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!“
One-time Leeds Polytechnic art students SOFT CELL set the blueprint for acts such as PET SHOP BOYS and ERASURE with their stark but danceable synthesizer driven pop and were undoubtedly ahead of their time.
Managed by Stevo Pearce of Some Bizzare Records who secured them a deal with Phonogram Records, Marc Almond and Dave Ball had an amazing run of Top 40 hit singles between 1981-1984.
Having entered into cultural folklore with their catalogue of classics such as ‘Memorabilia’, ‘Tainted Love’, ‘Bedsitter’, ‘Say Hello Wave Goodbye’, ‘Torch’, ‘What!’, ‘Where The Heart Is’ and ‘Soul Inside’, Almond and Ball will say hello and wave goodbye with a final concert at London’s O2 Arena on Sunday 30th September 2018 and a soon-to-be-released celebratory 10 disc boxed set entitled ‘Keychains & Snowstorms: The SOFT CELL Story’. Every recorded track from the duo’s Phonogram-era is represented on ‘Keychains & Snowstorms: The SOFT CELL Story’ in some form or another, with all of the singles presented in their extended 12 inch format.
Photo by Peter Ashworth
Meanwhile, there will also be tracks like ‘Divided Soul, ‘Somebody, Somewhere, Sometime’, ‘The Night’, ‘Monoculture’, ‘Desperate’ and ‘Darker Times’ released in 2002 following Almond and Ball’s unexpected reunion as SOFT CELL. Among the rarities included will be the debut SOFT CELL EP ‘Mutant Moments’, ‘The Girl With The Patent Leather Face’ from the iconic ‘Some Bizzare Album’, tracks recorded under production auspices of Daniel Miller, rarities, demos, BBC radio sessions, new remixes and live recordings.
On a sunny August day, Dave Ball took time out from preparations for the final concert and kindly chatted about the return of SOFT CELL and their past life of vice…
What concept did you follow for ‘Keychains & Snowstorms’ with regards the budget and restrictions you had?
It wasn’t really so much how much budget we had, but how much material we had; things came out of the woodwork. We’ve got stuff from the very first ever show which we did in 1979 at Leeds Polytechnic for the Fine Art Department party right up to the present day really. There’s rare mixes of quite well-known tracks and a performance from Los Angeles in which Michael Jackson was in the audience! So there’s lots of rarities and oddities.
There’s also a DVD which is most of our British TV performances on ‘Top Of The Pops’ plus ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’, ‘Oxford Road Show’ and even a programme called ‘Supersonic’; ‘Non Stop Erotic Video Show’ is on there too.
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! It looks beautiful, it was Chris Smith’s idea to have the neon Revox, it’s such as iconic image in its own right, Dave Chambers took the pictures. It’s such a simple design but looks nice as a piece of art, you could have it on your mantelpiece.
Are you including Peter Ashworth’s many photos of SOFT CELL?
The thing is, it’s been such a productive time for us that Richard Franklin who did Marc’s coffee table book, we’ve been working with him on one. I had a meeting over at Peter Ashworth’s flat a few months back, he found a load of stuff from the early 80s, lots of test shots and polaroids, a bin bag full of them! So we sat there one afternoon by the river sipping champagne looking through these test sheets of amazing stuff that people have never seen. Now this is not tied in with the boxed set, this is like a separate project. The audio is the boxed set and the visuals will come out next year as a proper hard backed book.
Is there going to be a souvenir programme for the final concert?
Of course there will be a programme, that’s going to be interesting… there’s lots happening, Universal are going to be re-reissuing all the albums on vinyl while the final one ‘Cruelty Without Beauty’ which we did with Cooking Vinyl, that will be released for the first time on vinyl, which is ironic considering the name of the label *laughs*
Your debut EP ‘Mutant Moments’ had a very art school vibe while the next single ‘Memorabilia’ b/w ‘A Man Can Get Lost’ was more clubby…
‘Mutant Moments’ was very homemade, very lo-fi and made on no money, done at art college. But we thought we needed a producer and we had the chance when Daniel Miller came along. We gravitated towards him because we loved ‘Warm Leatherette’ plus we knew Frank Tovey who was FAD GADGET, he did MUTE 002 which was ‘Back To Nature’. We passed a cassette to Frank and asked him to play it to Daniel but at first, he didn’t really get it.
Eventually we managed to persuade him to do a single in a 16 track studio in East London called Stage One where we recorded ‘Memorabilia’ and ‘A Man Can Get Lost’ … it was a bit confusing that because the 7 inch came out as ‘A Man Can Get Lost’ while the 12 inch came out as ‘Memorabilia’! And ‘Memorabilia’ became this big club hit, it even got in the American dance charts! I think that’s why we got a chance at doing another single with Photogram because they were quite astonished and probably thinking “how are these two art school guys getting a record into the American dance chart?”.
