Ian Boddy & Nigel Mullaney - Schemes & Ruses (2019)

Concerts are unique experiences especially when the musicians on stage are improvising. Tracks grow and build only to be torn down and from the sonic debris the next piece slowly coalesces and takes its own shape.

This organic process comes naturally to DiN label boss Ian Boddy and his long time musical collaborator Nigel Mullaney. They have between them a wealth of experience both on the DiN label and in the commercial world of music production. Utilising an array of modular synth racks as well as hands on sequencers and drum machines the duo can constantly mould and shape their performances. Along with Boddy’s signature Ondes Martenot synth lead lines and Mullaney’s tasty Moog keyboard licks Schemes & Ruses is an audio document of their performance at the Capstone Theatre in Liverpool on 2nd March 2019. The evening was a celebration of the DiN label and it’s 20th year anniversary and the duo were supported by d’Voxx who recently released their debut album Télégraphe (DiN58) on the label.

The music starts in mysterious fashion with the enigmatic “Hidden Rooms” which builds to an astonishing orchestral climax before the steady, insistent drum grooves of Mullaney take over. Boddy’s Berlin School tinted sequence lines intertwine with these rhythms as the performance takes the listener on a sonic journey from ambient atmospheres to toe tapping slices of up tempo electronica that slowly increase in intensity to the heavily sequenced encore track “Showdown”.

Released on the download only sub-label of DiN Schemes & Ruses showcases two musicians whose natural habitat is as much on the stage as in a studio and captures a mesmerising one off evening of live electronic music.