Category: Live Reports (Page 20 of 37)

JEAN-MICHEL JARRE Electronica Live at O2 Arena

9 October 2016 /


“Electronic music has a family, a legacy and a future…” said Jean-Michel Jarre in the sleeve notes for the first instalment of his ambitious ‘Electronica’ project.

The French Maestro “had this idea of merging DNA with musicians and artists of different generations, linked, directly or indirectly, to electronic music in a kind of sharing process in a world where we’re more isolated than ever by our smartphones and the Internet”.

So many of the artists he approached to work with said “yes” that a second volume of ‘Electronica’ came out earlier this year. But with so many collaborators involved in the ‘Electronica’ project ranging from YELLO, PET SHOP BOYS and THE ORB to Peaches, Gary Numan, John Carpenter and Moby, how was Jarre going to present this all within a concert setting?

Jarre solved this conundrum by effectively making the show an ‘Electronica’ remix project of its own and carefully chose tracks that would work best as a solo driven experience. Coupled to a high octane visual spectacular conceived by Jvan Morandi and a superb sound system that was not only loud but clear, it would be the largely mature audience’s first experience of something not far from a full-on rave!

Using a new Roland System 8 with a System 500 attached and a Grp A4, Jarre also had his Moog Sub37, AKS, Buchla and ARP2600 at his disposal. Assisted by Claude Samard and Stephane Gervais, both on drums and electronics, ‘The Heart of Noise’ gave the evening a synthesized Spaghetti Western styled introduction with the impressionistic aesthetic of Ennio Morricone. It segued into the uptempo section of ‘Automatic’, the Vince Clarke contribution to ‘Electronica 1: The Time Machine’, accompanied by a speedy backdrop of geometric shapes in yellow.

‘Oxygène 2’ was the first of only five classic oldies to be played during the evening, but 40 years on, it was still as enticing and hypnotic as it was back on record then; the noise sweep into its second section still brought with it that spine tingling sensation.

Gary Numan said Jarre was “one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my entire life” and the Frenchman certainly exuded charm as he addressed the O2 audience… this is a man who can count Charlotte Rampling, Anne Parillaud and Isabelle Adjani as previous wives / girlfriends don’t forget. He even took time to joke about Brexit and comment on his love of cricket!

The dance pop of ‘Circus’ and its robotic voices kept the pacey momentum going and there was the surprise inclusion of a new composition ‘Web Spinner’, proving that unlike KRAFTWERK, Jean-Michel Jarre is as interested in moving forward as he is in celebrating past glories. The frantic stop / start of ‘Exit’ with an on-screen monologue from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden gave proceedings a political slant, highlighting Jarre’s continuing concerns about the effects of technology on personal liberty.

Despite a new heavier beat for 2016, the dreamy ‘Équinoxe 7’ was another glorious reminder that it was actually Jean-Michel Jarre rather than KRAFTWERK who took electronic music to the masses; indeed his romantic melodic approach appealed to female music fans and this was highlighted tonight by the gender balance within the O2 complex.

On ‘Conquistador’, Jarre even strapped on a guitar for its ending while there was the treat of a toughened up rework of ‘Oxygène 8’ based on the Sunday Club mix. In a tribute to the late Edgar Froese of TANGERINE DREAM, there was a performance of ‘Zero Gravity’, albeit in ABOVE & BEYOND remix form. As cones of lasers brilliantly shot into the sky, it was as if Jarre was saying “hi” to the German electronic pioneer.

With PET SHOP BOYS not actually on stage for ‘Brick England’, Jarre got round this by substituting an absent Neil Tenant with a vocoder. A superb song that could have fitted onto the ‘Super’ or ‘Electric’ albums, Tennant and Lowe were represented visually as digital line drawings while layers of bending lead synths provided an anthemic celebratory feel.

