Options by Ian Boddy

Options was my third cassette album released in 1982 by the Bristol based Mirage tape label run by Martin Reed. This is very much an album of two halves, the first side featuring much shorter compositions than I had previously released, whereas the second side has two long tracks from one of my concerts performed at Spectro.

Once again I had expanded my range of instruments with the Moog Opus 3 which enabled me to play a much wider range of polyphonic textures. A lovely Fender Rhodes electric piano temporarily appeared in the studio for a few days too, which I managed to use on the track Water On Stone.

The choice of having eight shorter compositions on the first side was certainly a conscious one as many electronic artists dwelt in the domain of the long, drawn out track - which I certainly loved, but I felt this would challenge my writing skills. In a way it pre-empted the library music work I would begin in the mid-90s where brevity is a must. The pieces on this first side range from delicate, improvised keyboard tracks to heavy, sequenced work outs to create a suite of varied compositions.

The flip side by comparison has two lengthy pieces performed at a concert on 7th November 1981 at Spectro Arts Workshop. Till Quiet Descends is an experimental piece comprising nebulous, atmospherics leading to an avant-garde tape manipulation section in the middle and then culminating in a processed tape loop of my friend Jane Molloy singing, over which I improvised. The second piece 21 Degrees is heavily sequenced with everything running through a flanger pedal, as well as pre-recorded wordless vocals from Sid Smith and processed percussion from my Dr-Rhythm running through a VCS3. These two pieces comprised the first half of the concert. After the interval I played the single piece At Set Points, which features a nice use of the Moog Opus 3 being gated by the filter on one of my synths, for a chopped percussive effect. A much shorter edit of this piece was included on the Spectroscopic triple vinyl box set released by Vinyl on Demand a few years back but this bonus version is the complete track.

This 2025 cassette edition is limited to 100 copies and the original artwork has been reproduced as faithfully as possible including the front cover and my Letraset tape credits.

Ian Boddy
Composer, sound designer, DiN ambient music label owner
& analogue synth aficionado

ianboddy.com
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