Anglo-Belgian duo DOLVA SANA are a new duo featuring Jake Harding on vocals and Frederic Caure on electronics with devotion to the usual suspected darker influences such as DEPECHE MODE and DE/VISION.
Jake Harding has adopted a number of vocal stylings including punk, folk, blues and heavy metal for his baritone before settling into doomy goth band GRAVE LINES.
Meanwhile Caure is a seasoned multi-instrumentalist with a background in psychedelic and stoner rock proficient in guitar and synthesizer, with the latter being the dominant presence in the stark overtures of DOLVA SANA.
The opening track ‘Tell A Lie’ is vibrant downbeat darkwave with the expected boxed vocals embroiled in anguish, but it’s the bleak closer ‘Home’ with its sparse electronic backdrop that is the highlight; as it steadily progresses, it presents some wonderfully vocal harmonies in the manner of Messrs Gahan and Gore as heard on ‘Waiting For The Night’ while the haunting hooks, synth texturing and sequencing take their place in the aural kaleidoscope.
With a strident pulse, ‘Without Help’ is better than most Dave Gahan solo offerings and is at least superior to the DEPECHE MODE front man’s dreary Charlie Chaplin covers. However, the instrumental ‘Midnight in K-Town’ offers pacier soundtrack potential but is missing a more dynamic rhythmic presence… a bit like the album version of ‘Behind The Wheel’, it is far too held back and suffers for it.
Meanwhile, ‘Drangst’ is very mournful and perhaps the least essential of the five in the ‘Hard-boiled Wonderland’ set. But it’s a start and with one standout track on a debut EP, ‘Hard-boiled Wonderland’ shows some flashes of promise and potential for the future.
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……”
With the dark clouds of war looming, it’s as if The Cold War never ended…
With tensions on the Eastern Front between two of the largest nations in Europe, what is needed is some heart. Meaning “Heart” in Lithuanian, ‘Širdis’ is the first song to be recorded in the native language of Alanas Chosnau in his fruitful collaboration project with Mark Reeder. Chosnau is one of the biggest music stars in his home country while Reeder is the Berlin-based Mancunian known for his remix work for NEW ORDER and DEPECHE MODE.
‘Širdis’ is a heartfelt plea to friends, as from a distance, we wait for their decision. The damage has been done, yet we can’t let love turn to fear. They don’t know which road to take and as it brings confusion and uncertainty, they each know that someone is going to get hurt. Who will carry the burden of responsibility? Who will be the couriers of peace?
But friends and family are the ones who have to choose sides and live with the consequences in the aftermath. Having grown up in the former Soviet Union, Chosnau knows first-hand what this is like… so this is a plea for love and peace between friends.
The pair have touched on politics before with 2020’s ‘Heavy Rainfall’, a song seemingly having an environmental reference but actually reflecting on the world’s increasingly disturbing political climate. As can be expected from Alanas Chosnau, he presents ‘Širdis’ as a suitably panoramic performance video directed by Aleksandras Brokas.
A moody emotive ballad, Reeder even brings a Balalaika into the instrumental palette for added regional authenticity alongside his usual synths, bass and guitar. The English language version of ‘Širdis’ will feature on the upcoming album by Mark Reeder and Alanas Chosnau to follow-up their excellent debut long player ‘Children of Nature’; “I’m waiting, respond to me” sings Chosnau in translation as he dedicates the song to all who are walking towards their goal.
Inspired by the Prayer of the Blessed Virgin, the strikingly photogenic twins Elyse and Larena are like real-life ‘Twin Peaks’ characters, with the backstory being that they escaped their strict Mormon family in remote Montana.
Elyse hitched a ride to Salt Lake City before uprooting to Brooklyn and attempted a solo music career. But unhappy with how producers failed to see her vision, when Larena joined her in The Big Apple, MOTHERMARY came into existence to reclaim their sexuality and womanhood, having been brainwashed to “Have children, procreate, but don’t be sexual beings!”
