The album “Higgs Boson” is the eponymous debut from this jazz-crossover composer. Higgs (keyboards) is joined by a number of reputable musicians including Pete Claridge and Chuck Scirocco (guitars), Rob Townshend (sax), Kevin Jeffries (bass) and Tom Hooper (drums).
All of the instruments are featured heavily, so the album doesn’t necessarily come across as just a keyboard player’s project. Penumbra is extremely dynamic and syncopated, with preposterous drum chops from Hooper, while Perpetual Symmetry is an atmospheric piece with an oriental influence. The keyboard playing is tasteful and surprisingly restrained throughout the album – Lyle Mays and Dave Grusin were clearly an influence on the man.
“Higgs Boson” was produced by Gareth Young and Jo Partridge (of War Of The Worlds fame). FHP Records distributed it in the UK by Discovery.
Gear Used
Synths and Workstations
- Ensoniq VFX SDII
- Korg i3
- Roland JD-800
- Roland Juno 6
Modules
- Roland JV-1080
- Roland JV-880
- Roland U220
- E-mu Proteus 1
- Yamaha TG100
Samplers
- Emulator III
- Akai S1000
Other
- Alesis D4 drum machine
- 24-track 2″ Studer multitrack
- Allen & Heath 24-track desk
- Three ADAT machines
As you can see, Higgs used a lot of gear for the recording, although some instruments were more prominent than others:
“The JV-1080 was probably the main instrument. We used it because of its massive polyphony and huge sounds. It really is an amazing synth and some of the sounds are ridiculously good. We would often blend the timbres from this with, say, an Akai S1000.
For instance, the intro to the track Big Technology featured the JV-1080 playing a thick pad with the S1000 doing a sort of Tibetan monk sample blended in. The Emulator III was also very useful – it was loaded with a 32Mb Bösendorfer piano sample, which was absolutely superb.”