With a few long players under her belt and with her music featured on various television series, here comes ‘PixelDust’, the latest album from Dana Jean Phoenix.
Self-described as a “Retro Synthwave Singer”, the Toronto based songstress knows how to turn heads with catchy vintage tunes, which are Atari games worthy. Having recently featured on the debut album of MECHA MAIKO with the fabulously dancey ‘Cold’, Dana Jean Phoenix isn’t a stranger to synthylicious ditties. Not concerned with ‘Losing The Connection’, Phoenix introduces her new album with a colourful bang of vintage guitar, good old synth and candied poppy melody. Back to the days of big hair, leg warmers, fashion jewellery and blue eye make-up it is!
The more demure, sweet love ballad ‘Far And Away’ is a nostalgic nod to the sun-setting pop songs of TIFFANY and ‘Red Line’ could have been blasted away in a shopping mall, while you and the girls pulled faces squeezed into the swivelling photo booth chair. Remember those uncomplicated teenage times, when you thought you could take on the entire world!? Dana Jean can!
Maybe you can go back to the neon lights ‘Only For One Night’, with stripped down synth lines, or have you ‘Lost Touch’ with the classic sound of Paula Abdul?
‘I’ll Rescue You’ is a girly ‘Boys Of Summer’ and ‘Funky Fly Free’ reminisces FIVE STAR’s achievements. After all, everything will ‘Be Alright’. A fabulous little track, perfect for carefree girly gatherings, pillow fights and pink Walkman headphones, what’s not to love? ‘Iron Fist’ speeds up the matters and could have easily been used as a secondary ‘Rocky’ track, while the title number calms the senses with a sweet, slightly melancholic feel, which has the qualities of a perfect chick flick soundtrack.
The closing ‘Written’ is the longest song on ‘Pixeldust’ and you wish it could go on for longer still. It’s a classic feel good number, embroiled in uncomplicated vintage romance.
Gentle, melodic and beautifully performed, you imagine Phoenix running in slow motion into the sunset after her lost love, or blushing while dreaming of her newly found amour. Whatever the story, you are transported back into that world we always come back to with sentimentality, the world when things were simpler and exciting.
And that’s the whole point to Dana Jean Phoenix’s music; to bring back that elusive feel of our youth, to relive first loves and first disappointments, “back when possibilities seemed endless because your world was colourfully enigmatic and very few doorways were shut to you. A time when you were in love, or just about to be.”
Feel good music doesn’t have to be too serious and too complicated, and ‘PixelDust’ is just that. For a summery, relaxed feel, go no further and immerse yourself in the simplicity of this record. You won’t be disappointed.
Celebrating their career with a lavish 10 disc boxed set, ‘Keychains & Snowstorms: The SOFT CELL Story’ features material from both periods of the duo including their imperial phase when they had a continuous run of hit singles between 1981-1984 and the 2001-2003 reunion.
Marc Almond and Dave Ball met at Leeds Polytechnic and at the time of their wider breakthrough on the ‘Some Bizarre Album’ and their subsequent debut long player ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ in 1981, SOFT CELL were perhaps rated higher than DEPECHE MODE.
Their cover of ‘Tainted Love’ was one of the biggest UK singles of 1981, selling over one million copies and was on the US Billboard Hot 100 for a then-record of 43 weeks. But despite all the success, the pair ultimately imploded but their template was taken to the worldwide audience it deserved via PET SHOP BOYS.
While Almond continues a fruitful solo career and Ball found success with THE GRID, they are both best remembered for SOFT CELL. On their singular history alone, SOFT CELL are up there with THE HUMAN LEAGUE and DURAN DURAN, and like their contemporaries, they exploited the then-new format of the 12 inch single.
All the singles from ‘Tainted Love’ to ‘Down In The Subway’ via ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ and ‘Where The Heart Is’ are included in their extended versions, but the longer variations of ‘Bedsitter’ and ‘Torch’ are masterpieces in their own right, seamless productions where you literally cannot hear the join, mainly because they were recorded as developing stories outside of the expected three minute radio edit.