But we were very self-motivating… even with ‘Mutant Moments’, I managed to get three plays on Radio1 with no record label, management or plugger! We did the Futurama2 festival at Leeds Queens Hall in 1980, I had a test pressing with me just in case and lo-and-behold, I saw John Peel! So I made a beeline for him and went “Excuse me sir” while doffing my cap, “may I give you this?”… he was like “oh thanks” and put it in his filing cabinet*laughs*
I thought nothing more of it but he played ‘Metro MRX’ three times on his Radio1 show, all this on a chance meeting. So you never know your luck 😉
You did a re-recording of ‘Metro MRX’ that ended up being issued by ‘Flexipop’ magazine which uses the same electronic rhythm track as ‘New Life’ by DEPECHE MODE?
That was done with Daniel Miller, his bass drum at that time was an ARP 2600, which was a semi-modular system which apparently he bought second-hand from Elton John which was used on tour! It’s a fantastic synth, I’d loved to have had one! Talking of ARP, I’ve just got an ARP Odyssey reissue which has an absolutely beautiful sound because we’ve got a bit of a deal with Korg so that’s quite handy *laughs*
After ‘Mutant Moments’ and ‘Memorabilia’, did you notice that SOFT CELL were morphing into something much more synthpop, because the songs on the demos that are in the boxed set and which formed ‘The Bedsit Tapes’ did not end up on ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’…
Yeah, ‘The Bedsit Tapes’ were all just little sketches and a lot were written by me at art college, they were just doodles really. When I met Marc, he was a performance artist and I was just doing weird synth music for him. But he asked if he could sing some of my songs, and I was like “great” because I’m not a singer and he looked fantastic, when I first met him I thought “that’s a front man!”.
So we started to think about how to get a sound; Marc had been working at Leeds Warehouse in the cloakroom and they were playing a lot of New York disco, so he was bringing these records home that he’d borrowed. So we were getting more and more into music with a heavy dance beat and heavy basslines.
That’s how ‘Memorabilia’ came about, it was directly influenced by all that and us deliberately doing something a bit more clubby. I give Marc full credit for steering it there and suggesting we do something with more of a James Brown bassline. So I started noodling repetitively, it wasn’t sequenced but it started sounding like those Techno records which came later. We inadvertently came across that sound and with Daniel’s help obviously, we created something amazing.
You’ve talked about the rhythmic and art school side, but where did the tunes spring from?
Marc’s always been the very big pop fan as have I, plus I’m a big fan of a lot of film music like John Barry. So we’ve always been strong on our melodies. I’d play a little tune and Marc would do something that counters it. KRAFTWERK, YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA and DEPECHE MODE are very melodic.
The most successful electronic bands are all extremely melodic and fantastic. It’s all very good listening to drones, I mean I love Brian Eno and even some of that has amazing melodies, but it’s like being washed over in water colour. I do like a powerful theme and I like the subject matter of a song to be powerful and to have some kind of a thematic quality with it, like a James Bond song such as ‘Goldfinger’, a very powerful musical element and a powerful vocal element.
Even on ‘Mutant Moments’, there’s a track called ‘L.O.V.E Feelings’ which had a John Barry vibe, so it seemed to be there even back then?
There was this pub Marc and I used to frequent. On a Sunday evening, they had a singalong-with-the-organist night and there would be this old bloke with a Hammond organ and this drummer who had this round tom and he’d have his newspaper on that, doing the crossword with his pint and a fag in his mouth, playing the hi-hat and bass drum!
And then there was this mad old lady who had drunk too much sherry trying to sing Shirley Bassey! I think Peter Kay captured all that with ‘Phoenix Nights’, so it was kind of like a p*ss take of that! You can hear Marc giggling at the end! He did that a few times when we were recording, we were doing something recently going through some of our old tracks and I found a multi-track of a take of ‘Tainted Love’ and when Marc gets to the first chorus, he’s in fits of giggles, I don’t know why!
Despite being art school boys, did a new discipline have to emerge with ‘Mutant Moments’, just by the nature of having to choose four songs to record for an EP?
At that point, we went through what we’d got and thought those were the best four songs we had at the time, so that’s why those ended up on it. It was never done as a commercial enterprise. It was more like a promotional thing and it did work because it got us on Radio1 and we started getting more and more gigs. It built very gradually over a two year period…
So this is where Stevo picked up on you?
Yes, that was after Futurama2, he wasn’t there but asked if there were any interesting unsigned electronic bands there and people kept saying our name. So he got involved… he was very lucky, he was an opportunist really, but he had good ears and was putting together a compilation which became the ‘Some Bizzare Album’ which helped us immensely.
Us and DEPECHE MODE were singled out as the ones to watch. But unfortunately, we did this gig at Crocs in Rayleigh, Essex… DEPECHE MODE were the house band and SOFT CELL were the main act, we were absolutely appalling and they were fantastic! There were all these people from London like VISAGE and SPANDAU BALLET there to check us out and they were chucking pennies at us, we were dreadful.
But that’s when Daniel Miller got involved because we knew we had to get the sound better, and as he’d signed DEPECHE MODE, we thought he might know what to do with us and luckily he said yes. We didn’t want to create any rivalry but DEPECHE MODE were cool because their take on electronic music was different. We always got on fine with DEPECHE MODE.
Was this the night where legend has it, Tony Mayo from NAKED LUNCH took a dig at Marc?
