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WINDUPTOYS - Double Exposure

LISTEN TO AN EXCLUSIVE TRACK FROM THE WINDUPTOYS
This track will not be released on the new album 'Double Exposure', and is exclusive to Creative Vibes
Check it out now: Switched On Dub.mp3

Heard enough sensitive glitch-pop yawns cooked up by yet another kid with a
laptop and a bunch of soft-synths? Then return to an age when technology
was real technology, knobs were real knobs and plug-ins were really plugged
in!

Combine one-third chill-out textures more spacious than the 5th dimension,
one-third dub grooves deeper than a black hole, one-third walls-of-sound
more solid than solidified platinum and one third bleep-rock signals beamed
into space as evidence of human intelligence. The result is Double
Exposure, the debut album from Melbourne's leading exponents of experimental
dub electronica, Windup Toys.

Windup Toys formed in the early years of the 21st century, the meeting of two
great musicians, studio producers and live sound engineers, Robert Boehm and
Jeremy Smith. Contributions to the earlier Clan Analogue release Defocus
and the new dub compilation Clan Analogue In Version, along with their
Switch On EP, have already been heard by ears tuned to currents moving in
the ether. Double Exposure also features collaborations with like-minded
musical iconoclasts Psyburbia and Koshowko. Their common passion for
gadgets, devices, toys and accidental technologies has enabled Windup Toys to
emerge from their studio with the great new hope of Australian electronic
music.

Windup Toys have built their album with quality old-fashioned electronic
music values, hard to find lately but occasionally seen in the work of peers
like Add N to X, Meat Beat Manifesto and DJ Food. Peak through the studio
window during the legendary Double Exposure sessions and you would have
observed electricity, diodes, filters, oscillators, feedback loops, reverse
phasing, tape machines, voltage, modified grooveboxes and more, all working
towards the glorious cause of sound itself.

Sample pure analogue genius: Double Exposure, the debut album from
Windup Toys.


THE MAKING OF DOUBLE EXPOSURE - Windup toys explain the secrets of their studio

There are no computers on this album
1. On: Accidental recordings of power switches turning on whilst connected to various fx units, combined with mysterious flutters from who knows where.
2. Switch On: A song about the delights and evils of using technology and the resulting monsters of sound.
3. Lost and Found: After one of our machines lost all of its samples during a live show, we reconstructed the track into a new tune using pieces looped from the live recording combined with Dave Jetson's chewed up and spat out drum sounds.
4. Windup DUB: Jeremy devours the English language while Bo is lost in his playpen of toys. Guests Michael Di Cerco on percussion and Megan Kenny on flutes add a distinctive middle eastern flavour to proceedings.
5. DUB on Mars! A collaborative effort in which fragments of a tune by Psyburbia are combined with toy piano and sfx, some Ravel v. Pink Floyd style keyboard meanderings taking the journey even further into space.
6. Point of No Return: Exquisite hammer dulcimer by Nicholas Albanis (Dandelion Wine) adds an extra layer of darkness to this sombre dub track, combined with textures familiar to those who remember Bo's legendary band Clowns Smiling Backwards.
7. Switched On: We gave Koshowko the pieces to 'Switched On Dub' and they created a whole new puzzle!
8. ZZZZZ: This piece of exotica meets electronica contains cut-up glockenspiel surrounded by vinyl samples and loops, as Megan floats in and out with a plethora of flutes creating sounds not unlike the insect world.
9. The Suit: Our version of a PIL song reveals our industrial and post-punk influences.
10. GhostDub: The distorted synthesizers of Nick Wilson (Continuum) conjure up more eerie sounds to this spooky soundscape dub mania.
11. Variable One: Jeremy and Paul Scott (High Pass Filter) add sprinkles and sparkles of fx to this childlike melodic tune, featuring toy piano and kalimba samples.
12. Switch Off: A menacing electrotrash storm after the calm - best played loud!
13. OFF: Our soundtrack influences coming to the fore to round out the album. Switches turning off, our brains turning off, the lights turning off, as we are left with only lingering fragments. OFF! (fade to black)

WINDUPTOYS - Double Exposure is available through Clan Analog, and distributed by Creative Vibes

 

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