Retro

• Retro
• Brand: President
• Product Type: ABIS_MUSIC

The idea for the RETRO album came about as the container housing all Rick’s equipment was being loaded into a truck on the Isle of Man in order to begin thejourney to its new home in England. As more and more flight cases were opened to check contents, his engineer and co-producer Erik Jordan, was continually coming out with comments such as:- "What on earth is that"? That’s got to be older than me"! And "When was the last time you plugged that in"?! Over a cup of tea during a break in the loading Erik said "You know it would be great to make an album just using vintage keyboards. No midi, no sequencing...just raw performance on original instruments. Proper drum kit, the whole works just like it used to be before I was born"! And so that moment heralded the birth of RETRO. Being brutally honest, it was not the easiest of projects for many reasons, not least the total unreliability of the equipment. Some instruments had not been switched on for nigh on 30 years and even though "lights" shone brightly when connected to the mains, often little else happened. The average age of the keyboards used was around 35 and the "youngest" keyboard that took part in the adventure was just 25 years old. Many of the keyboards had total minds of their own, and often or not sounds would change at will or never be recovered the following day. Some instruments even decided on which days certain notes would, or wouldn’t work. One piece actually had to be rewritten in order to accommodate the working notes of the particular instrument involved!