‘First Light’ is the debut album from FADER a synth superduo (if you will) featuring Neil Arthur from BLANCMANGE and Benge, best known for his work with WRANGLER and JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS.
The obvious thing to do here is to compare ‘First Light’ with the last couple of WRANGLER albums and Benge’s work with John Foxx. What strikes immediately is that with Neil Arthur on board, this is a much softer and more melodic sound. Opening track ‘3D Carpets’ (inspired by Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas’) evokes the early sound of THE CURE around the ‘Faith’ period, where analogue synths slowly started to permeate into the Crawley band’s sound.
Unsurprisingly there are no real drums here though, but there is something in the sound of ‘First Light’ that has an independent post-punk feel to it – JOY DIVISION can be heard in places too. At first glance, ‘Check The Power’ seems like a PUBLIC ENEMY-inspired title, but the lyrics soon reveal itself as a song written from the perspective of an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder sufferer. The musical soundbed is beautifully melodic, all interlocking monosynths and an LFO filtered bassline.
The repetition in Arthur’s lyric perfectly mirror the compulsive necessity to re-check the seemingly mundane objects in a house before leaving it, the door (is it locked?), the power (is it off?) etc. The use of the Linn Drum (which became iconic on THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s ‘Dare’ and early BLANCMANGE releases) helps gives ‘Check the Power’ its synthpop heritage which works perfectly here.
Whereas John Foxx and Stephen Mallinder’s vocals with Benge’s other projects are both deliberately dystopian and detached, Arthur’s here are refreshingly human and display a beautiful sensitivity and fragility.
The closest comparison would be with the YAZOO albums, arguably the first time that vocals with real emotion had been combined with cold electronics. ‘I Prefer Solitude’ is a case in point; centred around cyclical ‘Autobahn’ era KRAFTWERK monosynths, the song’s lyric “I’ve never been lonely, I prefer solitude” perfectly create the mental picture of someone that is quite happy with their own company and shuns socialising… possibly a metaphor for some synth players? Who knows?
Title track ‘First Light’ is a driving / pulsing song with the pitch-shifted echoed vocal sound that Robert Smith favoured on ‘Pornography’, maybe not as melodic as its predecessors, but still with enough subtle hooks to bear up to repeated listens.
Both ‘Liverpool Brick’ and ‘Launderette’ are drum-less tracks based around haunting synth parts, again displaying a human side to counterpoint the electronics featured throughout.
‘Guilt, Doubt & Fear’ is built around a hypnotic rhythmic bed which recalls ‘Warm Leatherette’; its three note descending synth part is pared down to an absolute minimum and provides a perfect backing for the song’s more improvised ARP Odyssey-sounding lead. At only 2 minutes 45 seconds, the song leaves you wanting more which can only be a good sign…
This is undeniably one of the strongest albums that Benge has featured on in recent years; the combination of Arthur’s kitchen sink drama vocals with a cold, but melodic synth underscore has created (in places) something truly magical.
There are plenty of stand-out tracks to revisit here and fans of synthpop will find much to adore. The only criticism that could be levelled is the lo-fi vocal production doesn’t always do Arthur’s vocals utmost justice, but for those seeking a sound which harks back to that of Daniel Miller’s THE NORMAL and the first incarnation of THE HUMAN LEAGUE, this is hard to beat.
Today, electronic instrumental music is everywhere, but often in the form of tedious dance tracks with no tunes all over Beatport and social media.
Luckily, there are still exponents of the classic synth instrumental, and thanks to the rise of the Synthwave sub-genre, there is currently a sympathetic environment for more esoteric and melodic musical offerings. The key to a good instrumental is it either has to be very melodic to make up for the lack of vocals or very unobtrusive so that while the music is interesting enough to be listened to, it can also be ignored. Thus a Eurorack modular tutorial cannot credibly count as a valid release… 😉
As a follow-up to TEC’s 25 SYNTH INSTRUMENTALS Of The CLASSIC ERA, with a limit of one track per artist, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK presents its 25 FAVOURITE SYNTH INSTRUMENTALS Of The 21ST CENTURY in chronological and then alphabetical order…
SYSTEM F Insolation (2000)
While Dutch producer Ferry Corsten hit paydirt with international club hits such as ‘Out Of The Blue’ and ‘Cry’ as SYSTEM F, the debut album pointed towards the Trance’s link to electronic pop. As well as a brilliant collaboration with Marc Almond entitled ‘Soul On Soul’, the long player included the beautifully majestic classic instrumental ‘Insolation’ which took a breather from the usual four-to-the floor format.
