Jody and the Jerms have a new single out on Friday 9 July: “Spinning”.
Adam Walton, sitting in for Janice Long on BBC Radio Wales, described it as “a real jolt of electrifying tuniness”. I am definitely prepared to accept that “tuniness” is a word, since he was so complimentary as to say this:
“Not too far south of the genius of Kirsty MacColl, or even the Darling Buds as well, but I think it manages to be itself.”
Justified? You can decide by listening to it yourself on Spotify, Apple Music or Bandcamp – take your pick!
We recorded this at Safehouse Studio in Oxford, where I was able to make use of a couple of vintage keyboards. In the background during the verses, I used a Memotron, which is a modern-day reworking of the classic Mellotron.
The Memotron deliberately mimics some of the limitations of the original. For example, as the Mellotron used tape for what we would today describe as “samples”, each sound only lasts a maximum of 8 seconds, no matter how long you hold the key down – unless you activate the Half Speed function, which gives you a whopping 16 seconds, but an octave lower as a result.
During other sections there are some marimba-ish sounds which I played on a Yamaha CP25 electric piano.
Like the Memotron, there is a certain enjoyment in having a very limited set of options to control the sound.
Thanks to Mike at Safehouse for putting it all together!
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