I think he said “You’re a load of sh*t”, but then Rusty Egan said to Stevo to drop us because he thought we were rubbish! *laughs*
I’ve known Rusty for years and in fairness to him, when ‘Memorabilia’ came out, he changed his mind. He used to have two copies of it and keep it going for like half an hour, mixing into each other because he loved it so much. That really was the key track that changed the momentum upwards and obviously, what happened next is history as they say…
Do you remember much about the recording of ‘The Girl With The Patent Leather Face’ for the ‘Some Bizarre Album’?
That again was done at art school with a couple of Revoxes, a toy Chinese instrument that I put a pick up on for that clanging sound, a Korg synth and a Rhythm Master drum machine. It was a little black box that had the usual bossa nova / jazz / disco / pop presets, but only 1 or 2 of those were useable *laughs*
The guy who ran the sound studio in Leeds Poly was a guy called John Darling who’s sadly no longer with us, he had a nice home studio in the Yorkshire Dales and a proper mixing desk, so we tried to polish it up as much as possible on zero budget. It came out as it was, so we were surprised when people like journalist Betty Page aka Beverley Gillick gave it a really good review!
Your drum machine journey has been quite interesting…
I bought a Boss Doctor Rhythm DR55 which was used on those BBC Radio sessions and the first time I used anything to do with Roland, because Boss was part of the same company. When we did ‘Tainted Love’, we used a CR78 Compurhythm which had a monophonic output which our engineer Paul Hardiman cleverly managed to split the bass and the snare by gating one off the other so that they were isolated, it probably helped that it was quite a simple rhythm.
The rest of the percussion came from Marc’s Pearl Syncussion unit, a Synare which looked like a flying saucer and an Electro-Harmonix Crash Pad which had a trigger made out of cork! So all that zapping and sounds that are like smashing pottery on the segue of ‘Tainted Love’ with ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’ were done with those, alongside the live finger snaps. Simple but effective!
Photo by Poalo Di Paolo
Then you moved onto a Roland TR808?
I think SOFT CELL were the first band to use a TR808 in the British charts with ‘Bedsitter’. As soon as ‘Tainted Love’ went massive, the record company said we had to do an album and our producer Mike Thorne was an Englishman who lived in New York, so he suggested recording it there… we weren’t going to say no! So off we went to Manhattan for a few months. I took my little Korg SB100 Synthe-Bass which was the SOFT CELL bass sound on the first album.
When I got to the studio, I thought “what’s that?”… Mike had bought one of the first 808s in America and I thought “bloody hell, that’s amazing”! I immediately took to it and developed my own style. I loved it, it was instant, I had a feel for it. Then we had the Synclavier which was the first time I’d seen a polyphonic digital synth… so I’ve got this dirty little bass thing with this amazing very early techno drum machine that no-one had really used before and we did ‘Bedsitter’, everyone was asking me “how did you get that sound?”.
That drum machine, the bass synth and the Synclavier were seriously important to our sound and the whole first album. We also put on things like a Mellotron, a celeste, a bit of real piano and some real percussion, woodwind and brass. We found our sound very quickly when we worked with Mike in New York and we knew how to do it.
We had the songs, we never stopped writing and it was great to be able to hear them recorded properly. A lot of those songs we wrote at art school and been playing them for years so we knew what people liked, things like ‘Bedsitter’.
After the 808, you moved onto the Oberheim DMX on ‘The Art Of Falling Apart’?
Yes, I bought a DMX; we used a mix of that with the Linn Drum Mk1 and Mk2. But when I listen to those albums, I prefer the sound of the 808. I wished we’d carried on using it, but everyone was gravitating towards that more ‘realistic’ sound and the 808 was out of favour. Everyone wanted real snare and bass drum samples, Martin Rushent was using the Linn Drum with THE HUMAN LEAGUE. So it was the fickle world of pop y’know, so you tend to go with the flow on that… it was a bit stupid in that way I think.
SOFT CELL did some glorious 12 inch versions, in particular ‘Bedsitter’, ‘Facility Girls’, ‘Torch’ and ‘Insecure Me’, which are long songs with song parts rather than just extended versions…
We always wrote songs to be long versions… people would normally do a radio version and then re-edit that, we just did a really long version and then take the best bits to compress them into a radio version which I think worked quite well for us. We always seemed to get good results and everyone comments on how our 12 inchers seem to flow, but that’s because they’re written as long pieces and not an assemblage.
Before ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’, you did a BBC Radio session for Richard Skinner. ‘Seedy Films’ was on it and underwent the biggest transformation because it was quite fast at first and didn’t have the clarinet, what was it like doing those?
We were always very fast with Mike Thorne, he didn’t like to work long hours but with the BBC Radio sessions, you had to work ultrafast because you basically had a day to do four or five songs. Luckily, we were very well rehearsed, so it was down to me to get stuff done as quick as possible. A lot of the energy and pace we were going probably led to us speeding the track up subconsciously!
I always used to enjoy those sessions, they were recorded in Delaware Road in Maida Vale with Dale Griffin who was in MOTT THE HOOPLE and had moved on to be an in-house producer for the BBC. We were really good friends with Richard Skinner and David Jensen who we also did a session for. I got on well with those two guys, you could have a drink with them in the BBC bar after ‘Top Of the Pops’, they were very approachable, really nice.
