When I first met this band, it was called Forgiving Iris, and I first got to know them through the CD Cat Compilation II released in 1995 with the demo version of “Annie, Would I Live to You”, a song I fell in love with right away. I started looking for more information about them and found the band’s official website, where I first got in touch with Reagan Jones (Vocals) and Matt Morris (Synths), which contained 2 demos, and over the months they added new songs, always very good.
I became a big fan of this American band and I’ve been following their work ever since, and I’ve been in regular contact with Matt Morris, the guy responsible for the band’s sound that fascinated me so much.
They were at the top of my list to be released by Aphex Music (a Brazilian synthpop label I was involved in), but due to some issues with the band’s rights, as they had signed with another label that backed out and delayed the deal with A Different Drum, they ended up being left out of the first wave that came to Aphex Music.
Their first singles and especially their first album were released in late 1999 and were a huge success that took them to another level. And with the release of their second album in 2002, they solidified their career, despite Matt leaving and the arrival of a new member, Andrew Sega, who did not disappoint. Who happened to be a Tracker like me, known as Necros.
In 2003, A Different Drum was producing a remix album called Reconnect with their best remixes released on singles, including those made by the bands The Nine and Neuroactive, and with new remixes made by bands like T.O.Y. and The Echoing Green, in addition to new versions made by the band itself. I even tried to apply, but the positions were very competitive and my main contact, Matt, was no longer in the band, and I was still somewhat of a newbie.
The first track was a remix of “Annie, Would I Lie To You (T.O.Y. Mix)” by the German band T.O.Y., which used to have a more industrial sound and was called Evil TOY. They then decided to make a more melodic synthpop and removed the “Evil” from the name. The remix is cool, especially in the choruses, but I thought it was a bit empty and could have had something more.
So, listening to the CD at work, I had some ideas about this first track and when I got home I went straight to the keyboard where I created new melodies on top of the remix and decided to record it all. Then I went to the computer where I added 7 more channels to the remix, adding more synths, effects, drums and many new keyboards, thus giving new life to the remix. And since the entire base was made by T.O.Y., it was only fair that the name of the remix was TOY & Hajas Mix.
I did this remix in just two nights. In the first one, I composed the new arrangement and melodies, and programmed the entire remix. In the second one, I mixed and mastered the song, creating the MP3 and uploading it to my website, and then I posted it on some forums to promote it, like EGN, of course, and everyone loved the upgrade I did to the T.O.Y. remix, all the feedback was very positive.
“Freddy! Thanks! It sounds great. Good work. I hope you had fun with it.”
Matt Morris
This remix is not on the Reconnect album of course, and it was made really just for fun and will probably never be released officially, but it served to showcase my work and get other jobs.
In 2006, there was another Remix Contest for Virtual Server and I had already stopped applying for these Contests, but there was a song with vocals by Reagan from Iris that I really liked, and I decided to participate. The result was really cool and I consider it one of my best works.
My Remix was one of those selected by DJ RAM to be released. Some would be released on the Bonus Disc of the Setup album that was released in 2007, and the rest would be released as Singles. But at that time, the label A Different Drum, like all record companies, was not doing so well and decided not to release any Single, and so my Remix was never officially released.
Unfortunately, Todd from A Different Drum was never very interested in Streaming, despite having officially sold MP3s for a while. With that, a great legacy of Synthpop History was lost forever, what a shame.