PPK were a Russian trance duo comprising of Sergei Pimenov and Alexander Polyakov. The original melody of ‘ResuRection’ came from Eduard Artemyev’s synthesized theme from the epic 1979 Soviet movie ‘Siberiade’ which won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival. Easily mistaken for Jean-Michel Jarre, the thrusting seven minute ‘Perfecto Edit’ in particular was like an exuberant rocket launch set to music.
Originally released by Perfecto Records, currently unavailable
With a piercing synthphonic riff, scat vocoder, robotic bass and a rigid programmed beat, ‘Turn It On’ saw LADYTRON take a bleep forward with an attempt at a KRAFTWERK track for the 21st Century via Liverpool, Glasgow and Sofia. But as it headed towards its final third, it detoured back to Liverpool and turned into ‘Electricity’ in a cheeky homage to Merseyside’s original electronic trailblazers OMD.
A Norwegian electronic duo consisting of Aggie Peterson and Per Martinsen, FROST released their second album ‘Melodica’ to a positive response, thanks to some production assistance by RÖYKSOPP on two tracks. The beautiful Arctic serenity of ‘Klong’ featuring local trumpeter Nils Petter Molvær alongside layers of gorgeous crystalline synths was one of the album’s highlights that easily outdid anything by GROOVE ARMADA and didn’t rely on using samples either.
Available on the album ‘Melodica’ via Frost World Recordings
‘Destroy Rock & Roll’ was the debut album by Scottish DJ Myles MacInnes that alongside DAFT PUNK and BASEMENT JAXX, summed up the sample laden dance music that was prevalent at the time. Produced on a computer in his own bedroo, the album’s best track however was the more downtempo, Moby-esque richness of ‘Emotion 96.8’ with its beautiful sweeping synth melodies and unobtrusive rhythm structure.
With a hypnotic Motorik rhythm, pulsating bleeps and spacey whirs driving a moodier template along the lines of cult German experimentalists EMAK, Phil and Paul Hartnoll continued their primarily instrumental template on their ‘Blue Album’, although SPARKS contributed vocals to a totally unrelated track called ‘Acid Pants’. The brothers split shortly after the long player’s release, but returned in 2009 to play The Big Chill Festival.
Available on the album ‘Blue Album’ via Orbital Music
From ‘Hymn’ to ‘First Cool Hive’ to ‘A Seated Night’, the man born Richard Melville Hall is a master of the instrumental. The solemn ‘Homeward Angel’ closed Moby’s sample-less song-based ‘Hotel’ album with a solemn yet uplifting slice of mood music that was incongruous with the main act. Since leaving Mute in 2008, his more recent self-released albums such as ‘Destroyed’ and ‘Innocents’ have displayed this more esoteric quality.
A ten minute instrumental epic, ‘Alpha Male’ came from RÖYKSOPP’s under rated second long player, a collection of music that saw Svein Berge and Torbjørn Brundtland moving away from the chill-out climes of ‘Melody AM’ into much darker sonic territory. The track’s lengthy ambient intro was interrupted by a mighty metronomic beat and the sort of progressive synth overtures that would have made Jean-Michel Jarre proud.
Since his musical return in 1997 with ‘Shifting City’, John Foxx has practically had albums coming out of his ears in song-based, ambient and soundtrack formats, both solo and in collaboration with other artists. The spacey mechanical Schaffel of ‘Kurfurstdendam’ came from an imaginary soundtrack he called ‘Tiny Colour Movies’, inspired by a friend’s birthday screening of a private film collection comprising of random surveillance clips and offcuts from Hollywood.
Few acts actually genuinely sound like their name… SISTA MANNEN PÅ JORDEN, which translates as “the last man in space”, is the solo project of Swedish synthpop trailblazer Eddie Bengtsson, he of PAGE and S.P.O.C.K fame. The frantic ‘Space-Elevator’ with its swimmy string synths and Sci-Fi derived melody acted as an effective Moroder-esque interlude on his excellent sixth album ‘Tredje Våningen’ and also featured ‘Allt Är Klart’ which borrowed off the ULTRAVOX instrumental ‘Alles Klar’.
Borrowing the distinctive bassline from SIMPLE MINDS’ 1981 single ‘Love Song’, TENEK put together this lively instrumental for their debut EP. With a modern mechanical groove coupled to their trademark synth rock, the almost funky ‘Ice Fields’ became an early live favourite, although the duo have focussed on more song based adventures for their three albums to date, ‘Stateless’, ‘On The Wire’ and ‘Smoke & Mirrors’.
