Valerie Renay, one-time frontwoman of NOBLESSE OBLIGE has recorded an icy synth laden cover of SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES’ ‘Christine’.
No stranger to drastically reworked covers, with NOBLESSE OBLIGE, Renay recorded a stark funereal cover of THE EAGLES’ ‘Hotel California’ in 2013 on their album ‘Affair Of The Heart’.
Laced with layers of string machine, her downtempo take on ‘Christine’ comes from an upcoming Siouxsie tribute album entitled ‘Icon’; the collection also features the brooding reinterpretation of ‘Rhapsody’ by Jorja Chalmers which was included on her ‘Midnight Train’, one of the best albums of 2021 and Jay-Jay Johanson’s trip-hop flavoured stamp on ‘Tattoo’. Additionally, Berlin-based duos PYSCHE and NNHMN respectively contribute heavy electronic versions of ‘Cities In Dust’ and ‘Happy House’ while Italian Combo HIDDEN PLACE points ‘Dazzle’ in a frantic industrial goth direction to highlight how under-rated the song is within the Banshees catalogue.
To accompany ‘Christine’, Valerie Renay has produced a low budget, lo-fi, DIY video featuring German underground musician and model Steve Morell in a cameo; she spoke to ELECTRICITY CLUB.CO.UK about the Strawberry Girl and the Banana Split Lady…
When you get invited to cover songs on these tribute albums, do you get to choose or are you told what to perform?
I was able to choose, but my first choice, which was ‘Israel’, had already been chosen by someone else. Luckily, ‘Christine’ was still free!
What was the inspiration behind your arrangement of ‘Christine’?
I started by playing the song on the piano and jam with Theo Taylor, who co-produced the track. I wanted to create something slow, moody, dreamy, and sensual to depict this descent into insanity that is the story of the real Christine. I tried to construct a spacious and sonically sparse sphere like a hall of mirrors, where it’s hard to tell reality from fantasy, and you just find yourself drifting aimlessly.
You made the video on a zero budget. What is the story and how did you get it made?
We made the video in my old flat in the middle of the lockdown at the end of 2020, while it was still kind of illegal to gather in the same room unless the windows and doors were open. Theo Taylor also shot and edited the video. I knew he was leaving for New Zealand shortly after, and it was our last chance to make a video together.
The lyrics of the song were inspired by the book ‘The Three Faces of Eve’ which tells the story of Christine Sizemore, a woman who suffers from multiple personality disorder. The names in the songs, Strawberry Girl, Turtle Lady, etc are actual names that Christine’s children gave to the different distinct personalities, of which there were 22 in all.
So, ideally I wanted 22 people to come into my flat and “be me”. In the end, I was happy to get hold of a handful of friends and get them to stand outside in the garden while we were shooting inside, one at a time, trying to respect the corona regulation as much as possible.
It was a very intimate affair. The atmosphere was relaxed, and we managed to have a lot of fun while shooting and drinking wine. I was honoured that Berlin living legend and supermodel Steve Morell was able to join us.
Located in the Iberian Peninsula on the North West of Spain above Portugal, Galicia is the home of dark electro artist CZARINA.
With lush green surroundings as well facing both the Atlantic Ocean and the Cantabrian Sea, Galicia is the perfect dynamic space to inspire the cosmic mystical presence of CZARINA. An eclectic mix of synthpop, orchestral baroque pop, gothic new age and prog rock, ‘Arcana’ is the title of her sophomore long player. Latin for “mysteries” or “secrets”, ‘Arcana’ celebrates life, love and the laws of the universe. The imperial nom de théâtre of Vero Faye Kitsuné, CZARINA combines transcendentalism, new age mysticism and the future world with a discipline inspired by Budo martial arts.
With the imminent release of the lavish thoughtfully designed ‘Arcana’ package and its associated artefacts, the New York native kindly spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the making of her second long player and her range of artistic interests.
‘Arcana’ is a fierce album…
‘Arcana’ is the record I should have debuted this project with. The huge dynamics really mirror the emotional depths I’ve been wanting to express for a long time. But I needed more time to develop, learn more hard lessons, and gain more perspective in order to develop the sound and the record’s spirit. It took a lot of honesty and diving into who I am, my life history and how I was being shaped. I led a very intense life filled with so many lessons, cycles and completions.
My challenge was to articulate all the various eras and chapters I’ve had and all that I’ve learned into an eclectic, yet cohesive sound that would all seamlessly work as a record. I think I have achieved that in ‘Arcana’. It’s fierce, it’s intense, it’s cerebral and emotional, but also conscious, loving and battle-worn at the same time. Well, because that’s really who I am. I needed to create the art and mythology that are reflective of me and how I now view all that surrounds me.