The melancholic ‘Souvenir Of China’ provided a welcome comedown before more techno oriented offerings came via ‘Immortals’ and ‘The Architect’. An updated ‘Oxygène 4’ inevitably drew the biggest cheer of the evening while a percussive take on ‘Équinoxe 4’ emerged as Michel Granger’s iconic artwork spun into the projections.

Within the latter, an added tribal chant was worked in from ‘Glory’, Jarre’s co-write with fellow Gallic musician M83. While it had been a disappointing trailer to the ‘Electronica’ project back in 2015, ‘Glory’ was transformed live with Anthony Gonzalez’s vocal now removed and the end result sounded more like a Jarre original thanks to a 6/8 schaffel.

The main part of the show had a fitting climax with ‘The Time Machine’; out popped Jarre’s Laser Harp and as the tension rose , the track got faster and the light storms grew more in intensity. If this mind blowing segment was to have a “contains flashing images” warning, it was already too late!

At the age of 68, Jarre showed he was certainly not resting on his laurels. For the encore, he premiered ‘Oxygène 17’ from the third volume of his legendary opus, out later in December to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the original Disques Dreyfus release.

Ending with the tuneful trance of ‘Stardust’, it affirmed what many had suspected earlier… Jarre had in fact beamed his audience into the infamous Gatecrasher club. With it being the evening’s final number, some of the audience even got up to dance in the blue sea of effects.

If KRAFTWERK are the Godfathers of Techno, then Jean-Michel Jarre must be the Godfather of Trance. Yet, Jarre is not given that same kudos by the dance obsessed electronic music press, despite the Ralf Hütter-led brand doing very little as far as new material is concerned. Yes, it’s cooler to name drop KRAFTWERK in order to intellectually justify the more retarded elements of EDM.

But to the general public, Jean-Michel Jarre means much more. And while Kraftheads around the UK were busy fighting over themselves online for a chance to see a KRAFTWERK show that has basically stayed the same since 2009, they were missing out on a live presentation that really pushed itself artistically including 3D effects without the need for 3D glasses!

It’s a funny old world! More lasers please 😉

‘Electronica 1: The Time Machine’ and ‘Electronica 2: The Heart Of Noise’ are released by Columbia / Sony Music.

The third installment of the ‘Oxygène’ trilogy is released on 2nd December 2016

http://jeanmicheljarre.com/

https://www.facebook.com/jeanmicheljarre

http://aerojarre.blogspot.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/jeanmicheljarre

Text and photos by Chi Ming Lai
9th October 2016

MESH, AESTHETIC PERFECTION + EMPATHY TEST Live in Islington

4 October 2016 /

With their new album ‘Looking Skyward’, MESH alleviated any fears that they might not be have been able to sustain the artistic momentum following the success of 2013’s ‘Automation Baby’.

With the final show of an intensive European jaunt, this continued with a confident and impressive London show that drew from much of ‘Looking Skyward’. Along for the ride were AESTHETIC PERFECTION and EMPATHY TEST.

The latter have been much talked about as electronic pop’s new saviours but from the moment they opened with ‘Kirrilee’, their overall sound came over as hollow and steadfast. Singer Isaac Howlett once arrogantly boasted in an interview that EMPATHY TEST rarely rehearsed… from his attempts at soaring vocals on ‘Demons’, it showed.

Giving the crowd a welcome wake up were AESTHETIC PERFECTION, the project of LA based musician Daniel Graves.

His earlier Aggrotech has become much more melodic over the years and his short set accompanied by energetic synthesist Elliot Berlin featured songs from the recent 2015 reboot of ‘Blood Spills Not Far From The Wound’ as well as some of AESTHETIC PERFECTION’s more accessible material.

The vibrant ‘Antibody’ made an ideal opener, while the brilliant ‘Vapor’ was a perfect future disco moment. ‘The Little Death’ amusingly showcased Graves’ schizophrenic approach to vocals which were bizarrely one part Darren Hayes / two parts Marilyn Manson…

While his vocal style polarised some, what couldn’t be denied was the production quality of his meaty backing tracks. This was particularly evident on an impressive ‘Big Bad Wolf’ where Graves declared to the object of his desire that they were “good enough to eat”.

