Osiris

This album was originally released on LP record in the mid eighties. At the time I was, and still am, very interested in ancient Egypt, particularly the connection with astronomy. In those days the Egyptian night sky was clear and free from light pollution. The stars were bright and dominated the heavens. They naturally played a large part in ancient life. Ancient peoples constructed their monuments to face certain constellations on important times of their calendar, or they laid them out in the same shapes. The Egyptians did likewise, which tantalisingly suggests a very early world wide source of common knowledge and belief. Recent works by researchers like Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval and Simon Cox, all present compelling evidence of this and many other fascinating aspects of ancient Egypt. The powerful story of Osiris is also closely linked with the heavens so this seemed like an ideal base on which to realise some electronic music. The four tracks represent different aspects of the Osiris story. They start in the real world with “Heliotropolis” (a track describing my feelings of ancient Heliopolis) and then exploring various aspects of the developing Osiris story; dream states, catastrophe, rebirth etc. and spiritual journeys to finally joining the company of the gods for all eternity.

Featured extensively on the album is the unique 16 channel micro-processor sequencer that I had built a couple of years before. All the rhythmic section sequencing was produced with it, controlling selected parameters of the analog modular synthesisers. There are many tape effects too; loops, odd edits and strange textures produced using mainly with a Godwin string synthesiser as a source sound. Extra tape recorders controlled by a BBC micro-computer were used to run these into the final mix. The main sequenced material was recorded on a 1/2” 4 track analog tape machine. However, Heliotropolis was recorded straight to two track as a live performance in one go with no editing.