF with Marc Maron + Rick Rubin on The Moment with Brian Koppelman → Possibly the best thing I did all week was listening to these two podcasts back-to-back. These conversations illustrate how a music producer’s role can overlap with some combination of philosopher, personal coach, and crisis manager. It’s not just about drum sounds and reverb. Lanois talks specifics about the process of wrangling great work from icons (and their giant egos), and Rubin expands on that with the big picture view. I recommend you listen in that order — a masterclass in the mindsets required to inspire others into action, not just applicable to inside a recording studio. Bonus: this interview with Trevor Horn conducted by Prince Charles Alexander (also a producer of renown) has a lot more ‘shop talk’ than the previous two but is still a fascinating listen. Horn is such an engaging interviewee. 

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Burdy – Satellite → Back in the ’90s, all of us downtempo-headz listened to lots of Fila Brazillia and the other artists inhabiting the Hull, UK, imprint Pork Recordings. One act that stood out was Baby Mammoth, a duo who shared Fila’s knack for melody and sly rhythmic constructions. An amicable gent named Burdy was one-half of Baby Mammoth. We ended up becoming friends thanks to his semi-frequent sojourns to the US, where we often DJ’ed the same club nights. After a couple of solo releases and a stint as an Australian, Burdy took a long break from music-making. Now he reaches out from his new base in chilly Canada, surprising us with a delightful album of fresh music. Satellite is out today on Filtered Deluxe Recordings and features ten tracks that won’t disappoint fans of the Mammoth or their Pork label-mates. The songs feature Burdy’s sense of melody, sense of humor (“Murder Hornets,” anyone?), and his sense of style. Meaning, this is stylish stuff — pleasantly sloping beats, a rush of organic and electronic instrumentation, and vibes for days (or daze) make me wistful for when we used to pack dance floors with 100 BPMs and below. Start with the second track, “Kananaskis,” with its road-movie guitar, watery bounce, and cryptic chants, immediately pulling you in for the long haul. 

Groove On: How DJs Created the 12″ Single

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The other day I wrote about music delivery and formats (CD, LP, streaming) and how these often influence music creation. This latest installment of Vox’s always excellent Earworm series flips this around. The video documents how the 12” single filled the need of ‘70s club DJs requiring songs with more time to groove and at higher fidelity than a 7” or LP track could deliver.

Here are a few quick thoughts on the video:

  • People tend to forget how long disco — and club culture — was an active underground movement before its mainstream overload. Some of the early dates in the video may surprise some. And though not strictly ‘disco,’ David Mancuso’s first Loft party was in 1970, as an early benchmark.
  • Can we note how cool it is that some contemporary DJs like Questlove and Orlando’s DJ BMF often go back to playing 7” vinyl sets, just as Nicky Siano once did? Not only is this throwback an homage and a connector to the past, but I think one becomes a better DJ — learning techniques to apply to modern digital methods — by stripping the practice down to its roots.
  • Paul Morley, appearing in the video, has a place in 12” history not mentioned in the piece. He was a co-founder — alongside Trevor Horn — of ZTT Records and an original Art Of Noise member. Morley’s input was mainly in the label’s image, branding, and writing the grandiose label copy and manifestos that accompanied each release, but he certainly had a say in the label’s groundbreaking music direction. One element of that direction: ZTT 12” mixes weren’t merely extended versions. These were complete reworks of the original songs, with new instrumentation, drum tracks, and even extra vocals. This type of remixing is normal in dance music now — a simple extended version is a rarity — but, in ZTT’s time, it was a radical technique. I’m not sure if any label was doing these types of remixes before ZTT. My favorite ZTT rework/remix? This one for Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Rage Hard” which takes the listener on a tour of the “strange world of the 12”.”
  • I would have loved to have heard “I Feel Love” for the first time with fresh, unprepared 1977 ears. Brian Eno’s initial reaction was probably shared by many.

Dream Within A Dream: The Story Of Propaganda (and ZTT)

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This online article I ran across about ’80s electronic pop outfit Propaganda also serves as a short warts-and-all early history of ZTT, Trevor Horn’s always intriguing imprint:

(Paul) Morley had begun his career as a music writer. Famed for largely spearheading the career of Joy Division through his coverage in the NME, he had, however, in January 1983, immediately prior to receiving Propaganda’s demo, abandoned journalism so that he could concentrate on establishing ZTT (or Zang Tumb Tuum to give it its full title), together with producer Trevor Horn and Horn’s wife, Jill Sinclair.



While Jill Sinclair concentrated on its day-to-day management, and Horn produced the bands on its roster, Morley was ZTT’s publicist. Responsible for its carefully-crafted image, he designed most of its early record sleeves, often adorning them with secret messages and symbols, and became eventually involved in creating a clothing range for it. He also manufactured slogans for the label and in florid prose wrote manifestos and missive statements for it and its bands.



“ZTT’s main aim is to re-establish the glory of pop records as one of the fanciest and most fascinating ways of communication in the 20th century,” Morley proclaimed in a 1983 agenda in an early example of the exhibitionism, bluster and ambition for which his label would become renowned. “And to make ZTT the most interesting, provocative, crazy, and unpredictable record label of the ’80s.”


There’s a lot more of interest here for fans of ZTT, Propaganda, or tales of massive label / artist falling-outs. Here’s Part 1 and here’s Part 2.

While you’re at it, check out more of Paul Morley’s visual (and textual) influence on Art of ZTT … and Zang Tuum Tumb And All That is an impressive archive of all that pertains to the label.