“I don’t like country & western, I don’t like rock music… I don’t like rockabilly! I don’t like much really do I? But what I do like, I love passionately!!”: CHRIS LOWE
Not to be confused with the classic 1984 Italo disco track ‘Spacer Woman’ but no doubt in homage, ‘Spacewoman’ is the new EP by Berlin-domiciled DJ, musician and producer Leona Jacewska, best known by her stage name CHARLIE.
She has become known for her notable series of SZUM electro events and being one of the spearheads of the Italo-Proto scene in Berlin which has also seen acts such as DINA SUMMER, NEU-ROMANCER, CURSES and PARADOX OBSCUR emerge.
With a Roland Juno 60, Moog Source, ARP Solina, Roland VP770, Crumar Bit 99, Moog Minitaur, Moog Little Phatty, Oberheim OB6, Sequentix Cirklon, Roland TR808 and Pearl Syncussion SY-1M in her arsenal, Charlie’s most recent release was 2022’s impressive ‘Cold Inside’ which included a remix by the notable Danish DJ legend Flemming Dalum. She opened her account with ‘Polarity Walk’, a track on the various artists ‘Mechatronica Aid EPII’ in support of Berlin-based artists during the 2020 lockdown.
Photo by Jovan Mrowiński
With a hearty rhythmic snap, the ‘Spacewoman’ title song utilises powerful kicks and throbs with sparkling synth hooks galore and suitably detached vocals that are both spoken and sung with treatments for a brilliant thumping club track.
With Chicago meeting Italy, ‘Let Go’ is hypnotic bliss, a sexy and sweaty number that swings and shifts tonally and rhythmically; this perfect strobe-lit slice of dark disco possesses a thrust and mood in the vein of fellow Berlin residents DINA SUMMER that bursts with groove and energy.
With colder trancier elements, the instrumental ‘Dark Waver’ is metronomic but bubbles infectiously as hints of ‘Oxygène IV’ threaten to breakthrough but it is jagged in all the right ways with a percussive barrage to close! ‘In The Night’ though is not a PET SHOP BOYS cover but its energetic combination of big beats, solid basslines, invader blips and spacey swirls concoct another fine instrumental, revealing a kinship with other young producers in Berlin such as Laura Bailey aka NEU-ROMANCER.
Sonically, ‘Spacewoman’ is immensely satisfying and works in the head as well as on the dancefloor. This retro-futuristic EP showcases CHARLIE as a talented electronic producer of worth, with an ability to bring workable changes within her exhilarating melodies and patterns while retaining the necessary repetitious elements essential to good club friendly music.
Masayoshi Fujita is a Japanese vibraphonist and marimba player with eight albums to his name including collaborations, his most recent solo offering being ‘Bird Ambience’ in 2021.
Birds and their behaviour are a creative haven for artists of a more ambient persuasion and in a year which has also seen the release of ‘The Secret Life Of Birds’ from Patricia Wolf, Fujita continues his avian fascination on his new work ‘Migratory’. Using the combination of electronic sound texturing and acoustic percussion instrumentation which first appeared on ‘Bird Ambience’, the follow-up’s intent is to capture a traveller’s wonder of being home.
Doing as German duo CLUSTER before him, Fujita returned to Japan with his family after 13 years of living in Berlin, to live and compose music in the midst of nature. Relocating to the mountain hills along the coast of Kami-cho on Honshu, the largest islands that make up Japan, once settled in, he established the Kebi Bird Studio in a former kindergarten to record ‘Migratory’; its concept surreally imagines birds travelling between continents and hearing this music from the land underneath.
With inspiration from swallows and cumulonimbus cloud formations, the opening piece ‘Tower of Cloud’ is glorious with a mesmerising synthesizer theme offset by marimba rolls. ‘Pale Purple’ and ‘Blue Rock Thrush’ continue the instrumental mood, although with the former is more organic and the latter introduces the jazzier sax overtones of Fujita’s father. Also sax inflected, ‘In a Sunny Meadow’ is reminiscent of the serene quality of ‘Torn Sunset’, Theo Travis’ collaborative album with John Foxx.
Vocal turns come in on ‘Our Mother’s Lights’ which brings in a spoken narrative from poet Moor Mother over soothing sax and a gently percussive motif while the angelic voice of Hatis Noit compliments the gentle hymn-like ‘Higurashi’. ‘Ocean Flow’ soothingly does as its title suggests while sparse resonances ably illustrate ‘Distant Planet’ as ‘Desonata’ floats beautifully and ‘Valley’ comes swathed in a widescreen drift.
