This recording is from a tape labeled only "5 / 13 / 01 JAM SESSION" in my handwriting. It's a tape-over of a "The Best of Prodigy, hosted by Kay Slay" tape, which also says "Same flavor both sides" and retains the piece of adhesive tape I used to make the cassette recordable.
Side 1:
I think it was recorded with Lars Weiss and maybe somebody else. I think that Lars made the beat on a sampler. I was playing the electric piano, and some third person was playing a saxophone or some woodwind. You have here, in contrast, three musicians. Lars, whose harsh, angular beat underlies the whole thing, the woodwind player, who smooths it out, making it into an actual piece of music, and me, trying to play a clean rhythmic piano line, and failing to synchronize with the beat. This sort of shows you why I stopped making music. I am just not a musician. I'm fairly happy with my decision to step away from musicianship, and this recording just reinforces that happiness.
Side 2:
If you only listen to one minute of this tape, start around 9:00. on this side.
This starts out with a repeating bassline, distorted to the point where I can't tell what instrument it is. Over this, I again play electric piano, and it's clearly me because I recognize my signature lack of rhythm. This tape makes me question any musical ability I ever thought, through many doubts, I might have. I will think twice about dancing in public or singing in the shower.
At 2 minutes or so, the tape is restarted. There is a beat which sounds like my 606 (a drum machine) and is not completely terrible. Maybe I just need to work in a medium where rhythm is unnecessary. Over the drum machine I play, again, unfortunately, the electric piano. The cheap synth and the electric piano is an odd sonic combination, but I would judge this to be the best part of the tape. I go off on a musical tangent at one point playing with my tone control. I should have run the 606 through the tone control.
At 6 minutes or so, on this side, things get really strange. I don't know what instrument that is, or who's playing it. Maybe a techno musician robot wandered in off the street an blew a fuse at the sound of my terrible piano playing. Maybe it's my Pro-One (an analog synthesizer made by Sequential Circuits in the 70s). Also audible is a drum machine from a Casio toy synth. For a non-musician I sure had a lot of musical instruments.
10:45: a repeating figure starts. I think this is the built-in sequencer of the Pro-One. Over this, someone plays piano. I think it's not me. Either that, or I got better. There's about a minute and a half of that.
12:45: someone is playing unaccompanied synth. If you want to sample some analog synthesizer, and the web's vast store of these samples is not sufficient for you, then here you go.
14:28: unaccompanied electric piano, in a mellow vein. At 16:17 you can hear a car honking. Much vibrato is used. Or is that tremolo?
1700: the unaccompanied piano continues. The vocal part of the performance starts, as I can be heard calling out the chords. Maybe this sounds OK because I'm not trying to play to a beat. At 18:13 or so I explain something about the key this is in, then continue with the chords. Again at 23:. How did I know what a C minor 7th was? I don't remember knowing such things.
24:10: "Alright, here's another soul number" I declare. I'm not sure there was a first soul number, but apparently, in my mind, there was. This lasts less than a minute.