page_title: Journey (Kingdom Come album)
section_title: Music and production
hierarchical_section_title: Journey (Kingdom Come album) / Music and production
caption_attribution_description: EMS VCS 3 synthesizer (1969, S/N 297) &amp; DK-1 keyboard (1969) References Synthétiseur VCS-3 putney (EMS VCS 3) et clavier pour synthétiseur, E.M.S., Londres, 1969, E.992.8.1 et E.992.11.1.&#32;Cité de la musique Paris.
context_page_description: Journey is the third and final studio album by British experimental rock band Kingdom Come. After the band featured drastically different styles on their first two albums, and after several line-up changes, band leader Arthur Brown worked the band towards a new direction for Journey. The album was the first album in history to use a drum machine responsible for all the percussive sounds on the album. The drum machine in question was the Bentley Rhythm Ace, manufactured by Ace Tone. Although the band had commented the album was entirely based on the drum machine, the band attempted to, in rock and electronic terms, create an album that was the closest they could get "to a string quartet". The album features other experimental techniques, including using a triangle to guide guitar playing and extensive use of Mellotron and synthesizers from new member Victor Peranio, who replaced Michael "Goodge" Harris early on production.
  The album was recorded in November 1972 in Rockfield Studios and released in 1973 by Polydor Records. The album was not a popular release, although has gone on to be regarded as a groundbreaking and innovative album that was ahead of its time.
context_section_description: Describing Journey, Brown said his band were "attempting to do, in rock and electronic terms, the closest we could get to a string quartet. So the parts for guitar, bass and guitar were written with this in mind". Journey is most noted for being the first ever album where a drum machine is responsible for all the percussive sounds on the album. Richie Unterberger of Allmusic said that the album has been "most noted in retrospect as one of the first rock records to use a drum machine, which was still quite a novelty back in 1973." Brown recalled "the whole album is based around the drum machine, and we had a lot of ideas that we wanted to explore using this technology. The drum machine they used was the Bentley Rhythm Ace, the British version of the FR-1, manufactured by the Ace Tone company of Japan (Ace Tone later evolved into the Roland Corporation. The Bentley Rhythm Ace later gave the big beat band of the same name their name. According to journalist Malcolm Dome, one of the things that made Journey "a remarkably extravagant experiment is the fact that all those connected were open to the most outlandish possibilities.
  Richie Unterberger said that, besides being the first drum machine-based rock album, "in other respects it was also a departure from Kingdom Come's previous sound, with the songs not quite as doom-suffused as their first album (Galactic Zoo Dossier) or as whimsical as their second (Kingdom Come), if just as intense in their philosophical questing." He called it an "uneven experience, dwelling in the darker side of early-'70s prog rock, but also touching on heavy metal, jazz, science fiction electronics, and blues from time to time" with "cold electronic touches (including synthesizer and mellotron)." Journey was purportdley the third in a loose conceptual series. A reviewer for Julian Cope's Head Heritage called the album "drum-machine propelled space-glam" that "positively gushed with transcendent energy and light." He stated that it "shows just how complex you can get your grooves (even with a Bentley Rhythm Ace in charge of the drums) and how space rock and progressive rock moves need not be a block to great tunesmithery and can be gainfully mixed with soul-revue ecstatic(s) and proto-glam rock glam descends." The album also makes prominent use of the EMS VCS 3 and ARP 2600 synthesisers and Mellotron M400 keyboard, all of which are played by Victor Peraino.
caption: Victor Peraino used the EMS VCS 3 synthesizer on the album.
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