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Chalkhills And Children XTC
This track by veteran band XTC saw producer Paul Fox mixing tones from
a palette of vintage synths. Joe Silva gets the lowdown...
ure, it’s all about Brian Wilson and Smile horn,” which remained in the mix until the crucial

S now, but back when engineer/producer Paul

Fox got the call to produce XTC’s 1989
album Oranges And Lemons, no one wanted to know
keyboard layering could begin at Summa. The pipe
organ sound that crossfades the introduction from the
previous tune is an example of Fox’s careful
about that particular brand of pop sheen. Fox wisely combination of tones: “That came from either the
saw to it, though, that it was liberally applied to Emulator I or the Emulator II, and there was possibly
Chalkhills And Children, the album’s closing track and some DX7, because I had got pretty cool organ sounds
a piece that the band saw as one of the cornerstones of that came from that. Back then I was into using a
songwriter Andy Partridge’s career. “This was the one combination of frequencies as opposed to multiple
song that kept me awake at night. My feeling when I sounds. Maybe one sound would have the right grind,
heard this song was that this was my chance to record but not the right stop that would play through the mix
INFORMATION Surf’s Up.” once everything started playing.”
Track details Fox, who provided the memorable keyboard lines Dave Gregory, XTC’s keyboard player and guitarist,
Chalkhills And Children for Michael Sembello’s number one US single Maniac, had also used the demo to score the keyboard parts that
XTC from the Flashdance soundtrack, convinced he would eventually play for the song. Partridge
Producer Swindon’s finest that he could do the job after they apparently tuned his Prophet 5 to a fourth, according to
Paul Fox heard some innovative Yes and Boy George remixes the notebook in which Gregory scrupulously scribbled
Musicians that he’d done. After initially tracking drums at Ocean session notes for the entire album. “We did all the
Andy Partridge Way studios in Los Angeles (the scene of many keyboards in a day, on the 24th of August, 1988. I had it
Colin Moulding
David Gregory
original Beach Boys recordings when it was known as all written out and scored. I was meticulous about this
United Western Studios), the band moved across song, because I was determined that we didn’t fuck it
Drums/programming
Pat Mastelotto town to Summa Music Group Studios to tackle up. Paul found the most perfect patches for the general
Engineer
overdubs and the eventual mixing. “I had probably atmosphere of the song.”
Pat Mastelotto nine or 12 keyboards in
Assistant engineers there that were set up at
Clark Germain all times. We used “I could hear in my head where I
Tim Weidner something that was
called a Sycologic,
wanted the song to go by using
Recorded
June–August 1988 which was a MIDI the demo as a reference point.”
Ocean Way routing device that
Studios/Summa Music
Group Studios, could turn keyboards on and off at whim.” In the end, it was the overall vibe that Fox was
Los Angeles MIDI cabling was run under the studio floor, most concerned with. “I’ve been to Swindon and to
Released with individual access points placed around the the chalk hills,” Fox says, “and you can just see that
28 February, 1989 room so that musicians could plug in wherever they magic and the aura of what that whole area is all
felt most comfortable. Fox’s Sycologic patchbay ran about. So to me, I wanted to get ‘that sound’ as
no less than what would now be considered a opposed to using the instruments to make a sound
museum-full of vintage synths. On hand at the time without a reference point to the image and the
were Emulators I, II and III, Roland’s Super Jupiter emotion you’re trying to get across.” MTM
and D-50 models, a PPG Wave, Prophet-5, Yamaha
DX7, Oberheim Xpander and 4-VC, a Juno 106, KEY FACTS
plus an additional pair of Roland Jupiters (6 and 8)
Chalkhills And Children •XTC was formed in the railway town of Swindon, in Wiltshire.
>

appears on the album
Oranges And Lemons, XTC’s
ninth official release.
for good measure.
Partridge had provided Fox with a demo that had
most of the song’s arrangement fairly well sketched
out, but he had used only the simplest of presets from
what was probably a Prophet-5 to work out the
individual parts: “I could hear in my head where I
wanted the song to go by using the demo as a
reference point. But it was probably one of the more
backward processes I’ve ever got involved in.”
Fox initially built the track around a basic synth
sound that resembled a “rubbery, muted French
The original line-up was Andy Partridge on guitar and vocals,
Colin Moulding on bass, Barry Andrews on keyboards, and
Terry Chambers on drums.
•Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding have formed the core of
XTC since 1976.
•Chalkhills And Children is largely about Partridge’s rejection
of the rock‘n’roll lifestyle.
•XTC released their first breakthrough album, Drums And
Wines, in 1979.
•Oranges And Lemons was producer Paul Fox’s first
full-length production.
•The final mix of Chalkhills And Children was recorded to DAT.

122 March 2005 MUSIC TECH magazine