Was adopting a Warrior Woman persona for this record quite cathartic?
There is that little monk warrior inside that needed to come out, so it’s hardly an adoption 🙂
But being able to come out as non-binary just recently, being who I truly am, not being boxed into constructs and letting that resonate in the sound is freeing. Writing the songs and working on the production definitely allowed me to get the kind of catharsis I’ve been needing for so long. I did let out a good, hard cry when the production was finished.
The influences are very eclectic but ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK can hear Florence, Siouxsie and Karin?
Florence Welch, Siouxie Sioux, and Karin Dreijer are definitely influential in a way that they do have their own sound, and I take a lot of comfort in listening to their uniqueness. In a music world that tries to homogenise artists’ sounds these days, I think uniqueness and a very nuanced performance and personality are all very important. However, my biggest influences are actually the prog metal band TOOL and their singer / lyricist Maynard James Keenan’s projects – the dark alt rock supergroup A PERFECT CIRCLE, and the art rock band PUSCIFER. I grew up listening to them and I still do to this day. Also Björk, the late Dolores O’Riordan and Enya all share that kind of spirit that influenced and shaped my own development years in music that are all being reflected now.
Many of the tracks are highly percussive, where does this energy come from?
Even though I am predominantly an electronic and synth musician these days, I did start in prog rock over 20 years ago as a songwriter, lead singer and guitarist, and my love for odd meters and polyrhythms remain strong to this day. I love a good, solid and super tight rhythm section, even though I am not fond of dealing with a band or session musicians in the writing and production process. I love writing complex drums parts with depths and layers on my own. My masculine and cerebral side really come through in that element. But also there is something satisfying and therapeutic about it that brings me to a very zen state in the midst of thunderous, controlled percussive chaos. It’s like being in the eye of a storm you are in control of.
Recording live drums in a home studio is never straightforward so how did you get the rhythmic colours and vibe that you sought, particularly on a frantic electronic rock number like ‘Lost Lands’?
CZARINA: I use mostly VSTs these days and I just lay all my drum parts on MIDI, happily slaving over and meticulously piecing the parts one by one, as though creating a multi-colored tapestry. I do perform them on the MIDI to generate that nuanced delivery. I’m also a visual artist, so I tend to also see rhythmic patterns visually, which always helps with creating polyrhythms.
I have a Roland V-Kit, which I use to sample from time to time. My co–producer on the record, Von Hertzog (The Social Club), also gave some clever drum production input on tracks like ‘Wonderland’ where he added a touch of congas under the hi-hats to get that nice, rippled top-end syncopation, and on ‘The Fox’s Wedding’ where he took my timpanis and added and tweaked additional layers to give it that wide-ranging depth. Production details like that have become so important in sculpting the percussions throughout the record. So on that note, I’m a very excellent drummer on MIDI, just don’t make me perform them on real drums. We will need Danny Carey for that or a drummer with 12 limbs. 😀
Is ‘Medusa’ about anyone or any situation in particular?
‘Medusa’ is a #MeToo song, and talks about the ancient Greek myth the song was inspired by. According to the myth, Medusa was defiled by Poseidon in Athena’s temple, but was the one who got blamed and punished. Hence, the cynical tone in the chorus lines, “Cuz I’m the predator, I’m the predator.”
For a long time, Medusa was deemed as a monstrous figure and an outcast – just the way a lot of strong, female entities have always been vilified throughout history. Only until recently, her story has been turned around, and today Medusa has become quite the symbol of feminine rage. I definitely personally could relate as someone who’s experienced (and still experience) the occasional misogyny, gross racism and micro-transgressions especially growing up in a tough city and revelling in highly-competitive industries and music communities. It’s never easy being a strong person of colour – especially one that has been born female, while trying to make your mark in the world. There is definitely Medusa inside who’s always on edge, thirsty for justice, always wanting to set things right and have zero tolerance for unjust behaviour.
Titles like ‘Celestial Satellites’ and ‘Til The Last Star (Cosmos)’ indicate that you indeed do look up, what fascinates you about the sky and how does it permeate into your work?
Our house stands right by the water and every night when we walk our pup Hamlet on the beach, our most favorite thing my husband DeadlyKawaii and I do is look up and watch the stars during these walks and be completely immersed in their beauty. (Sometimes we do see weird things that we couldn’t explain). As the old wayfarers and seafarers would say (and before GPS systems) – one could never get lost as long as one knows how to read the stars.
