Turning Shrines - Cinnabar & Porcelain

Turning Shrines - Cinnabar & Porcelain (1988)

Turning Shrines was the name of Fred Giannelli's home recording experiments up until he joined Psychic TV. The album contains three songs and four tracks (one of which is side-long) of sampler experimentation. The sampler stuff isn't of much interest, coming off like a very low rent tape collage (which, twenty years on, we now know to be what it always sounds like anytime someone without much idea what he's doing sits down behind a sampler). Forgiven of course because sampler use hadn't been much refined by that early date and he clearly found his footing in very little time. The proper songs are a bit more interesting. Are You Experienced? was redone as an acid single with Carese P-Orridge's vocals to good effect. The version here is an early 4-track instrumental. Mystification and Iron Nights are both good-if-a-bit-amateurish sequenced synth tracks, great inspiration to me in my own amateurish sequencing attempts. I'd guess this is all FM synth and sampler, but there could be an analog in there somewhere. Wish I had access to his sample library from the time.