Recorded in 1979 and released in 1980, Machines in Motion was an innovative rock/reggae song which marked Red Beat as visionary musicians in a time of great musical inventiveness. It was single of the week in influential british Music paper, melody Maker. Machines in Motion was recorded at Gooseberry Studio's in London's Soho district which was a mini Chinatown at the time. Legendary engineer/producer Marc Lusardi was at the controls bringing his expertise with dub and special analogue tape effects to bear such as vary speeding things and playing them backwards.
Around that time Mark had been working with reggae/rock band Basement 5 and rockers Killing Joke. Red Beat recorded 4 tunes with Mark which were released on an EP on Killing Jokes indie label, Malicious Damage. Artist, Mike Coles who has since reopened MDamage, did the striking artwork at the time , the back cover of which is the last image on the video. The line up for the first EP was Roy Jones (dRedzilla) on vocals, Paul Jones (the Drumologist) on Ludwig kit, Martin Jones (who later toured with Howard Jones on bass) plays a Rickenbacker semi-accoustic guitar (like the one John Lennon used to play) and Majid Ahmed who later became Red Beat's sound man (fifth member of the band) on Fender Precision Bass.
The lyric of this song was written by Roy Jones. It can seem prophetic now when you think of the developments sequencers , midi and computerised mixers were to bring to pop and dance/disco music in the early years of the 80's. This wasn't intentional though. it was one of those lyrics that just seemed to come out of the ether and create an atmosphere reflecting the huge advances humans were making in machines and seeing the development of music as being a cause for this. Here they are:
Machines in Motion
Darkness, turning my head around,
And rhythm, pounding somewhere behind my ears,
No place for people in my dreams,
No place for people in my dreams.
The wheel goes 'round,
I'm telling you now.
The wheel goes 'round,
I'm telling, I'm telling you,
I'm telling you now!
We're dancing to machines in motion,
Dancing to machines in motion
Dancing to machines in motion
On our own
Go!
I got it all on tape,
And in my head,
The clash of metal pistons.
No place for people in this darkness,
Pounding, turning my head around,
Behind my ears.
The wheel goes 'round,
I'm telling you now,
The wheel goes 'round,
I'm telling you now,
I'm telling you now!
Music set machines in motion
We're dancing to machines in motion
We're moving to machines in motion
On our own