I’m deeply in love with nature and the cosmos – all the greater things that are outside of ourselves. It is a reminder that we are really small, and humanity only makes up a tiny fraction of this grand architecture and universal consciousness. It’s humbling and I do surrender all of myself to it all. With that said, I am very New Age, and I lean on a lot of esoteric traditions and holistic definitions of the divine.
‘Excelsior’ has a delightful Pagan eccentricity like NIKI & THE DOVE?
‘Excelsior’ definitely has Pagan undercurrents. It’s actually my favourite song in the record because of its feral and raw complexities, the range it carries, and how it seamlessly shifts from one polyrhythm to another before wailing into giant, exhilarating crescendos like a mad winged creature. It’s the most complex composition I have ever written, produced and also performed. It’s super fun to perform it live. The music video for it is a wild one as well.
You moved to Europe comparatively recently, is it ‘Wonderland’?
Galicia is absolutely my Wonderland. This place is really magical and carries that energy. I feel like I’m in a Ghibli film as I’m constantly surrounded by such epic, utter beauty. As soon as I arrived here, my life and my mentality went through a shift. And I wanted to make changes in myself and in how I do my art. It made me more spiritual, more conscious and more connected with nature. Also, Galicia is the inspiration for ‘Arcana’. If it weren’t for this move, I would probably have just written another synth or cyberpunk record.
‘The Fox’s Wedding’ is like dark Celine Dion?
LOL – I’m going to share this with my parents as they’re obsessed with Celine Dion! Especially my dad. Celine has been a huge part of our household growing up. I used to sing – or rather, coerced by my parents to sing her songs at family gatherings, so I’m pretty sure a lot of that still lives in my psyche. Celine is the queen of love songs. DeadlyKawaii and I were supposed to have a formal wedding celebration with our entire family here in Galicia, but the pandemic has stalled all those plans. ‘The Fox’s Wedding’ is the song that I wrote for it that I’m hoping to walk down the aisle to someday. I kept most of the instrumentations organic to give that otherworldly vibe that Galicia has, as though you’re entering a magical forest cast in the moonlight and you’re getting greeted by fairy folk every step of the way. Those are the things that typically twirl in my head as I write and compose.
Meanwhile, although it has hints of Lene Lovich, is ‘Atomic (Ad Initivm)’ perhaps a baroque tribute to Debbie Harry?
I never thought of it that way before, but let’s call it that. Debbie is a legend and a true icon. She has touched the lives of many people I work with, including my own. And for sure, she’s my favorite atomic blonde. What a blessing she is to have around us.
How did the idea to cover ‘Cities in Dust’ come about, what inspired your arrangement with the orchestration?
‘Cities in Dust’ is one of my favourite songs ever and I’ve always made a habit of covering my favourites. I’ve always wanted to pay tribute to Siouxie Sioux, but give it my own sonic imprint. What inspired the orchestral arrangements is the actual message of the song itself. The lyrics in ‘Cities in Dust’ have prophetic qualities to it, and images of empires and cities falling come to mind. I wanted to convey that epicness and at the same time cast a warning true to what the lyrics are trying to say. I also saw the opportunity to flex some cinematic orchestral chops and create the music as I hear it in my head.
‘Arcana’ is essentially a technology driven production but are you happy with a DAW, software and samples or do you like to bring in analog hardware from time to time?
I do have some analog synths that were used in the development of this record – namely, Jupiter-6, JP-8000 and Korg Minilogue. Von Hertzog also did analog mastering for this entire record. So yes, there is a soft spot for analog in this project even though majority of it was produced on Logic Pro. Also, do guitars count? 😀
‘Arcana’ must be like directing your own film? Who do you think this album will appeal to?
A few of us hold on to the philosophy of being our own target market. I didn’t think of anyone or anything else outside of what I personally wanted to hear when I was writing these songs. I didn’t even think in genres. A few who had already heard it have said ‘Arcana’ is impossible to categorise or box in a genre. I guess we will find out whom this album resonates with. Most likely people who are looking for more out of music and art. I think it is very exciting to find out, because this record is not trying to be a “bop” or a “banger”. It’s deep and complex, and a lot more transcendental and holistic in its creation. It takes a few listens to really absorb the music. But each listen, you discover more and more details and secrets hidden in its production.
The visual presentation with photos and videos appears to be very important to CZARINA?
Absolutely part of what I love about what I do. I have a very extensive history of being a fashion designer and creative director and I’m really proud of that track record. I’ve done a lot more than most folks in the field and that will always live in everything else that I do. I think the combination of articulating your vision and who you are in both sound and visuals is powerful and gives me that creative gratification I always seek for myself.
