Search - Isan :: Meet Next Life

Two men in their early 30s founded Britain's 1st synthesiser home where neglected instruments find a new way in life. Every day Antony Ryan and Robin Saville visit their beneficiaries and feed them with wonderful melodies and soft rhythms which the two bring home from a day's daydreaming of imaginary landscapes. It could be a lake on hot hazy day, it could be an army of robots, full of misguided pride, marching to their death in war. Or it may be two pigs dressed in human hats, rooting for food and very much in love. Every day ISAN nurtured their affinity with their machines. And so the garden flourished and before long the first salamander was seen, then came a cat and, more amazingly, a collection of clockwork parts too. So it is only normal that everyone is asking themselves when and what strange fruit Saville and Ryan's wonder-garden will bear next. After all it is two and a half years ago that "Lucky Cat" appeared on Morr Music. In the form of "Clockwork Menagerie" (morr music 028) the impatient were temporarily alleviated with a collection of songs everybody believed to be long lost. Meanwhile Robin and Antony were concentrating on bringing their machines out to play live for the benefit of all at shows like Sonar amongst others. Now it's once again time that ISAN open the gates to their garden with the release of their full length, "Meet Next Life". At first glance everything seems the same, rows of soldered synthesisers hum happily. Robin and Antony walk around in the dissaray of patchbays and opened-up circuit boards, they lovingly stroke three note chords on the old chipped keyboards or offer kind words to an ageing drum computer so that it comes back to its old warm self. A closer look amongst the flowers and butterflies, however, and several new additions are to be found - a guitar, a glockenspiel and other percussion instruments have also been brought in to the home for love and affection. These new residents help ISAN to better organise the blurry outlines of the dreamy landscapes of their imaginations, the pictures now become sounds. Sounds still recognisable in their typical softness and harmony, yet more dynamic and physical: a trait of their new, more frequent excursions through real landscapes to live shows. Their return sees them homesick and longing, they return to their machines and begin, once again, to dream of landscapes.