Published in the October 2006 issue of DJ Times Magazine
Volume 19 - Number 10
By Lily Moayeri

     There are two sides to Dark Globe: the aggressive and tough part (Matt Frost), which results in a dirty musical undercurrent, and a light and abstract aspect (Pete Diggens), which brings out each track’s beauty. It’s that balance that makes much of their music so compelling.
     After 15 years of creating tracks—like the boombastic ’02 hit “Auto-Erotic” featuring Boy George—Dark Globe finally got its chance to explore its full range of artistic possibilities. Its debut full-length, Nostalgia For The Future (Global Underground) offers its trademark, yet quirky take on breakbeats, but it also carries the listener into lilting moments and memorable, ambient-flavored vocal tracks. With a guest lineup that includes Boy George (on the gorgeous, downtempo “Atoms”), Amanda Ghost (on catchy breaks tracks “Break My World” and the UK hit “Feed”) and punk-era guitar legend Tom Verlaine from Television (his tasteful, ascending lines highlight “Everybody Fades”), Nostalgia For The Future certainly isn’t your typical breakbeat record. But then again, why would you expect anything different from a group that takes its name from one of the late Syd Barrett’s wackiest solo tracks?
     Frost and Diggens both have individual studios at their respective places, but the Dark Globe material is primarily recorded in Diggens’ converted attic in his South London home. They have a combination of virtual and live components available and the more traditional gear figures largely in their creations—various Fender guitars, a Vantage bass and a Broadwood baby grand piano. Everything is put through an Apple Macintosh G5 2 GHZ running Logic Pro 7 and Pro Tools LE 5. And while virtual instruments play their role, there are still a number of outboard pieces figuring into the equation. They include the E-MU 6400 sampler, the Akai S3000 XL sampler, and Roland Jupiter-6 synth.
     Interestingly, Nostalgia’s opening track was written and fully recorded more than 10 years ago, left on the shelf and later resurrected for the album. “Break My World” with Amanda Ghost began in 1987 with Casio FZ1 samples. It was transferred to the E-MU in 1997 and moved into Logic around 2000—there it was finished. In Logic, it was processed with Transverb and Reaktor. Piano sounds from the EVP88 and the baby grand were also added and Ghost’s vocals were re-recorded on a Røde NTK tube condenser studio microphone. Aside from the new vocals, the more up-to-date production focuses mainly on beefier percussion.
     “The original was an uptempo track at about 160 BPM—drum-n-bass,” says Frost. “We half-speeded it so it’s not so rushed, not so manic. [Amanda Ghost] was perfect for it. We captured a good performance out of her. When she was singing it, Boy George was in the room and he was like, ‘No, that’s not good enough. Put more effort into it. Get more emotion into it.’ Without him we might not have gotten the same result.”
     The Boy George-fronted “Atoms” is a similarly emotional number, which Frost reveals was recorded while Mr. O’Dowd was both crying and singing. “Atoms” begins with samples and Malmsjö piano and Logic’s Sculpture was used for part of the lead line with Absynth drum samples and VSL string samples. The vocals were recorded with a CAD microphone directly into Yamaha O2R digital desk and reprocessed through a filter. Frost and Diggens multi-tracked themselves singing to simulate the backing choir vocals.
     Not every vocal song is as deeply emotional as those two, however. The angular, propulsive “Feed,” another resurrected track featuring Ghost, started on the E-MU sampler run by an Atari 1040 STFM. It includes a guitar line that was fed through a Boss distortion pedal using lots of the E-MU filters. This was blended with sounds from Fender and Takamine guitars for effect. The E-MU is also used for the bassline, while Ghost’s vocals are done using the Røde, once again run through a TLA 5051 mono valve processor and into Pro Tools.
     “We took our underground, mumbling lyrics up,” says Frost of the creation of “Feed,” originally an ’04 pop hit. “It’s like two different tracks. The verse is really cool, and then it bursts in with this kind of pop chorus that comes from nowhere. It sounds like two records being mixed together. It works, but because it’s gone through a couple of transformations, it’s quite a strange thing for us because we’re all cool or we’re all pop—so it’s quite a mixture.”