Secrets (album): Difference between revisions

==[[The Unreachable Star (Guitar World 1989)]]==

To create the tones customized for the specific tracks on '''Secrets''', Allan cross-matched ideas, ingenuity and his inventions until he struck on a tasteful variety. Using his Steinberger GM2T, loaded with two custom Seymour Duncan Allan Holdsworth humbuckers and refretted by luthier Bill DeLap with Dunlop 6000 wire, Allan created "City Nights" by running a Boogie Mark III head through the Extractor prototype, into an equalizer, and back into a Boogie Simulclass 295 power amp, using only one side of the unit to drive his speaker box. There, the signal from a Celestion KS speaker was brought to tape via a Neumann TLM 170 microphone. The inline processing for his lead tone included an ADA Stereo Tapped Delay, two ADA mono delay lines and a Lexicon PCM60. Formulas differ on each track; there are few constants. "I used that power amp and the speaker box on all the tracks, with different variables," Allan reports. "On ‘Peril Premonition,’ for instance, I substituted a Boogie Quad preamp, and used a combination of a Shure SM58 and an AKG 460 on the same Celestion I’m very flexible, because it’s all a big experiment to me. If I thought that I’d gotten a really good guitar tone and just left the mike and everything in the same position and used it, I know I’d die after-wards. I wanted to get back to using tube amps. Since I started using the Juice Extractor with the Boogies, I’ve fo und that I can get more flexible variations of tone than ever before. I find myself customizing the amp from the outside."

A mystery man? Not exactly. His name is Allan Holdsworth, and his gentle , burry accent immediately reveals his near-Scottish roots in the Northern England textile town of Bradford, in Yorkshire. But the truth is that the intensely personal music that he explored in the seventies with such groups as Tempest, the New Tony Williams Life-time and Jean-Luc Ponty, and that earned his EP "Road Games" a Grammy nomination for "Best Rock Instrumental" has yet to break through to the larger audience. This month, his latest recording, '''Secrets''', will be released on the Enigma Records label. Like his most recent two disks, it will feature Holdsworth playing guitar and Synth-Axe (a guitar-like MIDI controller) in a powerfully contemporary brand of improvisational music that Holdsworth, prior identifications to the contrary, is happy to describe as jazz.

The collaboration resulted in Steven playing on two tracks from ‘'''Secrets'''’ - Joshua, which he wrote and Maid Marion which he co-wrote with Allan. "I wrote the melody and Allan said it reminded him of old English folk music, and so hence the Robin Hood connection."

On an average day, it may take a couple of slow, careful steps to wade safely through the foyer at the Holdsworth residence, which is generally crammed waist-high with pieces of ingoing or outgoing equipment. The day before an I.O.U. tour, allow an extra minute or two. But when Allan is immersed in a recording project, it’s best to either pack a lunch or just use the patio door around, because that’s the most direct route to the meister’s nerve center, The Brewery - home of bottles, boxes, inventions-in-the-rough, and site of much of the sonic outrage captured on '''Secrets''', his latest release.

I’m very happy about my last album, ‘Hard Hat Area’ and also ‘'''Secrets'''’, because these were real band albums. We have been on tour for six months before the recordings and the band sounded really tight. I think that spark was really audible on the CD, too. ‘The Wardenclyffe Tower’ was more of a produced studio album with different musician’s on different tracks. I usually don’t like that too much, but there was no other possibility this time. I find it really hard to listen to my older albums. Especially my guitar playing is hard for me to listen to.

Q: What is your favorite album on your own, as a member and solo project?

AH: : I don’t actually have one. Some of the albums just turn out a little better than the others for no real reason, but they’re all so different to me--because a lot of people think my shit sounds all the same).. I couldn’t choose between say Hard Hat Area, '''Secrets''', or The 16 Men