Paradox Lost : Immortal Ghosts : Bruit Du Soir / Autant : Pulse 8

Later, Steve added his inimitable style of singing and I added the Dr.Rhythm drum-machine to the set-up. I remember that we could consistently churn out 2 or 3 songs per jam session. We were quite productive and, we'd like to think, highly original too. We did several concerts! Of the smaller ones, there was one awful warm-up gig for some senior citizens (echo feedback problem) but the audience enjoyed themselves anyway (they were dancing in the aisles, eaughh!). Thankfully, we redeemed ourselves the next night with a full concert in front of our home university crowd. There was also a further gig at the Polytechnic of Central London on 24/Feb/1982. The next big concert for us was at The City University's Finsbury Hall on 14/May/1982. By then, some of our audience actually knew our songs and would sing along. Steve was a great front man and would interact with the audience with his actions and dancing. I'll always remember the audience going wild and exploding to "Tube-Train Mirror", our most popular song. It was a great feeling!

The Immortal Ghosts repertoire is represented here from two recording sources:-

- Tube-Train Mirror and The Image were recorded at City University's Music School studio (as a project recording by a music-student&#133 who played sax).

- Rat Race, Smile In The Dark, Meaning Of Words, Darkened Ones and A Mirage are taken from the City University's May'82 concert.

Unfortunately, two songs The Vehicle & I'm So Sorry are not available.

We broke off for the summer 1982 and only got together again in Sept. By sheer coincidence, we had both bought the same SH-101 synthesizers. We had started to become more involved in electronic music. Messing about with synthesizers yielded two more songs; Sleeping Flowers and Reasons For Treasons (both versions are test recordings). Using synthesizers brought about a change in methodology. It changed the way in which we wrote music. No more quick exchange of ideas and fast song-writing. It was not a bad change either. It was just different! But beneath the beeps of the synth, we could feel that there was a musical power worth investigating. We embraced the change and invited Steve Morgan to join us as bassist.

With Steve Morgan joining the Immortal Ghosts, a change of band-name was in order and Steve Morgan came up with "Bruit Du Soir" (supposedly meaning "Night Noise"). Also, someone coined the nicknames Little Steve (Morgan) and Big Steve (Brooker) [only marginal height difference though]. In the few loose jam sessions we had, Little Steve contributed a "pop music feel" to the band.

One day, Big Steve announced that we had a concert in one month's time. We decided that our concert format would include a pre-recorded open-reel tape containing our electronic backing-music. So our first priority was to compose and record that backing track, although we hadn't formalised any music yet. But our young heads were full of ideas and so we took our 2 synths, hired some equipment (open-reel, mixer & TR-808 drum-machine) and then locked ourselves in a City Uni spare room for 3 days to make the backing tape. In those 3 days, we jammed, wrote, tested, arranged and recorded our music. It's amazing how fast we could convert our ideas into 7 songs and finish their arrangements. Little Steve (Morgan) was quite the budding audio engineer (actually he studied electronic engineering). As soon as a song idea was ready, Little Steve and I would do the synth music and drum-machine programming, set-up the sound and record it almost straight away. We'd do all this, while Big Steve would pen together the lyrics. It was hectic and sleepless... but we had a really great time!

This recording session not only formalised our backing-tape repertoire but it also made evident our performance roles in the band. Atop the backing tape, Little Steve was to play bass and I was to play guitar... but Big Steve (Brooker) decided to drop playing guitar and concentrate fully on vocals. This was the start of a new relationship where Little Steve and I would heavily compose music (with Big Steve mainly doing the lyrics). I didn't realise it then but the Immortal Ghosts was gone forever (such is the price of change). Thankfully, the backing-tape also served as a convenient source for practice... and we practised a lot... and, on 14/Dec/1982, Bruit Du Soir played The City University's Finsbury Hall. It was quite a big concert and it went down very well with the crowd. Sometime later, we changed our band-name to "Autant" (vague band-names are courtesy of S.Morgan), added one more song All Our Memories to our live-set, and, on 3/Mar/1983, played The City University's Bar Lounge. I remember that it was a really packed gig and all went well. The Bruit Du Soir / Autant repertoire is represented here from various sources:- - How many Times Have I and Forest Lines were recorded at The City Uni's Music School studio (using borrowed down-time!?!). - Gloss On Gloss was recorded in the The City University "spare-room" using a portastudio. - Too Much To Me, How Can I Feel You?, I Wondered and Believe In Me are taken from the backing-tape (with guitar added) and hence have no vocals. - All Our Memories was recorded at my flat in Porchester Square during a rehearsal (just as we finished writing the song). With the approach of summer 1983, my studies at The City University had finished and I was going to start work later that year. We weren't sure if we'd be able to continue with the band... or even keep in touch. Although we never formally disbanded, the realities of life outside university just kept us apart too long.

By the summer of 1983, I was already on my solo "Texture On Paper" project. By Sept 1983, I started work in full-time employment and so the band just sort of faded away. On and off, Steve Morgan would drop by and record stuff with me. By then, I had quite a lot of equipment at home (some of it was his).

Little Steve and I did two strange noise-songs : Shooting Gallery and Submarine which are interesting experiments into ambient/ asynchronous music. I was concentrating on ethereal sweeps and resonant pings on the SH-101 synth but Steve was happily messing randomly. It wasn't happening so we decided that we'd record them immediately after visiting the local pub (ahem). Fortunately, it worked! BTW, the "kaboom" at the end of Shooting Gallery is the reverb falling off the table & hitting the floor. All the time I've known Little Steve, he was always very good at coming over to visit me. Nearly always, it'd be to record some of his songs or sometimes just with a few rough ideas. And I was always more than glad to play guitar or make weird drum-patterns! In 1984, Steve Morgan decided to do a re-production of our old song, Gloss On Gloss. This Gloss On Gloss 2 version was recorded at his flat in Duckett Street and I recall doing the guitars at 3:00am. The whole song ended up as pretty damn cool actually... thanks to Little Steve's production skills!

It was almost a whole year before we played again. On 1/May/1985, Little Steve came over for a whole day's jam session. In our playing, we both felt a new and different musical connection. Perhaps it was just angst... or maybe because we hadn't played for so long. Anyway, there are two extracts from the jam session and I've named them "Breaking Away" and "Messin' About" (where Messin' About is actually 2 song ideas joined together). I'd like to think of them as marking a new direction for our music. In a sense, these songs also represent the closing chapter of an era that started with the Immortal Ghosts.

Time was running out for me to stay in the UK so, in the spring of 1985, Steve Morgan and I decided that this was to be our big stab at the elusive recording deal. I composed music for some new songs and, by that summer, we had recorded the instruments on multi-track in the studio (Steve was working there as audio-engineer). I had to go abroad for 2 months so I left Steve to mix it.

When I came back, Steve still hadn't mixed it. I was so disappointed and angry. To teach him a lesson, I kicked him out of the band. Perhaps I was a bit harsh. It had been summer after all... And he was working too!

Anyway, I then turned to Jason Kelly to join the band. Ironically, it was Steve Morgan who had earlier introduced Jason to be our vocalist/ singer. Jason and I had to start the music-making process all over again.