Songs like ‘Chips On My Shoulder’, ‘Frustration’ and ‘Secret Life’ hit a zeitgeist with Marc’s lyrical observations?
There’s always been a more fantastical underworld side with SOFT CELL, but there was a track which never came out called ‘Bleak Is My Favourite Cliché’ and it’s still strangely relevant today. I look at Marc’s lyrics now and they have a very keen sharp wit, I think he’s an extremely excellent writer. I’ve always loved his lyrics and he just sees things from a very interesting point of view. It’s taken me a while to get what he’s saying .
The success led to SOFT CELL taking a darker path towards ‘The Art Of Falling Apart’ and then ‘This Last Night In Sodom’, how do you think you were getting into this grittier mindset that harked back to art school?
‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ became a pop album, but by the time of ‘The Art Of Falling Apart’, we wanted to make something a bit more grown-up because we were getting a bit sick of being on TV programmes like ‘Tiswas’ and being perceived as lightweight pop fluff which we obviously weren’t. When we did ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ on the BBC in 1982, it was amazing the gravitas that programme had. People started treating us as more of an albums band because before that, we were seen as a singles act. So when we made ‘The Art Of Falling Apart’, it was a statement and much more heavyweight and mature, we were taken more seriously I think.
Was this why you chose ‘Numbers’ as a single?
I think we were just being contentious! *laughs*
We were deliberately just trying to p*ss off the record company, because they were p*ssing us off! That’s when Marc went mental after he discovered they were double packaging ‘Numbers’ with a free copy of ‘Tainted Love’ to try to boost sales. Marc went into the Phonogram office with Stevo and they went berserk, smashing up all the gold discs on the wall and chucking coffee at the A&R men… I wasn’t there I’m glad to say, but this story is quite legendary in Phonogram circles *laughs*
Wouldn’t it have been better to choose something more obvious like ‘Forever The Same’ or ‘Loving You, Hating Me’?
We did a lot of things just to be awkward, we refused to play ‘Tainted Love’ live in America which was the only thing they knew by us, which was f***ing stupid! *laughs*
And then putting out a single about homosexual rough trade and how many people you’ve f**ked that night is not going to appeal to the little girls who buy pop records is it? But we didn’t care at that point…
The final first phase SOFT CELL single was a cover of ‘Down In The Subway’, was that reflective of your state of mind at the time?
That was an early R’n’B track by Jack Hammer with some really clever heavy lyrics. It was one that Marc discovered and I thought it had a great rhythm to it, it was very SOFT CELL because it was in that netherworld and had that dark element to it. It was still a minor hit!
But what amazed me was the album ‘This Last Night In Sodom’ actually got in the Top10 despite being our least commercial album, it even has a track called ‘Mr Self Destruct’! It was wilfully self-destructive and we made a conscious decision that it was going to be the last album, we’d do a couple of final shows and call it a day, we’d just had enough!
So the 2001 reunion, how do you look back on that and the ‘Cruelty Without Beauty’ album now?
It was great because it was unplanned to reform SOFT CELL. I’d worked with Marc on a few of his solo things like ‘My Hand Over My Heart’, ‘Meet Me In My Dream’ and a remix of ‘Waifs & Strays’, but he called me up at my studio with Ingo Vauk in Kensal Road and asked if I’d fancy meeting up for a coffee to discuss writing some tunes for other people. After coffee, I suggested going to my studio so we did about three or four numbers and Marc did some vocals. When we listened to them played back, we looked at each other and went “it’s SOFT CELL isn’t it?”*laughs*
So we recorded an album ‘Cruelty Without Beauty’ and started shopping it around, eventually Cooking Vinyl bought it and we toured it, playing festivals in Europe. Then we went over to America but it was not exactly the most successful tour in the world, it was a bit of a disaster that one but you live and learn. Then we came back from a festival in Venice and there were plans to do more shows and another record, but the awful motorbike accident happened and Marc was in a very bad way. That was it almost, we sort of lost touch and didn’t speak for about 15 years…
‘Desperate’ was one of the highlights from that period, a swipe at the X-Factor generation and you got in some more John Barry references with that ‘Goldfinger’ thing going on in there…
That’s right, it’s always lurking around somewhere, any chance! Marc’s always had that social awareness and ‘Desperate’ was totally about celebrity culture. But my favourite was ‘Monoculture’, although it’s an agricultural term, Marc mentioned it in passing… I thought it was brilliant.
Those two songs sort of sum up that repetitive and boring blandness in pop culture, it’s so safe and there’s no real serious artists coming through. They’ve all got that really irritating electronic Country sound that’s autotuned so they all sound like the same person, it’s monoculture. They’re desperate to be there for the opening of a can of lager! *laughs*
‘Caligula Syndrome’ was quite menacing…
That’s about people like Saddam Hussain, it’s to do with modern tyrants, it could be relevant today to people like Putin or even Donald Trump, they think they’re emperors… I mean, Trump’s apartment has gold plated everything. I’ve got this book of tyrants’ home interiors, people like Hitler and Idi Amin, they all had these palatial places like Nero; ‘Caligula Syndrome’ is a reference to that and tyrannical behaviour.
