System UCS - Memory Trace

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System UCS was myself (Neil Keating) and Howard Slater.
We produced "Memory Trace" in an afternoon in my flat in the Old Kent Road in my basic home recording studio at some point in 1997 or 1998. It was pretty much made with just an Atari ST computer and a Casio FZ1 sampling keyboard.
The track got released on Howard's label Break/Flow in 1998 with tracks from other artists such as Eric Random, Christoph de Babalon, Peter Edwards, New Acephale and The Narrator.

Below are some answers to questions I asked Howard regarding this release as the memory traces are fading.

Why was it called the Murad Qureshi EP?

Murad Qureshi was an old work colleague of mine in the mid 90s who wanted to invest in
cultural stuff. He was involved in Labour Party politics and eventually was a member of the
Greater London Authority. He was a good guy who was intrigued by underground stuff and a
pioneer for Bangladeshi people in mainstream politics.

Tell me about the Break/Flow label

Break/Flow was not so much a record label as a small press outlet for my writings. As I was involved with Dead by Dawn and met many producers there it seemed like a good idea to do a version of the magazine as a record! My friends had the means to help me with this.
So, the EP was in the spirit of Earcom One (Fast Product) but also inspired by contemporary compilations on Praxis, Bunker, PCP etc. The idea was to make tracks by collaborating with friends: Controlled Weirdness, Christoph Fringeli, Nomex and Peter Edwards. We recorded the needle going down on the record as I liked the idea of the listener hearing his own needle descend to the vinyl and then hearing it ghosted on the actual record as an after-echo. So, in the spirit of eclecticism or in the spirit of a magazine I wanted the EP to be as diverse as possible, to make a little intervention into the scene, participate in it with sounds rather than words. It was also a way of having Break/Flow collaborate with friend’s labels: Unearthly, Praxis, Cross Fade Entertainment and Adverse.

What do you remember about making the track?

I remember taking some records for sampling down to CWs: It is Harold Pinter’s voice on there. I took a cassette of his reading from his screenplay of Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past. It was to be filmed by Joseph Losey but the project never got made. I think we honed in on the phrase ‘No Sound’ as another conceptual twist! I think we made the track in an afternoon. It was quite spontaneous.