A Pilgrims Tale (Xscape-UK)

I have been involved in electronic music since the 1990's. Graduating from Amigas using OctaMed through to the brilliant Music X. Moved to the PC  and immediately got grabbed by the Yamaha XG format. I released music under the name of Xscape(UK) then. I also wrote sysex help stuff for the XG format at the time. Drifted away from XG and moved into VST tech using Sonar and later Reaper. I had a gap of a few years due to personal reasons but have now returned using the brilliant Bitwig Studio, both sequenced and with (some) live input. I still have an XG machine that also contributes stuff at times.

I hope you enjoy the music both old and new. Anything that mentions Xscape(UK) is me of old, VanDav0r is the new.

Thanks for listening.

Mick

Xscape(UK) / VanDav0r

A review from 2002 -

Xscape provided me with enough music for two and a bit albums, from which I was to choose the tracks for one proposed album. It took me three weeks just to stop playing the first track on CD one!! (A Pilgrims Tale ) I have lost count of the number of times I've played this track - it still sends shivers down my spine even now.

 For this guy has produced music that really has gone back to where it all began, way before synth music was ever on the scene. What you hear will sound like synths, a guitar (occasionally) and a piano - there are no massive backdrops, no vast layers of sounds, in fact nothing that would put the guy down as a favourite of the synth buying public. However, what you will get is one of the best melodic, tune-laden, atmospheric, beautifully played, exquisitely arranged and delivered albums that avoids the "new age" tag thankfully - nothing vacuous here - that is a sheer delight.

The tracks are so deceptively simple, so full of feeling and depth, many with echoes of artists such as Jean-Phillip Rykiel or Cyrille Verdeaux in their early days, but their success is achieved out of one thing - your overwhelming desire to hear the music, again, and again, and again.

 Every track seems to have a human heart beating at the centre, a mood, a feel and a whole demeanor that just melts you away every time you play it.

There's enough sonic variation and a whole wealth of writing ideas to keep you hooked for both the offered albums, never mind just one. There's passion, love, emotion, a feeling of vastness and yet an overwhelming warmth in there - almost akin to a religious experience. Again, in it's whole outlook and construction, unique for these times, but that breath of fresh air nevertheless."

Andy Garibaldi ... writing in Sequences 2002