The closing drone soundscape of ‘Yodaka’ adds another colour to the palette in the Japanese woodwinds of the shō played by Swede Mattias Hållsten; based on the ‘Yodaka No Hoshi’ children’s short story of ‘The Nighthawk Star’, the track exudes a peaceful but hopeful melancholy as it illustrates the plight of The Nighthawk who is bullied by other birds but responds with determination, non-violence and self-sacrifice to shine forever beside Cassiopeia.
Filled with appreciation of the natural world, as Fujita himself says: “Nature is there as the image to be evoked by the listener from the music”. With shades of Harold Budd’s Brian Eno produced debut ‘The Pavilion Of Dreams’ and others in their ilk, ‘Migratory’ is a wonderful collection of discreet music to be savoured in a state of satisfied tranquillity.
A product of Stuttgart and Los Angeles, ‘Neostalgia’ is the new collaborative album by CAMOUFLAGE’s Heiko Maile and composer Julian DeMarre.
The pair first worked together on the 1991 CAMOUFLAGE album ‘Meanwhile’ produced by Colin Thurston. It saw a musical diversion into more conventional instrumentation such as violin, saxophone, guitar and drums when the band from Bietigheim-Bissingen were reduced to a duo.
Outside of his dayjob with Marcus Meyn and their reunion with Oliver Kreyssig in 1999 which now sees CAMOUFLAGE celebrate their 40th Anniversary with the ‘Rewind To The Future & Goodbye Tour’, Maile and DeMarre partnered up to soundtrack the American action crime film ‘Killerman’ in 2019.
In 2020, the world was locked down by the Covid pandemic and with months of isolation at home, Maile and DeMarre got creative in each of their separate bases to create musical love letter to early electronic music from Wendy Carlos to Conrad Schnitzler and PINK FLOYD to YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA, Brian Eno to Vangelis with naturally TANGERINE DREAM and KRAFTWERK along the way. Despite ongoing soundtrack commissions for both delaying completion, the end result is the appropriately titled ‘Neostalgia’.
The opening piece ‘Patience’ is superb, originally written for ‘Killerman’ and titled ‘Leaving NY’, it has been reworked from the sweeping ambience of the soundtrack version to something more pulsating and percussive while there is a greater melodic presence.
Other tracks seeded from ‘Killerman’ like ‘Reflection (Dark Horses)’ and ‘Helios’ appear but another strong highlight is ‘Hollow Earth’ which utilises DeMarre’s Korg Lambda string machine alongside Maile’s hypnotic sequence. As the tempo rises, there comes a chilling drama enhanced live percussive rolls and textural guitar interventions which recall TANGERINE DREAM.
Meanwhile ‘Melancholia’ is a wonderful showcase for a number of vintage synth warhorses in the Yamaha CS60 and Korg PE-1000 although instead of a Mellotron, a real flute from Torsten Kamps provides the desired airy effect.
Featuring fretless bass and pretty synth, ‘Serengeti Ostinato’ rumbles rhythmically in tribute to the late Oscar winning German conservationist Bernhard Grzimek and his TV classic documentaries on African wildlife while ‘Universal Universe’ heads to the cosmos to illustrate the viewpoint of Stephen Hawking with a swinging neo-Schaffel backbone. But planet’s earth’s nature is the focus on ‘Between Trees’, a reflective ambient exploration to reflect the sense of openness between tree branches and how trees have defied changing climates before the arrival of humankind and civilisation.
Cosmic, spacey and occasionally ambient but mostly melodic, ‘Neostalgia’ blends of a variety of electronic styles with lengthy intros and outros forming key components. Tense yet hopeful, this is an album that will be appreciated by those who love the esoteric instrumental music of four or five decades ago.
Since their formation in 2017, MOLCHAT DOLMA gained a worldwide cult following with their first two albums ‘S Krysh Nashikh Domov’ and ‘Etazhii’.
From the off, the Belarusian trio had international ambitions and their popularity in Europe and the US led to the prestigious New York based independent label Sacred Bones signing MOLCHAT DOMA and releasing their third long player ‘Monument’ in 2020. Delivering a stark brand of post-punk that sounded like it had been demoed on a portastudio with dirty tape heads, with this highly derivative sound, MOLCHAT DOMA have been target of many jibing if affectionate memes by the @sounds.like.joy.division Instagram parody account.
But with ongoing political tensions in their homeland and having spoken out against the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, Egor Shkutko (vocals), Roman Komogortsev (guitar, synthesizer, drum machine), and Pavel Kozlov (bass, synthesizer) relocated from Minsk to Los Angeles. The end result is their fourth album ‘Belaya Polosa’ which channels the anxiety and fear of that journey into exile to face a future of uncertainty.