When the MESH live band of Mark Hockings, Rich Silverthorn, Sean Suleman and Lord Richard Broadhead finally took to the stage, it was to a tremendous roar with the quartet satisfyingly opening with ‘My Protector’, a tune with a synth line that captured the raw energy of classic MESH. The superb B-side ‘Paper Thin’ was amusingly interrupted by a barrage of paper aeroplanes using the template that was one of the extras in the ‘Looking Skyward’ deluxe box set.

Meanwhile, there was the return of the glorious ‘Little Missile’ from the ‘Who Watches Over Me’ album of 2002 when MESH were signed to a Sony Music subsidiary and label mates with Karl Bartos. The crowd were treated to further ‘Looking Skyward’ highlights in ‘The Ride’ and ‘Runway’, but as a close musical relative to ‘Just Leave Us Alone’, the trance laden ‘Last One Standing’ took the live engagement to another level with a dynamic LED show complimenting proceedings.

The Schaffel stomp of ‘Kill Your Darlings’ kept those into the more rockier side of MESH happy while the powerful triplet driven ‘The Fixer’ delivered another of those poignant statements from the reliably emotive Hockings that “you can’t change the picture if you break the frame”.

‘Friends Like These’ appropriately celebrated the camaraderie that the MESH faithful have now developed in support of their heroes, while to finish the main set, ‘Taken For Granted’ provided Hockings and Silverthorn with their own ‘Never Let Me Down Again’ which ended with a neo-acapella singalong from the crowd.

After the first encore ‘From This Height’, a disintegrating PA system totally ruined ‘Born To Lie’, but Hockings shouted to his colleagues to play on and such was the band’s undoubted professionalism to soldier on, their self-respect remained fully intact.

With only a few songs from ‘Automation Baby’ remaining and their best song ‘Crash’ now omitted too, MESH can hold their heads up high having successfully transferred their difficult acclaimed album follow-up into a fine live show. ‘Automation Baby’ outstripped DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Delta Machine’ by a long way in 2013.

What are the chances that the soon-to-be announced effort from the Basildon boys won’t even be able to hold a candle next to ‘Looking Skyward’?

With thanks to Richard Silverthorn

MESH ‘Looking Skyward’ is released by Dependent Records

http://www.mesh.co.uk/

http://www.aesthetic-perfection.net/

http://www.empathytest.com/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Richard Price and Chi Ming Lai
4th October 2016

MICHAEL ROTHER + RUSTY EGAN Live at Under The Bridge

2 October 2016 /

NEU! founder members Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger were pioneering exponents of Kosmische Musik.

They met after being recruited as members of KRAFTWERK in 1971, but both left soon after to start NEU! – working with Conny Plank, the legendary producer acted as mediator between the pair’s quite different personalities and artistic aspirations as Dinger and Rother were never easy bedfellows.

While Rother was more laid back, Dinger was a confrontational character who wanted to be more than just the drummer, despite popularising the Motorik beat. But this rhythm was to later reconfigure itself in drum machine form as the backbeat for OMD songs like ‘She’s Leaving’, ‘Georgia’ and ‘Radio Waves’, as well as heavily influencing the style of ULTRAVOX’s Warren Cann.

Dinger sadly passed away in 2008, but Rother has kept the legacy of NEU! alive playing concerts all over the world. With a sold-out appearance earlier in the year under his belt, Rother returned to perform again to a packed house at London’s Under The Bridge.

While the NEU! catalogue is comparatively small, their sound has helped shape acts such as ULTRAVOX, OMD, SIMPLE MINDS and VISAGE. Their music also featured on the playlists of The Blitz Club, so it was appropriate that the evening opened with a DJ set from Rusty Egan. After playing a selection of tracks that included SPARKS, KRAFTWERK, NEW ORDER and YELLO , Egan climaxed his stint by premiering songs from his upcoming solo long player ‘Welcome To The Dancefloor’.