How’s the setlist coming along for the final show at the O2 Arena?
Marc did a survey of what were the most popular tracks and we can’t please everybody all of the time, there’s so much material. I think the show is going to be about two and a half hours long, so it will be quite taxing.
We’ve got backing singers, live brass and percussion, live synths, me and Marc… there will be nine people on stage and an array of engineers plus a lot of computer power on the mixing desk. And there’s a visual show which should look amazing.
The SOFT CELL social media teased a photo of your old live rack with the Korg 800DV, is that going to be brought out of retirement?
We’re making a documentary for BBC4, we did a little performance to camera and they wanted me to use my original synths at the Leeds Warehouse where we did our first proper shows. So the photo was just a reference to that really. That will come out some time after the show, they’ve not said when yet because we’re still filming. It’s quite in-depth and for once, I get to talk quite a lot! *laughs*
The boxed set has two remix discs, one is new versions using only original parts…
It was just tightening a few things up as a lot of the original stuff was all played manually, I didn’t want them to sound too mechanical but it was to make them sound more punchy and modern without sounding completely rehashed.
There’s one remix which Hifi Sean did of ‘So’ which was a B-side I knocked together for ‘What’, he’d been playing the original in clubs and it goes down really well with people into this Nu-disco stuff. So he did a dub mix of that and it got its first play on Radio1… for SOFT CELL to still be played on Radio1 these days is pretty amazing, considering we have the combined age of 120! *laughs*
Photo by Dave Chambers
Then there’s this continuous dub mix entitled ‘Non-Stop Euphoric Dubbing’…
That was meant to be more of a chill out sort of thing, you can just put it on and leave it in the background to get stoned to…
…I thought it sounded more like a horror film soundtrack!
I guess some people chill out differently! *laughs*
I could imagine a gothic ballet or dance commission coming out of this…
…now that’s an idea! *laughs*
There’s been a few theatrical things, there’s a musical that’s going to happen in London called ‘Tainted’, I briefly met the guy who’s done it because he lives near me and he gave me his card. I’d forgotten all about it, but he said he’d spoken to Marc. I was talking to my manager about it yesterday and he said it was all in hand.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Dave Ball
Noted techno exponent Chris Liebing has unveiled a stark new track featuring Mute label mate Polly Scattergood entitled ‘And All Went Dark’.
The brooding minimalist electronic piece basically does what it says on the tin, with an eerily poetic spoken contribution from Miss Scattergood where the Essex songstress is haunted by a “dark shadow on my shoulder” and how “a sickness took hold early on”!
‘And All Went Dark’ is from Liebing’s new album ‘Burn Slow’ to be released by Mute Artists. Daniel Miller has long been an admirer of the Frankfurt-based DJ and the pair shared a stage for a talk at the 2016 ELECTRI_CITY_CONFERENCE in Dusseldörf; the Mute Records supremo had even joked that they would probably want to play exactly the same tracks during their DJ sets at the Time Warp club aftershow.
A striking mood piece ‘Polished Chrome (The Friend Part 1)’ featuring Gary Numan has already acted as early trailer for the album and the ten track opus will also feature vocals from COLD CAVE, ALEEN and Miles Cooper Seaton of folk-influenced experimentalists AKRON / FAMILY,
Liebing has long had a spiritual connection with Mute as a young fan of DEPECHE MODE, YAZOO, DAF, LAIBACH and NITZER EBB, with his recent remixes for DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Going Backwards’ and GOLDFRAPP’s ‘Everything Is Never Enough’ beginning the journey towards ‘Burn Slow’.
‘And All Went Dark’ is from the album ‘Burn Slow’ released by Mute Artists on 7th September 2018
CHRIS LIEBING does an eight-hour all night DJ set at Closer in London’s E1 on 26th August 2018
Documentary Evidence is an unofficial Mute Records website run by freelance music journalist and electronic music fan Mat Smith named after the Mute Records catalogue booklet inserts that came with their releases from 1987. It is described as featuring “Reviews of artists appearing on Mute Records and its various sub-labels”.
But also includes other music writing by Smith. Like many music bloggers, he compiles an end of year Top 10 albums listing and in 2017, he controversially included Taylor Swift’s ‘Reputation’ at No4 above the No6 placed ‘Spirit’ from DEPECHE MODE.
The decision provoked surprise, discussion, amusement and condemnation; how could a respected authority on the legend of Mute Records appear to betray the musical foundations they were built on? However, other commentators were not so surprised and saw it as a sign.
Mat Smith chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about why last year, he preferred Taytay over Essex Dave and presented his Documentary Evidence…
What was the motivation and ethos behind establishing the Documentary Evidence website?
I started writing a blog at university in about 1996, even though it wasn’t called a blog back then. That blog focussed on reviews of concerts I’d been to and records I’d bought that week.
I called it Red Elvis Central for reasons that at the time felt important but which now seem silly. I wrote Red Elvis Central until I left uni, at which point anything I’d written up to that point was suddenly lost forever, and I got sucked into a graduate training programme in a non-musical, very sensible career.
