Wednesday 29 June 2016

The Bunker Tapes EP


Underground Sound




Over the past few months I have been working with John Foxx on the soundtrack to a stage play based on EM Forster's amazing short story The Machine Stops, about a future where humans live underground and communicate electronically via Skype (seriously)

It seems like ages ago now, but back in May we went up to York to finalise the soundtrack and work with the cast and production team at the Pilot Theatre / Theatre Royal studio. More on the play later, but as part of the general build up to the play's opening we were asked to do a special one-off concert at the York Cold War Bunker. How could we turn that down!?! I love things to do with secret government projects and anything from the 1960s-80s period. If you have a few days to spare, check out this website. The bunker has a very small capacity so we decided to play a short (20 minute) set and do it 4 times to 4 different audiences. Weird idea, no? Anyway it worked really well, and the sound man on the night, Ben Eyes, made a decent recording of the performances direct through the sound desk and also with a stereo room mic. I have mixed and mastered it and it will be available on the MemeTune digital download site soon. Here are some pictures of us performing, taken during sound check by Ben Pugh



And here is a really well made video



What is really interesting about the York Cold War Bunker is that it lets you see "behind the curtain" and glimpse some of the mad things that go on without us knowing. For example, look at that last picture of Foxxy and I sitting in front of that awesome glass map. You see all those dots forming a grid covering the whole of the UK, approximately 10 miles apart from each other? They are all underground bunkers! Yes thats right theres a secret bunker very near you right now!!!