Gary Numan

[Erneuert]

I posted a couple of screen grabs here:

https://www.echoingthesound.org/comm...112#post454112

[Substance242]

And the thing is this:
https://slatemt.com/raven-mtz/

[Erneuert]

Latest update is very exciting:

Ade has been here since last Thursday. The idea was to record vocals for the new versions of the Sacrifice, Exile and Pure albums that Ade is working on separate to the new Intruder album. However, due to the studio problems, he has so far spent every day in the studio with me working through the various issues to get me up and running again. I can't tell you what a difference it's made having him here. He's pretty much got the whole range of problems sorted out, and so the news is good. The studio upgrade is not finished but it's almost good enough for me to start work again. Waiting for a new computer to arrive today and, with that, I'll be able to start work again in the next day or two. This video is a montage of film clips that show us working on getting the room working, including a dog invasion at one point.

[Demogorgon]

Waaaaaaaait wait wait. New versions/new vocals for Sacrifice, Exile, and Pure? Those are my 3 favorite albums from the Numan modern era. Here's hoping that they aren't vinyl exclusive.

[Helpmeiaminhell (is now in hell)]

I just dropped 90 bucks on a factory sealed copy of the totally out of print 1999 reissue of Sacrifice (with the 4 bonus tracks).....Probably my fav Numan album....Not so sure I dig the idea of re-recording it....That would be like Trent re-recording PHM.....Gary wanting to re-record Sacrifice, Exile and Pure is interesting as a novelty concept but it seems kind of odd fucking with albums that are already perfect....What he should really do is re-record some of those 80s albums without the fucking backup singers and put a harder edge on the songs because theres a lot of great shit on those records that got bogged down from glossy production, backup singers and Garys own misdirection....I would like to hear an industrialized version of Strange Charm 2.0 and Beserker 2.0....New Anger 2019 bring it

[botley]

I like the songs on Sacrifice, Exile, and Pure but there are certain days where I just cannot listen to them. Some of those tracks are very dated-sounding (almost as much as the mid-80s period), and certainly sound quite repetitive and thin compared to what Gary and Ade have achieved working together since then. Sacrifice was basically done in a home demo studio, largely for fun, using drum loops stolen from contemporary Depeche Mode albums. That's certainly a vibe, but again there are some days where it's like nails on a blackboard for me. So... if all goes well, this project could turn out to be a dream come true! Same great songs, only with vastly improved production values. Hooray!

Y'know, Numan fans love to bitch about the excessive use of slap bass, saxophone, and other singers' voices on his 80s-era records. Yes, those are dated-sounding arrangements, but to me, they still meet the professional audio standard of properly-made studio recordings... so I don't have as much of a problem with those. The 90s-vintage stuff is remarkable in its own way, but the cheap-sounding loops and poorly recorded instruments and vocals are what bring them down, in my estimation. I have hope that Ade's work can fix that.

[Erneuert]

When he signed my Sacrifice vinyl a few years back, he mentioned that he wanted to re-release it with better production as he intended it to sound originally, less muddy. It seems like he’s taken that idea and expanded upon it.

@botley - and a lot of the sounds are also used on The Radial Pair soundtrack.

[Kulerage]

I'm with some of you guys on Sacrifice having pretty sub-par production for Numan standards, although I love it all the same. Be very cool to finally see this album fleshed out more.

[Erneuert]

Are those words from an actual song on the cheat sheets up to buy? -

https://garynumanmm.tmstor.es/cart/p...=41839&cur=GBP

[botley]

Are those words from an actual song on the cheat sheets up to buy? -

https://garynumanmm.tmstor.es/cart/p...=41839&cur=GBP

Um, no. It's one of those typeface sample text-things, purely to show off "y" and "q" and other weird seldom-used letters look on the page.

[Erneuert]

I thought I was going crazy for a second there.

[Erneuert]

In the latest update GN says he will be re-recording the vocals for Sacrifice and Pure this week sometime, and plays the rough version of a track currently titled “Aeon” (or “Aon?) as that was the name of the recording software used to first lay down the track:

https://garynumanmm.tmstor.es/?page=blog&blog_id=71#b71

[Erneuert]

Nice little article about the Sacrifice album:

http://www.electricity-club.co.uk/lo...man-sacrifice/

[Substance242]

13 older songs were dropped on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/user/GaryNumanOfficial/videos

As much as I love Savage, I've never searched for the older stuff, so this is mostly new to me, and "Rip" is perfect!

