Minimal electronic duo XENO & OAKLANDER are back with their eight album ‘Via Negativa (in the doorway light)’.
Albums over the past 18 years like ‘Vigils’, ‘Sets & Lights’, ‘Par Avion’ and ‘Vi/deo’ have demonstrated and reinforced Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride’s talents as the Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg of synth. From their Connecticut laboratory bubble, the new album sees a further refinement to their precise yet spirited productions.
With songs starting as embryonic piano sketches before McBride applied his modular and vintage synth knowhow, the opening title song makes a powerful statement in a cacophony of synths and percussion while the call and response duet between Liz Wendelbo and Sean McBride provides the fitting contrast of sweetness and starkness to play with the mindset. Less in your face but no less effective is the moodier ‘Mercury Mind’ with brighter hooks doing battle with far grittier distorted interventions.
Despite a seemingly impenetrable wall of synthetic sound, ‘The Unknown Side’ is gloriously bouncy, with Liz Wendelbo providing her alluring Je n’sais quoi to offset Sean McBride’s flatter snarl. ‘Lost & There’ takes XENO & OAKLANDER unexpectedly into a stuttering backdrop and the end result is something almost psychedelic as Wendelbo and McBride harmonise with their blend creating a Neil Tennant stylisation.
‘Actor’s Foil’ adopts a more rugged industrial synthpop template for some EBM sensibilities while with an immediate rhythmic bounce, ‘Magic of the Manifold’ is classic XENO & OAKLANDER reminiscent of ‘The Staircase’ from 2011’s ‘Sets & Lights’ with its squelchy bassline programming being a prominent feature.
A bilingual ode to bloodstones which are said to clear out negative energy, the speedy ‘O Vermillion’ is more minimal compared with other songs on the album and brings in Cossack chants for that Cold War edge that is suitably fitting with the spy drama end. The album concludes with the steadfast ‘Strange Fellows’ which lowers the tempo and plays around with shoegaze impressionism as Wendelbo and McBride vocally delightful spar.
This is another accessible and enjoyable XENO & OAKLANDER record that utilises technology and poetry with spikiness and sweetness, to present the dystopian and the utopian in a cerebral study of “what not to do, a negative image of a positive, the other side, the other”.
Berlin-based New Yorker Luca Venezia, better known as CURSES, has joined the Italians Do It Better family.
The musician and DJ has signed with the label run by Johnny Jewel and Megan Louise that became known for being home to CHROMATICS but has since also provided a release outlet lately to MOTHERMARY, DLINA VOLNY, CAUSEWAY, KID MOXIE & NINA, SALLY SHAPIRO, BARK BARK DISCO and LOVE OBJECT.
For many reasons, the Italians Do It Better union is fitting; known for blending goth rock, new wave, dark disco and synth as exemplified by Venezia’s acclaimed ‘Next Wave Acid Punx’ series of compilations, ‘Another Heaven’ is the third full length CURSES album. Benefitting from Johnny Jewel’s co-production input, it develops on the gloomy vision cemented on the debut ‘Romantic Fiction’.
Informed by Venezia’s love of alternative club music, one of the highlights of ‘Another Heaven’ comes with its title song; this takes its lead from NEW ORDER and ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, but presents it more as an influence rather than the blatant but very good rip off that NATION OF LANGUAGE’s ‘On Joy Division Street’ was. Expressing his lovestruck joy across seven wonderful minutes, Venezia said “This is a love song dedicated to the lost ones, a ballad for the lost ones to belong. We are always searching for that immortal love, divine romance, a truth to our mystery, and when we find it, we can only assume, this creature so perfect so made for you must be from an ethereal unknown place”
A second highlight comes with the superb ‘Vanish’; featuring the guitar of fellow Berlin resident SKELESYS who has been a regular collaborator of the Berlin-based duo LOCAL SUICIDE, this is CURSES’ own ‘Your Silent Face’ with its brightly bubbling sequencers and solemn demeanour. There is even a subtle ‘Heroes’ like quality about it as our hero declares to his love that he wants to ”vanish with you”.
There are other good tracks with ‘Heart & Cane’ pounding with tension in a manner that would give ACTORS a run for their money in the post-post-punk stakes. ‘Elegant Death’ is a slice of anguished melodic goth, as is ‘Like Porcelain’ where “not everyone falls in love”, but with synth motifs and textural guitar sitting together in harmony, ‘HS2G’ has a comforting nostalgic bent despite the emotional torment.