And then there were the B-sides which SOFT CELL also excelled at, again all presented in their extended versions. From the reflective solitude of living away from home in ‘Facility Girls’ to the hilarious tail of teenage rebellion in ‘It’s A Mug’s Game’ where Almond confessed that he actually hated ‘Deep Purple In Rock’ along with ‘Led Zeppelin II’ and couldn’t “wait until I’m 21 and I can tell them all to sod off!”, the music connected with young outsiders.
And Almond wasn’t afraid to express how anxiety was playing with his mind, as reflected in the superb chemical fuelled ‘Insecure Me’ which featured a rap from the appropriately named Cindy Ecstasy.
‘Keychains & Snowstorms – The SOFT CELL Story’ features a disc of new extended and reworked mixes supervised by Ball which he said was “just tightening a few things up as a lot of the original stuff was all played manually”. These naturally achieve mixed results; on the Lateral Mix of ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ for example, some of Dave Tofani’s clarinet sections from the original 12 inch have been dropped in and although it is an improvement on the bland 1991 re-recording, nothing can touch the emotive tearful resonance of the definitive 1981 version.
Another case in point is the new ERASURE remix of ‘Bedsitter’ which offers a chunky bass and fat beat, but the melody is replaced by a heavy guitar swirl; despite including the 12 inch rap, it’s a little disappointing. However, the ‘Hallowe’en Mix’ of Martin is leaner and works well while the ‘Wasted On The Young Mix’ of ‘Youth’ stretches out the drama and will please Cellmates who have always longed for an extended mix.
Indeed, from the rarities and curios collection, the previously unreleased extended version of ‘Forever The Same’ (which was intended as a single before the intervention of the duo themselves) will be welcomed. Pleasingly, ‘The Girl With The Patent Leather Face’ which secured SOFT CELL their earlier acclaim still freaks and creeps as the undoubted standout from the ‘Some Bizzare Album’ along with DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Photographic’.
The Daniel Miller produced ‘A Man Can Get Lost’ remains a great lost single, overshadowed by the proto-house of ‘Memorabilia’ which appears in both its original Daniel Miller mix and the remixed ‘Non-Stop Ecstatic Dancing’ version with Cindy Ecstasy and the horns of John Gatchell. The anti-consumerist electronic art piece ‘Persuasion’ from the same recording session at Stage One is still (if not more) relevant today, while the sub-two minute Daniel Miller take of ‘Metro MRX’ for ‘Flexipop’ borrows the same synthetic rhythm track as DEPECHE MODE’s ‘New Life’ to accompany Almond’s snarls of “he’s a mutant!”
Of course, the original ‘Metro MRX’ came from SOFT CELL’s debut ‘Mutant Moments’ EP released in October 1980 and it’s featured here in full. From it, the wonderful ‘L.O.V.E Feelings’ is a touching gem, a sign of things to come with basic but beautiful synth sounds and an air of John Barry’s ‘Midnight Cowboy’ while ‘Potential’ is something of a metronomic buzzfest.
A number of interesting demos find their way onto the box; ‘Tainted Love’ is more rigid but has appeal and potential, coming over a bit like FAD GADGET while ‘Bedsitter’ is still lively, the klanky Korg Rhythm KR55 adding some home recording charm. There’s also the bonus of the previously unreleased ‘Red Tape, Sticky Tape’ and Cellmate favourite ‘Martin’ in its 1980 demo incarnation.
Previously from ‘The Bedsit Tapes’ and not in a dissimilar tone to ‘The Girl With The Patent Leather Face’, the synth bass heavy cover of BLACK SABBATH’s ‘Paranoid’ presents out of tune electronics and Almond screaming like he’s trapped in the gutter, while the solid triple bassline of Ball’s Korg SB100 Synthe-Bass emerges in ‘Science Fiction Stories’. The raw ‘Bleak Is My Favourite Cliché’ does what it says on the tin, embroiled in winter of discontent dystopia but with hidden melody and an edgy gothique. The 6/8 rhythmic template of ‘Mix’ sees a development into pop like THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s ‘Empire State Human’ although Almond is suitably wayward.
