May 16, Rob Hill wrote:
>What a weird coincidence.
>
>Less than a week ago I heard an old OMD track on the radio and thought "I
>ought to post the list to find out which album I should buy first". This is
>in the recent knowledge that they have been known to use Mellotron (but
>mainly liking what songs I have heard) & never taking much notice of them as
>a band at the time.
>
>Then I thought everyone might take the piss so I didn't bother.
>
>Thanks Colin, I shall order it immediately!
>
>Another definitely "non-prog" album I really like with some good mellotron
>sounds is "Drink Me" by Salad - mid 90's Dutch, slight punky edge, probably
>deleted. Anybody posting an announcement that it's all samples and the
>fluffy animal gets it ...
>
>Rob
Cheers Rob!
Will try to check out that Salad album!
OMD used 'Tron extensively on "Architecture and Morality" (1981) and
sparingly on their 1983 follow up album "Dazzle Ships". I met the band at
that time and tried to buy their old Mellotron, (They had bought a second
machine, a Novatron, I believe) but they said that they liked sampling old
tapes with their new Emulator, and weren't about to discard it. Indeed,
there are examples of Emulatorated 'Tron on "Dazzle Ships" which make for
interesting listening. As a sequel to "Architecture" it doesn't quite cut
it, and appears to be trying to ape the classic 1975 Kraftwerk album
"Radioactivity", although some gorgeous badly tempered synthesizer and 'Tron
choir is featured on track entitled "The Romance of the Telescope"...
Dazzle Ships is worth buying for this alone. Get a second hand copy... there
must be thousands!
The work on "Architecture" must have been very labour intensive as they were
not awash with equipment. Identifiable are Korg Micro-Preset, Vox organ, Eko
Rhythmaker drum machine, Solina.... mostly cheap stuff as indeed was their
tired Mellotron in 1981. As I mentioned previously, this is the album for
Mellotron fans. Look past the pretentious '80s title and buy it!
After that (circa 1984) they started using Emulators in a more conventional
manner, the music started to sound "digital" and the thematic material went
"off" a bit, "Junk Culture" being the appropriately named album from that
year. Stuffed full of Prophet 5, OBX and other instruments thankfully of a
past era. How could I ever have thought them "cool"?
Andy McCluskey of OMD is the man behind current teenybop sensation "Atomic
Kitten"... In fact, listen carefully..... I'm sure that he's using up old
unrecorded OMD songs in the process. What is the betting that he still has
his old Mellotron still going strong somewhere, and it will feature on one
of the cute girlie band's tracks in the future? Also, what is the betting
that his Emulator is now scrap?!
Cheers f'Now!
CC