And here’s another one where the draft version has been lingering around for months. I tend to write multiple entries at once in increments and in some cases sort of forget upon them until I stumble across them again. Other entries I’m more “on a roll” with any thoughts I might have on a track fresh in my and just bang it out, courtesy of my rather lightning fast typing speed, often prompting my partner wh0m I live with to exclaim: “Holy shit, you type fast!”
Coming into this entry here, it can feel a bit strange writing about currently active artists in the underground synth scene, for the main reason being that a lot of music in that genre from “newer” artists are ones that I have met or have some personal connection with, even if just a fleeting acquaintance at times. It almost feels like doing a clinical analysis on one of your friends, but in most cases — such as this one — it’s mainly an acknowledgment of the great work that they’ve done and just offering some interesting thoughts on their creative output.
This is the case in point with UK-based synth solo artist This Is The Bridge (aka Richard Anderson) — who in my eyes is one of the most prolific artists out there in that genre at the moment, with his most recent album (at the time of this writing) Vanishing Point released in March of this year on the visionary Tonn Recordings label out of Belfast UK. I had started writing this entry around the time it came out and since then on multiple occasions I’ve thought, “Damn, I should get that one finished.”
I can’t exactly peg it when This Is The Bridge started releasing music — his first release listed on Discogs being the 2015 release Dissatisfaction but on his BandCamp there’s several other releases prior to that including a “first” EP release that came out two years earlier — but I remember connecting with Richard early on with this project of his, I believe being introduced to his music by way of another artist (and mutual friend) Ivan Antunovic from Zagreb, Croatia who does his own fantastic solo synth project Iv/An, with whom I’ve had numerous colloborations with over the past decade or so. His work warrants an entry here for sure and that will happen in the near future.
Anderson’s output as This Is The Bridge is incredibly prolific, at times resulting in a few albums being released within a span of a year. Other times it slows. Most releases tend to be digital-only through his own artist BandCamp account but there are touchpoint releases of his that get an additional cassette, CD or vinyl format — usually in collaboration with the aforementioned Tonn Recordings.
With Anderson’s music I’m always identifying sonic or arrangement trademarks within his music. If one is a listener based in the UK one can likely pick out an overarching influence coming from synthesizer work produced for any given number of films or TV programmes from the period of the 60s through to the 80s, with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop coming to mind. Then there’s of course the vast legacy of British underground first wave synthesizer canon that was at it’s height from the mid 1970s through until the early/mid 1980s, and with an additional broader influence from Europe in general. No specific artist of influence comes to mind as I’m sure Anderson has a strong and vast knowledge of this genre.
Some of these “trademarks” I hear are a lot of synth lead work where with a synthesizer that has at least two separate oscillators will have one oscillator tuned to the root note (let’s say C) and the second tuned to the major third (E) and from there “mono” lead lines where one key is pressed produces a major duo-tone with those tunings set. His work also has dramatic chord transpositions, where one main collection of sequences may run in what’s based around on minor chord (let’s say A minor) and then gets shifted up an down (becoming G minor-based, C-minor based and so forth). Drum sounds tend to be more analogue and less sample based, often pulling inspiration from the first wave of drum synthesizers from that general time period. Synth pads can come across as meticulously designed and with gorgeous phasing and depth.
I think these trademarks are good. It’s almost like in a “blind taste test” type of scenario be able to probably use these identifies to “guess that artist and win a prize”.
Anderson’s vocals tend follow the root notes a bit more and have melody fluctuation based on that or perhaps more of a quality that’s a bit less melodic to place more emphasis on urgency and force, but overall they work with the other instruments in the music — likely his intent being to have the vocals as a human element in the overall sound, rather than taking the approach of a vocalist using the electronic instrumentation to provide a backing track to the artist’s singing, if that makes sense.
This work can vary from album to album — some more “song-based” compositions and others more pulling inspiration from electronic moods more aligned to film soundtracks and other more abstract ambiences. There’s also albums where Anderson will bust out an electric guitar or bass guitar to further diversify his sonic palette, and to perhaps take a break from his usual position behind the knobs and patch bays to exercise his skills on these more traditional “rock” instruments to flex his skills on the fretboard.
Anderson is a mature artist, having gravitated to general genre of music quite a while ago starting out in his native Liverpool and with This Is The Bridge really started to find his stride and likely his creative drive that has let to his ever expanding discography ever since.
For whatever reason, the track “Don’t Want To See Your Face” from this Vanishing Point release has stuck in my head and perhaps that’s because I’ve interpreted his approach to this track differs from the others. It would seem like he was well aware of playing around with tropes and the general pastiche of late 70s/early 80s electronic disco. We hear the fun, bouncy octave jumping bass synthesizer with the moduled, jangly guitar textures over top. It’s almost like Anderson was taking acknowledgment of this stereotype of what the cultural view of was of things like robots, space and disco from this time period, put on these “clothes” as a bit of musical drag and used it to fulfill his own creative ambitions and message through these qualities. And yes, it is indeed danceable!
And throughout this track Anderson’s use of sequence transposing — as identified earlier — comes into play as well which definitely shifts what starts of a somewhat bubbly track into a more deeper, ominous territory. As the track transitions into the bridge, the style of work for the “lead” synthesizers works nicely, although absent of the major duo-tone oscillator configuration that can grace a lot of his mono leads in other tracks.
Contrasting his profilic musical recorded output, Anderson generally opts to play live rarely and if so it might generally have a gap of a few years between these fleeting perfomances. There’s likely many reasons for this but for practicality — and doing my own synth-based music as a solo artist — it can be difficult to transpose a world of music done in a sprawling home studio into something that’s compact and portable to bring to the live stage. This in itself is a whole other world of preparation work.
I also think musical artists make music for a myriad of different reasons: some like to perform live and meet like-minded people along the way. Some love stepping into the shoes of a larger-than-life character that fits in with the fantastical history of popular music. Some like the technical process within the labratory environments of the studio. Some really just like the craft of writing and composing music. This Is The Bridge falls more into the latter two reasons and is one of those artists whose “call to the craft” is on the process of writing and creating.
So while you might not see This Is The Bridge out in the landscape of cramped stages dingy clubs that run until 3am in the morning, it’s in more subtle, surreal environments of a decaying, post-industrial Britain where his music was written for, and works best for the sonic detailing crafted into his releases.
On a final note, This Is The Bridge is one of a number of select artists that have dialed in on the European “minimal wave” scene that have been released on the Berlin-based Objet Trouvé label with is 2021 release My Brutal World (the track “Progressive” below). Run by musician/artist Stéphane Argillet of the French minimal synth duo Peine Perdue, the label is well known and identifiable for those active in that scene due to its unique process of releasing records. Generally all releases are on vinyl, all with a “standard” limited vinyl run. However, the magic with this label comes with the fact that there’s some incredible “limited edition” versions of these releases with absolutely mindblowing hand-built DIY packaging using materials ranging from wood, metal, plexiglass, cardboard and more — often making them more pieces of amazing physical art/furniture.
These limited edition pieces have a functional purpose though as they have a far higher price point which in turn proceeds from the sale of those limited editions essential pay for the cost of producing the full pressing. Pretty clever. Other artists to be “curated” by the label include Martial Canterel, Accident Sentimentalle, Madmoizel, Oberst Panizza, UFO Shadow and many more.