Does a modern artist have to be more multi-faceted now, like DJing, gaming, providing shopping tips, being a brand ambassador and presenting themselves as more of a social media personality? Does this not ultimately detract from the actual making of music?
I don’t think one should try to be everything and anything they’re not. One should always focus on all their strengths and use all that they got, and not just do and rely on the barest minimum. I think the point is to find ways of making sure you and your music stand out. I don’t think that it pays at all to dive into several disparate endeavours that don’t really tie into any cohesive meaning for a project or an artist. There’s gotta be some sort of meaning behind every activity you pick up that really helps paint the giant picture.
Speaking for myself. I have had an eclectic and quite an anomalous upbringing that generated this wide spectrum of different abilities. It was a form of survival in a tough city – being able to do a lot of different things and excel at each and everyone of them. So a lot of what I do are true integral parts of who I am as an artist. And each one of them helps in creating the art and music. They’re all part of one giant artistic vision. For example, I don’t write a song unless I already see what the music video looks like. And I won’t make a record unless each of the songs and videos make a bigger, cohesive story.
You recently established a videocast called ABSYNTH, what is the aim of this platform?
ABSYNTH.space is one of the projects I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. There are a lot of great music blogs (including ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK) and I wanted to create a platform with a video podcast channel that complements what the other platforms do. The way ABSYNTH is growing and evolving is fascinating. Since it is artist-run, the platform tends to focus more on the word of the day within music communities, and the lively discussions and subjects get really avant-garde or super nerdy at times.
It’s a smorgasbord and melting pot of ideas. We cover quite a range of musical genres that are adjacent to each other. But at the end of the day, it’s just so enjoyable to do it. We’re here to have fun, hang with our guests, while remaining hopeful that we are able to help shine the spotlight on emerging acts.
What are you hope and fears as 2022 progresses?
My hope is to be able to play live again and get back on stage. One of my goals this year once after ‘Arcana’ is released is to continue making the music videos and visual components for the record’s entire mythology. But I also want to create the stage and live performance adaptation of the record. I want to make ‘Arcana’ come alive. With the vast orchestration and dynamics, it would be quite a dream to execute it as a full live, theatrical performance.
In terms of fears, as the virus still looms over all of us, the fears I have are missing out on cool things or someone I hold dearly becomes ill. With everything else, I just try to remain positive and uphold a strong “can-do” and solution-drive attitude.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to CZARINA
Although NIGHT CLUB’s third album ‘Die Die Lullaby’ was released in 2020, with events making the world stand still, Emily Kavanaugh and Mark Brooks finally get to tour their opus in Spring 2022.
‘Die Die Lullaby’ was mixed by Brooks with Dave “Rave” Ogilvie, a former member of SKINNY PUPPY known for his work with NINE INCH NAILS and Marilyn Manson.
But crucially, he also mixed Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2011 worldwide smash hit ‘Call Me Maybe’ to provide a typically NIGHT CLUB twist and develop their Britney Spears fronting NINE INCH NAILS template even further.
To launch the tour, with its Giorgio Moroder and Bobby Orlando influences, album opener ‘Die In The Disco’ has been given a superb animated video treatment; the throbbing HI-NRG disco is offset by the imagery that accompanies the unsettling ghostly pitch-shifted voice which announces: ”This is my party and I will die if I want to!”
Of the visualisation for this macabre statement, Mark Brooks told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “Last summer we talked about wanting to make a video for ‘Die In The Disco’ before our tour starts this Spring. Because of the way we wanted it to look, animation was clearly a cheaper route than live action (since I work in animation). It did take a while; EIGHT MONTHS!”
With so many animated styles available such as anime and even Disney, Brooks opted for the Patrick Nagel inspired aesthetic used on ‘Moonbeam City’ which NIGHT CLUB did the soundtrack for: “Yeah, I wanted to make a hybrid of ‘Metalocalypse’ and ‘Moonbeam City’. These are two shows that I directed and are my personal favs. Also we thought it would be more unique to do it this way than producing another anime, which is getting oversaturated”.
NIGHT CLUB are pumped for going out live again and have no fears of stage rustiness at all: “We are excited to go back on tour! Luckily last year we did some warm-up shows in SF, Denver and Vegas so we don’t feel as rusty now. It’s been really fun to play the new material live, which we didn’t get to do when we released the album in late 2020 and obviously everything was shut down.”