In 2007, Andreas Kleerup, producer and one-time drummer for THE MEAT BOYS, undertook his first mainstream collaboration with fellow Swede Robyn. The success of ‘With Every Heartbeat’ led to the recording of his self-titled debut album which featured a number of brilliant instrumentals. ‘Hero’ was its perfect start and with a solid bassline and strong choral timbres, it had the vibe of how OMD might have sounded if they had formed in the 21st Century.
While most of the ‘Tron Legacy’ soundtrack was orchestrated by Joseph Trapanese, DAFT PUNK’s spiky electronics and drum machine were kept in alongside the epic strings for the end titles of the sequel to the 1982 movie ‘Tron’. There were nods to Wendy Carlos who composed the original film score, with Thomas Bangalter focusing on the heroic themes while Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo was more inclined to generating the darker elements.
Available on the soundtrack album ‘Tron Legacy’ via Walt Disney Records
Forming in 2001, Swedish duo 047 began their chiptune experiments thought a mutual appreciation of vintage video games. But after their debut long player, Peter Engström and Sebastian Rutgersson began to incorporate melodic song based elements and vocals into their music. The end results led to the impressive second album ‘Elva’, but they celebrated their chiptune influenced roots with the jolly YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA salute of ‘Kanpai!’
‘The E-Bay Queen Is Dead’ was collection of rarities from the MARSHEAUX archives. While Marianthi Melitsi and Sophie Sarigiannidou have done a fair number of cover versions in their time, they are not really known for doing instrumentals. But the electro-boppy ‘Now & Never’ was a very promising wordless demo that Vince Clarke would have approved of; as one of his former DEPECHE MODE colleagues once sang: “words are very unnecessary…”
Fusing Detroit techno with more European experimental forms, Patricia Hall and Ian Hicks’ second SOFT METALS album ‘Lenses’ featured the fabulous instrumental ‘Hourglass’. As Hall put it: “I really wanted to write lyrics for that one, but was never quite satisfied with what I came up with. I decided it would be better to let that one be an instrumental. I think it holds up on its own. It’s nice to give the listener a chance to interpret its meaning on its own rather than direct them with words”.
Available on the album ‘Lenses’ via Captured Tracks
Anais Neon and Martin Swan’s tribute to ‘Assault On Precinct 13’, ‘The future through a lens’ was a moody but booming instrumental that began their excellent debut longer player of the same name, which later netted a Schallewelle Award for ‘Best International Album’ in 2014. With their vast array of analogue synthesizers and exquisite taste for sound textures, it won’t be too surprising if VILE ELECTRODES aren’t offered some soundtrack opportunities in the near future.
Although making his name within EDM circles, the Norwegian producer born Todd Olsen paid a musical tribute to ‘Back To The Future’ and its futuristic gull-wing doored Delorean DMC-12 car with this suitably driving Synthwave instrumental. Unlike other so-called dance producers, Terje is conversant with electronic music history and possesses a wry sense of humour, as evidenced by the witty wordplay of track titles like ‘Inspector Norse’ and his own DJ moniker.
After the first phase of BLANCMANGE, Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe worked within the TV and film industry, scoring soundtracks and incidental music. Although best known for his voice, Neil Arthur’s instrumentals have been a continual form of expression. The brilliant ‘Cistern’ comes over like an imaginary Bond Theme for a retro-futuristic world. The wordless wonder that is the parent album ‘Nil By Mouth’ is an unsung masterpiece.
Adam Cresswell’s sombre vocals and the darker lyrical themes on his debut Rodney Cromwell album ‘Age Of Anxiety’ took a breather with the bright and breezy ‘Baby Robot’. With sweet synthesizer melodies, pretty glints of glockenspiel and a bouncy beatbox, the instrumental was inspired by birth of his son. “Yes, ‘Baby Robot’ is the one track on the album that’s 100% upbeat as it is about the experience of being a father” he gleefully said.
While Danish duo DARKNESS FALLS are better known for their melancholic Nordic vocals and neo-gothic overtones on songs like ‘The Void’, the dark synthy instrumental ‘Thunder Roads’ proved to be one of the most striking tracks on their second album ‘Dance & Cry’. With a punchy drum machine mantra and menacing reverberant sequence, it was augmented by guitar screeches and sombre six string basslines reminiscent of JOY DIVISION and THE CURE.
