Back To Mine with Carl Finlow

UK electronic legend Carl Finlow is making his full debut on Avoidant Records with his ‘Engines of Creation’ EP out 27th August on vinyl & digital. After his first outing on the label as part of the ‘Defend Your Planet’ compilation, Carl drops 4 classic, superbly produced cuts of hi techno electro funk. Since his debut release on the legendary Warp Records in 1993, Finlow has dropped well over 100 releases – including 11 albums – on labels like SCSI-AV, Trope, Klang, Soma, Playhouse, Sony and Satamile.  And now he joins Avoidant, a new label from Glasgow, rooted in left field and diverse sonics, ran by Soma Records. A perfect opportunity for a beautiful Back To Mine 10…

Tomita albums were a very large part of my life between 7 and 16 years old. He took famous works of classical music, usually one composer per album and completely re-orchestrated them electronically on giant Moog and Roland modular systems. Today we have it easy with digital audio and everything fully synchronised but when I listen to these early Tomita albums i’m sill in awe at how he managed such complex compositions.

As a child of 9 years old I remember vividly when this song played on the radio when I was on holiday in Blackpool in the uk. It was as bold as it was modern and forever etched into my mind. It’s an incredibly powerful piece of music and it set the tone for many many UK bands that were to follow in the 80s. What a time that was to be alive and to witness it all.

OMD were just around the corner from where I grew up and their music, even the notion of what they were doing close by had quite a profound effect on me. I loved their earlier work in particular. This track is so haunting. There is a sustained high string running all the way through this track that is occasionally out of key. Very unsettling. It was written in some way as an ode to Ian Curtis.

This is the holy grail for me. It’s hard to put into words the importance of not only the group and the album Computer World but this track in particular will be looked back upon in the distant future as being the Rosetta Stone of modern electronic music. The drum pattern is essentially the blueprint for Electro. It really is an outrageous piece of music. The audacity to create an electronic rhythm so unconventional and to pair it with those robotic vocal elements. It’s pure genius.

I was just about to become a teenager at this point and this track really resonated with me. There is a beautiful melancholy about it which is fantastically offset by the unusual coldness of the synth tones and minor chords. I became a HUGE Depeche Mode fan from that point on, dressing like them, going to concerts, even trying to make music like them. Very important group in my life.

Yet again another UK electronic artist. Thomas Dolby made some incredible albums, the first three really made a huge impression on me. They were brilliant both musically and technically. I loved picking apart his production techniques and tried very hard to replicate this in my own mixing and producing. He later produced several albums by Prefab Sprout which I also adore.

Another amazing high art group from Europe. Boris Blanc is really a painter with sound. I would get lost in his landscapes and it really opened up many mental pathways for me with what is possible with sound and production. Up there with DM for me. The first 5 albums are fabulous.

By this point in the late 90’s I had really become captivated by the second wave of electro and was listening to a lot of Drexciya, Elektroids, Japanese Telecom. The combination of Gerald Donald and James Stinson was mind blowing and a genre defining combination that had a life changing effect on me. It was virtually the sole reason I started to make my own electro. A few years ago I was lucky enough to play a gig after Dopplereffekt and got to meet and talk to one of my ultimate heroes.

As mentioned previously Drexciya were quite literally life changing for me. Nobody sounded like them and their melodies, sounds and rhythms were intoxicating to me. They still sound as pure and original as they did way back then.