This reminds me of the famous "Phil Collins sound", which basically is a gated reverb applied on the drums, and was discovered by accident during a studio session.
in Music Technology lessons (yes, that was a subject for a few years in the UK, I think it's defunct now) they loved giving us Phil Collins to analyse - he used all sorts of weird stuff noone else has ever bothered with (gated reverb, reverse reverb, short time delay on vocals, all in the same song, almost as a matter of course.)
The endless repetition is why I still sit still every time I hear the intro to "in the air tonight" trying to find the beat before the vocals come in!
Ah, I remember doing Music Technology A-Level - it was a brilliant course, and it helped that our school had the funds to build a halfway decent digital recording studio.
I was lucky enough to attend Hurtwood House - I really wanted to do proper Music A-Level, but they didn't offer it, only music tech.
In retrospect, I enjoyed it far more than I would have pure music, because I was right in the middle of my guitars-are-awesome phase - a studio was just an elaborate set of effects pedals to me.
Hurtwood, anyway, had a ridiculously awesome setup - they spend much of the (substantial) school fees on Media, Theatre and music tech kit, so full digital edit suites, a huge theatre with proper cabling and sound systems, underground recording studios with proper soundproofing and huge mixers for A level projects (In my day, a 24-channel soundcraft monster, plus numerous physical compressors, EQs etc - I remember a particularly expensive white valve-driven vocal preamp! Now I believe their kit is just a digital desk + Logic Pro.)
When I left for Cambridge, I didn't make it onto their "wall of fame" - because Cambridge isn't an Equity-approved drama school. Seriously.
http://thecollectivereview.com/hugh-padgham/hugh-padghams-ga...