By Keith Walsh
Established in the late 80s when vocalist and lyricist Brian Belknap (Blaklight) met keyboardist and synth programmer Brian Olsen (Spasmodic Baritone), Mind Machine began releasing new music and reworked versions of earlier songs in 2016 after a 25 year absence since their debut album, 1991’s Reflection. Frozen Souls is Mind Machine’s brand new three song release, and if its compelling melodies and beats are any indication, the new sounds coming soon from this California duo will be worthy of play at home and on the dance floor.

I had the chance to ask some questions of the two Brians, in a revealing email exchange.

Synthbeat: Mind Machine started around 1989? Why such a long gap between releases? How did you meet?
Brian Belknap: Correct, we met back in 1989 through a mutual friend I met in high school. Brian O had been writing and recording all these tracks on his Casio and was looking to take things more seriously, so our friend Dave recommended that I take a swing at it. Honestly, I’m not sure why he asked me, haha! Once college hit, we simply drifted apart with other interests, there was never any kind of nasty break-up. In 2016, I found an old stash of cassette tapes with all of our old demos and we started listening and reminiscing, and decided we should try to polish some of the completed tracks and finish some of the incomplete tracks,

Synthbeat: For Brian Belknap: Had you been in bands before? Your voice was higher 🙂 on Reflection.
Brian Belknap: A bit, haha! Yeah, I was 18 when we recorded Reflection, and I hope I’m a better singer now than way back then, I certainly feel more comfortable using what I’ve got. Mind Machine was my first band, though I tried putting together other projects between our dissolution in the 90’s and when we re-grouped in 2016, nothing ever came from it.

Synthbeat: For Brian Belknap-there’s a slightly poppier sound to the Mind Machine music. How do you approach lyric and vocal melody writing as compared to BlakLight?
Brian B: Well, that’s because I don’t contribute to the writing for Mind Machine. I wrote lyrics for two tracks back in the day, “Never Fall In Love ” and “Endlessly”, but never put pen to paper again till I wrote lyrics for the first BlakLight track three years ago. Brian O delivers a fully completed track with lyrics, vocal melody and guide track. I do my best to interpret Brian O’s lyrics and tweak his melodies ever so slightly to better suit my voice. Adam (BlakLight) and Brian O have very distinct writing styles, Adam’s tracks tend to use a lot of loops to evoke a mood or emotion, while Brian O’s tracks focus more on melody… he is the king of melody. 

Synthbeat: For Brian Olsen –had you been in bands prior to 1989?
Brian Olsen: Bands prior to 1989: Sort of? Mind Machine was my first real band although we did go under various name changes before we settled on Mind Machine. But before this I had been making demos by myself with a tape recorder and a Casio keyboard with drum presets. Most of those were done under the name Spasmodic Baritone. Keep in mind, I was young, like 12-14 years old when I was doing this. I was 15 or 16 when we formed the first incarnation of Mind Machine.

Synthbeat: For Brian Olsen- for the first album Reflection, before DAWs there were fewer creative choices.  How did available technology shape the sound of Mind Machine, then and now?
Brian Olsen: In 1990, when we really started going, there were like 4 synth players in the band.  We were all using a combination of analog synths and digital workstations/sequencers. Now since our reformation in 2016, it’s been nothing but software to create the music, EXCEPT one part in the track “Natural Emotion”: the bassline came from an actual Alesis Micron mini synthesizer.

Synthbeat: For Brian Olsen-what hardware synths and drum machines were you using, then , and what virtual and hardware gear was used on Frozen Souls?
Brian Olsen: When we recorded Reflection and played a few live shows back in the early 90s, we were using a Korg M1, Roland D-20, Juno 6 and Juno 60, and a Kawai K4. The drums came from either the Korg M1 or the Roland D-20. For the last album we did, and for the new one coming out soon which “Frozen Souls” is a part of, I used Alchemy Synth and Garageband, there’s actually some really cool sounds and it doesn’t sound like stuff that everyone else is using these days.

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