Having come aboard Trevor Horn’s ZTT Records, the former Buggle welcomed 808 State onto the label by handing them one of his Minimoogs.

“It was a very classy gift!” remembers Graham Massey, one of the founding members of the Manchester outfit.

Having fallen in love with the Model D long before he actually got to call one his own, Massey liberally put it to use. For their 1991 release “ex:el,” the synth makes an appearance within the first 20 seconds of the album’s opening track “San Francisco.”

“It has these Moog lines that build up a texture. Because the Moog is so hands on, you can flip the octaves on the oscillators and have them tuned to uncomfortable intervals. And that comes from listening to early Moog-ists like Sun Ra really. And ‘San Francisco’ is a perfect example of that (where) you’re building tension out of unnatural intervals.”

When their Minimoog failed to turn up on the baggage carousel after a long flight to the States, the band had to wait until a tour stop in Cleveland to pick up the much-needed replacement.

“The thing with the Minis is that you can hardly go wrong with them. They’re just so basic. There’s something at the output stage of most modern synths that puts something in the way of the rawness. I don’t know whether it’s in my mind, but there’s so much more punch to the Minimoog.”