How I Got That Sound: David Lord

XTC ‘All You Pretty Girls’
By Joe Matera

Respected British record producer and engineer David Lord has manned boards for artists ranging from Peter Gabriel and Tears For Fears to the Korgis and Jean‑Michel Jarre, as well as Australian legends Icehouse. Between 1978 and 1988 he owned and operated Crescent Studios in Bath; now semi‑retired, he still works with a select group of artists at his smaller home studio base, Inner State Studio, which houses a selection of the Crescent Studios equipment. Asked to nominate a favourite sound from the many he’s recorded, he chooses XTC’s ‘All You Pretty Girls’, from their 1984 album The Big Express.

Mellotronic Feeling

A Mellotron ‘choir’ forms the intro to the song ‘All You Pretty Girls’.
“XTC had purchased a rather beaten‑up Mellotron, sometimes known fondly as ‘the first sampler’. Beloved by prog‑rockers, and of course the Beatles, it’s an electro‑mechanical keyboard instrument in which, simply put, each key pulls a recorded loop of tape across a playback head. Different...

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Published September 2024