I started the Documentary Evidence website in 2003. I distinctly remember it was a Saturday afternoon, I’d had to go into London for work in the morning and my wife was out at her grandmother’s house when I got home. With nothing better to do, I sat myself down in front of my PC, wrote a review of ‘Text Message’ by VIC TWENTY and by the time she came back home that evening, I’d set up a rudimentary HTML website, which I decided would be a place for me to write about Mute releases for nobody’s enjoyment but my own.
When I was scratching around trying to name the site, I raked through my record collection and found my copy of ERASURE’s ‘Chorus’ 12”, which was the first 12” I’d ever bought. In the sleeve was Mute’s Documentary Evidence catalogue pamphlet, which was what got me hooked on collecting Mute releases in the first place, so it seemed like an obvious thing to name the site with.
When I first picked that catalogue up in 1991, I barely recognised any of the groups and artists listed and I barely even knew what a record label was aside from being a logo.
Documentary Evidence switched me on to this notion that there were all these things going on outside of the charts. I also naively assumed that everything released on Mute would sound like ERASURE in some way, which I still laugh at today.
I think I envisaged that writing enthusiastically for my Documentary Evidence website would allow me to perpetually remind myself of how exciting it was setting off on that voyage of musical discovery in the early 90s. The Documentary Evidence website was never intended to attract any attention from anyone else.
For most of my life I’ve wanted to record my thoughts and memories in some capacity, just for my own benefit. It felt like a logical thing to extend that into writing about the music that meant something to me and which I’d spent most of my teenage years and twenties collecting in earnest.
Back in 2003 I don’t think I really appreciated that Mute had a sort of ‘cult’ reputation and that there were other people who’d also become avid collectors of their releases. To this day I find it strange that anyone would have even found my website, let alone actually bothered to read it.
About ten years later I started writing occasional live reviews and features for Clash, and that led to working professionally.
Who are your own personal favourites from the Mute roster, both past and present?
ERASURE are the reason that the Documentary Evidence website exists, and they were the first group I really fell for, so they’ll always be my personal favourite.
My dad brought home a copy of ‘The Innocents’ that a friend from work had recorded for him, sometime in 1988. He walked in and said “Matthew, have you heard of this band, ERASURE?” I’d seen them on Saturday morning TV, had heard them in chart and really liked them, but I didn’t have enough pocket money at that time to buy any music.
I grabbed the cassette off him, rushed upstairs to my bedroom and more or less listened to it non-stop on my Walkman for months after that. I still get a huge surge of emotion every time I hear something new by ERASURE, and I can chart the most important points in my personal life by their music. They’ll always be really special to me.
Right now, I’m really excited about the SHADOWPARTY album that comes out on Mute later this month. SHADOWPARTY includes members of the current NEW ORDER and DEVO line-ups, and their debut album is brilliant, like a time machine into a classic Manchester feel-good sound.
The other artist on the label I’ve been listening to a lot lately is DANIEL BLUMBERG, whose debut solo album ‘Minus’ was released by Mute earlier this year. ‘Minus’ came up out of Dalston’s Café Oto improvisation scene, but that sense of freedom is combined with some truly moving, genuinely profound lyrics. I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Daniel recently and he’s clearly a prodigious talent and probably unmatched in terms of his artistic vision. Being able to get inside the head of a musician and into the story behind an album or piece of music is the greatest privilege of being a music journalist, and spending time with Daniel was undoubtedly one of the highlights of my career.
You’ve established and maintained a good working relationship with Vince Clarke?
I interviewed Vince and ORBITAL’s Paul Hartnoll for Electronic Sound when Vince started his own label, VeryRecords, and launched it with the album ‘2Square’ that he and Paul did together in 2016. VeryRecords is totally his own thing and he tries to do absolutely everything himself, as he’s so personally invested in the label. I really respect that. Richard Evans provides support for the technical side of running the label, but apart from that it’s a fully solo endeavour.
He could get anyone to help with any part of running a small label and just put his name to it, but he doesn’t. It’s his thing, and he’s really enjoying it. I can’t quite remember now whether I volunteered to help put the press releases together for future VeryRecords releases or if he asked me if I’d like to help – we were in bar, and beer was involved – but somehow I ended up working on the materials to support the first REED & CAROLINE album ‘Buchla & Singing’, and the two releases he’s put out since – ALKA’s ‘The Colour Of Terrible Crystal’ and ‘Hello Science’ by REED & CAROLINE.
As a lifelong ERASURE fan, to be able to call Vince my boss is probably the strangest thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m so grateful for this opportunity and for the trust he’s placed in my skills as a writer. I wish I could say the same of everyone I’ve worked for.
What level of DEPECHE MODE fan would you describe yourself as? One of The Black Swarm, plain clothes Devotee or an armchair enthusiast?
I’m definitely not in The Black Swarm, and in fact I didn’t even know what the Swarm was until my photographer friend Andy Sturmey explained it to me a few years ago. I guess I’m probably somewhere in between Devotee and armchair enthusiast if I reluctantly had to pigeonhole myself.