Available on the album ‘Dance & Cry’ via Fake Diamond Records
JEAN-MICHEL JARRE & BOYZ NOISE The Time Machine (2015)
Jean-Michel Jarre’s first album for since ‘Teo & Tea’ in 2007 was a two volume opus entitled ‘Electronica’; it features collaborations with a number of synth pioneers and modern day dance artists including BOYZ NOISE aka Berlin DJ Alexander Ridha. This climactic track took on a new life as the set closer on the French synth maestro’s ‘Electronica’ world tour, with a lasered 3D visual feast that required no special glasses! BUT BEWARE OF FLASHING IMAGES! 😉
Available on the album ‘Electronica 1 – The Time Machine’ via Columbia Records
The horror film king recorded his ‘Lost Themes’ series in collaboration with his son Cody and his godson Daniel Davies as standalone pieces, without the pressure of having to put the music to moving images. The second volume was completed on a tighter schedule to accompany a world concert tour and thus replicated some of the challenging moods in his soundtrack work with tracks like ‘Utopian Façade’ recalling his classic movie soundscapes.
Dixon and Stein are members of the Texan group SURVIVE and their accompanying music to ‘Stranger Things’, a cross between ‘ET’, ‘The Goonies’ and ‘Alien’, sent electronic music fans into online meltdown with its use of vintage analogue synths. With a soundtrack influenced by the horror flicks of Dario Argento and of course John Carpenter, the one minute opening title music to the acclaimed drama series said all that was needed to be said in its brooding dissonant tones.
As would be expected from a title like ‘Klangfarben’, this vibrant instrumental from Dublin trio TINY MAGNETIC PETS is an enjoyable homage to Germanic music forms, with a loose percussive feel that still maintains that vital degree of Motorik. A word meaning “soundcolour”, it refers to a technique whereby a musical line is split between several instruments, rather than assigning it to just one instrument, thereby adding timbre and texture to proceedings.
2016 will forever be remembered as the year when a significant number of cultural icons and popular musical figures left us; David Bowie, Prince, Isao Tomita, Pete Burns, Colin Verncombe, Keith Emerson, Don Buchla and Leonard Cohen were just some of the names who sadly departed.
But despite sadness that loomed, the year did produce some good music, particularly in the second half of the year.
GARY NUMAN launched an ambitious Pledge Music campaign and released some excellent collaborations with JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS, JEAN-MICHEL JARRE and TITÁN. But with his retrospective tour of material from his three most popular albums taking up much of his year, his new crowdfunded album did not meet its planned October release deadline.
Meanwhile Jean-Michel Jarre had an excess of material and issued the second volume of his ‘Electronica’ project which also featured YELLO and PET SHOP BOYS, plus a third instalment to his classic opus ‘Oxygène’.
YELLO and PET SHOP BOYS also released new albums to a positive reception, proving again that partnerships featuring personnel over the age of 60 can still create music that is fresh and relevant.
Incidentally, one of YELLO’s young vocalists FIFI RONG continued to maintain her artistic profile with successful campaigns for her releases ‘Forbidden Desires’ and ‘Alone’.
2016 saw two concept albums emerge in ‘The Ship’ from Brian Eno, a solemn art piece with poignant anti-war messages and ‘Awake But Always Dreaming’, a very personal musical statement by Hannah Peel on the traumas of dementia. It was a busy year for Miss Peel with her also contributing her voice to BEYOND THE WIZARDS SLEEVE and JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS, as well as showcasing her own Mary Casio side project.
WRANGLER released a new album ‘White Glue’ which exuded a less rigid format compared to its predecessor ‘LA Spark’ and collaborated with Johm Grant at the Rough Trade 40 live celebrations, while the prolific Neil Arthur issued another new BLANCMANGE album in ‘Commuter 23’ while also launching a new side project NEAR FUTURE with BERNHOLZ.
The Manchester veteran Eric Random issued ‘Words Made Flesh’, the second album of his recent return to the music while Rusty Egan finally presented ‘Welcome To The Dancefloor’ which despite its title, was actually a collection of classic styled synthpop. After many years of trials and tribulations for the co-founder of VISAGE, the long player featuring Midge Ure, Tony Hadley and Chris Payne who co-wrote ‘Fade to Grey’ exceeded expectations.
Space travel and synths were just made to go together, so JØTA and VANGELIS conceived projects covering The Cold War space race and the more recent Rosetta probe respectively. Meanwhile, WHITE LIES again showed they are as synthy as they are guitary on their ‘Friends’ album, and even started to sound like A-HA!