‘Ballet Dancer’, a heartfelt eulogy to the one-time VISAGE percussionist’s late ex-wife was written in collaboration with Chris Payne, one of the co-authors of VISAGE’s biggest hit ‘Fade To Grey’. Concluding the set were full-length playbacks of excellent new songs sung by Tony Hadley and Midge Ure, as well as the reclaimed ‘Wonderwerke’ featuring live vocals from Egan himself. This slice of classic New York electro has now been given some Sarf London swagger… in Deutsch!

Michael Rother’s headlining set delivered a variety of pieces from his vast career, beginning with ‘Neuschee’, one of the tracks that was speeded up and slowed down for side two of ‘Neu! 2’. Legend has it that when NEU! ran out of money, Klaus Dinger came up with the idea to fill the second side with versions of ‘Neuschnee’ and its B-side ‘Super’ played at 16 and 78 RPM, complete with needle drops!

But Rother’s version of the story is that Dinger just simply wanted to antagonise their label Brain Records following the perceived lack of promo support for the ‘Neuschnee’ single. Whatever the story, it was in keeping with the duo’s Pop Art aesthetic, presenting their work as variations on a theme as had been demonstrated on their iconic cover artwork.

With Rother accompanied by Hans Lampe, formally of LA DÜSSELDORF on drums and Franz Bargmann on guitar, the trio locked in tight unison to procure a trancey cacophony of sound. In particular, Lampe’s understated heartbeat was highly effective on ‘Hallogallo’; the NEU! evergreen probably got the biggest cheers of the evening.

The frantic pace took a breather with the elegiac ‘Seeland’ from ‘Neu! 75’ and this mood continued with welcome inclusions from Rother’s magnificent solo catalogue. Taken from his period working with Conny Plank and CAN drummer Jaki Liebezeit, it was fitting that ‘Sonnenrad’ was one of the songs aired, with it being the inspiration for ULTRAVOX’s ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’. Plank had given Billy Currie a copy of the parent album ‘Sterntaler’ while they were recording in Cologne. The distinctive purr of the wonderful ‘Katzenmusik’ provided another highlight, but it was a shame that ‘Flammende Herzen’ and ‘Karussell’ weren’t able to be included as well.

Rother’s HARMONIA project with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius was also represented, first by the hypnotic mechanical jam of ‘Veteranissimo’, where Rother put his guitar aside temporarily to handle a variety of electronic effects. Bass sequences and additional synths also figured pre-programmed via a laptop, but these acted more as embellishment and never dominated proceedings, allowing Rother’s drifting layers to come into play.

Meanwhile ‘Deluxe (Immer Weiter)’ and ‘Dino’ were both treated to more NEU! like reworkings. Ending the show with percussive tension of ‘E-Musik’, it was a fine demonstration as to why Rother’s infinite six string style has been so admired by fellow musicians. Indeed, he was David Bowie and Brian Eno’s first choice guitarist for the ‘Heroes’ album. While Rother may not have ended up playing on it, his template clearly helped give a direction for the final recording.

With a recording career spanning over 45 years, Michael Rother is one of the unsung heroes of German popular music. He should be up there and lauded as much as some of his better known contemporaries; quite why he isn’t is one of those great anomalies.

The NEU! and HARMONIA back catalogue is available via Grönland Records

Michael Rother’s back catalogue is available via Random Records

http://www.michaelrother.de/en/

https://www.facebook.com/michaelrother.neu.harmonia/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Richard Price
2nd October 2016

Troika! Live featuring KITE BASE, HANNAH PEEL + I SPEAK MACHINE

11 September 2016 /

Troika from Russian: тройка “A group of three working together…”

Promising an evening of “triple synth sorcery”, the Troika! tour reached The Shacklewell Arms in London as the line-up of KITE BASE, I SPEAK MACHINE and Hannah Peel each presented their own variations on the expansive theme of electronic music.

