How Come It Sounds Different?

Good question.
This was asked of me by a good friend, Al, who wondered why the new songs, say from We Three and Whispers (From a Forgotten Memory) sound different from those on Apologia and Life Without Chickens.
The difference is 25 years and the recording equipment.
Here's a shot from the good old days, when Apologia was recorded:

As you can see, I had more hair. Beyond that, I had a 4-track cassette deck, an Effectron II effects rack, a Drumulator, and a Korg synthesizer. There was also the guitar.
Here's what I have now:

As you can see, I have a bit more stuff.
I had to replace the 4-track because the heads and motors were worn and the not so insignificant fact that Tascam doesn't support the 4-track cassette machines anymore. Haven't for some time. So I moved up to a 24-track digital Portastudio. It does fun things like mix and master, and it has built in effects, which the original did not have, but I don't actually use those much because I still have the outboard gear which continues to works after all these years.
The Drumulator died, or I should say it kept losing sounds until it was pointless to hold onto other than as a paperweight. I now have an Alesis drum machine and a Roland digital drum kit. They do the trick. There are also drum sounds on the big keyboard, which also has piano, organ, and strings. I have a lot of choices that I didn't have before, which allows me to fatten, thicken, enlarge the sound if I choose to. I also have more stuff, period. A GR-55 guitar synthesizer. Percussion.
Plus, I no longer have to record on the floor.
And some of it is the songs themselves. However hard you try, it's nearly impossible to recreate the music you made as a 25-year old when you're 30 years beyond that.

This Weeks Song, 

No Wonder from the album, Winter. The song is basically a laconic response to questions about the status of a relationship. At the time I was fascinated by how we were trying to redefine or re-imagine our relationships with one another as if we were any different from the generations before us. Musically, it's basically a jazz-rock kind of thing with a laid-back groove.
Some of you will note I put this up a while ago. After some thought and consideration, I decided it needed work. I redid the opening solo and cleaned up some of the groove.
As always you can hear it here at mrprimitivemusic.com.

©2018 David William Pearce