Gary Numan is back after five years with his new album, Jagged, which he calls a "reintroduction". Numan's sound has changed quite a bit since his 80's new wave hit, "Cars." These days much of the "classic Numan" textures are gone, in favor of an updated approach. Numan prefers not to remain shackled to the analog technology that helped define his early sound. In fact, he has dispensed with his keyboards of old, preferring to work with soft-synths, plugins, and modern keyboard technology. He is also a dedicated Pro Tools user, saying the most important innovation in music since he began recording is "undo".

Numan's new work is more dark and brooding; his older material has been re-worked for his live shows, and given an incredible technological boost . Hits like "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Down In The Park" in their day sounded quite full on stage; they have been transformed into massive sonic assaults thanks to powerful low-end signal processing and keyboard technology that weren't around when the songs were written.

All of this probably sounds like blasphemy to analog purists, but Numan is one 80s survivor who isn't living in the past, or building shrines to those old analog rigs. Gearwire caught up with Numan before his amazing show at the Chicago House Of Blues, where he talked plenty about the joys of Pro Tools, Shure mics, and how he feels about analog purists. "If you were around in the time when that's all you had," says Numan, "you'd be falling over backwards for a Motif!" Find out what's changed for Numan since his earliest recordings (1978's The Plan) to his most recent work, Jagged.