Released on Italians Do It Better, with an appealing contrast of light and shade, their debut album ‘I Am Your God’ highlights religious hypocrisy with resigned contralto vocals and immersive synthetic instrumentation. This is exemplified by an electro-take on Madonna’s ‘Like A Prayer’ which brings the tone of the song’s lyrical content more in line with its true meaning about the euphoria of oral sex. Making a similarly profound statement, ‘Burn With Desire’ utilises a steadfast synthwave backdrop to encapsulate the twin’s repressed sexuality.
Opening the album with the swung presence of ‘Catch Fire’, it’s a number that gradually develops its power while ‘Wearing Me Thin’ introduces a slow soulful groove. There’s dancier material too; sounding like haunting Anglo-German art pop duo KALEIDA but with an acid house squelch, ‘Pray’ is a highly provocative highlight with gritty references to a “sacrificial offering” and confirmation that “We’ll pray for you…”
In line with the album’s recurring religious imagery, ‘Resurrection’ is undoubtedly another bedroom metaphor, enhanced by a barrage of sleazy synth smothering, but despite its understated R ‘n’ B rhythms, ‘Coming For You’ morphs with strident synthbass in a statement of desire which when the glitch vocals take their place, presents more of a creepy stalker mentality like ‘You’ set to an electronica soundtrack.
‘Give It Up’ follows a similar arrangement template although the message is more resigned. The closing ‘I Am Your God’ title track also brings in deep vocal pitch shifting for an unsettling demonic twist.
Reminiscent of KALIEDA but with more urban derived beats, the ‘I Am Your God’ album captures a haunting anguish and despair that channels the twins’ pain and uncertainty into the music with a collective repression.
“Women can be mothers and nurturing and caring and smart, and we also get to have f***ing sex drives” MOTHERMARY said, “We get to enjoy our bodies. We get to enjoy pleasure. We get to orgasm if we want to.”
Michael Oakley first came to wider prominence with his debut mini-album release ‘California’ in 2017 which the explored sun-kissed climes of its title like a musical driving travelogue.
Embraced by the synthwave community, for his debut album proper ‘Introspect’, he changed course slightly utilised the more Yamaha DX and Fairlight derived sounds to capture the spirit of polished pop producers such as Trevor Horn and Stephen Hague.
But for his 2021 long playing release ‘Odyssey’, ENIGMA, ACE OF BASE, HADDAWAY, THE BELOVED and MOBY became the new points of reference. The first single ‘Is There Anybody Out There?’ was inspired by Scottish dance act THE TIME FREQUENCY and even mixed by their Jon Campbell, but the new single ‘Babylon’ takes a more exotic laid back approach.
With a kiss like a rose, the video sees classic peroxide beauty Scarlot Fields in an appropriately vintage setting with a chess set, valve TV and the inevitable phone among the props. Meanwhile for the alternate scenes featuring our bearded tattooed hero, he had a specific brief for director Brad A Kinnan: “I told Brad that I wanted my scenes to have a similar look and feel to the DURAN DURAN ‘Come Undone’ video”. That 1993 track from Le Bon & Co clearly makes its presence felt musically on ‘Babylon’ too.
Contributing some soulful diva backing vocals on ‘Babylon’ is Dana Jean Phoenix and Haley Stewart aka MECHA MAIKO while THE MIDNIGHT’s sax player Jesse Molloy adds his talents to the tropical backdrop. Oakley himself has described the song co-written with Ollie Wride as sounding as “if Robert Palmer did a track with ENIGMA!” with the synth solo using the flute and Taj Mahal presets from a Roland JV1080 module.
“It’s about meeting my wife” added the now Canadian-based Glaswegian, “In biblical terms, Babylon was the first civilisation next to heaven, this is the closest to heaven you can get, it feels like Babylon being in this relationship”.
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