Fellow blog Cold War Night Life released ‘Heresy: A Tribute to RATIONAL YOUTH’ which featured PSYCHE and MACHINISTA as well as the Canadian trailblazers themselves. Meanwhile Ireland staked its claim as a new territory for synthpop talent; CIRCUIT3 ‘siliconchipsuperstar’ and EMBRACE THE CRISIS ‘Black Heart’ were good examples of what was on offer from the Emerald Isle.
So again, Sweden still proved it was special with SILENT WAVE exhibiting degrees of potential. But it was REIN in particular who was causing a stir within the ranks of EBM, while the country’s best kept secretKITE toured North America and Asia. However, neither of these two latter artists figured in the line-up of Gothenburg’s Electronic Summer 2016 festival.
The Nordic region saw the welcome return of VILLA NAH with the album ‘Ultima’ after a five year absence, while TRENTEMØLLER made the case again as to why he is still the perfect producer for DEPECHE MODE with his new long player ‘Fixion’. However, Norwegian acts APOPTYGMA BERZERK and ELECTRO SPECTRE ensured the Swedes, Finns and Danes did not have it all their own way.
Greece was still the word with LIEBE, KID MOXIE and MARSHEAUX all presenting brand new releases, while Sarah P. maintained her profile with a series of inventive promo videos highlighting the ongoing issues of equality for women within the music industry. Embracing the same issue on the other side of the Atlantic, I AM SNOW ANGEL immersed herself in setting up the FEMALE FREQUENCY collective while also releasing her own music.
2016 was a good year for female acts with EMIKA, KALEIDA, ANI GLASS, THE HEARING, KITE BASE, HOLOGRAM TEEN among those making a positive impression. There was also ‘SVIIB’, the final album from SCHOOL OF SEVEN BELLS and the emergence of CHRISTINE & THE QUEENS, while LADYHAWKE remembered what a good album sounded like with ‘Wild Things’.
Over in LA, NIGHT CLUB developed on the promise of their EP trilogy and got a bit heavier on their debut long player ‘Requiem For Romance’, ending up sounding not unlike Britney fronting NINE INCH NAILS in the process! After gestation periods of nearly six years, both EKKOES and THE MYSTIC UNDERGROUND finally released their debut albums.
Meanwhile the instrumental front, Texan couple HYPERBUBBLE provided some ‘Music To Color By’, Brussels duo METROLAND touchingly paid tribute to their late friend Louis Zachert with ‘Things Will Never Sound The Same Again’ and ULRICH SCHNAUSS went ‘No Further Ahead Than Today’. And MOBY offered a gift to profound relaxation with his free ‘Long Ambients 1: Calm. Sleep.’ download package.
PERTURBATOR’s ‘The Uncanny Valley’ became a flag bearer for the synth wave movement, along with the acclaimed soundtrack by SURVIVE members Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein for the absorbing Netflix drama ‘Stranger Things’. Less well-received though was ‘2Square’ by Vince Clarke & Paul Hartnoll with its banal experiments in electro swing. This was a supposed new dance sub-genre that in reality was just computerised jazz… nice! But one artist who did manage to pull off fusing synthpop and jazz successfully was DISQO VOLANTE.
New material from veterans MESH, AESTHETIC PERFECTION, ASSEMBLAGE 23, DE/VISION, IAMX, COVENANT and ROTERSAND kept the black clad European audiences happy, while Mari Kattman and BLACK NEEDLE NOISE added some trip-hop and rock edges respectively to their already dark templates. Expressing slightly less intensity were two surprise packages in Germany’s DAS BLAUE PALAIS with ‘Welt Am Draht’ and Canada’s DELERIUM with ‘Mythologie’.
But totally unexpected was ‘Silver City Ride’, a full length electro album from Marc Almond in collaboration with STARCLUSTER featuring his most synth laden body of work since SOFT CELL. The biggest surprise of 2016 was ‘Fly’ the soundtrack souvenir to ‘Eddie The Eagle’, the light hearted biopic of the bespectacled Olympic ski jumper; featuring new material by members of FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, SOFT CELL, SPANDAU BALLET, ULTRAVOX, ERASURE and OMD in collaboration with TAKE THAT’s Gary Barlow, this looked like a terrible idea on paper. But it was brilliantly executed and the resultant album was a largely enjoyable collection of retro flavoured pop.
Electronic acts actually got to headline the Glastonbury Festival in 2016, albeit on The Other Stage as opposed the main event; NEW ORDER and CHVRCHES wowed the crowds when they shared the bill on the Saturday night. There were rumours that KRAFTWERK and DEPECHE MODE might feature in 2017 but this was not to be, although both acts sent social media into overdrive when they announced major tours.