With the inevitable comparisons to JOY DIVISION and THE CURE, MOLCHAT DOMA have always had a brutal gothic aesthetic that polarises in black and white. But on ‘Belaya Polosa’, in a new creative environment where the sun is shining on most days, the trio while remaining monochromatic have added some musical colour. While they have not turned into WHAM! or DURAN DURAN, the dancier but still sombre sequenced pulses of classic NEW ORDER and DEPECHE MODE have crept in for a more refined studio product that doesn’t come over like a third generation cassette duplication of THE WAKE or THE NAMES…
Full of front, ‘Ty Zhe Ne Znaesh Kto Ya’ is mighty as electronic body music dominates the mutant template with strident vocals on top to provide a punchy opening salvo. It highlights how MOLCHAT DOMA have grown from the band that released ‘Monument’ as synths stab and throb in a powerful cacophony of precise industrialised sound.
The magnificent ‘Kolesom’ offers glorious apocalyptic electronic disco with an obvious NEW ORDER influence although Bernard Sumner never sounded this foreboding! With an ominous baritone from Shkutko and minimal guitar, it is a commentary on the banality of modern life that acts as a dance in the dark.
‘Son’ is more of the expected MOLCHAT DOMA post-punk fare with its Doktor Avalanche backbone programmed by Komogortsev and accompanied by a gothic bass mantra from Kozlov. However, a surprise is sprung with a bubbly sequencer section appearing in the final third to provide a shimmering contrast to the largely morose mood.
The ‘Belaya Polosa’ title song heads into The Batcave, heavy drum loops and rumbling bass in post-Wilder ‘Ultra’ Mode while something of a sister song with a dominant rhythmic loop, ‘Chernye Tsvety’ is deeper and dreamier, dressed with Lynchian guitar and a hypnotic fretless bassline although in terms of execution, it recalls Swedish band LUSTANS LAKEJAR and their 1999 song ‘Cynisk’.
Fittingly by way of an extended interlude, ‘Beznadezhnyy Waltz’ captures a haunting Cold War atmosphere in a superbly eerie piano and synth instrumental with departing footsteps on wet cobbled paths to boot. But ‘III’ sees MOLCHAT DOMA doing sparkly New York electro dance influenced NEW ORDER with the keyboard solo action something a joy to behold before ‘Ne Vdvoem’ goes downtempo into the realm of THE CURE meeting TEARS FOR FEARS.
The excellent ‘Ya Tak Ustal’ utilises metallic samples that will be familiar to anyone who loved ‘Some Great Reward’ but MOLCHAT DOMA literally morph into Berlin-era DEPECHE MODE with only Shkutko’s vocals in Russian proving this is not Dave Gahan… if only DEPECHE MODE could still be this good today. Closing with the throbbing midtempo unease of ‘Zimnyaya’, this goes the full DEPECHE MODE hog with the chromatic six string interventions and digital drum computer beats authenticating the effect.
Having relatively polished up their sound and adapted to new environments both physically and musically, ‘Belaya Polosa’ is bursting with a chilling tension and drama that reflects the world at large from the point of view of those who have had to escape and find sanctuary. Sadness and defiance are simultaneously embraced as MOLCHAT DOMA leave behind their past. This timely musical document is undoubtedly their best album to date.
NASH THE SLASH was the late Jeff Plewman, a Canadian multi-instrumentalist adept at electric violin and mandolin.
He was also the first Canadian to ever use a drum machine on an album, while his music was a complex blend of prog, art rock, new wave and performance art. His persona was inspired by a killer butler that featured in the 1927 silent film ‘Do Detectives Think?’ starring Laurel and Hardy.
Plewman started performing as a solo artist beginning in 1975 and founded the progressive rock band FM in 1976. The NASH THE SLASH trademark look covered in surgical bandages began in 1979 to raise awareness of the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster; he walked on stage wearing bandages dipped in phosphorus paint and exclaimed: “Look, this is what happens to you!”
NASH THE SLASH opened for Gary Numan on his ‘Teletour’ and played violin on the tracks ‘Cry The Clock Said’ and ‘You Are You Are’ from his 1981 ‘Dance’ album; as well as this, he appeared as an onstage guest at Numan’s then-farewell concert at Wembley Arena in April 1981. Earlier in the year, he had released the Steve Hillage produced album ‘Children Of The Night’ on Dindisc Records, the Virgin Records funded imprint that brought OMD their initial commercial success.