Also I was surprised to find out that Numan is skilled acrobat pilot.

[rampface]

Am I the only person who enjoys the Dance, I, Assassin and Warriors eras?

[botley]

Am I the only person who enjoys the Dance, I, Assassin and Warriors eras?

Hell no, brah, check out my avatar!

Warriors isn't one I've spun lately, though I really like the title track and "Sister Surprise". I wish there had been an official recording from The Fury tour! "Call Out the Dogs" still slaps hard (as the Machine Music Live album/DVD proves).

[Helpmeiaminhell (is now in hell)]

Am I the only person who enjoys the Dance, I, Assassin and Warriors eras?

Theres a lot of cool stuff to be found in his early/mid 80s era. Strange Charm is the most underrated of them all...

[REPLICA]

I finally got in on the upcoming album pre-order. Since the picture disc and the colored signed editions were sold out, I went with the standard black signed edition. I've been enjoying the updates provided. I really want that white label I, Assassin or Dance but I don't have near $800/$930 laying around... Thought about saving up for A Question of Faith white label 7" or a written copy of My Breathing lyrics.

I recently picked up two copies of the I Die: You Die single from the Netherlands. 1 Green copy and 1 Blue copy! I'm very happy with that!

[REPLICA]

Am I the only person who enjoys the Dance, I, Assassin and Warriors eras?

Those albums had a lot of great songs. Crash, War Songs, Sister Surprise. I, Assassin is my favorite of the bunch and I actually tried to replicate (yep) that image when I was going to my senior prom in 2007.

[Shadaloo]

I'll go to bat for most of Berserker any day of the week, just sayin'.

[Erneuert]

The new audio update sounds really good.

Posted on 19/06/2019 by Gary Numan Making Music
The song I've been working on for a while now, and played you a little of last time, now has a verse vocal. It's rough, but definitely good enough to give you an idea. The lyrics are close but might have some small changes before it's finished. Tomorrow I'll be working on the chorus melody and, if I can get that worked out, the chorus lyric. Hopefully, if I have a good day, that will all be done by the evening which will make this one ready to send to Ade. The working title for this so far has been Aeon but this is likely to be the album title track, so I'll call it Intruder. I'm just playing the first two verses here and stopping it before it gets to the chorus section. I've also cut out most of the intro for the time being, although you heard that on the last update I think. If you listen to this on anything that doesn't have good low end it will probably sound shit. The power in this comes from the weight of the low end. In my studio it's floor rumbling heavy, and that's where it works. This may be something that always sounds better and more powerful live, unless you have a good system to listen at home. Anyway, that's all the excuses I can think of

[Erneuert]

Bunch of merchandise and music on sale for reduced prices -

https://garynuman.tmstor.es/index.ph...s&section=Sale

[botley]

While we wait for more new album updates, let's talk about the old shit some more. I'd like to quickly take a minute to review ALL of Numan's albums, because there's a tour coming up where he's said he'll try to play something from each one!

The two Tubeway Army LPs (self-titled debut & Replicas) are an odd pairing. Gary was just writing punk songs, purely to get a record deal and launch his teenage ambitions with Paul Gardiner and a rotating cast of drummers/backing guitarists, and then Gary's discovery of Moog synthesizers changed absolutely everything right away. I like the punky stuff (even The Plan anthology of TA demos) for its quirky pimply weirdness, but "Jo the Waiter" especially points a clear way forward from the first: an acoustic ballad about gender-swapping, with pulsating synths... this was divine to hear as an encore on the recent throwback shows. Things get very dark indeed with Replicas, as heavy sci-fi influences came out in the lyrics, and those dreamy washes of synth overdubs improved the sound considerably. I think all the tracks on this second album are good, and it's clearly a touchstone for Gary as well; he routinely cites "Down in the Park" as being his favourite song he ever wrote. Amazing cover imagery, too: with a Grey overcoat man in the Park outside, a nightmarish robotic "Friend in the hallway" under the title text, and the reverse cover's "Replica" eye with horizontal pupils.

