Thomas Dolby

Drowned In Sound has published an interview with synth pop pioneer Thomas Dolby.

In the interview, Dolby shares some fantastic stories, like this one:

I remember word going around that the UK branch of the Musician’s Union was going to vote on a motion to ban synthesizers. A friend of mine from a band called Landscape told me this, and said we had to get some people down there because they were actually going to put it to the vote. The motion that was on the table was that synthesizers would be banned altogether, because they were taking work away from musicians. So ten of us went down there, one row of about 30, 40 people, and the rest of the people were like, out of work flugelhorn players, people who occasionally did West End musicals, and they were all half asleep. Each of the ten of us in turn got up and spoke very passionately and very articulately about how we felt it was progress and it was a good thing, and ultimately would lead to more work for musicians. Then it went to the vote and it got voted in! The British Musician’s Union had banned synthesizers! I think it was only afterwards that the executive manager of the Musician’s Union realised how impossible it would be to implement, so it was sort of swept under the carpet and we never heard about it again.

Thomas Dolby has remastered and rereleased his first two albums, The Golden Age Of Wireless (1982) and The Flat Earth (1984).

The new Collectors Editions are released on CD and as digital downloads. They feature special bonus tracks, personal sleeve notes, live recordings, original demos, and rare video footage from the period. Dolby oversaw the Abbey Road remastering sessions himself, and sorted through studio outtakes and cassette tapes to put together definitive versions of these LPs.

Both The Golden Age Of Wireless and The Flat Earth achieved Gold status in the USA and yielded Top 20 singles around the world. GAOW was released in several formats due to the success of the breakthrough songs She Blinded Me With Science and One Of Our Submarines, which were not on the original LP but were added by Capitol Records following Dolby’s sudden emergence in 1982 as a star of the nascent MTV. The re-released GAOW combines all variations of the album, and is accompanied by a DVD of the full-length 1983 live concert performance Live Wireless, originally available only on laser disc. Read more…

The Singular Thomas Dolby is a new 2-disc CD and DVD collection, featuring all of Thomas Dolby’s singles and videos, including She Blinded Me With Science, Radio Silence, Hyperactive and I Scare Myself.

It was released in the UK on May 18th 2009 and is available worldwide as an import.

CD
1-Urges (3.41)
2-Leipzig (3.52)
3-Europa And The Pirate Twins (3.19)
4-Airwaves (3.45)
5-Radio Silence (3.50)
6-Windpower (3.53)
7-She Blinded Me With Science (3.40)
8-One Of Our Submarines Is Missing (5.12)
9-Hyperactive (4.12)
10-Dissidents (edit) (3.52)
11-I Scare Myself (edit) (4.59)
12-Fieldwork (London Mix) (4.04) with Ryuichi Sakamoto
13-May The Cube Be With You (3.50)
14-Airhead (3.43)
15-Hot Sauce (3.18)
16-My Brain Is Like A Sieve (3.58) (Bill Bottrell single remix)
17-Close But No Cigar (4.08)
18-Silk Pyjamas (3.04)
19-I Love You Goodbye (4.34)

DVD
1- Europa & the Pirate Twins
2-Airwaves
3-Radio Silence
4-Windpower (Live)
5-She Blinded Me With Science (3.43)
6-One of Our Submarines Is Missing (Live)
7-Hyperactive
8-Dissidents
9-I Scare Myself
10-Fieldwork (with Ryuichi Sakamoto) with Ryuichi Sakamoto
11-May The Cube Be With You
12-Airhead
13-Hot Sauce
14-Close But No Cigar
15-Silk Pyjamas
16-I Love You Goodbye
Bonus tracks
17-Hyperactive (12” version)
18-Fieldwork (12” version) with Ryuichi Sakamoto
19-Hot Sauce (saucy version)

Read more…

Violinist Natalie MacMaster and TED Musical Director Thomas Dolby play Dolby’s original song Blue Is a River in this ethereal duet — with a little dancing. Read more…

This video features Thomas Dolby’s take on the Muse Research Receptor 2 Pro and the Receptor 2 Pro Max. 

According to Muse:

These new models of Receptor are faster, smarter, and better in all respects than the previous generation. They feature entirely new computational engines including incredibly fast dual-core processors that offer twice the power of the previous generation, new SATA-2 storage systems that offer three times more disc bandwidth, 10 times the networking speed, and 50% more memory that is twice as fast as before.