Back in 1983, when I was running Lotus Records mail order, specialising in Electronic, Space-rock and Progressive music genres, we were attempting to sell a lot of music by artists whose music was unknown to the potential customer database and whose music could not be heard through any media outlet. I made contact with Jeanette ("Nessie") and Dennis Emsley, who had their own radio broadcast in the south of England at the time, and had come up with the idea of "Inkeys" - a magazine on cassette that would be sold at an ultra cheap price (to cover costs), featuring music from all the musicians and bands that we wanted the public to hear, as well as a regular interview with a musician or band, concert and album news plus charts rundowns, each issue appearing every couple of months and sold through Lotus Records. The result was a big increase in sales for the releases by most of the musicians whose music was featured. After 17 issues, they made a personal decision for it to discontinue, although I went on the do a similar thing on "Syntrax" with musician, Jon Palmer.

At the time, several musicians were extremely helpful right from the start - Robert Schroeder provided exclusive introduction music free of charge, while Jean-Philippe Rykiel and Jean-Michel Reusser, were most helpful in getting issue one off to a flying starts with music and an exclusive interview. The up and coming UK synth scene spawned a number of new faces and some great music, the result being a good-humoured, slightly hesitant, but musically rewarding first issue.
From there, Inkeys just grew and grew, changing from quarterly to bi-monthly and featuring tons of music that would otherwise simply not have been heard by anyone without having to buy an album first. Not only that but across its history it includded many exclusive tracks that have to this day yet to see the light on any recorded album, from the likes of Mark Shreeve, Mark Jenkins, Jean-Philippe Rykiel, Michel Huygen, Robert Schroeder and Jasun Martz to name but a few, alongside exclusive interviews with Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Mark Shreeve, Wavestar, Ian Boddy, Steve Roach, Michael Stearns, Tony Duhig of Jade Warrior fame and many more, all accompanied by music from their albums of the time. It is only hoped that the newly-launched Inkeys can be very bit as successful and legendary as these eighties cassette issues.
It was the success in the yes of the musicians and labels at the time, plus the enthusiasm and hard work of the editors, that led directly to the first ever live edition of Inkeys in the form of the all-day electronic music festival, "UK Electronica 1983", that featured Ron Berry, Hawkwind, Chris and Cosey among other, the event leading to further, even more sucessful "UK Electronica" festivals, but the history of those is for another time.
It is hoped to put out on CD, excerpts from past issues of Inkeys and a CD Set of music from the UK Electronica Festivals as part of the 21st anniversary of each in 2004, but at the moment this is only in the planning stages, so don't count on it just yet. Suffice to say, you'll hear about it when and if it happens!

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