‘Caviar’ crosses THE SMITHS with THE CURE while ‘Helium’ features Marie Davidson of ESSAIE-PAS sounding serene and alternating with stark spoken word. Not everything hits the spot though with ‘Echoes’ possessing a shadier intensity with a touch of distress that won’t be to everyone’s taste…
While not as ominous as MOLCHAT DOMA with their recent album ‘Belaya Polosa’ but sharing some of its brighter electronic elements, ‘Another Heaven’ is an accomplishment that sees Venezia focus as CURSES to develop his songwriting away from the more blurry aesthetics of the previous album ‘Incarnadine’. By adding more of his own haunting vocals to the backdrop of ghostly six string signatures, icy string machines and infectious rhythm construction, the end result is some guarded optimism to venture out in these gloomy times.
October 2024 sees veteran German synthesist Harald Grosskopf turn 75.
To celebrate, he releases a brand new album ‘Strom’ and publishes his autobiography ‘Monsieur Séquenceur’ in Deutsch which will be of interest to anyone remotely interested in Deutsche Elektronische Musik.
Harald Grosskopf had been the drummer of WALLENSTEIN, THE COSMIC JOKERS and ASHRA, working with Manuel Göttsching in the latter while some of his most notable sessions were with Klaus Schulze on his albums ‘Moondawn’, ‘Body Love’ and ‘X’.
But while in between projects, with the encouragement of friend and composer Udo Hanten, Grosskopf’s desire for making music led him experiment with a Minimoog, Korg PS3200 and an ARP 16-Step Sequencer alongside his drums. The end result was his wonderfully dreamy solo debut ‘Synthesist’ released in 1980; fans of the record included Andy McCluskey, Mark Reeder and Jean-Michel Jarre.
Grosskopf’s desire not to repeat himself has meant he has not been prolific as a solo artist, although over the years, he continued working with Manuel Göttsching in ASHRA as well as undertaking various collaborations Steve Baltes, Eberhard Kranemann, Thorsten Quäschning and Axel Heilhecker. Now after several years in the making comes ‘Strom’, translated from German as “electricity” and looking not that dissimilar the English word “storm” which could also sonically apply to this work.
Opening salvo ‘Bureau 39’ demonstrates an aural heritage with ‘Synthesist’ which is no bad thing, absorbing yet acting as a relaxant within a kaleidoscopic soundscape that twists with bursts of Doppler engine noise. Moving into more grinding territory, ‘Blow’ possesses a fierce marching rumble. There is a sharp use of rhythm on this album, as can be heard on ‘Später Strom’ but its overall gallop and texturing wouldn’t have sounded out of place on ‘Synthesist’, save the percussive sample template.
There are the more breezy overtures of ‘Gleich Strom’ but experimental and noisy, both ‘After The Future’ and ‘Um Pah Pah Uh’ almost do away with melody and reveal some quite unsettling voices, the former growling “NEVER” like a twisted character from The Brother Grimm while the latter also plays with eerie Middle Eastern overtones.
Like a passing express locomotive, the strident ‘Stylo Kraut’ is the album’s driving centrepiece, building towards a cosmic metallic fervour. Meanwhile the closer ‘Stromklang’ wouldn’t sound of place in a club, displaying a stomping affinity to dance culture over a sinister backdrop with cutting stabs of synth duelling with more spacey shimmers and rolling arpeggios.
‘Strom’ is an album that merges Harald Grosskopf’s classic melodic synth sound with the digital machine of today for a fully charged body of work. It retains enough familiarity while going off on various sonic tangents and abstract adventures to satisfy many a listener of more esoteric electronic forms.
ITALOCONNECTION are the veteran duo Fred Ventura and Paolo Gozzetti whose ethos of is “to sound vintage in a modern way”.
Although ITALOCONNECTION released a self-titled debut album in 2013 comprising of their own tracks as well as productions and remixes for other artists, it wasn’t until ‘Metropoli’ in 2017’s that they released their first proper album.
In 2021, ITALOCONNECTION issued ‘Midnight Confessions Vol1’, an excellent danceable pop record themed around love. For Fred Ventura, an Italo disco trailblazer since first solo releases in 1984, “The production of this album was like a long journey, going through bad weather and back to the sun several times. We had to face the reality of working from distance and without the usual production jam we used before the pandemic”. More material was written than could be included so now comes ‘Midnight Confessions Vol2’.
‘Midnight Confessions Vol1’ featured guests including Swedish performance artist Tobias Bernstrup and French superstar Etienne Daho on lead vocals and while there are no star names this time round, in addition to Ventura’s voice, there is the return of Francesca Gastaldi who featured on 2018’s ‘Humanize’ and Jaia Sowden who sang Jay-Jay Johanson’s ‘On The Radio’ for the interim covers album ‘Nordisko’ of 2023.