As usual with these boxed sets, a number of live recordings are included and from the Leeds Polytechnic Fine Art Christmas party in December 1979, ‘Walking Make Up Counter’ captures the electro-punk aspect that showed they had more in common with SUICIDE, rather than the clean KRAFTWERK inspired lines of OMD.
And speaking of Messrs Vega and Rev, fast forward to a Los Angeles show in 1983 and there’s a frenzied cover of ‘Ghost Rider’ with Gary Barnacle on sax which provides an interesting curio. Probably the best known SUICIDE song, Almond smirks that “I love a bit of Nihilism”; what’s also noticeable is that his live vocals lave improved considerably from earlier live tapes without losing his energetics and passion.
In terms of capturing the rawer aspects of first phase SOFT CELL, the 1981 BBC Radio 1 session for Richard Skinner does that best. While unpolished, ‘Entertain Me’ was good fun complete with fluffed cues while the brilliant ‘Seedy Films’ was much faster than the final album version and possibly better for it.
When SOFT CELL unexpectedly got back together for the start of the 21st Century, it was like unfinished business and two brand new songs for 2002’s ‘Very Best of’ collection along with the ‘Cruelty Without Beauty’ album were duly delivered.
The romp of ‘Divided Soul’ still comes over like a dirty version of ‘Sailing On The Seven Seas’ by OMD and a reinterpretation of ‘The Night’ generates thoughts of how things might have panned out had that Northern Soul staple made famous by FRANKIE VALLI & THE FOUR SEASONS been chosen to be recorded as a single in 1981 instead of ‘Tainted Love’.
But the brilliant brass assisted swipe at the X-Factor generation of ‘Desperate’ was perhaps the reunion’s best fruit of labours, although the enjoyable comeback single ‘Monoculture’ aimed at the same target while ‘Last Chance’ provided a fitting epilogue to ‘Say Hello Wave Goodbye’.
The new special ‘Non-Stop Euphoric Dubbing’ continuous mix begins with a variation on the haunting ‘Barriers’ which works well as a lead into ‘Numbers’. Working like an imaginary horror film soundtrack as opposed to a dance megamix, it is heavy and cinematic in sound. ‘Youth’ and ‘Where The Heart Is’ are particularly effective with the dub elements of Almond’s voice echoing in and out, seguing into the Richard X Dub of ‘Seedy Films’ which maintains its sleazy edge without sounding too contemporary.
The inclusion of ‘L’Esqualita’ provides some fabulous gothic menace while ‘Loving You, Hating Me’ and ‘Baby Doll’ prolong the claustrophobic tension. A rework of ‘Facility Girls’ offers respite into ‘Little Rough Rhinestone’ before concluding with Dave Ball’s Lateral Dub treatment of ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’.
As well as 9 discs of music, ‘Keychains & Snowstorms – The SOFT CELL Story’ includes a DVD collecting together TV appearances, promo videos, archive 1981 concert footage and the notorious ‘Non-Stop Exotic Video Show’ which ironically saw the unmissed ‘News Of The World’ tabloid accuse SOFT CELL of attempting to corrupt their teenage audience.
Everyone from FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, BRONSKI BEAT, ERASURE and PET SHOP BOYS to NINE INCH NAILS, PSYCHE, FISCHERSPOONER, TIGA and HERCULES & LOVE AFFAIR have much to thank Marc Almond and Dave Ball for.
It’s amazing to think how much of an impact SOFT CELL had in popular culture. Rather fittingly, Dave Ball said to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK of ‘Keychains & Snowstorms: The SOFT CELL Story’: “It’s got a lot of stuff, there’s a great book that comes with it which has got quotes from people like Neil Tennant and Trent Reznor, so it’s interesting … if anybody is a serious fan, I think it’s a must!“
With GLASSHOUSE, Xan Tyler and David Liddell have in their words created “A journey through orchestral scores combined with dark underground techno and jazz.”
Xan Tyler is perhaps best known in electronic music circles as the vocalist of cult synthpop duo TECHNIQUE. The brainchild of multi-instrumentalist Kate Holmes, the concept was a female interpretation of PET SHOP BOYS crossed with NEW ORDER’s post-punk edge.