As Hannah Peel said recently: “although the music from each act is different, it does feel similar in a way”. First up was I SPEAK MACHINE, an audio / visual collaboration between musician Tara Busch and filmmaker Maf Lewis. Producing brooding, unsettling soundtracks for various film projects, their approach has been inspired by Ennio Morricone and Sergio Leone, who used to discuss score ideas for scenes while scripts were being written for the classic Spaghetti Westerns.

Armed with a Minimoog Voyager, Busch performed solo and showcased live soundtracks from a horror short ‘The Silence’, a digital book adventure ‘Strata’ and the soon-to-be-released, self-explanatory ‘Zombies 1985’; the latter is musical collaboration with Benge of WRANGLER who was in the audience with his bandmates Stephen Mallinder and Phil Winter. The film itself even features Gary Numan’s three daughters Persia, Raven and Echo in cameo roles! But it wasn’t just about weird, abstract collages set to arty cinema, there were songs too.

With her operatic soprano stylings, Busch treated the crowd to bizarre but enjoyable covers of ‘The Sound Of Silence’ and ‘Cars’. It came over like early GOLDFRAPP on acid, or “Doris Day in outer space” as JOHN FOXX once described her sound; Numanoids will either be fascinated or enraged when Busch opens for Gary Numan on his September 2016 tour.

Throwing caution to the wind with a set comprising only of material from her soon-to-be-released sophomore long player ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’, Hannah Peel offered some emotive numbers dealing with the spectre of memory loss and dementia. With a combination of piano-led, effects laced songs like ‘Invisible City’ and ‘Tenderly’ alongside more direct synthpop offerings such as ‘Hope Lasts’, she set the scene.

Augmented by drummer Daisy Palmer, a musician adept at a variety of percussive colours that complimented Peel’s hybrid sound, new single ‘All That Matters’ utilised live arpeggios and a bridging jam to add a looser element to the usual rigid electronic format.

The crowd were in total silence for an impressively forlorn performance of Paul Buchanan’s ‘Cars In the Garden’ on solo music box, but it was the progressive experimental overtures of ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’ and ‘Foreverest’ that startled all those present; the latter mutated into a powerful violin versus Schaffel workout. “Hot, sweaty and emotional” was what Peel had to say on the conclusion of her evening’s work.

Following on, KITE BASE offered some gritty scissored bass action, accompanied by a DS Tempest drum machine and assorted programmed electronics. Lead vocalist Kendra Frost recently collaborated with John Fryer on ‘Warning Sign’ for his BLACK NEEDLE NOISE project, after the studio legend heard KITE BASE’s eerie cover of NINE INCH NAILS ‘Something I Can Never Have’, the original of which he co-produced.

KITE BASE started as a side project of SAVAGES bassist Ayşe Hassan and while that quartet’s sound is distinctly conventionally driven, their association with producer TRENTEMØLLER has seen the band’s various members experimenting with technologically derived textures.

Opening with their new single ‘Soothe’, Frost and Hassan offered plenty of feisty energy. On tracks like ‘Miracle Waves’, rhythmical stabs of NEW ORDER escaped while Frost’s dark, brooding vocals haunted in a similar fashion to Christina Wood from the more overtly electronic duo KALEIDA. Closing with their debut song ‘Dadum’, the cacophony of voices and noise fused into a cascading wall of sound.

Too often, multiple line-up events comprising of disparate acts from conflicting genres have been the norm in the independent music scene in an attempt to appeal to as many as possible, happy that a small rotating door audience will keep the bar in business. But presented with one of the most eye-catching poster images of recent years, Troika! was an enticing evening of music where the venue was packed from start to finish.

It ultimately proved how a thoughtfully curated bill, featuring acts with appropriate artistic connections, can work.

