Lifting Gear Engineer - Space Between (Limited Edition) (2022)

Lifting Gear Engineer, aka Swansea's Rob Morgan, has built up a beautiful series of albums and EPs over the years, all delivering his unique style of bleeps and beats. On 8 July we're following up his recent single, 'Oped', by releasing a limited edition CD version of Space Between.

Originally issued in 2018 as digital-only, we have given this album a new look and new format. With the addition of 'For Alpha', it also has a new track.

We caught up with Rob to discuss the album and how Lifting Gear Engineer came about in the early 2000s.

Machine: If I remember correctly, I think it’s about 18 years since we first met. You were playing live at Journeys in Cardiff as part of Dave Grooveslave’s SoundBytes night. And you’d already had a LGE track on Boobytrap’s A Step in the Left Direction compilation. How and when did you get started with electronic music?

Rob: Yes that's right, good times! I started when I did a popular music course in Neath around 20 years ago. I was introduced to Cubase and just started messing about with it. Then I had this epiphany in a supermarket when I realised that I could make music entirely by myself, which created a whole new path. I bought a Yamaha QY70 and started making my own tunes.

Machine: That looks like a cool little box - I just Googled it! I remember when you played live and particularly when we went to BBC Radio Wales studios and you did a live track on Beth and Huw’s show you had all this awesome kit - I had no idea what any of it was! Do you generally work from hardware and just put it together in a DAW?

Rob: For that BBC Radio Wales session it would have been the QY70 and probably a Korg EA-1. For years I made stuff using Cubase and soft synths, but more recently I've got back into using hardware and analogue synths. I've recently got into Elektron gear, so I've been syncing up a Rytm with Ableton live for my newer tracks.

Machine: Ah, interesting. I’ve been getting into analogue gear recently for the first time, it's a bit addictive! I was tired of staring at yet another screen. Did you do other musical stuff before that course you mentioned - learn an instrument at school, that kind of thing? I know you also have played in bands alongside LGE as well.

Rob: It is good to have a break away from a screen. Yeah, I played piano and viola in school, played in a couple of orchestras. Music's been a big part of my life since a young age, also through my parents and siblings, what they listened to and played.

Machine: What kind of music did your family play? Also what would you say were your musical influences for LGE?

Rob: My parents listened to a lot of classical music, and my older brothers are very good pianists, so there was always music around the house. As a teenager I would sometimes sit at the piano and improvise, which I've carried through to making my own music. For LGE specifically, my main influences were Aphex Twin, Leftfield, and Orbital. Selected Ambient Works Vol. 1, Leftism and Orbital's brown album all had a major effect on me.

Machine: Moving on to Space Between, first released in 2018 this was your 4th album (with two more since in 2021 and 2022 and a stack of EPs of course). How did you approach this album - in terms of ideas and process?

Rob: With the Affected Coat EP (released on Machine in 2017) I had started using analogue gear (Korg Volca Beats, Minilogue and an Arturia Minibrute), so the album was a progression from that, using the same analogue gear. I've always approached making electronic music in the same way, starting with a feel for a rhythm or sometimes an improvised synth chord progression, and building from that. Different projects are influenced by the gear I'm using at the time. Each album or EP is a document of my development with the equipment I'm using.

Machine: I had no idea about what you were using or about analogue gear at all for Affected Coat but looking at what I wrote for that release I could obviously hear something was different as I commented on the sound at the time. You’ve had a good number of releases, over a couple of decades now. Do you find it easy to find time and inspiration to make music as LGE? I know I go through periods where it is much harder/easier. Added on to that, it seems like you have produced a lot more than previously in the last couple of years! I wondered what’s behind the more frequent releases recently?

Rob: I wouldn't say that I find it easy these days. I don't have the same amount of energy and motivation to make music than I did say 15 years ago. I think it's due to having a full-time job that takes it out of me mentally, and maybe just age! I'd say that I've had a pretty consistent frequency of releasing stuff over the years. I go through periods where I'm productive and that usually ends up with a collection of tracks that I envision as an EP or album.

Machine: I find it hard not to feel like I was "most productive" in 2000-2004, when I had lots of time to focus; but in reality I've now released music more since 2016 than I did in that early period. For some reason it doesn't feel like it. I guess it's that sense of it all being new at the start.

Rob: I suppose the learning curve makes you feel like you're being productive while not necessarily producing that much.

Machine: How do you think of your music in terms of genre, or place?

Rob: I would describe my music as Leftfield Electronica, but at the same time quite commercial. There's not that much complexity to a lot of my music, I'm more focused on a groove and textures.

Pre-orders for Space Between are open now. For more analogue bleeps and breaks from one of Wales' underground electronic masters, check out LGE's many past releases.