Ron Berry: Where Dark Forces Meet - VINYL LP

Title: Where Dark Forces Meet
Artist: Ron Berry
Label: Vinyl on Demand
Product Type: VINYL LP
UPC: 769791963511
Genre: Electronic
Release Date: 2016-09-02
Number of Discs: 1

A vinyl reissue of Ron Berry's Where Dark Forces Meet, originally released on cassette in 1982. Ron became interested in electronics as a child in the mid-fifties, making radios and other electronic projects. He built my first synthesizer from a magazine article, but the performance wasn't that great so he started to modify it. Before too long he'd built a modular system of his own design. Microprocessor boards became affordable at the end of the seventies. The outcome of the experiments was a fully programmable sequencer and an electronic percussion unit. A friend of Ron's, Phil Clogg, became interested in it. The result of this was to form an electronic duo called Out of Control around 1979. It was based around two modular synthesizers, guitar, vocals and a further synthesizer and electronic percussion controlled by my unique microprocessor based sequencer. The microprocessor generated all the basic rhythmic backing control patterns for the synthesizers and electronic percussion during the whole of the gig. Phil played guitar, sang vocals plus playing a pedal board for some extra bass depth. They were one of the first bands in the UK to employ a computer for live music creation and generation. For them this was so much better than using a fixed backing on a tape recorder as some were doing. The duo was a huge turning point for Ron. After Out of Control, Ron produced his first electronic music album Where Dark Forces Meet, released on cassette on the independent Flowmotion. The album is basically a 4 track multi-track recording, with extra atmospheres and effects flown in using a couple of additional two track tape recorders. The mixing desk at the time was six channels, plus the mixers on Ron's synthesizers. From the success of this, he really wanted to develop his own solo electronic rock ambient music live, so he concentrated on expanding the sequencer to produce polyphonic control patterns and added a Godwin string synth. To date, Ron has produced fourteen albums of solo electronic music, ranging from rock to more ambient experimental styles. Ron has continued to experiment and build stuff when he could. Since then analog has largely given way to digital. He has embraced and exploited much of this technology along the way but in some respects he remained "old school" as a lot of today's highly compressed digital earplug music is not exactly to his taste.

Tracks:
1.1 Sea of Tranquility (7:52)
1.2 Sea of Clouds (8:31)
1.3 Zanti Misfits (7:57)
2.1 Where Dark Forces Meet (10:16)
2.2 Concrete Pete (2:43)
2.3 Mathew Street (7:54)
2.4 View from a Bedsit Window (3:45)