Rather than tour for either album, though, Gary kept going straight back into the studio to capitalize on his rapidly-ascending chart popularity, with new band members, for a provisional follow-up record as Tubeway Army. Those demo sessions (some ended up on The Pleasure Principle 30th Anniversary deluxe CDs) were happening just as they appeared on Top of the Pops, with "Are 'Friends' Electric?" going to number one and Gary's career exploding into celebrity. Gary convinced the record company he needed to go solo instead of hanging on to the use of the band name, as it was already him singing, writing, designing, and producing everything on the records anyhow (with special thanks to his band members for their brilliant arrangements). He was right, and would soon take on stage-costume and set/lighting design responsibilities too, with the Replicas/spinning pyramid future-images from the covers as his early cue. The Pleasure Principle is eerie and awash in beautiful shiny synths, like Replicas is, but it definitely stands apart with the deliberate and quite clever decision to incorporate violin and viola, courtesy of Billie Currie (from Ultravox!) and Chris Payne, respectively, with no guitars on the album whatsoever. Alternating the sheer, inhuman Polymoog screams with a warmer real-strings texture was an unusual move, and each song sounds amazingly fresh. Americans missed out on almost all of this, because "Cars" was simply too big a hit.

Megatours followed, and more hits, too much celebrity, and a retreat into hobby flying. Gary's 1981 album Dance obviously has the special-est place in my heart, with the amazing entrance of Mick Karn to fill in for Gardiner (who was Gary's best friend from even before Tubeway Army, very sadly killed in the terminal stages of a heroin addiction)... but I want to reiterate that all the songs on the Telekon album (particularly the versions that include "I Die: You Die") are just friggin' wall-to-wall bangers. It has those hard pop-and-locking beats, dark lyrical content, and for melodic intrigue you can't do much better than the title track. Ced Sharpley and Paul were the baddest-ever English rhythm section, for my money, and Telekon was the second and last album where both of them played together. And for as much as I do like the 1980s period that came after that two-shot of dark masterpieces, Telekon is truly the bridge from Pleasure Principle and all that came before it towards Gary's present-day musical era.

His reinventions with the 1930s gangster funk Assassin character in I, Assassin (Gary's use of Pino Palladino on bass pre-dating Hesitation Marks by a full thirty years), and the Road Warrior on Warriors, are basically following on from the theatrical visual style of those earliest days, which he's been returning to recently (half-heartedly, with Splinter's Weird Old American top-hat stylings, then more fully embraced with everyone onstage in desertification survival costumes for Savage). There is a lot more hard funk and jazz influence in this period, which his label Beggars Banquet was no longer interested in promoting, so he started his own — Numa Records. Unfortunately, this coincided with his songwriting taking a turn for the cheesy with Warriors and the icy Kabuki of Berserker. The reliance on sickly-slick, contemporary pop vocal-backups, and increasing use of sax solos when Gary's own melodic ideas run out becomes a more dire problem the further into the mid-80s you go. There are still good songs on all of these records, particularly The Fury with its bracing coldness offset by the weepy pop ballad "Miracles", and the tours were all apparently worthy spectacles... check out The Fury's epic tour staging, with the live band entering on hydraulic lifts at the start of this "Call Out the Dogs" music video:



With big budgets going into stage production on these tours, and no major record label support, Numan kept chasing a more mainstream pop sound. Despite somewhat healthy sales from diehard fans, the change in direction had the opposite of the intended effect and Gary's career slid entirely out of mainstream into obscurity. Collaborations with Bill Sharpe and other artists as a co-composer didn't have any appreciable impact, and by the time Strange Charm came out in 1986, he was starting to run out of money and ideas (the cover image is essentially Roy Batty from Blade Runner only with Numan's own bleach-blond hair from 1977 re-grafted on top). Signing with Miles Copeland's IRS Records didn't help, either, and taking creative direction from them proved to be a poisoned chalice. They botched the launch of Metal Rhythm in America, which Numan was hoping to live in again after a brief stint in L.A. around 1982. He wouldn't actually emigrate until over thirty years later (documented in the brilliant film Android in La-La-Land). There is a touch of desperation in the somewhat catchy but over-produced Outland, and by returning to Numa in defeat with the absolutely dire Machine+Soul he was simply at creative rock bottom.

