Track by track with Blame
Sirenoid (Creation)
“I was trying to come up with a name of a robot that sounded like it had power. I was toying with names and pieced two things together – ‘siren’ and ‘android’ – to make something quite menacing.
“This track links with the last track. They were meant to run into each other. With Creation you’d hear all these noises of a robot coming alive and starting to walk, then as it walks, it becomes a beat and the bassline comes in. It was kinda like a robot becoming the beat of a track.
“I wanted the track to kick in and pay it all off. But when I handed the album in, the label, kinda off their own back, made that one change and split this into two tracks, with the ‘Prologue’ at the end. I would have liked the chance to morph it nicely, instead of it being abruptly cut, which is kind of what they did.”
Into The Void
“This track is a tribute to the era I loved, growing up, which was electro. Classic tracks by people like Hashim or Herbie Hancock’s Rockit.
“I wanted to use the authentic sounds, so I used all the same [Roland] 808s, 909s, and the Juno [106] synth sounds. And also the same chords, based on the real mysterious minor chords.
“Then I used the Roland SVC-350 Vocoder, which a lot of those guys were using back then, for the ‘into the void’ vocal. I think I said ‘breakout’ in a robot-y voice as well. It was just this old skool, b-boy, breakdance jam, but as DnB.”
Chimera
“I have no idea how I got from electro into a jazz cafe vibe, with the walking double bass kinda thing.
“[DnB] Club nights like Speed exposed me to all this amazing music with these crazy jazz samples in. It sent me digging and I fell in love with Lonnie Liston Smith and Roy Ayers – all that classic jazz-fusion stuff. Chimera was my take on that.
“This is mainly live. I got musicians in and recorded them.
“The drums were sampled. Recording a jazz drum kit was a bit above my pay grade [laughs].
“I sampled loads of my favourite albums from that era, and chopped out every jazzy brush sample and panned them over a keyboard. Yeah, it was pretty time consuming.”
Firestorm
“This used a lot of the E-Mu [e6400 sampler] – I got a lot of the work out of that. This was also the beginning of what I became known for: that futuristic sci-fi sound. I was just trying to really push the envelope in DnB, and try and add a real forward-thinking push.
“I learned a lot, editing samples and chopping. It was all good, getting your 10,000 hours in. But it was pretty insane, the amount of sample editing that I did.
“When I listen back, I think I may have gone too far on a lot of the tracks. Maybe I should have put a regular sounding break in there, and then gone a bit wild on the sounds. Rather than go wild on the drums and the sounds.”
Tuscan
“I wanted to make a DnB track that sounded like the Tusken Raider Theme from Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. That whole Tatooine thing – a bit of an action scene.
“Again, collections of samples. I dread to think how many countless hours I spent layering them all out on keyboards [laughs].
“I had loads of zip disks with ‘Orchestral Samples 1’ or ‘Orchestral Samples 2’ written on them. I’d play the track and audition each disk to see if anything worked. Then I’d get that on one keyboard range, and span all the samples across the keys.
“I couldn’t do it today. I’d drive myself crazy. Staring at a little E-Mu screen, too! One colour. It’s like looking at a calculator.”
Immortal
“This was me, hunting for 100s of choral, choir samples. I used to love all those classic Belgian rave tracks that used choir samples over the beats. When you heard them in a club, it just sounded like the heavens opened. I always wanted to capture that, but in a new way.
“So, I spent 100s of hours looking for choral, choir sounds. I’m actually getting stressed out thinking about the amount of sampling I did!
“I found all these old monk samples and laid them all up and down the keys, playing different notes from different ones, piecing my own choir section together.
“Then, just to add more stuff, I added some thunder and rain – instant atmosphere taken from those old BBC Sound FX records [laughs].”
Lifeform
“Another futuristic, 720 Degrees thing – which was the label I was about to leave Good Looking for. I was paving the way for that.
“Again, filtered E-Mu synths and drums. And I vocodered myself singing ‘lifeform’ with a Roland SVC-350. I got that out of some classified ads in the back of a magazine. No manual.
“Because I had a Yamaha 02R desk, I could work on all the tracks at the same time. I’d take one as far as I could, then work on another. Now I know that’s not great for your mind.
“You might stop working on one, and pick up another. But, in the back of your mind, you know that you’re stuck on that first track.
“What’s crazy is you might be working on that other track and come up with something that you need to do on the first one! Sometimes doing something that’s completely different can give you the answer.”
“It was a cool bit of kit because it had one of those parametric EQs with all the different sliders that you moved up and down to EQ your voice, as you’re recording – amazing.”
Oceans Of Hope
“This is another one that seems like it might have been a bit self indulgent. It’s a late night electro and Rhodes piano combo, which is weird. Kinda futuristic drums and ’70s keyboards.
“It’s important to play actual music into your tracks. People ask, ‘What sample packs do you use?’ I didn’t. I have a bugbear about them. I get the convenience, but you’re losing something. That’s why I do videos online and show how much went into the creation of my tracks.
“It was therapeutic to make. I just wanted to absorb myself into something that felt calming and relaxing – with hope for what’s coming in the unknown, ahead.”
Mechanism.02
“I was really experimenting with the filters on the E-Mu e6400 sampler. I realised you could make a beat sound really mechanical. I thought, ‘What would happen if I sampled machine noises?’ Servers and printers.
“I was sampling all these crazy sounds, and layering them over the drums. It just kinda morphed into this machine breaks thing. If I was making my beats sound mechanical, why not go the whole hog and really make it really mechanical [laughs]?
“I was using a microphone to record stuff, and then hunting through BBC Sound FX records for machines whirring up. Then I’d find little toy car-type things that made noises. I’d record a bit of that and add it in to the mix, too.”
Steelback
“I was watching a lot of Ironside – the ’70s cop show with the classic
Quincy Jones theme and amazing chase scenes. I wanted to make something like that.
“Thinking back, I have no idea how the hell I made all these different types of tracks on one album and got away with it.
“The title of this is just my way of saying ‘Ironside’ [laughs].
“Nice double bass samples. It’s not live. But I recorded a double bass player and chopped him up. I killed part of my life chopping bass hits and spanning them up and down the keyboard to play new riffs with.
“It’s heavily inspired by Photek’s work on Rings Around Saturn. He told me he spent 100s of hours making that bass. That’s what you had to do.”
Forest Of Pagodas
“At the time, I was really into doing Shaolin kung fu, so wanted to make a track with that mystical, enchanted forest vibe, with Eastern flutes and a mysterious, magical sound.
“This was nice and fun to work on. Something like Sirenoid is quite cold. When you’ve hit a wall with that,
Forest Of Pagodas felt like a warm blanket – just a nice change to the harsh starkness of other tracks.
“I got a live flute player in. I wanted to get that bamboo flute vibe. “I don’t keep up with the kung fu. I had an injury and had to retire that. I just do gym work and stuff like that now. Exercise is very important if you’re in the studio all day.”
Sirenoid (Prologue)
“This is where the first track left off. It’s where the robot comes to life and it morphs into a DnB track. I was carrying on some of the robot sounds.
“So, that’s the album. Back then you’d never know what people thought of it. You’d put it out, and may have seen a few reviews, but no one told you how much they liked it, unless they wrote a letter to the label. And the record label actually cared enough to tell you.
“Now, online, I might post a picture of the old stuff and people are telling me all their stories and how they loved it.
“It’s mad to know that it actually did mean a lot to people. It might have taken 20 years to realise that some people may have liked it though [laughs].”
PEOPLE ASK, ‘WHAT SAMPLE PACKS DO YOU USE?’ I DIDN’T.