12 Bit Blues

Of course, music production has largely moved on, so Eric began working out what he could do with it - a kind of reverse engineering back to his childhood self. A little mucking around and it came to him – the blues was always about stripping music back to its bare essentials, which is exactly what the SP1200 does, too. Over three days he cut up and reassembled the bed tracks for 12 Bit Blues. No sequencing software was used. Using the pads on the machine and a multitrack, Eric played each part of the tracks in real time, before finally returning and adding cuts over the top.

The result is a really raw, immediate and strangely beautiful album, much like the music it draws on for its inspiration. In attempting to outplay and out-think the technology he is working with he revives the unworldly oddness of blues music before it became a staple of beer adverts and the jam-fantasies of middle aged marketing executives. This is the music, ripped and scratched and distressed until all those souls sold down the crossroads rise up and send shivers down your spine. It’s that real and, yes, that made up.