To be continued...

[WorzelG]

^^^i need to give all of these albums another listen, especially as I’m going to see him in November when he says he’ll do songs from all albums! I have a real soft spot for Berserker as well, love the title track, My Dying Machine and This is New Love particularly

[botley]

Part two:

After the brutal failure of Machine+Soul killed off his last remaining prospects at traditional chart success, Gary Numan had a complete re-think of his career, and decided to keep releasing music purely for enjoyment. This newfound enthusiasm reinvigorated his songwriting chops, and gradually he began to get more on track with each successive release, and toured extensively once more. The first post-renaissance effort, Sacrifice, bears the marks of a craftsman re-learning his trade after enduring battle weariness and shell-shock. It sounds like a home recording (it was), but the return of anthemic guitar-led choruses meant that much of Numan's fanbase would gradually come back on board as they realized he had found out what he was good at doing all along.

His home production skills advanced a little more with the release of Exile on Eagle Records in the UK, a label who'd see him into the next decade just as various anthologies and re-packagings of old material flooded the market to cash in on people becoming more aware of his work for the first time. This is when the association with NIN and other contemporary rock artists name-checking and covering his tunes became a calling card. With the Pure album in 2000, he really clinched it... catchy singles, good videos, a more straight-up Goth image to appeal to fans of those artists (most of whom were influenced by Numan himself) and the critical reaction was very strong. I like these three albums very much, but in all cases the production relies a bit too much on very basic, repetitive drum grooves, meaning that the music doesn't hold up as well as the human-played stuff from his earliest work. As I've said before, I'm quite excited to hear how they'll sound with new music and vocals, hopefully we'll get to hear that later this year.

After the remix/retrospective project Hybrid, Numan returned with a full-length new LP called Jagged in 2006. Here he partnered for the first time with Ade Fenton (who is helming production on the aforementioned re-recorded albums this year), incorporated live string players again, and even NIN drummer Jerome Dillon played live percussion on several tracks. Its style is a bit more in keeping with the direction Numan and Fenton have pursued as collaborators ever since. I think a few of the songs are a bit too long and same-y, but otherwise it's a very fine album indeed. He toured behind this one quite a lot, and the 2006 Toronto show is where I got to meet him afterwards for the first time! I think the two-disc remix album Jagged Edge is also worth tracking down, there are quite a few excellent alternate versions dating from pre-production sessions with the Sulpher team (who also worked on Pure) as well as some quite fine Fenton/Numan re-imagined versions, including a keyed-up "In a Dark Place" on disc two that's worth the price of admission alone, and has been the template for live versions ever since.

Following the Jagged album, Numan had a bout of writer's block coinciding with a mood disorder, and the 2011 album Dead Son Rising was an attempt to combine unfinished ideas and demos from previous projects with Ade Fenton's co-writing, production and programming techniques, to really invigorate these tracks with new life. In my opinion, it's stellar. They took what could have been an absolute disaster, a drought that would have derailed the steady climb back from oblivion, and made it into one of the best albums of his career. The influence of sci-fi pops up again in his writing, as well as personal relationships (themes mostly absent since the 80s, but which he would return to on the following two albums). Again, there is a great remix album for it called Dead Moon Falling complete with Alessandro Cortini's spellbinding SONOIO remix of "Dead Sun Rising" and a couple of outstanding collaborative tracks at the end, such as this bizarre little tune "Petals" co-written with Officers:



NIN's own Robin Finck contributes guitar to a few tracks on Splinter (Songs from a Broken Mind) but the real attraction is the creepy, oppressive atmospheres and widescreen choruses, along with a melodic sophistication that elevates the hard-hitting lyrics into some quite brilliant songs. Of course, it doesn't hurt that it's his best-sung album ever, with a masterful command of sliding notes both in those big singalong chorus vocals and the intimate, almost-whispered verses. This absolute mastery continues with the similarly-titled Savage (Songs from a Broken World) but the depth of field is wider, with a dystopian, arid post-Climate Change landscape as the backdrop. Persia, his young daughter, has also been recruited to sing backing with her father on this record and has appeared onstage with him at many shows (in costume and all!). Numan has saved the best so far for last, with The Fallen, a brand-new EP of three new songs tacked on to some digital editions of Savage. I believe it's the culmination of all he's achieved so far and can't wait to see what is in store for us all next.