KITE BASE’s new single ‘Soothe’ b/w ‘Daum’ is released by Flashback London on 14th October 2016

Hannah Peel’s new album ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’ is released by My Own Pleasure 23rd September 2016

I SPEAK MACHINE tours with Gary Numan throughout September, the ‘Zombies 1985’ soundtrack will be released by Lex Records sometime in 2017

http://kiteba.se/

http://www.hannahpeel.com

http://www.ispeakmachine.com/

Text and photos by Chi Ming Lai
Troika! Poster by Garry Hensey
11th September 2016

The ELECTRI_CITY Show

4 July 2016 /

Photo by Markus Luigs

“Düsseldorf is the capital of electronic music” – that is the quintessence of ‘ELECTRI_CITY – Elektronische_Musik_Aus_Düsseldorf’.

In it, Rudi Esch gives an eyewitness account of how the Düsseldorf electronic scene developed from 1970 to 1986 and spawned acts like LA DÜSSELDORF, DIE KRUPPS, DER PLAN, LIAISONS DANGEREUSES, RIECHMANN, RHEINGOLD, PROPAGANDA, DAF, KRAFTWERK and NEU!

To tie in with the German language book, Düsseldorf paid homage to its electronic music history with the ELECTRI_CITY_CONFERENCE, a three day event of lectures, discussions and live music. An impressive line-up was assembled and read like a ‘Who’s Who?’ of electronic music, with figures such as Gabi Delgado, Ralf Dörper, Rusty Egan, Harald Grosskopf, Peter Hook, Stephen Mallinder, Mark Reeder and Michael Rother all participating in various talks and discussions.

Known for his love of German music, OMD’s Andy McCluskey was interviewed by Rudi Esch for ‘ELECTRI_CITY – Elektronische_Musik_Aus_Düsseldorf’ to give his viewpoint on why die Düsseldorf Schule made such an impression on him as a teenager in The Wirral. With a version of the book in Englisch on the way retitled ‘ELECTRI_CITY – The Düsseldorf School Of Electronic Music’, it was appropriate that on the final day of the ELECTRI_CITY_CONFERENCE, McCluskey and Esch presented what was billed as ‘The ELECTRI_CITY Show’.

Discussing a variety of records which Esch had brought along from his own personal collection, the pair indulged in some light hearted, but fanboy friendly banter…

Rudi: KRAFTWERK were something radical and new when they first appeared in the UK in 1975. What was the impression you had when you saw them at Liverpool Empire?

Andy: I was wearing my trenchcoat, long scarf, flared jeans and afro, and they walked out on stage in suits and ties… it was incredible. I’m on record as remembering it was September 11th and seat Q36. I remember it because it was the first day of the rest of my life! It was also the front row of the cheaper seats! This was something I had never seen and it was forty years ago! The amazing thing is, KRAFTWERK are still, NOW, more futuristic on stage than 99% of bands!

Rudi: Yes, it was so different at this time, to cut your hair and buy a suit…

Andy: … although it took Wolfgang Flür a long time to cut his hair, he had it longer for while than the rest of them *laughs*

Rudi: Yes, especially on the inside cover of ‘Radio-Activity’…

Andy: And his moustache lasted a bit too long *laughs*

Rudi: Wolfgang says that was his D’Artagnan look!

Andy: Yes, I can see that. I’m not gay but he was a sexy man, he was the Elvis of electronic music and still is!

Rudi: We often talk about the music, but let’s talk about the artwork of NEU!

Andy: I know Rusty Egan said the artwork didn’t really impress him but if you look at that, it is more contemporary now that if they had done something modernist or constructivist back in the 70s.

Rudi: The original cover to ‘Autobahn’ in the UK was very graphic…

Andy: But the cover I had was like a painting of a car going down the autobahn. That fantastic blue sleeve with the minimal sign image influenced Peter Saville.

Rudi: So you bought the German import?

Andy: That’s what I did! I would go to the shop on Saturday in Liverpool and go to the ‘German’ section and just see what they had that they didn’t have last week. If there was something there, it was the most exciting day of the week, and if there wasn’t, it would be like “NO! I’ve got nothing to listen to this weekend that’s new!”

