Not since 2017’s “gorgeous” (AV Club) and “hypnotizing” (Make Weird Music) 59-track experimental score to U.S. nuclear weapons tests, Sound for Bombs, has audio engineer and multi-hyphenate musician Andrew Jones released a fully electronic collection. His latest release marks a return to circuits to demonstrate the shift from twiddling knobs to self-expression.
Sketchpad I: Electronic Studies 2019-2021 consists of technical bench tests, etudes, and explorations on analog and digital synthesizers and drum or tape machines captured across approximately three years, a “best of” among moments Jones happened to record while practicing, pushing equipment to its limits, or testing electronic instruments freshly/to be repaired. In this environment, all tracks ended up being recorded live direct to two-track digital or analog formats in Jones’s studio with no overdubs.
The tracks on Sketchpad I achieve emotional resonance in spite of their strictly utilitarian naming conventions, ranging in feel from a Ryuichi Sakamoto-esque pensiveness to Caterina Barbieri-like anxiousness. The tracks reveal Jones’s influences as well — “Digital Integration becomes Water Level BGM” evokes Nintendo 64-era aquatic video game landscapes, offering a hat tip to Koji Kondo and Hirokazu Tanaka. “Automated Noise Sweep Exercise” could comfortably sit between Suzanne Ciani or Douglas Leedy in a record collection.
Among the instruments used, a refurbished Juno 60 contributes to the near-exploding cassette sound of “Repair Test II and Tape Speed Manipulation.” An all-analog family of Moog and Roland synthesizers chime and hum in “All Oscillators Talking No MIDI," which was recorded on an iPhone 8+ in the room as Jones realized his practice session yielded something worth returning to.
Lest he be categorized as a conspicuous consumer or gear fetishist, not all items listed in the liner notes are in Jones’s personal collection. (He also manages equipment at a recording studio in his city of Denton, Texas, where he has access to more of the expensive or discontinued instruments mentioned.)
The gear could remain the central figure on the album and still appeal to much of the electronic music crowd, as the equipment chart Jones provides would make Isao Tomita blush. But the intent is to show all these things are simply means to an end. Jones released these impromptu recordings to show gear is not the goal, but just another way to express oneself, as the collection consistently demonstrates. Each track begins as a test or exercise, evolving and developing a connection with audiences beyond calibrating oscillators for synth nerds or confirming that, yes, that knob isn’t working right.
Sketchpad I: Electronic Studies 2019-2021 is as much for casual listeners seeking meditative electronic music as it is for the synth heads and gear freaks. It will be available exclusively on Bandcamp beginning Friday, June 4, 2021.
credits
released June 4, 2021
Recorded direct to two-track digital or tape at The Nest, Denton, TX, no overdubs, no MIDI.
COMPONENT EQUIPMENT USED FOR THIS ALBUM
SYNTHESIZERS
Moog Matriarch
Moog Grandmother
Moog Mother-32
Moog DFAM
Moog Prodigy
Roland JX-3P
Roland Juno 60
Roland RS-5
Critter and Guitari Organelle
Teenage Engineering OP-1
Elektron Digitakt
E-mu Drumulator
RECORDERS
Tascam DR-70D
Technics M226
Tiger Electronics Talkboy
Onde Magnetique-modified Sony TCM-20DV
Apple iPhone 8+
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