As far as what’s next for NIGHT CLUB, the duo said “We’re currently about to go on our US tour and we’re booking a UK tour for the Fall. In between playing all these shows, we’re writing and recording our next LP, which will hopefully be out next year.”
It is not long before the new DUBSTAR album is released. Entitled ‘Two’, it will be out on 6th May 2022. But until then, a fabulous new song ‘Token’ has been premiered as an enticing trailer.
Co-produced by Stephen Hague, ‘Token’ sounds like DUBSTAR doing ERASURE, while others have remarked that it sounds like PET SHOP BOYS. Whatever, it is possibly Sarah Blackwood and Chris Wilkie’s most overt synthpop statement yet.
Chris Wilkie said “Most often it’s the song itself which informs the style and sound of a track, but sometimes, once an album is underway, it becomes clearer what is working or what is lacking”. And it was the necessary social distancing due to lockdown that played a part in dictating the instrumentation: “We found ourselves naturally gravitating to our electronic side over the pandemic, because it lends itself more practically to remote production. We couldn’t sit around jamming with guitars or experimenting together in real time, for instance”.
Working from home remotely, “I can program MIDI parts in Tyneside, and if not 100% happy with the way it’s sounding, the program is easily pinged over to Haguey down in Sussex who can use the same program to trigger different gear. It’s a protracted way of working but more versatile than you’d think. After ‘Hygiene’ and ‘Outside’, we were already some of the way down a particular road. Having Hague involved certainly got us thinking about those kind of artists, but there wasn’t a conscious decision to channel them. Some artists just become part of your DNA when you grow up with them.”
Very much a collaborative effort with the Portland-born producer, Wilkie remembered: “Stephen played me a very symphonic piano riff, and I was challenged to write a song which might incorporate it in some way. I wrote the chorus straight away to fit chords which would hopefully accommodate the piano intro at some point, and then the bridge. I only had placeholder lyrics which I wasn’t confident about for the verses, so I asked Sarah and Hague to muck in with those. It felt like writing in reverse. I usually start at the start and keep going”.
But is the ‘Token’ referring to a prize or representation or a minor gesture? “It’s both!!!!” revealed Sarah Blackwood, “I’m singing about how the tormentor can help themselves to the things we shared together; inviting them to take a “tender token”. ‘Tender’ is simultaneously sentimental and weak. And ‘token’ is both a material trophy and a minor gesture. It was only after the whole song was finished that it seemed that the word ‘token’ seemed to be the centre of gravity, hence the title.
“Chris got the idea from Haguey after talking about NEW ORDER” the DUBSTAR singer added, “The word ‘regret’ is incidental and floats-by unnoticed in that song, you would never spend long contemplating it, but the word ‘Regret’ is monolithic and meaningful when isolated as a title. In our song, the word ‘Token’ almost raises psychological alarms as a title, but it’s appearance in the song defuses it, which hopefully encourages people to consider what the word really means to them”.
The video was filmed in Manchester and it was also the first time Blackwood and Wilkie had actually seen each other in person since 2019 – “We couldn’t even hug but we still managed to be over-emotional.” she remembered, “Mancunians are too cool to stare but I did clock bewildered glances as some wondered who the hell we were and why we were filming, especially in the middle of a storm (Barra). The irony was, we had prayed for rain as it can look very cinematic. Classic case of beware of what you wish for…… Dom F, our resident George Lucas, was having to negotiate Market Street backwards to film, Chris and Paul B our helper clearing the way forward for him, whilst loudly and helpfully pointing out people for me to avoid with the very large brolly……”
The weather conditions naturally presented a number of dramas; “I was trying to look serene whilst wrestling the wind vs brolly and avoid a Mary Poppins moment, sing to the camera at double speed (aloud with headphones in, no wonder they were staring ?) and try to not to look cold…” said Blackwood, “All whilst avoiding puddles, uneven paving slabs, frantic Christmas shoppers and the driving blooming rain……marketing man Matt D kept the seats warm in Night and Day where we thawed our toes between takes, looked through the rushes and realised the umbrella was undoubtedly the star of the show. We dried out in my friend Claire’s jazz bar Matt & Phred’s and shared a pizza with Adrian Dunbar from ‘Line of Duty’…… Chris’s mum was so terribly impressed……”
In 2017, Bristol’s MESH granted access to a film crew to document the second leg of their tour of Germany in support of their seventh album ‘Looking Skyward’.
Filmed in Hamburg, Cologne and Königsstein, as well as 23 live tracks presented in an engaging fast cut style capturing the energy of a MESH show, ‘Touring Skyward – A Tour Movie’ also includes honest interviews with founder members Mark Hockings and Richard Silverthorn.
