In the Autumn term of my third year of uni, I was casting around for a new musical project to further distract me from my studies. My previous band, Whizzers Of Waz, had drawn to a close the previous term and I knew it would be a hard act to follow (to quote Fraser Smith, who we were supporting at the time, "Whizzers Of Waz - what the fuck were they on about?").
I had decided I wanted to do 'live dance music' but hadn't yet figured how that would work. Of course, the eventual result was E-Bru, which in the early days went down a very definite drum 'n' bass route, but there were various other experiments along the way. They culminated in a live jam with about 8 people - keyboards, guitars, drums (live and programmed), percussion, bass, samples and tape loops. The session was a lot of fun, but made me realise I really didn't want to go down the massive line-up route again. So Bob and I locked ourselves in a room, drank some strong coffee and went looking for a mad singer/dancer to complete the three-piece.
Unfortunately, no recording of the mega-jam exists (to my knowledge), but I do have recordings of some of the earlier experiments, and this is one of them. It was a collaboration between me and a first-year called JD (I'm not sure if I ever new what the initials stood for), and is basically a live jam - JD on drum machine and me on keyboards.
The track is heavily and obviously influenced by Baroque music, which is something I have had a great affinity with since A-level music, where we harmonised Bach corales on a weekly basis. In my second year of uni, I had even toyed with a new style of music I had invented, called Barock, but couldn't drum up enough other interested parties to realise my grand plans.
This track draws from those same influences, and marks the tiny part of the Venn diagram where 18th century fugal counterpoint and 1990s house music intersect. However, as I said, my focus subsequently moved towards a more computer-based approach - proof that the old adage is true; my Bach is worse than my byte!