Photo by Tom Steinseifer

Rudi: How did you discover LA DÜSSELDORF?

Andy: John Peel introduced me to LA DÜSSELDORF… I was sat in bed, but still had the radio on. On came this track and I was like “what the hell is that?”… so I’ve got ‘Silver Cloud’ minus the first fifteen seconds recorded on a cassette! It was incredible, but I didn’t realise that LA DÜSSELDORF were Klaus Dinger’s band after NEU! although when I spoke to Michael Rother, he dismissed LA DÜSSELDORF as pop! *laughs*

I was still kind of in the dark. You could buy these records, but nobody was writing about them in the press and there was no internet. So I would like the sleeve and then buy it to hear what it sounded like.

People always talk to us about KRAFTWERK, and obviously, they were hugely important. But there was another element from Düsseldorf that influenced us, and that was the organic side which was firstly NEU! and then LA DÜSSELDORF and Michael Rother’s solo records.

Rudi: But KRAFTWERK made a bigger overall impression?

Andy: KRAFTWERK’s ‘Radio-Activity’ is probably to this day, the album that influenced Paul Humphreys and I so much. It taught us you could make music with anything you wanted, because we had nothing.

They were definitely being the future, while dressed like the past. It’s interesting that to try not to look rock ‘n’ roll, the only place they could go was backwards with their look… it’s timeless really. They were trying not to be Anglo-American rock cliché and they achieved it. That for me was the exciting thing. When I was a teenager, I was looking for something different.

I became friends with Wolfgang Flür and Karl Bartos in the 90s, and was invited to Wolfgang’s flat for dinner; on the wall was a gold record for ‘Radio-Activity’ which was a hit single in France. I was telling them that ‘Radio-Activity’ was the song that most influenced OMD and told them ‘Electricity’ was just an English punk version of ‘Radio-Activity’. They replied “Yes, we know!”… it was that obvious! *laughs*

It’s like many teenagers now are frightened of the future and want to conform, but everything about me and people I knew were searching for something different. So when I found KRAFTWERK, NEU! and LA DÜSSELDORF, it was absolutely NOT the rock ‘n’ roll cliché that I was bored of.

Rudi: Although Wolfgang has a past in a beat band called THE BEATHOVENS…

Andy: But what people think of now as super distilled minimalism, the early records, you could see how KRAFTWERK came out of the more freeform, jazz music from playing with other people in Germany. But they slowly distilled their own style and sound, and moved away from that organic sound which was amazing, but also meant that we couldn’t go with them on that journey because we were kids with no money, so there was no point trying to be KRAFTWERK. So we just tried to do our thing, this strange hybrid of their ideas, emotional music and completely unconsciously, probably glam rock which we were watching when we were twelve.

Photo by Tom Steinseifer

Rudi: Musically, you did something unique with OMD because you did not use entirely electronic instruments and musically, I think you are closer to LA DÜSSELDORF?

Andy: Ralf Hütter is very busy curating the legacy of KRAFTWERK… that’s fine because they are the most important influential band from the last forty years in the history of pop music, they changed the world.

It is great that the city of Düsseldorf has woken up to the fact that KRAFTWERK and other musicians changed the world and cherishing them. Whilst KRAFTWERK cement their position in the pantheon of the museums and the books, LA DÜSSELDORF and NEU! were very important. They also did something that was beautiful and different. And OMD unconsciously were combining the two, the electronic sound with the organic…

Rudi: Talking about NEU! They were not an electronic band and there are no electronic sounds of that first record…

Andy: No, it was LA DÜSSELDORF where Klaus Dinger started to add some keyboards and got pop! *laughs*

Rudi: With LA DÜSSELDORF and their songs like ‘Düsseldorf’ and ‘La Düsseldorf’, there’s a lot of Düsseldorf for one band…

Andy: Thinking about LA DÜSSELDORF and NEU! – the biggest loss to the scene is Klaus Dinger.