There is additionally footage from backstage and during soundcheck, with each of the band including keyboard player Richard Broadhead and drummer Sean Suleman explaining their performance set-ups. Compiled like a musical road movie, there are other insights such as the band relaxing on the tour bus after another successful show and interviews with fans. As a live record and documentary, ‘Touring Skyward – A Tour Movie’ is everything that DEPECHE MODE’s tediously difficult to watch ‘Spirits In The Forest’ was not.
Richard Silverthorn joined ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK from his studio for a game of Vintage Synth Trumps and talked about the four and a half year journey to bring ‘Touring Skyward – A Tour Movie’ to their ‘Friends Like These’.
Your first card is a Korg Poly Six…
I never owned a Poly Six but I do remember when they were around. I just wasn’t really into Korg and I don’t know why! My first synth was a Pro-One and then I had some Roland stuff but I never had a Korg. I have a couple of Korgs now and I quite like them, I have an MS-2000 and a Trinity rack which I use a lot of pianos and things. Korg never felt “cool” to me, all the bands I was into, I never saw them play a Korg.
Who were you into?
For me, the first thing that got me into electronic music was the ‘Dr Who Theme’, as a kid it was like “woah”, I didn’t know what the hell it was, it was quite scary, unusual, bleak and amazing. Then there was the OMD stuff, Gary Numan blew me away… I was never really a big fan but the singles at the time like ‘Cars’ and ‘Are Friends Electric?’ were just leaps and bounds ahead of what anybody else was doing, it was such a big unusual sound.
Then, YAZOO and DEPECHE MODE were a big influence. I really loved up to and including ‘Songs Of Faith & Devotion’. ‘SOFAD’ has got a great grim atmosphere and you can really feel the angst. But after Alan Wilder left, I don’t think it’s been anywhere near as good. I have seen them a couple since, I find it all a bit lacking the atmosphere and energy it used to. I still find myself wanting to like it but I really don’t. I was also into the lesser known electronic pioneers like DAF, FAD GADGET and PORTION CONTROL.
So you have the ‘Touring Skyward – A Tour Movie’ film coming out. When you are performing, how conscious are you that the cameras are filming?
Yes, at the start…. we filmed three shows so you know which shows are going to be done and where the cameras are going to stand but by the time you’ve got on stage, you go into the routine of doing a show and kinda forget about them. To be honest, the six members of the film crew had SLR type cameras so it was very discrete.
So if you know you are going to be filmed for three shows, do you do things like co-ordinate stage clothes so that you are wearing the same thing on each night because in DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Spirits In The Forest’, Dave Gahan knew he was being filmed on two nights but wore two different coloured shirts so in the final cut, the colour of his shirt keeps changing!?
Haha… no, we wanted to feature performances from three shows, so it was in contrast to that, we were after a different look and feel for each.
Another card and it’s an EMS VCS3…
Really old, this is going back to the ‘Dr Who Theme’ in a way! This synth is way out of my league, I’ve never owned one and I’m not sure I’d want to… for me, it’s a noise generator, not so much a musical thing! I struggle with that like I struggle with that whole modular thing! I find it all fantastic but for me I find it distracting when I’m trying to write, I just don’t want to know it!
With the ‘Looking Skyward’ album, I did some modular stuff but everything was already written and the lines were there, but we started replacing those lines with modular sounds. On one track, I played a slide guitar-type effect and we decided to replace it with a modular sound… it took FOUR HOURS to replicate this sound, at the end of it, I just wanted to put the guitar back in!
In the end, we did use it and every time I hear it, I love it but only because I know how long it took. This is the thing with modular people, they know how clever it is and how long it took, but to the outside world, it could have been done on any cheap keyboard if you know what I mean. Don’t get me wrong, I do love the results but it’s so time consuming. If I had an EMS, it would sit here in the studio and do nothing apart from gather dust.
It’s been 4 years since the tour, how involved can you want to get in finishing the ‘Touring Skyward – A Tour Movie’ after so long, especially as the ‘Involved – Retrospective Tour’ has happened since?
The plan was for a film which after it was recorded was handed to the label for editing which obviously is a big job. Then things slowed down and it was beginning to frustrate me.
I had the original job of mixing the audio but after three tracks, I literally could not do anymore! I’d written the album with Mark and heard the songs a million times in the studio, then I reprogrammed all the songs for the tour, and then when I came back, I just physically could not listen to the songs anymore.