This was the period when NASH THE SLASH had his highest mainstream media profile, with him even being given the honour of a profile interview by ‘Smash Hits’ where he stated his full name was “Nashville Thebodiah Slasher”! Indeed, NASH THE SLASH’s best known recording in the UK was an early stripped down version of ‘Swing-Shift’ alongside his label mates’ live rendition of ‘Pretending To See The Future’ on a blue flexi-disc given away free with ‘Smash Hits’.
NASH THE SLASH’s next album was ‘And You Thought You Were Normal’ in 1982 and featured the single ‘Dance After Curfew’ produced by Daniel Lanois; it fittingly became a radio hit in Poland as the country’s Communist government declared martial law.
NASH THE SLASH also later worked with Bill Nelson and opened shows for Iggy Pop, THE WHO, THE TUBES and DEVO. He rejoined FM but continued to perform solo and returned for a UK tour in 2008. He was also on stage with Gary Numan again in October 2010 for a rendition of ‘Complex’ at Toronto Opera House but announced his retirement via his website in November 2012, stating he was “rolling up the bandages”.
However, NASH THE SLASH sadly passed away in May 2014. But his work and legacy lives on; a number of his costumes and instruments were donated to the National Music Centre in Calgary while his custom skull mandolin is on display in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
In 2015, Artoffact Records reissued six of his albums and in 2017, filming began on the documentary ‘NASH THE SLASH Rises, Again!’. Written by Colin Brunton, Kevan Byrne and Tim Kowalski, the film has been produced in collaboration with The NASH THE SLASH Legacy; over 50 interviews have been conducted with his friends, collaborators and fans of his work, while archival footage and rare images have also been unearthed.
Featuring contributions from Gary Numan, Danielle Dax, Steve Hillage, Youth and Owen Pallett among others, it tells a universal story of artistic struggle. Several years in the making, a GoFundMe has been set up to help bring the project to completion with regards post picture lab and sound mix, legals, music rights, TV + Film licenses, publicity, accounting and insurance.
Back in 2010, Stephen Roper interviewed NASH THE SLASH for his Gary Numan book ‘Back Stage: A Book Of Reflections’; he has kindly given permission for ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK to publish edited extracts of his delightful conversation with a unique individual.
On his start in electronic music…
I started doing solo electronic music in 1975 and back then, I was probably the first guy in Canada using a drum machine when drum machines were illegal. People don’t seem to know all these years later but drum machines used to be illegal and according to The Musicians Union, anyone using an artificial device to make music would be barred from appearing on a union stage.
On performing at The Edge in Toronto 1980…
I was the second biggest draw at the club after MARTHA & THE MUFFINS. The club held 150 people and even the band THE POLICE had only attracted 35 people to what was their fifth gig ever. I asked to do a week-long show which I decided to call ‘The St. Valentine’s Week Massacre’. It played from Monday to Sunday night, the Thursday being St. Valentine’s Day, February 14th.
For the second part of my set I changed into a grey pinstripe suit with a grey fedora. I was doing a symbolic re-enactment of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre! At the end of ‘Danger Zone’ you could hear 1930’s gangsters talking and then gunfire on the backing tape.
Meanwhile, I jumped off the stage and as the music and gunfire continued, I pulled a blank-gun from my vest and began shooting at the stage at my imaginary assailants. I escaped through the crowd back to the dressing room, firing all the way. To say the least, it was dramatic and went down a storm.
Today, I would be arrested for carrying a concealed weapon and sued for causing extreme emotional trauma! I had no idea then, that I would be offered the gig to open for Gary Numan at The Toronto Music Hall on the following Monday.
On opening for Gary Numan…
This was my first big tour and I loved it. I was somewhere in age between Gary and his dad Tony and the whole family on the road thing suited my personality. Beryl was the tour mom and it felt nice to be part of their personal family dynamic.
His mum and dad weren’t prudish and didn’t tut tut over people doing strange rock ‘n’ roll things – they knew what it was about. I was just another performer whom Beryl wanted to make sure looked his best on stage. She would send my stage-clothes along with everyone else’s to the dry cleaners.
I wasn’t that familiar with Gary’s music when we first set out. I’d heard ‘Cars’ and ‘Down In The Park’ but I didn’t know his other TUBEWAY ARMY stuff but I certainly got a quick lesson in it! I really did love the music and I still love it today. Not everything that Gary’s done has been that memorable but I think that period of time when he was writing those tunes was just killer stuff.
On touring the UK…
I didn’t think twice about it if I’m honest. For me, the UK was all about the intensity. I’d already established myself opening for Gary at big venues on the North American tour. I was just pleased to be playing to these rabid British crowds. In North America, the audiences were good but at the same time, they were just getting into Gary.