More recently, Tyler’s work has been of a more traditional nature, having contributed to the latest album by folk artists Naomi Bedford and Paul Simmonds. Meanwhile David Liddell is a renowned classically trained trombonist who has worked with personalities as diverse as Roger Daltrey, Boy George and Pharrell Williams. The debut GLASSHOUSE EP ‘We Are The Light & The Dark’ is their love letter to the human race and “asks the listener to restore their faith in mankind and embrace beauty and light.”
Opening song ‘Echo Chamber’ is a delightful return to the technopop reminiscent of Tyler’s time in TECHNIQUE, with a great sequenced bassline and an enticing off-beat. It vocally recalls a time when Sarahs Cracknell, Blackwood and Nixey ruled, with the string quintet providing a nice compliment next to the electronics. The glistening synth tones on ‘Reward & Rewind’ dress a jazzier swing with Tyler’s sweet folkier tones unusually placed next to rapper MWS who announces it’s “time to rest”…
The ‘We Are The Light &The Dark’ title song chimes beautifully aided by harp-like tones, reminiscent of Hannah Peel; “You are the oxygen” Tyler affectionately coos, highlighting the Ying and Yang of romantic relationships accompanied by a rich orchestrated backdrop and a flugel horn solo from Reuben Fowler towards the end.
Over an electric piano intro, ‘The Temperature Is Rising’ sees a steady beat joining in, building to a gently chilled grooving dance tune which is far superior to much of the beach mix nonsense that afflicts summer holidays. Taking things down, the ballad ‘Cry Out’ closes proceedings with some trombone, but is perhaps the less convincing track on the EP.
Combining synths and brass like Hannah Peel did on ‘Mary Casio: Journey To Cassiopeia’ but in a more traditional song based format, GLASSHOUSE have found themselves a unique combination and this EP is well worth your time.
Producer Jonas Rasmusson had been recording as TRAIN TO SPAIN since 2011, but it wasn’t until the recruitment of singer Helena Wigeborn in 2013 that things begin to gather momentum.
The 2015 debut album ‘What It’s All About’ featured songs such as ‘Passion’ and ‘Remind Myself’ which showcased the duo’s potential, coming over at times like like Lana Del Rey fronting YAZOO. ‘Believe In Love’, the brilliant first new song issued in 2016 after ‘What It’s All About’ developed on its promise, allowing more space within Rasmusson’s classic framework Wigeborn to work in.
With the aforementioned included as a bonus track, ‘A Journey’continues… riding on an upward momentum, the vibrant opening salvo ‘I Follow You’ is an optimistic pop statement in the Kylie vein. The upbeat fervour continues on ‘Saviour’, with Wigeborn hunting high and low over Rasmusson’s energetic backing. ‘You Got To Do It’ shows what TRAIN TO SPAIN can do using a more restrained approach, while the frantic pace of ‘Not With Me’ utilises the metallic klang of Berlin-era DEPECHE MODE.
‘Pretend We Won’ moves away from the usual TRAIN TO SPAIN four-to-the-floor template during its intro which is attached to a good melodic structure. But the gloriously guilty pleasure of ‘Monsters’ is one of those Eurodance stompers with chunky triplets that filled German discos once upon a time and at various points, it feels as though a rapper will make their presence felt!
The more midtempo ‘Confused’ allows for a breather and is another highlight, featuring an alluring chorus from Wigeborn and filmic synths from Rasmusson. Taking things down further, ‘Teaser’ about a girl “who knows how to mess with your mind” is a ballad that shows subtlety in its rhythmic backbone while swathed in atmospheric electronic sweeps, while ‘What If’ is another midtempo offering although driven by heavy electronic drums and shaped by Wigeborn’s lower vocal register which suits both her and the tune.
But the closing ‘80s Drum Machine’ is the disappointing ‘Martin, David & Fletch’ of ‘A Journey’. Like its ‘What It’s All About’ cousin, the song is intended as an affectionate tribute to TRAIN TO SPAIN’s influences, but actually is a throwaway novelty that is not entirely essential with its spoken vocal and stripped down production.