DEPECHE MODE are really important to me, no doubt about it, but I actively detested them when I first became aware of them, which would have been just after ‘Violator’ was released.
In my high school English classes I used to sit next to a girl called Sarah Vann whose folder was covered in photos of Depeche from that time. I just figured they were an Athena poster-friendly boyband because of that.
I also couldn’t get my head around songs like ‘Personal Jesus’ at all, mostly because I was slightly intimidated by guitar music at the time. Later, when I read the Documentary Evidence booklet that made me a Mute collector, and I read about Vince having been in DM at the beginning, I felt really conflicted – I suddenly felt duty-bound to collect their material but didn’t think I’d like their music.
I started with a beaten-up copy of ‘The Singles 81 – 85’ borrowed from Stratford-upon-Avon’s library and tentatively went from there. I guess it was appropriate that the CD came from a library – it proves the old adage that you shouldn’t judge a book by its (Depeche-decorated) cover.
Photo by Mat Smith
Between the ages of 15 and 16, I consumed all of their albums and was a paid-up fan by the time ‘Songs Of Faith & Devotion’ was released. The first concert I ever went to was Depeche at the NEC on 14 December 1993, and I wore a black long-sleeved ‘I Feel You’ t-shirt. I have really fond memories of that show. I still have the programme and the ticket, but I no longer have the t-shirt.
I once spent a whole afternoon sat on my parents’ sofa listening to ‘The Things You Said’ on repeat because my girlfriend had unceremoniously dumped me. Like ERASURE, their music is inextricably bound in with a lot of very vivid memories.
Much, much later I got the chance to interview Dave and Martin for Clash, Dave when he did the last SOULSAVERS LP and Martin for his instrumental album ‘MG’. Perhaps it’s the point they’re both at in their careers, but neither had massive egos, and both came across as appreciative and humble. I like it when people surprise you.
Had it been your intention to feature artists from outside of the Mute family on Documentary Evidence?
I was really pretty purist at the beginning – this was a Mute site, and it was only ever going to be about Mute.
But then again, I started out with a review of the solitary VIC TWENTY single that came out on Credible Sexy Units, a label Daniel Miller formed outside the EMI ownership of Mute for the sole purpose of releasing that one single in 2003, so I was always bending my own rules from the off.
After a while I found myself writing more about musicians that had been on the label and who had then gone off to do different things, or people who were clearly influenced by Mute, or producers who had worked with Mute, or releases by Mute artists but that were released on other labels – tangents, basically, especially with Blast First artists.
Then people started sending me their music, saying they liked my site and asking me if I’d review them. When you’re starting out, the generous act of people wanting to send you the music they’ve laboured over is a really persuasive thing, and to the best of my knowledge I never turned anyone down.
I guess it just all got very restrictive after a while, the idea of only writing about Mute when there’s so much more music out there, but to this day I honestly think of Mute as being a lot like my musical spine – it’s at the centre of everything, and I can always form a connection back to that central core, no matter what it is I’m listening to.
Photo by Mat Smith
Pretty much every music I’ve gotten into can be traced back, in some way, to Mute and that original Documentary Evidence booklet. Even something like jazz, which I really love now, can be traced back to seeing the name SUN RA as a Blast First artist. It made sense to me that my entry point into jazz would come through SUN RA rather than a more conventional, obvious route.
I guess at some point I decided to start writing about some of those non-Mute things with as much passion and enthusiasm as the Mute stuff, but I wouldn’t be doing any of that if it wasn’t for Mute.
When I became a ‘proper’ music journalist, whatever that is, it would have been really restrictive just writing about Mute. I’m still normally the first in line enthusiastically pitching a Mute release when a new review section gets commissioned, but I get to cover all sorts of weird and wonderful things, most of which aren’t anything to do with Mute, and I absolutely love that.
Controversially in the Documentary Evidence Top 10 Albums of 2017, you placed DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Spirit’ at No6 but ahead of it was ‘Reputation’ by Taylor Swift at No4? Please explain… 😉
I do find it amusing that this would be regarded as remotely controversial. It’s only the second year that I’ve done an end of year countdown, and I’m not sure I’d do it again! When I was putting it all together, there were certain albums I knew had to be in there – ‘Reputation’ was always going to be high up in the rankings – but after getting five or six together, I really struggled. It was only when I looked back at what I’d written about that year that I even realised that ‘Spirit’ had been released in 2017, because it felt like it had come out ages before.
Photo by Chi Ming Lai
It wasn’t that ‘Spirit’ was in any way a forgettable album, as my review for Clash was incredibly positive. I even found myself indulging in a bit of journalistic hyperbole when I compared parts of it to Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’, which rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way.
I maintain that it’s a good album – great even. It showed a new side to DEPECHE MODE, one that initially jarred with me, but it was one that I ultimately respected.
I haven’t listened to it once since I assembled that year-end countdown, but I rarely get a chance to listen to albums over and over after I’ve reviewed them these days anyway. You’re more or less always moving onto something else as soon as you’ve filed the review copy.