Among those accorded career spanning multi-disc boxed sets were ERASURE, MARC ALMOND, DEAD OR ALIVE and THE HUMAN LEAGUE. Somehow though, SIMPLE MINDS managed to milk a six disc variant of ‘New Gold Dream’ in the third of their classic album deluxe box editions; it was an amazing feat seeing as only ten songs were completed during the original sessions! The collection boasted no less than twelve takes of the aptly titled ‘Promised You A Miracle’; but the latest incarnation of the Glaswegians combo’ first big hit with KT TUNSTALL for their ‘Acoustic’ album proved to be one version too many.
Much better value for the money for the discerning music fan were the four ASSOCIATES double CD reissues, supervised by Alan Rankine and Michael Dempsey. Based around their first three albums and a ‘Very Best Of’ compilation, each additionally featured a plethora of rare and previously unreleased songs; they were a fitting tribute to the late Billy MacKenzie.
Nostalgia was very much a part of 2016, with HEAVEN 17, OMD and PETER HOOK & THE LIGHT all touring popular albums. And following the success in recent years of retro festivals such as ‘Rewind’ and the strangely named ‘Let’s Rock’, classic synthpop finally found itself part of the holiday camp circuit.
Part of the Butlins Music Weekender series, ‘Electric Dreams’ featuring OMD, HEAVEN 17, BLANCMANGE and Marc Almond almost went badly off-piste with the addition of GO WEST and THE ZOMBIES (!?!) to the programme. But the organisers pulled an unexpected surprise and booked modern synth acts like MARSHEAUX and AVEC SANS to support the bill.
Hardened retro festival goers are notorious for not embracing new music, but this ethos has to be welcomed and could provide an interesting new model for the future of event based entertainment. However, based on photographic evidence, the presence of inflatable pink flamingos and coloured wigs indicated the crowd atmosphere might have been no different to any of the usual nostalgia outings, but with a roof and central heating added!
Elsewhere, the second ELECTRI-CITY CONFERENCE in Düsseldorf boasted yet another impressive line-up that read like a ‘Who’s Who?’ of electronic music with JOHN FOXX, DANIEL MILLER and MARK REEDER among those taking part in talks. One of the highlights of the weekend came with Mr Foxx chatting about working with the legendary Conny Plank.
And while MARSHEAUX, KID KASIO and RODNEY CROMWELL in Norwich was not in the same league, it was a fine showcase for the best in independent synthpop.
Both events proved again that the best electronic music events are those actually curated by electronic music enthusiasts, something that is not the case with several other events.
In all, 2016 was not a vintage year for electronic pop. If there was a lesson this year, it’s been to cherish and appreciate great life’s moments where possible, especially with the number of music figures that have been lost in the last 12 months.
Things cannot go on forever sadly…
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK Contributor Listings 2016
PAUL BODDY
Best Album: PERTURBATOR The Uncanny Valley
Best Song: SOULWAX Transient Program for Drums & Machinery
Best Gig: JEAN-MICHEL JARRE at London O2 Arena
Best Video: BATTLE TAPES featuring PARTY NAILS Solid Gold
Most Promising New Act: VOX LOW
IAN FERGUSON
Best Album: VILE ELECTRODES In The Shadows Of Monuments
Best Song: ASSEMBLAGE 23 Barren
Best Gig: ASSEMBLAGE 23 at Denver Oriental Theatre
Best Video: I AM SNOW ANGEL Losing Face
Most Promising New Act: VOX LOW
SIMON HELM
Best Album: ERIC RANDOM Words Made Flesh
Best Song: RATIONAL YOUTH This Side Of The Border
Best Gig: Troika! featuring KITE BASE, HANNAH PEEL + I SPEAK MACHINE at Shacklewell Arms
Best Video: I AM SNOW ANGEL Losing Face
Most Promising New Act: ZANIAS
CHI MING LAI
Best Album: VILLA NAH Ultima
Best Song: VILE ELECTRODES The Vanished Past
Best Gig: JEAN-MICHEL JARRE at London O2 Arena
Best Video: BEYOND THE WIZARD’S SLEEVE Diagram Girl
Most Promising New Act: ANI GLASS
STEPHEN ROPER
Best Album: MARSHEAUX Ath.Lon
Best Song: RODNEY CROMWELL Baby Robot
Best Gig: GARY NUMAN at Norwich UEA
Best Video: MARSHEAUX Like A Movie
Most Promising New Act: DISQO VOLANTE
MONIKA IZABELA TRIGWELL
Best Album: APOPTYGMA BERZERK Exit Popularity Contest
Best Song: KID KASIO Full Moon Blue
Best Gig: SPEAK & SPELL at Islington Academy
Best Video: BLACK NEEDLE NOISE featuring JENNIE VEE Heaven
Most Promising New Act: JOHAN BAECKSTRÖM
“BLANCMANGE are probably the most under-rated electronic act of all time” said Moby recently.
