Lucky Cat

If you happen to live in the UK and tried recently to get a DSL-connection, you probably have seen hell. No chance, at least in the south of the country. This is where Robin Saville and Antony Ryan kept a whole legion of telecommunications technicians busy connecting their 2 studios with every inch of optic cable available, no matter if floods or petrol shortages were in the way. Why set up a data network in between the 2 studios? One asks because these two luddites, Isan (compared to isdn, anything but digital) love old analogue electronic devices to make music, instruments from a time when synthesizers were developed in attics; when air-conditioned offices, where hundreds of coding-slaves would program new organ-presets, were still an unknown phenomena. Equipment you not only need screwdrivers for, but also furniture polish. Synthesizers and drumboxes which were affordable even when they were manufactured and which rockbands with mellotrons and modular walls laughed at. Over the last few years, Isan proved that these machines are capable of great things too. With numerous releases -- preferably on 7" of course -- they managed to book reservations for front row seats in our record racks. Little melodies appear, dragging you along on their journey towards dawn, slowly unveiling their real inner-self, and banishing evil ghosts.

LUCKY CAT starts where 'Salamander,' Isan's last album on Morr, stopped. In a way. In reality, it is completely different. It is just that everything sounds more self-evident, lighter, more familiar, more personal and especially more lovable and adorable. It almost sounds like the happy studio cat switched on all of the machines and played, while Antony and Robin were out buying milk from the cornershop. Maybe this newly achieved greatness is due to the recently installed internet connection? For the first time in their lives, the old drumboxes and synthesizers, constantly fighting against rheumatic detuning problems, can leave the studio, download pictures of the moon, check out Cambridge, or chat with their retired Japanese developers.