‘The Wait’ is superb, with warm electronic bass and catchy sequences like the best imperial phase PET SHOP BOYS providing a fine opening. Into the night, the instrumentally strong ‘Lover 2 Lover’ does the same and is uplifting despite the melancholic lyrical lilt.
Not an OASIS cover, ‘Live Forever’ sees Francesca Gastaldi’s shine brightly over a robust electronic backdrop with some glorious uplifts. The octave bass laden ‘Cold War Lovers’ is more enigmatic with a delightfully long instrumental introduction but no less catchy in its presence as Ventura laments the lack of disco interaction as a metaphor calling for peace in the world
Despite the lost love, Why’ retains an optimistic mood in a pacey cacophony of electronics laced with percussive breaks. Meanwhile simultaneously pulsating, swooping and droning, ‘Systematic’ plays on the sixteens to offer a colder take on Italo while being no less hook laden. With “impact and disorder”, ‘Just Like Water’ is laced in melody with Jaia Sowden providing her wistful touch in a bittersweet story of discontent and disconnect.
En Français using an AI generated female voice, ‘Europa’ pays homage to the art movements and machine music of the continent in a dramatic midtempo spoken word piece accompanied by thematic synth passages that could be Jean-Michel Jarre while giving KRAFTWERK, EURYTHMICS, TELEX, PET SHOP BOYS, PROPAGANDA, NEW ORDER, YAZOO, DAF, EINSTURZEN NEUBAUTEN, ULTRAVOX, LES RITA MITSOUKO and many others a name check.
The ‘Midnight Confessions’ title song generates a throbbing bass triplet over a lone analogue drum machine before building into a cascading disco track with bursts of sharp synth. With an alluring middle eight from Francesca Gastaldi, it provides a fitting conclusion to this enjoyably immediate long player.
As with all ITALOCONNECTION releases, the production is clean and danceable without being overbearing, making it suitable for the home, the car, the radio or the disco. It’s one for lovers of classic European electronic pop with that warm romantic Italian touch.
Japanese punk pop performance group FRANK CHICKENS release a retrospective boxed set ‘Ninja Legends 1983-1989’ on Cherry Red Records.
As befitting the title of the set, FRANK CHICKENS (who were named after a brand of Japanese stationery) have a significant cult following and have often been credited for introducing Karaoke into the UK mainstream via their founder Kazuko Hohki’s Channel 4 show ‘Kazuko’s Karaoke Klub’.
Included are their first three albums and a selection of BBC sessions recorded for John Peel, Richard Skinner and Janice Long; their delightful cover of ‘Blue Canary’ recorded for the former with a spoken introduction about a miserable Japanese housewife in Milton Keynes was placed at No42 in his 1984 Festive 50.
Although originally a trio, the eventual nucleus settled on Hohki and Kazumi Taguchi; the former arrived in London as a tourist and had grown up reading English children’s books with their awkward humour. Having observed the London Musicians Collective at play on her second day, she decided to stay in the UK having found a place where artistic misfits like her could thrive. Performing that day were David Toop and Steve Beresford of THE FLYING LIZARDS who would later become FRANK CHICKENS collaborators.
It was while at Camden Arts Centre that Kazuko met Kazumi who was invited to watch a performance of the Japanese American Toy Theatre which Kazuko had co-founded. Part of the performance saw Hohki singing a Japanese pop ballad using Karaoke backing. Afterwards Kazumi suggested to Kazuko she could sing it better and that they should form a band.
Influenced by pop, punk and traditional Japanese music, FRANK CHICKENS came to the attention of John Peel who invited them to record a session for his late night radio show in 1983. About the same time, the original three-piece appeared on stage at London’s Clarendon Hotel Ballroom. In the audience was David Toop who afterwards enthused to his colleague Steve Beresford about how they could help realise FRANK CHICKENS’ ethos into original collaborative songs.
With Toop and Beresford co-producing, FRANK CHICKENS released their debut single ‘We Are Ninja (Not Geisha)’ in March 1984. This slice of quirky electro art funk became an independent chart hit, showcasing their socio-political constructs of borders, race and gender through eccentric but humorous storytelling.
Expressing themselves as women in a manner than would have been frowned up in their own country, there were however prejudices to overcome in their adopted home of the UK. In a more racist environment than today, not helped by the then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s anti-immigrant stance, FRANK CHICKENS challenged the myths separating East and West, while highlighting the absurdity of the dual stereotype that saw Japanese women as submissive geisha or mysterious femme fatales.
On a roll, the parent album ‘We Are Frank Chickens’ followed and was also an independent chart hit that combined multi-cultural pop with the avant garde. It was an impressive debut with opener ‘Cheeba Cheeba Chimpira’ falling under the spell of hip hop while ‘Mothra’ played more with traditional exotica elegance.
