Roger Doyle – Fairlight Memories
You know how it is. You’re sat there, drinking tea and eating toast with Marmite, casually surfing the web whilst watching another episode of Breaking Bad (yes, I know, I was late to THAT particular game!) when you eventually end up on eBay. Every now and again, I’ll just type in some regular search terms of mine because I can’t be bothered to save them directly in eBay. Probably just as well, I guess. Anyway, I will always, given my predisposition for the bloody thing, type in Fairlight CMI, just to see what turns up. Mostly, I’m given a raft of piss poor and legally questionable sample libraries that, if ordered would be identical to every other Fairlight library on eBay, and come in cracked CD cases with home printed inlays and burned onto Tesco own-brand CD-R’s.
But every now and again, something interesting pops up. And tonight was one of those nights. Amongst the hooky sample CD’s and domestic iron on t-shirt sellers was an album called “Fairlight Memories (Contents of the Pay-Jar)” (geddit? Pay-Jar? Page-R??) by a gentleman called Roger Doyle. The green and black used in the cover hinted that this may well be directly related to a Fairlight rather than a chance coincidence and so I investigated further.
The seller, a well reputed eBay seller I’ve used in the past to purchase SACD or DVD-A albums from, had no artist or track info, so I resorted to a Google search that yielded a Bandcamp page for Mr Doyle and this album. Scrolling down, I came to Roger’s notes…
The music on these 2 albums was composed on a Fairlight Computer Music Instrument between 1983 and 1988 (ok – not track 17, done on a DX7). Together with the Synclavier (made famous by Frank Zappa’s use of it) the Fairlight was the first synthesiser controlled by a computer. It had a digital sampler, a sequencer (called ‘Page R’), on-screen wave-form display and a central processor unit (CPU) that took 2 people to lift.
In 1982 I was involved in a studio that bought one, and after 2 months of throwing the manual against the wall I gradually was able to teach myself how to use it. The sequencer held up to 8 monophonic lines, forcing me to think contrapuntally. This 8-voice polyphony was like having a constantly changing octet at my disposal. Also, you could only compose one bar at a time.
By 1988 it was gathering dust in the corner of the studio, having been superceded by newer technology and fashion, so I made an offer and bought it at one tenth of its price for my own embryonic home studio.
In 1990 I sold it and it drifted out of my life. I made great use of it and have very fond memories of the Fairlight.
The earliest of these pieces appear as they came out of the Fairlight, recorded straight onto tape (the first 4 tracks here for instance), except for some editing on the old Ferrograph Series 7 tape recorder long since gone. Say Yes To The Nice Lady took a month of editing and experimenting – mainly using the same sequenced notes but substituting the samples (chameleon octet). I am grateful to Lucy Vigne-Welsh and Elena López who came into the studio as I was working, and who produced extraordinary semi-improvised texts in response to the music.
Ordained For Grave Dancing is the same as Sideways And Pinkwards, except it’s at one third the tempo.
The later pieces, composed in the new home studio, now with an 8-track tape recorder, were layered with no edits (Arminarm, Fire On The Water, Why Orange?). In those days I hardly ever got paid for any composing, thus the pay-jar was empty, but the Page R was full.
released 09 September 2012
All music composed and produced by Roger Doyle © 1983-88 on a Fairlight Computer Music Instrument.
Text and voice on tracks 2,3,13,16: Lucy Vigne-Welsh; and on tracks 5,10: Elena López. Total time: 73’15
With it being Bandcamp (a bloody marvellous way for independent musicians to distribute their wares), I was able to preview the entire album and sure enough, what I discovered was a collection of pure Fairlight pieces. Here was someone who was exploring the limitless possibilities offered up by the Fairlight at the time. An individual man, able to express himself musically in a complete fashion because the Fairlight empowered him to do so. Now, it is fair to say that albums such as these, where someone is essentially experimenting, can be dull affairs, sometimes very difficult to follow or understand, but whether its my aforementioned predisposition to the Fairlight or just that I was in a particular frame of mind this evening, I was drawn in, not only by the compositions but by the sounds of the Fairlight and the programming style forced upon Roger by the Series II’s inherent limitations within Page-R.
I proceeded to investigate Roger Doyle and found him to be an incredibly accomplished composer from Ireland with many accolades and plenty of material to his name. But right now, it’s this album that has me hooked. It’s a journal of someone discovering how to exploit the new found freedom of composition afforded to them by what was, at the time, bleeding edge technology. Intriguing stuff!
But that’s not it. Upon flicking through Roger’s collection on Bandcamp, there is a second Fairlight Memories album, “The Love Of Don Perlimplin And Belisa In The Garden“, which, like “Contents…”, is also available as a download for €6 or, and this is the best bit, if you buy the CD of “Contents of the Pay-Jar”, you get the other album as part of a limited 2x CD set for €10! (or you can buy “The Love of Don Perlimplin…” and get “Contents of the Pay-Jar” included in the CD package 😉 )
For Fairlight fans, these albums are a must. For lovers of experimental electronic music, they are essential. Either way, get them!
Check out Roger at his website www.rogerdoyle.com and listen to the albums here…
Hi there,
Roger sent me a link to your site and it sure gets my nostalgia going!
I had the dubious honour of having Roger as my guitar teacher when I was 12/13! This experience damaged me and led to my obsession with synthesisers and culminated with a long series of Fairlights from the Series IIs I programmed originally through a number of IIIs to the MFX2 system I did a lot of work on.
All maintained by my good friend Peter in Sydney over the years!! Small world.
Best wishes to all.
Peter
PS Some nice Fairlight pics on my Facebook page.