Herman: "From the first email I got from this gentle man till the last one, there is only one conclusion: he Definitely “aint roight in the head”. Anyway, we succeeded in selling him one of our AH! Njoe Tjoeb 4000 machines and while sending emails to each other after that, he mentioned his own home-brewed cd(r). That cd(r) reached our mailbox and eventually our cd-players. Mmmm, nice. Everyone who listened to it reacted the same and asked for the band's name. Crazy Andrew, I said. I asked Marcel to take Andrew's cd(r) home to listen to. Not only Marcel, but also Papa/Opa van Overbeek took Andrew's child home. Ok, I stop and let Marcel go on!"
Marcel: "One day Herman handed me this cd(r), which was actually a "master" recording of UDA (Andrew Deeks) home brew "ambient" music ... It knocked me out of my socks! At home, I fired up my Tjoebed system and sat back ... From the first minute, till the last, it took me for a nice "space flight". Read my "review" below, and "feel" the fun times of high fidelity ... We hope this helps to revive the (almost forgotten) FUN part of our hobby ... Enjoy!"
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It’s about 3 weeks now since Herman handed me a CD and said: "Have a listen - this comes from one of our UK Tjoeb customers." Driving home from work, I fed the disc into the Car CD unit. I was immediately impressed!
Many Hi-fi enthusiasts play musical instruments. However, not many of them actually record what they play. Andrew Deeks did - and how! I am still wondering how he did it. This review is not about the music itself, although I will try to explain in which category it belongs. This review is about the sound from an audiophile’s point of view.
It’s called "U.D.A., From then to here, 1993-2002" and I really don’t have a clue what that’s all about! It seems to be a ‘best of’ compilation. It actually contains 13 tracks (although the booklet only lists 12) and the total playing time is 73.36 minutes. The music is electronic, all made on synthesizers, no computer, made in real time on hardware. Electronic, perhaps, is also the best name I can think of. If I dared to make a comparison in this category of music, I would think of Mike Oldfield (The Songs of Distant Earth) mixed with a little Orb, flavored with some Pink Floyd (Division Bell) and topped off with a symphonic spoonful of psychedelic ingredients. I hope this doesn’t offend Mr. Deeks, but I am sure that he must have heard the above-mentioned music at least once in his life. Please don’t misunderstand me - this is definitely not a case of copying other work - it just ‘tastes a little like…’ if you catch my drift. I certainly know I like it. It made me go up the attic and find my old electro-music CDs again. Thanks for that! I even found a couple of Kraftwerk albums (Radio Activity!) that I didn’t know I still had lying around.
The other morning, my dear old dad (who is responsible for the ‘audiophile virus’ I suffer from) came in. He asked me about my new CD which he spotted on top of my Ultra Tjoeb. "Well, Dad, this isn’t for old guys!" As I left for work, he said goodbye to me with a smile. Later that evening, he called me to announce that he also wanted to order the disc! Evidently, that morning after I had left for work, he fired up my system and sat on my listening couch for about 73.36 minutes with his mouth wide open! The conversation we had went along the lines of, "Do you remember those old Sheffield times when audiophile records had a special ‘be careful; very dynamic recording’ warning printed on the back?" Listening to this CD made him think back to those times and although this music is some 25 years younger, it reminds me of those days too. When my father banged his TDLs, my uncle slammed his refrigerator-big JBLs and door-sized Stax ESLs (which eventually went up in flames after playing them too loud!). This CD should have the same warning - it certainly made my 10-inch woofers wake up!
Back to the recording itself. The bandwidth is extremely wide and well extended in both bass and treble. The bass goes deep although it is balanced and dry enough; it is tight and powerful. The midrange is musical and detailed. There is a good range of high frequencies present, but not too much. The sound is crispy, airy and focused. All together it gives a fine, balanced impression with a slightly fresh breeze in the upper band and a firm foundation in the lower section. The acoustic ambience is stunning. I found myself in a spacious environment, looking around, almost touching the ambient sound effects. It sucks you in, making it possible to experience the deep, wide, open soundscape and to drift around inside it. When the CD ends, you almost feel the touch down landing on solid ground, making you want to play it again! The overall impression is mystical, sometimes spooky, but comfortable enough not to flip you into a psychedelic trip! It’s hard to grasp the detailed and focused information, because the music constantly pulls you away from focusing on it. And that, my musical friends, is a direct compliment to the composer!
My audiophile buddies and I meet up a few times a month and last week, it was my turn to host the evening. They were all very curious as I had been raving for quite some time about our AH! TjoUpsampler - 24 bits all the way, at 192K! They always bring along discs, better and better ones. Now it was my turn. Spotting U.D.A. on top of my stack of discs, I thought "What … Let’s see what happens!" The first announcement was from the couch, "I know this one! It’s… uhhh, the…, mmm… No it isn’t… What’s this? And why is it sounding this good?" A "Yeah!" came from the sofa, "I MUST have this - food for my electrostatics!" And as the evening passed, the topic of conversation was still U.D.A., and they were also wondering where the name came from. I yelled out "Unexpected Dynamical Ambient!" So are we going to put this in our ambient section of our record collection? I guess so!
Looking back on how much fun I had had with this CD, I feel I have to support the man behind this piece of art. Herman also had a great time listening to this album. So we all agreed - because music is of major importance in our lives, we are pleased to give Andrew Deeks an opportunity to make his music known to the audiophile community. We are going to offer his CD in our AH! Web shop to make it possible for others to experience the recording. We consider this CD to be a reference recording as far as frequency extremes are concerned, as well as being a pleasure to listen to. Herman is looking into the possibilities to give U.D.A. some airplay by adding his music to our Websites (www.hifi-notes.com and ww.hifi-planet.com) so you will be able to have a listen! Airplay in our shop in Eindhoven has resulted in many great comments and questions about where to get it. Well, Mr. Deeks (who is known for his great sense of humor in his correspondence with us), when you are rich and famous, can I have a back-stage pass when you are playing in Holland? From here to where! Cheers!
PS Adding this music to our website unfortunately takes too much bandwidth and will make the sites slower. That we don't want. Instead we are getting a number of cds and we will find a way to get it to people interested.
Send a mail to Mr. Andrew Deeks Send a mail to Marcel van Overbeek
We really thought being the "first", but we found an early writing (1998) on what Andrew was doing at that time. Read more about it here.