The new ‘Red Shift’ EP is released to coincide with BLANCMANGE’s upcoming live dates with THE HUMAN LEAGUE features four vocals tracks from this year’s ‘Commuter 23’ album. All re-worked by Neil Arthur, the tracks also feature David Rhodes, BLANCMANGE’s long-time guitarist who can also count Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Grace Jones, JAPAN, TALK TALK and NEW ORDER among his long list of credits.
On the ‘Red Shift’ title track, Rhodes adds his impenetrable touch, but the track is also notable for Neil Arthur’s revoicing of the song, which harks back to the booming eccentric style he employed on earlier BLANCMANGE recordings like ‘Feel Me’ and ‘Blind Vision’. The brilliantly titled ‘Judge Mental’, one of the highlights from ‘Commuter 23’ is also included, while Rhodes’ enhanced guitar contributions on the avant reggae of ‘Jack Knife’ make it sound like it could have come from ENO’s ‘Taking Tiger Mountain (With Strategy)’ sessions.
A pulsing reconfigured ‘Last Night (I Dreamt I Had A Job)’ with new vocals closes the EP which provides a bite size insight into the current artistic mindset of Neil Arthur, who has been extremely prolific of late, having released the albums ‘Semi Detached’ and ‘Nil By Mouth’ in just 2015 alone.
2017 promises more new music from Neil Arthur including a collaboration with BERNHOLZ under the moniker of NEAR FUTURE who made their debut live performance at the Sensoria Festival in Sheffield last month.
The ‘Red Shift’ EP is released digitally by Blanc Check on 2nd December 2016 and available as a signed promo CD-R from https://blancmange.tmstor.es/
BLANCMANGE’s 2016 live shows with THE HUMAN LEAGUE: Bournemouth International Centre (25th November), Sheffield Arena (3rd December), Brighton Centre (9th December), Birmingham Barclaycard Arena (10th December)
‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’ is an original film by Playworks.tv exploring the life of Irish electronic music enthusiasts during the fledgling days that corresponded with the Synth Britannia revolution across the water. It recently won an Award of Merit from IndieFest, while it has been nominated for the ‘Best Music Documentary’ category at UKMVA 15.
In 1982, BLANCMANGE released their debut album ‘Happy Families’ and thirty years later, it was re-imagined as ‘Happy Families Too’. The documentary centres on the recollections of a number of men (…and yes, they are ALL men 😉 !) from the Dublin electronic scene attending BLANCMANGE’s first ever gig in the Irish capital during the subsequent tour.
It is the story of their journey, waiting three decades to see one of the bands who helped ignite their love of electronic music. The synth heads gathered include personnel from assorted local acts such as EMPIRE STATE HUMAN, POLYDROID, KUBO, THE CASSANDRA COMPLEX and CIRCUIT3. And they are all a passionate bunch who can tell their drum machines from their tape recorders, unlike some so-called electronic music journalists.
Their entertaining monologues are inter-dispersed with excellent live footage of BLANCMANGE from that Dublin gig, with ‘Feel Me’, ‘Blind Vision’, ‘Waves’, ‘Living On The Ceiling’ and ‘I Can’t Explain’ all figuring. The fact that the songs featured are all in full-length form is one of the documentary’s major strengths. This is a relief after all the song butchering and fast editing that has occurred in Channel 4 music programmes aimed at attention deficit inflicted youngsters over the last few years.
In 1982, there was very little electronic music in Ireland. Rock was God with the nation focussed on U2, THIN LIZZY or traditional music. It was a time when there was no YouTube and very few people even had a VHS recorder. So finding an electronic pop record imported from the UK was the Saturday adventure for a discerning synth inclined teenager.
Around this time, BLANCMANGE had just signed to London Records and began recording the songs that would eventually form ‘Happy Families’. While ‘Living On The Ceiling’ was to become the hit that brought BLANCMANGE into many teenagers’ homes, the pivotal track was its predecessor ‘Feel Me’.
