JOHN COSTELLO - Last Flight Out (1990)

John Costello: electronics, synthesizers, samplers / Greg Truckell: production, engineering.

This track was recorded at Greg Truckell's studio in Dumfries over three nights in 1990. It was commissioned as the soundtrack to my friend Simon Maddocks' Commodore Amiga computer animation for Chromacolour animation supplies' showreel.

I met Greg at the Network 23 electronica concert at Chapter Arts Centre, Cardiff, in 1989, when we played on the same bill. The event was organised by N23 founder Kevin O'Neill and featured Kevin, Steve & Linda Hillman, myself and Greg. Apparently it was the only independent EM concert to make a profit that year. Afterwards in a drunken conversation Greg offered to produce my next material but he was as good as his word so I drove up to Scotland just before Easter 1990 with a melody in my head and precious little else.

It was a hectic schedule, especially for Greg: he ran a computer games and software shop in the daytime, and his studio was at the back of the shop so we'd go back to his house, eat, put his three young kids to bed and troop back to the shop to record this in three consecutive near as dammit all-night sessions. I don't know how he stayed awake.

We were pleased with the track. It combined my compositional style with his production techniques, and had a bit more about it than the mostly throwaway library-type soundtracks these kinds of showreels usually wore. I added sampled voices from THX 1138 to fit the science-fictional ambience, and handed it over. It went down well, end of story. Almost.

Over the years Greg and I lost touch, and in the mid-2000s when I collated all my old music I couldn't find my copy of this piece. Fortunately Simon still had his old U-Matic master of the visuals with a decent stereo hi-fi audio track. He converted it recently so here it is again, resuscitated after all these years.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• John Costello
• Last Flight Out
• electronic
• synthesizer
• electro
• 1990
• Network 23
• Greg Truckell
• Kevin O'Neill
• Simon Maddocks
• animation
• Chromacolour
• soundtrack
• samples