John Leckie on XTC and The Dukes of Stratosphear

John Leckie joins Jason Barnard of The Strange Brew to talk through the Dukes of Stratosphear story, from his first sight of a young XTC through to the new Dolby Atmos edition of the complete Dukes recordings. Leckie was the Abbey Road staff engineer who cut XTC's 3D EP in three days, then White Music at the Manor, then Go 2 and the dub experiments released as Take Away / The Lure of Salvage under Andy Partridge's Mr Partridge alias (later gathered on the Explode Together compilation). He explains how that dub habit of pulling a mix apart and rebuilding it shaped the Dukes sound years later. He talks through the years between, freelancing after leaving Abbey Road in 1978, work with Simple Minds and Bill Nelson, the Lost Jockey orchestral project, a spell in the Rajneesh commune, and how a collapsed Mary Margaret O'Hara session left Andy Partridge with six spare weeks of studio time, which became 25 O'Clock. Leckie recalls the Chapel in Hampton Bishop, the sound effects tape run live during mixing so nobody knew what would come up when a fader was raised, and the move two years on to Psonic Psunspot at the boat-access-only Sawmills in Cornwall, with its Fairchild limiters and a Theremin part that was actually a ribbon-controlled synth. Psurroundabout Ride: the complete Dukes of Stratosphear recordings, newly mixed in Dolby Atmos by Steven Wilson from the original master tapes and approved by XTC. The 2026 CD/Blu-ray set pairs the 2019 stereo mixes of 25 O'Clock and Psonic Psunspot with the new Atmos mix, 2019 5.1 surround, the original stereo mixes and the complete demos in Hi-res. As performed by Sir John Johns, the Red Curtain, Lord Cornelius Plum, E.I.E.I. Owen Produced by John Leckie (Swami Anand Nagara) and The Dukes Timestamps 00:00 Introduction: the Dukes of Stratosphear and why 25 O'Clock is his favourite production 01:30 Early work with XTC, 1976-1979 05:56 Between XTC projects, 1979-1985 09:51 The genesis of the Dukes of Stratosphear 15:27 Creative method: spontaneity, chance and psychedelic techniques 29:27 Psonic Psunspot at the Sawmills, 1987 40:21 The Dolby Atmos remixes and the legacy of the project Further information Subscribe for more in-depth conversations on The Strange Brew Podcast plus hundreds of interviews at https://thestrangebrew.co.uk/ Buy me a coffee https://ko-fi.com/strangebrewpod