Top Gear

Stef Animal (The Golden Awesome) presents her debut solo release "Top Gear" - a concept album of fifteen writing exercises, each conceived and recorded in one session. Each track was made using a different piece of obsolete or unfashionable music equipment, and the result is a collection of lo-fi epic miniatures.

Even if you didn't grow up with Atari video games, have no idea what Acorn and Commodore computers are or what acronyms like PCM and MIDI mean, you'll still find the intricate universe of sound represented on "Top Gear" to be full of adventure, wonder, human emotion and melancholic weight. There's playfulness here, too. Not only in the "Top Gear" title, but also in the way an electronic duck caller is hacked to produce a track, and children's' Casio keyboards and entry-level MIDI synth modules are used to deliver op-shop mysticism via dark, sophisticated progressive experimental dream-pop mini-symphonies.