PEL Presents NEM#253: Synth-Scaper Richard Barbieri (Japan, Porcupine Tree)

Trivia Question

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Podcast Introduction

1:40You're listening to Nakedly Examined Music, a podcast about songs and songwriters. My name is Mark Lintonmeyer. My guest for episode 252 is Richard Barbieri. He started in the British art rock band Japan, joining them in 1975 and playing through all their five albums. You are right now hearing The Experience of Swimming, recorded as a B-side and eventual bonus track for Japan's Gentleman Take Polaroids album in 1980. He then continued in a duo with Japan drummer Steve Jansen, releasing one pop album with him

2:12as Dolphin Brothers, but also then starting on a long-standing relationship with Steve creating instrumental albums credited to Jansen Barbieri.

Jansen Barbieri

2:20So the first of those was in 1985. Then Japan briefly reformed as Rain Tree Crow. That was in 1991. And through the 90s, we get several more collaborations. Three albums plus a live album as Jansen Barbieri. Four releases as Jansen Barbieri Karn. That's with Mick Karn, the Japan bass player. One as Jansen Barbieri Takamura. One with Tim Bonas, the lead singer of No Man. One with his wife as Indigo Falls.

Porcupine Tree

2:50In 1995, he joined the band Porcupine Tree and has been on their 20 plus album since then. He's done session work for various related artists. And in 2004, he finally released his first solo album under his own name, a second solo album in 2008, and then a steady stream of releases totaling around five albums worth of material. Today, we'll be discussing a new simulation from his brand new album, Hauntings. Then All Fall Down from that second solo album, 2008's Stranger Inside. Then we'll look back to the Jansen Barbieri album, Stone to Flesh from 1995 and listen to the

3:26song Sleepers Awake. In the early teens, he recorded a couple albums with Steve Hogarth, that is the lead singer of Marillion, and we'll conclude the podcast today by listening to the lead track on a three song EP attributed to Steve Hogarth and Richard Barbieri, recorded in 2015, just released in 2023, called Waiting to be Born.

Richard Barbieri Music

3:47To hear most of this recent activity, go to richardbarbieri.bandcamp.com. For more about this podcast, go to nakedlyexaminedmusic.com or support the effort at patreon.com slash nakedlyexaminedmusic for a fully ad-free experience. I will play it a little bit of The Experience of Swimming by Japan, a bonus track added to the Gentleman Take Polaroids 1980 album after the fact. I know I could have used Ghosts. That was the big hit that the intro is by you.

4:19Was this the sort of the first one that laid the groundwork for these kind of instrumentals that you're doing now? I think so. And it's the first track that I wrote really with Japan. So I was just left to my own devices with that. Therefore, yeah, that's kind of what you get. It's kind of a pointer to the music I made decades later, which is ambient, atmospheric, electronic. It's in that kind of genre. Although I contributed those elements to the group Japan, this was a chance for me to actually write something on my own and take some time over it. And it was intended as a B-side.

4:51Okay. And at that time, you know, B-sides were quite important in the UK. A lot of thought went into the B-sides and often they were as important as the tracks on the album. So it was taken quite seriously. Yeah, I still played that. I played that last week. I did a improv kind of performance and I played aspects of that track into it. I do want to get in as we do this to how some of these things make the jump from very, very layered studio things to live. But let's wait a minute to get to that.

New Simulation Song

5:20So the new album, Hauntings, the song that I picked from that was A New Simulation. Do you want to say anything about where you're at with this album, this song, before we hear it in full? The general theme of the album is these memories I have and these nostalgic lookbacks at time past, recent past, and even looking back at things that didn't happen, if that makes any sense. It's like a nostalgia for things that you didn't experience or a time that you didn't experience, but you still feel some pang of nostalgia for that. And also of recurring dreams, of places where I go to every time in these dreams that are

5:54very familiar to me. And it was trying to kind of paint a picture of all those feelings and that imagery. And I guess a new simulation took things actually further into the future. And it was kind of looking at the whole AI thing, the possibility that we could be living in a simulation, where the world's going and where kind of reality becomes something else. If in the future we can create our own realities, then it's almost like we're living them just and they're just as valid as the life that we know at the moment. So the album shifts around, kind of time travel thing going on there.

6:28And New Simulation was the last track. It was meant to be quite positive, quite uplifting. And I think it worked on that level. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. It was meant to be quite possible. Thank you.

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44:28already there obviously and gavin he doesn't you know i mean he's he's so amazing he's not trying to push it or show off or anything it's just the right thing for that boat the shuffle he has and that kind of snare work it's just yeah it's lovely and are these guys kind of one take folks or do you make them hey let's let's do three so i can pick from things you know that kind of with gavin especially there's so much trust there now and he records at home he's got perfect setup he's got the best mics he's got everything absolutely how he wants it it's silly to take

45:03him into a studio and make you know try and recreate all that and so he usually sends me a version and sees what you know whether i like that if i want to try something else it never goes beyond a couple of times obviously it's never having to do it again because of any um anything wrong with it ever it's just a case of taste and what things you might like the most and usually off of him i take a stereo in the end he gives me everything separately but i just take stereo from him because he knows how he wants things balanced yes that's always nice if you have a remote drummer

45:35that will pre-mix it because that yeah that's that's too many questions that go into that and uh things that you could do to clean up the drum track that are time consuming that yeah with danny thompson it was more i was in the room with him and and we were working through it and there was a lot of different choices to make about this or that a lot of punching in or just like a few different passes a few different passes and and some different ideas and yeah and and he'll want to do something again or something so no yeah i like that i can do this better and you know just guys are legend

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Dolphin Brothers

47:42you know it wasn't actually until today that i found the dolphin brothers record on youtube because it's not on any of the services that i could find oh okay i mean that's interesting how you after japan at least had one more shot at like let's do radio pop music but then the same you know you with steve the same thing making not that far after that 1995 sleepers awake was the tune i picked from this stone to flesh album and it is over nine minutes long and there's nothing synth pop about it uh

48:17it's very much in the same kind of tradition that we've been talking about but does give the space for these big solo sections yeah any thoughts before we hear that about but you're choosing after japan and after japan rejoined as rain tree crow and now we're gonna just sort of keep going down this more niche i don't know but atmospheric instrumentals i think after rain tree crow we realized that that's where we are that's our kind of thing i think the dolphin brothers thing was a mistake in retrospect well i'm glad we're not highlighting it then okay well i just think it's

48:50the only time in my career where possibly i was trying to do something that wasn't natural to me trying to create those catchy riffs and melodies and trying to do something very much of that time of that style and fashion and no as soon as we got back to doing stuff like sleepers awake or or rain tree crow then i realized that that's where i want to be any comment about this song stone to flesh in particular i really i i wanted something that really took you on a journey here from what i

49:21remember it's a bit of an epic and it's probably when i'd already joined porcupine tree maybe i was making it a little bit proggy or i was getting different sections and try you know making it a little bit more you know up front and dynamic all right well i hope the listeners will stay with it despite the length you don't want to get up and change to something else anyway uh because there's you know things happening throughout the song like i think it deserves to be at least close to this long i saw your live version is is about two or three minutes shorter but maybe that's because

49:53you didn't have the same guitarist around or something is it steve doing the guitars on this who's i'd have to hear it okay all right so we'll play some sections here as we go but here's the whole thing you you you you you

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