[Erneuert]

^ The stuff happening around the Sacrifice era I find really interesting since the ideas seem spread out over several places: “Mission” had been played as a live intro (and featured on Dream Corrosion) before Sacrifice came out. A lot of the drum beats and music is featured on The Radial Pair and (I’m pretty sure) on either The Unborn soundtrack or the Human soundtrack with Michael R. Smith (or both?). Some of the soundscapes on Outland even sound similar. Then there’s this little tidbit taken from Wikipedia:

The album actually started off as a project entitled "Vicious". Various tracks were worked on with, amongst others, previous Machine + Soul producer Kipper but Numan wasn't quite happy with the direction, and it was whilst he was considering signing to another label that they suggested he record vocals to a recently released soundtrack for The Radial Pair. Numan did not sign on to the label but instead adopted these tracks along with others which eventually became "Sacrifice" after hearing Depeche Mode album Songs of Faith and Devotion and decided this was the musical direction he wanted to take. "Play Like God" and the demo "Metal Beat" were dropped from the album, appearing on later re-releases in 1998 and 1999.

[botley]

Yes, it's quite similar to Dead Son Rising in that respect; lots of disparate pieces went into it. "Play Like God" is a fun one, you can tell he was really enjoying playing the heavy guitar parts again.

[Erneuert]

I wonder if there is any correlation between the Vicious and Savage titles.

[Erneuert]

Gary just posted three new updates to the MM campaign. Just watched the first one, about to watch the second one now. It’s really interesting watching this Intruder song come together.

The second one is called “The End Of Dragons” - a tentative new song title. Perhaps a reference to “The End Of Things” from Savage?

Posted on 15/07/2019 by Gary Numan Making Music

I've filmed a 20 minute update to bring you up to date with where I'm at on Intruder. That's a bit long to upload in one go so I've broken it down into three shorter updates that I'll upload over the next couple of days. Apologies for looking like a startled scarecrow but brushing my hair or even looking in a mirror is not something I do very often when I'm working, or when I'm not working if I'm really honest.


Also, these are the lyrics for the Aeon song, which is now called Intruder. No chorus lyrics here yet as I still haven't worked out how that's going to go musically. These lyrics have already been adapted once but I think I'm happy with them now. I've done a new vocal for it but not entirely happy with that still so I'll probably try it again. I'm dragging the first word of each line slightly so it lacks that rhythmic punch that it needs to work with the groove it sits on top of. I didn't notice at first but on subsequent listening's I began to notice what was wrong with it. I don't have that on these updates actually but when I get back from my next trip and do the new vocal I'll show you the differences between them. It's subtle but it matters.


Intruder (Aeon)


I could listen to you scream
Pretty music to my ears
I could listen to it all day
If you want me to?


I could talk about my world
How you brought about ruin
I could talk about your greed
If you want me to?


I could look into evil
See a heart just like mine
I could throw away reason
If you want me to?


I could walk into darkness
Find the hole you crawled into
I will be the intruder
If you want me to?


I could listen to more lies
About promises you kept
Will you walk on water
Like you said you would?


I could make you my prisoner
But you were dead men talking
When you burned the oceans
Like you said you would


I'm going away now, back on August 20th, so the only progress for the next few weeks will be what I can come up with on my laptop as I'm travelling.

[Erneuert]

So, in summary:

- Gary’s been asked to do the soundtrack for a big, big-budget film, but he’s waiting to hear back from them, putting him in an anxious position as he doesn’t know how he’ll get everything done if they suddenly approach him about it any time soon. He’s also been approached about another film, though not as big a budget as the first one mentioned.

- Wants to get 4-5 songs finished for the new album by year’s end.

- Sounds like most, if not all, of the vocals have been done for the Sacrifice/Exile/Pure “new” versions with Ade in London.

- The soundscapes and potential film sounds and/or tour intros he previews are a-maz-ing!

- Couldn’t help but laugh when he shows the keyboard with all black keys. He first saw it and thought it was “sexy as fuck,” then it became a nightmare to use in the studio because it’s dark, and it’s just like staring at a black void, not being able to hit the right keys. Apparently he’s going to replace it lol.