Rudi: Yes, after his death, people were talking about the Motorik beat and how great NEU! were… even Michael Rother said before 2004, nobody cared about NEU! but now he can make a living again from the legacy of these old records…

Andy: It’s great that people are thinking about NEU! and LA DÜSSELDORF, they should be up there with KRAFTWERK.

Rudi: People said Klaus Dinger was a difficult guy and not easy to get along with…

Andy: It’s the Van Gogh thing… you have to bloody die before people think you’re a genius!

Rudi: To me in Dusseldorf, there were like two generations, so the people in the 70s had the money to buy synthesizers and make music like LA DÜSSELDORF, and then from 1979, there was the second generation like DAF, DER PLAN and DIE KRUPPS who were in punk bands, but then got new technology like sequencers and used them in a punk rock way…

Andy: The early synth bands had the mentality of punk, but instead of playing one chord, they used one finger. To use technology was a much more interesting thing to do than just punk.

Rudi: My favourite KRAFTWERK song is ‘Showroom Dummies’, I like it because it goes on endlessly and more hypnotic, especially with the drums…

Andy: One of the things about KRAFTWERK is the drums are so tight and the sound is so rigid and hard. It was a drum sound that was completely new and alien. When OMD initially went into the studio, Paul Humphreys made an electronic kit, but it never worked very well.

So when we recorded, we had to use a real drum kit but we were so desperate to get that tight, really punchy sound, we didn’t want our drummer Malcolm Holmes to play the whole kit and have all that splashy ambient nonsense… so we made poor Malcolm play each drum individually, one at a time… that was our concession to be as tight and hard as KRAFTWERK.

So he had to put down four minutes of bass drum, then four minutes of snare, four minutes of hi-hat, but NO cymbals were allowed… that was far too rock ‘n’ roll! It led to some interesting moments because he screwed up the fill at the end of the middle eight of ‘Enola Gay’, playing it on the three, not the four!

Rudi: Do you have the luminous 12 inch of ‘Neon Lights’?

Andy: I have them all, but I don’t have a vinyl deck. ‘Neon Lights’ is possibly one of the nearest times KRAFTWERK came to combining the machine rhythm and the organic melancholic melody with vocals. It’s the closest Hütter gets to really singing, he’s not singing staccato. And that song is, after ‘Europe Endless’, my favourite song by KRAFTWERK of all time, precisely because it has that amazing juxtaposition of the contrast of the hard machinery and the beautiful melancholic melody; it makes it more romantic, because they shouldn’t fit together.

Rudi: Why didn’t you sing on OMD’s cover of ‘Neon Lights’ on ‘Sugar Tax’?

Andy: That was originally for a single that didn’t come out which I’d produced for a girl named Christine Mellor. I really liked it and wanted people to hear it. But in hindsight, it was a mistake and I should have sung it with maybe just her on the middle eight.

Rudi: KRAFTWERK have a concept and they stick to it, but don’t talk about their records…

Andy: The one thing I could not be, is that focussed, rigid and precise. I can’t stay in the intellectual moment. I like the intellectual pre-concept, but I get carried away in the emotion of it, so when I go on stage, I just lose all control… it’s a shameless madness. I just can’t stay still, I dance like a lunatic and I don’t care!

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Rudi Esch and Andy McCluskey

ELECTRI_CITY The Dusseldorf School Of Electronic Music‘ELECTRI_CITY – The Düsseldorf School Of Electronic Music’ is published  by Omnibus Press on 10th August 2016

The companion ‘ELECTRI_CITY 2’ CD, double vinyl LP and download featuring many of the artists discussed in the book is released by Grönland Records on 12th August 2016

This year’s ELECTRI_CITY_CONFERENCE takes place at Düsseldorf CCD on 14th – 15th October 2016

http://www.electricity-conference.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ELECTRICITY.Conference/

https://www.facebook.com/Electri.city.Esch/

Text and Interview transcription by Chi Ming Lai
4th July 2016

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