Rich Lane has been producing music under his Cotton Bud name for ten years- delicious, space age chug straight outta Stoke- on - Trent (or Newcastle- under- Lyne more accurately). In his spare time he disappears into the woods with just a rucksack, some Belgian beer, a stove and a tarp and camps under the stars. His edits and remixes of tunes from the 1980s and 90s are stunners- see his versions of New Order's Vanishing Point, Sinead O'Connor's Jackie, The Bangles' Walk Like An Egyptian, Depeche Mode's Enjoy The Silence, Love Corporation's Give Me Some Love and LFO's LFO (that last one was totally rebuilt from scratch if I recall correctly).
His own productions are all worth checking out too- the Chug Norris EPs, Coyote Tan, Camo, Hooky Street, Solstice, Barry Island, and City Of Culture in particular. To celebrate the ten years since the release of the first ever Cotton Bud Originals, Rich has remastered and remixed the first ever Cotton Bud track, a beauty called Shelves. The original has been remastered for 2024 and he's remixed it as Chug Norris. Both versions of Shelves 2024 are at Bandcamp.
The Chug Norris remix is nine minutes of Balearic Cotton Bud synth chug, kicking off with washes of synth chords, a melody line picked out on melodica (or harmonica or keys, I'm not sure), thudding four- four drums and then a synth stab chord sequence that gives it a stars bound lift off. The vocal is the icing on the cake.
Ten years ago Rich filmed himself jamming Shelves live using 202, 303, 606 and 707. Compare and contrast.
2 comments:
Very kind works Adam. You are correct in saying that the LFO rework was from scratch, and the melody in Shelves is a chromatic harmonica (the sort Stevie Wonder uses, or the one used on John Barry's 'Midnight Cowboy' theme. A very different sound to the more common Blues harmonicas).
Your support over this last decade, both in terms of writing and patronage on Bandcamp, has been very much appreciated. Thank you so much!
Thanks Rich! I should have twigged that it was a chromatic harmonica, it's definitely got that Midnight Cowboy theme sound
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