So I passed it over to our monitor guy on the tour Elliot Berlin and he had a few issues with some of the files so it was a bit of a disaster… then the Covid thing came along which slowed everything! It has taken forever and I had almost lost interest, but it’s now all come together and people seem to be quite excited about it so I’m glad to still be onboard.
What Dependent do with the boxed sets is second to none. Obviously it’s my boxed set but it looks fantastic, all the boxed sets they done have been amazing, they still think there’s a fanbase who are collectors who want vinyl, CD and something special they can hold. The last one was limited but they sold instantly.
Was there much post-production work needed on the recorded concert sound?
The final mix is from the tracks that were recorded… there is a massive temptation to pitch correct and autotune here there and everywhere, take off the bum notes and add new lines but because it went outside of the band to do, he just mixed what we had and it is just those 24 tracks of live audio. There are parts where I really wanted more ambient mics so that you could hear the audience, but they were missing… so it’s difficult to turn them up without bringing everything else up. It is an honest account of what a MESH show is like, it’s not polished up in any way.
The next card is a Multimoog, are you a Moog enthusiast?
My first synth was a Pro-One but I very nearly bought a Moog Prodigy. I then went almost through my whole career not owning a Moog but then 2-3 years ago, I bought the DFAM drum machine and a Mother32. Now I’ve got a Grandmother as well so I’m a latecomer to the party. I love the DFAM, it sounds sh*t but it sound so sh*t that it sounds really good, if that makes sense.
It gives you that weird horrible percussion thing, I love things that have got a character, that are a little bit out of tune and distorted. It’s very cool stuff. It’s semi-modular and very flexible.
Obviously this film is based around the ‘Looking Skyward’ album, did you feel the pressure of following-up ‘Automation Baby’? It was a tough act to follow…
I thought so as well, dead truthfully, even when I was writing for the album, I was quite anxious the whole time… thing is, you couldn’t play it to many people but I wanted to play it to somebody just to see if it was living up to expectations. Yeah, I had a hard time of it, it was a difficult album to make because I did really feel the pressure. I don’t know why ‘Automation Baby’ was such a success, obviously I liked it and thought we had put out a really good album, but it went bigger than we ever expected it to.
It was a difficult time and but ‘Looking Skyward’ did better in sales and chart position than ‘Automation Baby’ did… I’m feeling the pressure again now, with what can I do different or better with the next album. I liken it to LINKIN’ PARK, the first album ‘Hybrid Theory’, it was amazing, then the next one came out and people said “It’s sounds the same as the last album!” and everyone was disappointed. But then for the third album, they did something completely different and everyone then went “That doesn’t sound like LINKIN’ PARK!” You can’t win! *laughs*
You know what I mean, it’s that feeling and that’s where I am at the moment! I’m desperate to do something new, fresh and different but we need to keep the fans happy without disappointing them by doing the same thing. Sometimes it’s better just to shut off and try and do your own thing and not over think it.
Mark doesn’t do interviews very often but is quite happy to talk on camera, did that take much persuading?
Mark does do interviews but he is the “quiet” one, maybe haha… the film crew had full access all day and asked questions and he was quite happy to answer in a relaxed situation.
Richard and Sean each get a slot too, Richard’s bit explaining the keyboards was a bit like Alan Wilder in ‘101’?
Yeah, they do interview all four of us showing what we do on stage and going through all the technical bits…
Another card and it’s a Roland SH101!
OH! NOW YOU’RE TALKING! I’ve got one here in the studio. I have a story about my SH101.
When I bought my Pro-One back in the day, my best friend Gary decided he was going to buy a synth and the SH101 was a slightly cheaper synth at the time. He lost interest quite quickly after buying it so I acquired his synth at a good price and that’s the one I still have now.
Unfortunately he committed suicide when we were 21 and it made a massive hole in my life so my SH101 means a lot to me. I use it a lot, it’s a fantastic synth and I would never get rid of it. It has had a few repairs with the occasional switch dying but still fully functional. There are so many lines on all the albums that were made with this, great for just putting the sequencer into record, writing a sequence and transposing it around… the track ‘Confined’ from ‘In This Place Forever’ is pretty much all made with the SH101.
‘The Traps We Made’ features Raleigh Choppers, did you have one yourself when you were younger?
I DID! I had a blue one, a Mk2, that was my first bike! *laughs*
It’s a funny thing, Mark is about the same age as me so into the same kind of stuff and we often talked about Raleigh Choppers, it was a running joke. Then one afternoon ahead of the tour, he called me and said “I wanna do some filming, just come round”. When I got to his house, he pushed out these two Raleigh Choppers. It was the friend of a friend who collects them who let us play with them. So we spent about an hour riding down this street on these Raleigh Choppers and did a bit of filming.
