How the East was Drawn
How was this sound achieved? Well for a start Billy restricted movement of various Anglo and German offspring by keeping them in a room between the main studio and mixing room, where he had secreted microphones. A small portion of the resultant two hour tape was smeared into 'Fears'. Comrade Tony Messenger was sent into public houses with a discrete lapel microphone to secretly record 'ambience'. The musicians were subjected to the 'iron fist' of M.D. Jenkins (actually, that applies any time BJ is recording). No one could enter the studio unless authorised (actually, that too applies any time BJ is recording...). Dave Ramm's amplifier kept up a healthy 'fluctuating power supply' type hiss.
Outbreaks of 'gay abandonment' - as when Huw Warren started to pluck the strings inside the grand piano - were swiftly curtailed (actually, it had just been restrung and, quite rightly, Nick the engineer didn't really need salty sweat attacking the wire...). But most importantly, all instrumentalists were considered equal and thus the 'open mike' policy ensured troublesome sound spillage and frequency leaks which gave the finished article all the intended sophistication and finesse of the automobile icon depicted on Track 4.