Like an uptempo crime series theme, ‘Yellow Detective’ had slinky sax thrown in amongst the electronic squelch and sampled strings. But combining synths and Japanese traditional textures, ‘Shellfish Bamboo’ threw in spoken narrative and street rows about men with long necks in the market while ‘Fujiyama Mama’ was delightfully oddball.
‘Pikadon’ experimented with reggae inflections while the ‘We Are Frank Chickens’ title song with its abstract chant took on the rhythmic influence of Prince. The wonderful ‘Sake Ballad’ closed the album with a melancholic drama about how “I drink to kill my memory”, lamenting a love that cannot be, soundtracked by gorgeously sad string quartet.
Released in 1987, second album ‘Get Chickenized’ continued the satirical mockery of cultural stereotypes but touched on other topics; lesbian love was the subject of ‘Two Little Ladies’ while the rockier ‘One Million Hamburgers’ reflected on consumerism. ‘We Say You Say’ utilised an R ‘n’ B backdrop and a “GET CHICKENIZED” hook to challenge ethnic stereotyping further but entering Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis territory, ‘Solid Life’ made a good go at the soulful pop of the period.
Featuring lively LinnDrum and brassy synths, FRANK CHICKENS referenced Gary Cooper in ‘High Noon’ as an example of ‘Sacred Marriage’ while ‘Street Angels, Tokyo’ drove along with speedy programmed cowbell like it was taken straight from a Jerry Bruckheimer action movie of the period. Further reflecting the broader musical church of the record,. ‘Monster’ burst with surf guitar while ‘Yellow Toast’ headed to Greece with bursts of bouzouki to provide an unusual twist and another challenge to racial stereotypes. To close ‘Get Chickenized’, ‘The Dark’ provided an experimental slo-mo séance and ‘House Of Ninja’ surprised as if on the nose with current trends in a spacey upbeat house track.
After a tour of Australia and New Zealand in Spring 1988, Kazumi Taguchi decided to take a break from FRANK CHICKENS and was replaced by new singer Atsuko Kamura on the third album ‘Club Monkey’. There were more changes as Grant Showbiz, Justin Adams and Clive Bell stepped into the studio team. With Kazuko now co-writing with them, themes changed with the ‘Club Monkey’ songs inspired by Hong Kong martial arts and zombie films. Based on a story about a club where an English aristocrat gets defeated by two Asian women, the idea had been premiered as a Christmas musical 1988 with money from the Greater London Arts Association.
‘Club Monkey’ opened with the smooth sophistipop of the album title song and ‘Waiting For A Dog’ offered more adventures as it explored the blues. ‘Burn That Body’ ventured into pacey electro and the gorgeous traditional ballad ‘Revolution’ put ethnic sounds into mix. ‘Night Drain’ was an idiosyncratic funk collage with chants of “mind the gap” while ‘Feed Me’ adopted a sunny Spanish flavour. But the album’s highlight was the synth driven ‘Jackie Chan’, a celebration of South East Asia’s biggest action film star did all of his own stunts.
There were further explorations into other musical territories like ‘Shaken By God’s Hand’ with its cowboy accordion and harmonica while ‘M.Y.T.H.’ ventured into the indie-rock of THE SMITHS. Concluding ‘Club Monkey’ was the album’s thematic outlier ‘Do The Karaoke’ which saw Kazuko and Atsuko take turns to prophetically tell the world about a plug-in machine where you “no longer need a band” to sing along to ‘My Way’!
There were two more albums ‘Pretty Frank Chickens’ in 1991 and ‘床下 Underfloor World = Yukasita Underfloor World’ in 1994 both co-produced Clive Bell that were issued only in Japan, but while there have been no new releases since, FRANK CHICKENS continue to be proudly led by Kazuko Hohki.
Today South East Asian culture now everywhere and part of the everyday, be it in cinema, music, gaming, food or fashion. With the group now expanded to a multi-national performance ensemble with over 20 members, FRANK CHICKENS participate in events ranging from one-off happenings at The Barbican or Union Chapel to huge outdoor culture showcases like the annual Japan Matsuri in London’s Trafalgar Square… who would have thought that would happen in 1983?
Speaking Frankly, FRANK CHICKENS ‘The Movie’ from 2012 says at the start “Laugh at them, laugh with them, above all – enjoy them!” While not everything is this set hits the spot, ‘Ninja Legends 1983-1989’ is a perfect (re)introduction to world of FRANK CHICKENS. It will make you smile 😊
FRANK CHICKENS will appear at Ura Matsuri on Saturday 19 October 2024 which takes place at London’s Hoxton Hall – tickets available from https://www.uramatsuri.com/
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