Habitable Zone By Habitable Zone (2014). A final side project – a concept album of sorts – where each track is named after a planet (or moon) in the habitable zone of our solar system (I couldn’t be bothered with Ceres).

1. 00:00 Habitable Zone
2. 03:24 Venus
3. 07:06 Earth
4. 10:15 The Moon
5. 13:27 Mars

Finale by Complete Confusion (2009) is another eclectic mix. A number of the tracks are based around short musical “sketches” produced years before, but never used. This is Complete Confusion’s final album.

1. 00:00 Fifty (Could go a little bit pear-shaped)
2. 03:11 Sceptisch (Sceptical)
3. 05:48 1960 (A remarkable discovery)
4. 09:00 The Real Doll (The Model)
5. 12:35 One One Three (Live)
6. 15:42 Louie Louie
7. 18:56 Kling Klang
8. 21:03 The Room (Mega Bounce Mix)
9. 24:49 The Absolute Minimum (Humanly Possible)
10. 28:23 Reorganisation
11. 30:59 Finale
12. 34:53 Minimal (Unfinished)

Eclipse by Complete Confusion (2007) is an album containing an eclectic mixture of styles, including several OMD cover versions (Silent Running, Romance of the Telescope, Almost, Of All the Things We’ve Made).

1. 00:00 Eclipse
2. 04:14 Evolution (Club Mix)
3. 08:52 I Know There’s an Answer
4. 12:12 Canon in Disco ’07
5. 17:40 Silent Running
6. 21:08 Scary Movie
7. 24:53 The Romance of the Telescope
8. 28:01 Almost
9. 31:39 Of All the Things We’ve Made
10. 35:18 I’m Sorry Dave (I’m afraid I can’t do that)
11. 38:15 Your Life as it Has Been (is over)
12. 40:57 Death on the Beach

Singularity by Complete Confusion (2004) comprises tunes created with Reason, Garageband and Soundtrack. It was started in Autumn 2002 and completed in September 2004. The music is a mixture of dance versions of tunes appearing on earlier CDs and novel compositions in a variety of styles, but overall I tried to create music with a more contemporary dance feel.

1. 00:00 Event Horizon
2. 05:00 Canon in Dance
3. 10:00 Every Day (Dance Version)
4. 13:17 Rowdy Yates (I Want Your Hair!) (Dance Version)
5. 17:22 Liati (Original Version)
6. 23:20 Liati (Dance Version)
7. 28:08 Baghdad Burning
8. 30:55 Singularity
9. 35:26 Unwanted Soundtrack
10. 38:50 Heart
11. 43:54 Event Horizon (SpyMac Short Cut)
12. 46:51 Reflections on the Cross

Killing Time by Complete Confusion (2001) is a collection of re-worked MIDI compositions produced using RolandED Virtual Sound Canvas and Metro SE on an iMac in December 2000 / January 2001. Many of the tunes were composed as far back as 1988, so there is a generally eighties feel to the whole thing, but I’ve never really been particularly happy with the production (mainly because of the poor quality of sounds from the Sound Canvas).

1. 00:00 Canon in Disco
2. 05:25 Killing Time
3. 09:23 Falling
4. 13:28 Complex Fusion (Complete Confusion)
5. 17:31 Been Done Before
6. 21:24 Better Than This
7. 25:42 Never Again
8. 29:30 Where Are You?
9. 32:43 Dunce
10. 36:44 Every Day

A Bundle of Joy by Complete Confusion (2000) was my first attempt at creating a serious collection of tunes. It was produced using Acid Music and Dance eJay on a PC in December 1999/January 2000 (except Rowdy Yates, which was produced using a Mod tracker several years earlier). The sound is generally mid-nineties dance/techno.

Track Listing:

1. 00:00 Your Love (Radio Edit)
2. 03:20 Your Love (Touch Club Mix)
3. 08:49 Your Love (Kitchen Sink Mix)
4. 15:28 Hold On
5. 19:35 Fireworx
6. 23:48 Anieska
7. 27:25 New Year’s Eve
8. 32:17 I Git Around
9. 33:55 F.A.L.
10. 37:26 Rowdy Yates (I Want Your Hair!)

In 1984 I got together with a like-minded friend on a number of occasions with our synths, keyboards, drum machines and a tape recorder and recorded a few tracks. He even came up with a name for our synthpop duo – Complex Fusion. Unfortunately I lost touch with him around 1989, but I kept the tapes and digitised them. Jonathan, are you out there?

For posterity, I include these “warts and all” recordings; no multi-tracking, just two guys jamming. There’s tape hiss and bum notes, but also a lot of unfulfilled potential. Before The Pet Shop Boys there was Complex Fusion. Tracks 1-5 were recorded in my parents’ dining room in the summer of 1984; Track 6 was recorded in my flat the following year. Unfortunately we never got around to giving them titles and I don’t feel I can do that without input from the other half of the duo (wherever he may be). Very eighties.

Track Listing

1. 00:00 Track One
2. 03:00 Track Two
3. 06:57 Track Three
4. 09:38 Track Four
5. 14:35 Track Five
6. 17:25 Track Six

I dabbled in electronic music after I bought my first synth, a Yamaha CS-5, in 1981, inspired as I was by the likes of Numan, OMD, Depeche Mode, et al. Sometimes I would just plug in the tape recorder and see what happens.