On how the song came about, Neil Arthur told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “Stephen Luscombe came round with this cassette and on it was this rhythm which was the backing of ‘Feel Me’. It was a great bassline and we blasted it in the studio through these big speakers and I did this kind of ad-lib vocal. I had this idea that went ‘feel me now – feel the pain – feel the strain’… simple rhyming, repetitive words”.
One key point made in ‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’ is that synthpop is about synthesizers, and that there is no other music form that has such a broad spectrum of possibilities within one track.
It ultimately has a sensibility that not only encompasses shiny pop but also the avant-garde and is often coupled with dark lyrical matter. “With the line ‘Your hand’s in the pocket – pocket of a friend’, it was just to get people thinking that the song was going one way but then to say ‘what do you feel?’, ‘what do you think?’… for me, it’s just a song to be interpreted or misinterpreted any number of ways” remembered the BLANCMANGE frontman, “It’s like ‘Here comes a love song – there goes a banister’, what could it be? It could be a sexual reference, it could be a reference to relationship intensity. It’s not exactly a very melodic vocal line so the intensity had to build throughout. On reflection, I always thought it was more David Byrne than Ian Curtis, but there was never any intention”
Using synthesizers was about control as well and not needing a drummer! Arthur recalls: “We didn’t own any of the synths we used for ‘Happy Families’. We hired a Roland Jupiter 8, an ARP sequencer and a Korg MS20 plus a Linn LM-1 Drum Computer which Stephen and I programmed up”.
And it was also about unlimited creativity and unconventional thinking: “The catch on the bassline of ‘Feel Me’ is having that pick-up on the sixteenth beat coming into the one… that was the thing that got me when Stephen came in with that. It was put together with a TR808 initially using the cowbell as the trigger to the synth. That was replicated using the Linn with the bass part being the Jupiter and Korg. David Rhodes’ E-bowed guitar melody is doubled with a keyboard”
But of course, many in the documentary did not have access to this kind of technology at first, but the use of cheaper synths as a starting point allowed for punk’s DIY ethic to be applied. It was the same for BLANCMANGE before they were signed and the approach they had to take for their first release ‘Irene & Mavis’.
“Everything then had been recorded on a Sony cassette machine; we had another cassette machine purely for playback with decent speakers on it” recalled Arthur on those fledgling days, “We would take a line-out and feed it into a mono input and do the other track live at the same time. Or we would overdub by playing in the room and having the backing track playing from the extension. We combined that and a borrowed 4 track machine with varispeed on it”
The one term that keeps reoccurring in ‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’ is “synthpop”… yes, that’s synthpop, pop songs with synthesizers, NOT “dance” or “electronica”! There is an unashamed embracement of synthpop by all concerned. Now while the Acid House and dance revolution is briefly touched upon towards the end and helped make electronic music credible enough for music hacks to want to write about it, it largely took songs out of the equation. And let’s face it, those club-oriented excursions were generally pointless without the use of substances!
But course, with the return of the synthesizer in an avant pop context, it’s not about harking back to the past, but looking forward to the future. On reworking ‘Feel Me’ for 2013, Neil Arthur said to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “My new version is more stripped down. There’s so many VST plug-ins you can put on top of things. Unless your ideas are good, it’s not worth it. I tried to remember what it was like in that room when I first heard that rhythm Stephen had put together. David came in to play his great guitar on it again. The vocals are my daughter, myself and a vocoder… I wanted to keep it really simple. Hopefully it still works. At least doing ‘Happy Families Too’, I wasn’t going to tear myself apart over the songs… they are written for better or for worse”
In all, ‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’ is an enjoyable hour of music history, presented in a refreshing, intelligent manner. Indeed it is the antithesis of those ‘I Love The 80s’ type cheesefests that often portray synthpop in the worst way possible, as something to be derided and mocked. In fact, it would make rather good viewing on BBC4.
With thanks to Patti Carbonell, Poppy Seekins and Tone Davies at Playworks.tv
Additional thanks to Neil Arthur and Peter Fitzpatrick
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‘First Light’ is the debut album from FADER a synth superduo (if you will) featuring Neil Arthur from BLANCMANGE and Benge, best known for his work with WRANGLER and JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS.
The repetition in Arthur’s lyric perfectly mirror the compulsive necessity to re-check the seemingly mundane objects in a house before leaving it, the door (is it locked?), the power (is it off?) etc. The use of the Linn Drum (which became iconic on THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s ‘Dare’ and early BLANCMANGE releases) helps gives ‘Check the Power’ its synthpop heritage which works perfectly here.
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