Another bonus track ‘Dominant One’ plays with octaves and crashing metronomic drums in the vein of ‘Blip Blop’ from ‘What It’s All About’ and as with ‘80s Drum Machine’, it could have been left off ‘A Journey’ altogether to leave a tighter collection of ten tracks. All-in-all, ‘A Journey’ is a progression from ‘What It’s All About’ on all fronts musically, vocally and aurally. But most importantly, it is good old fashioned appealing synthpop with a Eurocentric twist. So take a TRAIN TO SPAIN and go round the world again…
“It’s a scary world out there”; words you can hear far and wide all across the globe, but when you enter the world of NIGHT CLUB, it can get scarier still.
For the twisted, dirty and sick, look no further than the bombastic American duo, where Emily Kavanaugh rules the roost with her aggressive vocal style, sugar coated at times, but don’t be fooled… introducing the second album from the unusual twosome, which follows the acclaimed ‘Requiem for Romance’, NIGHT CLUB are on tour with none other than the mega Gods of heavy electronica, COMBI (f**king) CHRIST.
And from the onset, the heavily pitch shifted vocals on the first single ‘Candy Coated Suicide’ glide and slide over the gritty pop, tainted by dirt, which can be visually verified by the kinky video depicting rather unsavoury looking bunnies (yes, costume bunnies, and not so cute like Chandler in ‘Friends’), as well as a teddy bear in chains and cuffs. As Kavanaugh describes: “like if an 8 year old and her stuffed animals discovered LSD and went on a solid 4 day bender”. Say no more…
But the whole affair starts with the ominous ‘Beware!’, a delicate fairy tale which can fool one into thinking all is glossy and pink. Oh no, it isn’t! The title track hits with the expected force, and even though the vocal is candy sweet a la Britney, the tone is what it says it is on the tin (even the kids choir will confirm it), and hey, after all “they only love you if you swallow”.
With the NIGHT CLUB world being a tad ‘Schizophrenic’, it’s no wonder it sounds like Spears’ ‘Toxic’ at times. It’s so LA baby! ‘Your Addiction’ hits with a majestic synth boom, which canvasses that sexy voice to perfection. Kavanaugh can make anything dirty and kinky after all, and she does it with style. If LADY GAGA made it big with ‘Do What You Want’, NIGHT CLUB will make it huge with ‘Blood On Your Blade’, with its multitude of style shifts and wealth of influences.
In the meantime, ‘Therapy (Get High)’ spells out the need for drugs, where instead of the instant arrest, Kavanaugh is given a prize. A perfect alternative pop song, even if you won’t play it to your kids. And although she doesn’t really have many friends, as she points out in ‘Therapy’, she is graced with an ‘Imaginary Friend’. And that goes something like vintage DM, so there!
As for the bloodsucking monsters, ‘Vampires’ shows off the vocal wizardry from the Princess Of Darkness, as even with the life being sucked out of her, she’s still the coolest. Still, she will ‘Survive’ as she calms things down towards the end with a single piano substituting the synth for a while, leading the follow-up opus to its conclusion.
And what’s the conclusion? ‘Requiem for Romance’ was good, ‘Scary World’ is scarier and better. Way to go Mr Brooks, and welcome back Miss Kavanaugh. Again, you haven’t disappointed.
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features a disc of new extended and reworked mixes supervised by Ball which he said was “just tightening a few things up as a lot of the original stuff was all played manually”. These naturally achieve mixed results; on the Lateral Mix of ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ for example, some of Dave Tofani’s clarinet sections from the original 12 inch have been dropped in and although it is an improvement on the bland 1991 re-recording, nothing can touch the emotive tearful resonance of the definitive 1981 version.
featuring two new songs 
and 
not included in the boxed set is released on 28th September 2018
continues… riding on an upward momentum, the vibrant opening salvo ‘I Follow You’ is an optimistic pop statement in the Kylie vein. The upbeat fervour continues on ‘Saviour’, with Wigeborn hunting high and low over Rasmusson’s energetic backing. ‘You Got To Do It’ shows what 
was good, 
is scarier and better. Way to go Mr Brooks, and welcome back Miss Kavanaugh. Again, you haven’t disappointed.
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