ORIGINAL NEWCLEUS 4 TRACK CASSETTE DEMOS

**EXCLUSIVELY FOR FREE DOWNLOAD ONLY AT THIS SITE**

These masters were all recorded on the original Tascam Portastudio, a 4 track double speed cassette recorder, with no effects or reverb aside from a very old fashioned analog tape echo chamber and a full track loop created by feeding the output back into the input on the 2 track cassette deck they were mastered to. The vocals were all recorded with cheap headphones used as a microphone (the $15 mike was broken…hey, those were hard times).
Most of these MP3s were mastered from a dub of a 2nd generation cassette that Cozmo’s old friend Darrin Ross (RENNIE HARRIS PUREMOVEMENT) had been holding onto for 15 years or so (both the portastudio and the master cassettes are long gone). In short, please don’t expect anything near high, or even good quality, though we did do what we could!

“JAM ON REVENGE (THE WIKKI WIKKI SONG)”

When Cozmo was shopping the Newcleus project (then called Positive Messenger), all of the material had a New Wave, Jazz, or Electro feel to it. However, since he had room at the end of 1 side of the tape, he threw on this song which he had only done as a joke. Little did he know that it was this funny little novelty song that would set off his professional career as an artist.
Originally named “Jam-On’s Revenge” and done as a Western spoof with a John Wayne imitation lead (even before Rappin’ Duke’s “Da Hah, Da Hah”), Cozmo would play it to much laughs at parties he spinned at. Producer Joe Webb however, told Cozmo to drop the Duke imitation because “John Wayne is an American hero”, so Cozmo flipped it into an outer space theme instead…Newcleus has been from outer space ever since.

“COMPUTER AGE (PUSH THE BUTTON)”

The song that Cozmo actually had most in mind as their best song to put out was this one. Much more in the Electronic Dance and New Age genre, it also contained a forboding message that was prevalent in most of the Positive Messenger songs. The original version contained a vocoder driven intro, a 2nd synth solo and a rather extensive vamp…in short, it’s long as hell…and it’s all included here so you’ve been warned. The warped beginning is actually due to damage to the cassette that the MP3 was mastered from…but hey, it sounds kinda cool.

“DESTINATION EARTH (1999)”

This is the earliest of any of the Positive Messenger songs that eventually were released under Newcleus. It included a hauntingly eerie vocal by Cozmo that Jonathan Fearing saw fit to omit from the actual release (he did a lot of bullshit like that). It also included a 2nd, rather long synth solo that lasted throughout the entire vamp. Unfortunately, because of damage to the cassette that the MP3 was mastered from, the song warps to a stop a few minutes before it finishes. Ah well, it’s still long as hell anyway…so be warned.

“WHY”

This is the only Positive Messenger song that was redone for the 2nd Newcleus album “Space Is The Place”. In actuality, the album version was a Jazzier remix done as the group’s first foray into MIDI technology in 1984.This original was written and recorded in 1982. Though it was included on the demo tape that Cozmo was shopping, when the group was putting together the “Jam On Revenge” album they felt that it’s melancholy vibe didn’t fit in with the more uptempo feel of the rest of the tracks. While much of the arrangement is basically the same as the later version, since this was done with the same instruments as the other Positive Messenger and early Newcleus material it has a much more straight-up Electro feel to it. Along those lines, the main and most stand-out differences are the TR-808 drum track, replaced in the later version by a much more involved RX-11, and the smooth Pro One square wave solo at the end, which would be replaced by a DX-7 electric piano jazz solo. This was found on a recently unearthed cassette, and aside from a short dropout and some slight stereo drift actually has a fairly good sound quality.