When I got to England, his crowd were already well established and enthusiastic to say the least. They were also very respectful of me in the opening slot so that was very nice.
Photo by Paul Till
The only low point for me on the tour was having my mandolins stolen from the Hammersmith Odeon. As we were doing two consecutive nights there, the equipment was left set-up on the stage overnight. Unfortunately for us, someone broke in and stole three of Gary’s keyboards, a few guitars and my mandolins. Keyboards and guitars were relatively easy to replace but custom-built electric mandolins were a different matter.
Scotland Yard came to the venue to take statements from everyone. They got a police artist to do a drawing of my mandolins and showed the picture on the TV on a show called ‘Crimewatch’. I managed to get by using a cheap electric mandolin I found in a shop in London.
I managed to modify it so that it sounded half-decent. My mandolins eventually turned up four months later in a park. They were found by a little old lady walking her dogs and luckily, weren’t seriously damaged.
On signing to Dinsdisc and recording with Gary Numan…
After the tour, I stayed on in London and managed to get a deal with Dindisc who were a subsidiary of Virgin. I went in the studio in December 1980 and recorded the album ‘Children Of The Night’. In January 1981 I was doing my own one-man shows in London and I got a call from Gary. “How would you like to play on my new album ‘Dance’?” I went to the studio and met Gary and QUEEN’s Roger Taylor and the three of us sat around and mucked about on the piano and came up with some ideas.
I’d been forewarned about the phenomenon of QUEEN and their status but it turned out that Roger Taylor was totally non-pretentious. I found him to be a really nice guy. Although it was fun to play on the tracks, I don’t think ‘Dance’ was one of Gary’s strongest albums. Considering its title, the LP just doesn’t make me want to DANCE! I found it all too laid back for my tastes. It was as if Gary wanted to sound like the band JAPAN which frankly, I can’t stand.
We were recording the ‘Dance’ album in February 1981 and not long after that, Gary became busy formulating his big farewell concert at Wembley. Knowing I was available, Gary asked me to be part of it. Gary said to me “I don’t want you to be the opening act, I want you to be in the band”.
On performing with Gary Numan…
It was still a lot of work though and as I remember, the big film studio we were rehearsing in had no heating and April that year was particularly cold. The crew brought in these giant heaters for us that looked like jet engines but they barely made any difference. I remember we rehearsed every day for a week. When you have such a monstrous stage show, you can imagine the amount of preparation needed.
My part was to stand on-top of the massive rig and play ‘Cry, The Clock Said’, (reprising my role from the new album) and then my big moment would be to come running out onto the stage for ‘The Joy Circuit’ and join the rest of the band with my violin. We did three nights but the last was just a bit more special and would definitely be one of those unforgettable moments for me.
On the UK music press…
It’s wonderful that Britain has a passionate music press but on the other hand they can take their role too seriously. There’s the praising you one week and crucifying you the next. I think that has a lot to do with power tripping. I became aware of the bad press Gary was getting when I got over there and started to tour with him.
I think there was a lot of jealousy in the industry at the time. I noticed it being bantered about at Virgin and Dindisc in general conversation. It seemed that anytime I went into those offices and we’d be talking about electronic pop music, if Gary’s name came up the reaction would be “Gary Numan’s just a poser, a w*nker, you know a David Bowie wannabe…” and all that stuff. I would just reply “Yeah but he’s had hit songs; what about you?”
I’ve always been offended by the term “one-hit-wonder”. Not from the perspective to condescend to these people but to say to people who comment “well what f*cking hit did you ever have?”
One hit is more than nothing. I wish I was a one hit wonder! Gary certainly rose above that, I think he was bugged by the slagging personally, (I know I sure as hell was) but regardless, he rose above it. He just got on with doing what he does.
On his impact in the UK…
It was great to have the opportunity to come back and play in the UK in 2008. I had an epiphany from when I was there. What happened was that every night, these guys were coming up to me and telling me the same thing. “I was going to my very first rock concert to see my new idol Gary Numan, I was 14 years old and what’s the first thing I see? Not Gary Numan but this guy in white tails, top hat and bandages playing solo electric violin and ripping my face off, and I never forgot it.”
All of these guys were telling me this 28 years later and I’m thinking, Gosh you people have a helluva memory. It wasn’t that at all… it was that I’d brainwashed them all when they were 14!
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on Dindisc Records, the 
in 1982 and featured the single ‘Dance After Curfew’ produced by Daniel Lanois; it fittingly became a radio hit in Poland as the country’s Communist government declared martial law.
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