Here’s a blast from the past. Sometime in the late ’80s, while still figuring out how to sync up my MIDI studio, a friend and I made an amazing discovery: we could use a drum machine to drive the synthesizers!

Anyone born after 1990 probably won’t know what the hell MIDI is. Suffice it to say we didn’t use laptops to make music in the ’80s—it took roomfuls of gear. MIDI allowed all those different instruments to talk to one another. This song is the result of one of those experiments gone sidways.

Jason Herrboldt – Chemical Suit

Made with a Roland Juno 106, a Yamaha DX-7, a Yamaha drum machine (don’t remember which model), and a Tascam 4 track.

You can also hear this track on my spacey Artificial Skies mixtape.