DESCRIPTION:
XTC Homespun
The Apple Venus Volume One Home Demos


"I bought, while writing 'Nonsuch', a Proteus sound module and had it re-jigged to include a lot of orchestral samples. It sounds wetly hippy, but I was trying to get my head into this SPACE. More rosin-ville than plectrum place. When 'Nonsuch' and all its doings were well and truly done, I sat down one day and drifted off, doodling aimlessly. Before long, I started to get hot under the trouser cuff. This cyclical phone pad sketch that had wormed out note by note, over two bars of cascading pizzicato strings and an offbeat rosary of trumpet clusters. Was really making me want to dance and yell.



"Technical note: this demo was recorded on a Tascam 238 8 track cassette Portastudio. It lacks the long drip/pluck intro of the finished version, which came to be as a better way of building this sound river, one ploop at a time, as I was convinced from its inception that it would make a great album opener. I had no way of altering or remixing this demo as I had sold the recorder to Blur's Damon Albarn. Sounds like he's used it well since then."

Andy Partridge