Did you ever try and do Evel Knievel type stunts on your Chopper?
Yeah! Plenty of cuts and bruises, I still do now mate with my mountain biking and motocross! *laughs*
Evel Knievel was my childhood hero, I used to have a poster in the studio from the Evel Knievel UK tour and I had tickets to see him at Bristol City Football Club but he crashed at Wembley Stadium so the whole thing was cancelled! I was absolutely devastated as a young kid!
‘The Last One Standing’ has become something of a crowd favourite? Was that a surprise?
That one, yes! We always write to the best of our abilities, we’ve never put out anything where we’ve gone “Oh that’ll do”. But songs come alive when you play them live… you get different reactions but with that track, I don’t know why! It became one of the big things on that tour… I recently got our Spotify End Of Year things and that was the biggest streamed track of ours this year, 4 years on…, it’s still really popular! I don’t know why but you strike a chord with certain things, people warm to it.
It’s a bit like ‘Taken For Granted’, when we did it first time round, I really liked it and it was a great track. But then we played it at a show in Gothenburg and everybody started singing it at the end. It was like “Woah! This is a bit strange” but because of the internet, a video got posted up and at the next gig, everyone there starting doing it and it because this self-perpetuating thing and got bigger and bigger and bigger to becoming at standard thing to do at our shows now.
Photo by Bernd Schwinn
‘Taken For Granted’ has become your ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ type anthem…
You don’t know whether these tracks when you put them out, if they are going to be firm favourites or just another track… I still love playing it!
Are there ones where you’re enthused at the beginning of a tour but halfway through, you’re like “do we have to play this one, can’t we do something else?”?
There have been a couple… we reprogramme everything for the tour so it’s not just album backing track sh*t, when you see MESH, it will not be the CD versions. Sometimes, you programme something and you think it sounds great and it’s going to be good but then after two or three shows you realise “this isn’t quite working!”; you don’t know why and just drop it but we’ve always got a couple of spare tracks lying around for a tour and we try each night to chuck a different one in and try something. By the time you get to the end of the tour, you got this almost perfect set.
The final card is an Oberheim 8 Voice…
I haven’t got a great deal of Oberheim stuff, the only thing we had was Mark had a Matrix 1000, it was quite cool but kept on playing up, it would lose every 4th note because one of the voices was going. He had it repaired a few times but it took a bit of a back seat from then on because we were almost too scared to use it in case it broke down again.
In the film, there’s behind the scenes footage on the tour bus, the playlist was good fun and featured THE LIGHTNING SEEDS, RACEY and BONEY M… some fans have this impression of bands like MESH only listen to dark electronic music but that’s probably the last thing you want to hear when you are winding down?
That’s exactly it mate! Our German tour manager Jan Winterfeld really likes RACEY and other 70s and 80s nonsense… I find that so funny, RACEY are from Weston-Super-Mare which is just down the road from where I live! He plays BONEY M and SHAKIN’ STEVENS, it is that whole release thing all day there is that pressure, you are all doing your own thing, the stress of the day and the show then you get to the end, you have a few drinks and someone puts on that stuff and you’re like “Yeah! It’s relax time”… it’s all kinda funny when you’ve had a stressful day *laughs*
What’s your highlight from the film?
We did an outdoor show in Königsstein which is an old castle in Germany which came across really well and looked good.
But I loved all the clips on the tour bus… as a fan of other bands, I don’t really want to see the performance as I’ve probably seen that on the tour, I want to see all the nitty gritty stuff that goes on behind-the-scenes like the setting up and the talking to the band etc! This was one of the things we wanted to have on our film as it reminds me of a good time, that’s the thing that stands out for me.
Finally, is there a synth you covet, old or new?
It’s not a synth, it’s a sampler… I really want an Emulator II, just because every band I was into had one, it was a statement, like “Look at us, we’ve got some money, we’re cool!” – they were £8000 back in the day, which way over what I could afford. Then they came down to almost into the hundreds when they were superseded by something new and I wish I bought one then. I keep looking and now they’re back to £3000-4000 but I know if I had it, I would never use it. I’ve got an EMAX II which is far superior to the Emulator II but I just want it because it’s an iconic thing for me. I would hang it on the wall as a piece of art.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Richard Silverthorn
Special thanks to Stefan Herwig at Dependent Records
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‘Christine’ features on the tribute album ‘Icon’ released on 18th April 2022 by Infrastition as a CD, pre-order from
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