You shouldn’t view me placing ‘Reputation’ higher than ‘Spirit’ as indicating that I think Taylor Swift is better than DEPECHE MODE; it just means that ‘Reputation’ means more to me. Documentary Evidence was always intended as a personal website, where everything I wrote was essentially my own subjective view. People are free to disagree with what I write, and frequently do, especially it would seem if I’m writing about DEPECHE MODE. I was roundly slated for giving Jeremy Deller and Nick Abrahams’ ‘The Posters Came From The Walls’ the positive review that I felt it deserved, and I’ve developed a thick skin about people’s views.
Photo by Chi Ming Lai
The point with Taylor Swift is that her music means a lot to our family. We have two daughters, ages 12 and 10, and as parents we’re acutely aware of the need for girls to grow up with positive, empowering female role models. Taylor Swift is the epitome of that.
She’ll go down in history as a great pop musician and songwriter but also as the one who – by suing that radio DJ for a buck – did more to highlight the gross inequalities and power abuses in the entertainment industry than anyone else.
But she also makes great music. We listen to Taylor Swift on roadtrips all the time and her music brings us closer together as a family. It’s that simple. Debating whether ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ is better than ‘We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together’ is a nice way to spend a drive around Cornwall, for example. It sure beats arguing.
The four of us going to see her at Wembley last month was among the best evenings out we’ve had as a family. We all wore Taylor Swift shirts, all sang every song at the top of our lungs and I’d rank it as one of best concerts I’ve ever been to, unashamedly. For me, and plenty of other people, ‘Reputation’ is a bold, multi-hued album that works as both social criticism and fucking great pop music.
What also amused me about people decrying this so-called music journalist snob putting Taylor Swift in his top ten is that not one DEPECHE MODE fan moaned about me ranking ERASURE higher than ‘Spirit’, or sticking a Ryan Adams record above it, or choosing an electronic jazz fusion LP by James Holden as the best thing I heard in 2017! And ‘Spirit’ getting into the top ten, when I conservatively wrote between 80 and 100 reviews last year, is still a pretty big deal.
But Taylor Swift surely doesn’t have any links to Mute… or does she? 😉
It’s slightly tenuous, but there is a link. Jack Antonoff from BLEACHERS, co-wrote and produced two songs on ‘1989’ and six on ‘Reputation’. Vince Clarke worked with Jack on the first BLEACHERS album, and I think the big, anthemic pop that BLEACHERS make has definitely rubbed off on some of the recent mixes that Vince has done. You can hear some of it in the last ERASURE record, ‘World Be Gone’, too.
Jack’s style is extremely distinctive, but very natural. Some people have to work hard at creating these huge, stadium-friendly, euphoric songs, but it’s like it runs in his veins or something. I knew which songs were his on ‘Reputation’ before I even looked at the credits.
So, yeah, if you squint a little and are happy that it’s an indirect connection, there is one. But I didn’t need one to justify enjoying Taylor Swift’s music – just the look on my girls’ faces when they were dancing round our lounge to ‘1989’ when they got it for Christmas 2014 was justification enough.
Photo by Mat Smith
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK saw this positioning of Taylor Swift above DEPECHE MODE by a respected Mute Records commentator as oblique symbolism for DM’s current artistic decline…
It certainly wasn’t intended that way. As I said before, I really liked ‘Spirit’, and I really liked its predecessor ‘Delta Machine’, which I awarded eight out of ten in a review I wrote for Clash. I wonder whether people have unrealistic expectations of what DEPECHE MODE should be doing today.
They’ve been going for nearly forty years and sit on top of a back catalogue containing some incredible moments, and those moments are going to be part of a personal soundtrack to significant events, whereas as we get older we don’t accumulate as many of those things.
Most artists that have been going this long are valued not for what they’re doing today but what they’ve done before, and any new material is just a catalyst for getting back out on the road and playing the hits.
The best example of this is THE ROLLING STONES – they’ve consistently released new material, but it’s generally regarded as second-rate compared to the album’s they released in their first two decades.
Anyone going to a Stones show doesn’t want a set filled with the new stuff – they pay for the hits. I know that fans have moaned about the recent Depeche festival shows not containing enough of their big songs, and I would say that’s probably fair. I don’t think they can hide behind being inexperienced with festivals, as a glance at any other band’s setlist would have provided ample evidence of the rules.
But I do think the fact that Depeche are still trying to do different things – the overt political reference points of ‘Spirit’ or the pronounced bluesiness of ‘Delta Machine’, as examples – shows that they still have a creative spark beyond just rehashing ‘World In My Eyes’ all over again. And if they did that, then people would moan at them for not making any effort. I’m not sure they can win, but it’s not like people aren’t buying their albums or eschewing their shows.
Photo by Simon Helm
At the ‘Mute: A Visual Document’ book launch where there was a live Q&A which included Daniel Miller, it was reported that Anton Corbijn was making made his feelings known publicly about the current direction of DEPECHE MODE? What was your interpretation of what was said?
Honestly, I can’t remember. As the host of that panel discussion, I was too busy making sure I didn’t drop my microphone.
My recollection was that Daniel and Anton were both incredibly positive on Depeche and where they are right now, creatively. These guys are like the fourth and fifth members of that band, as their input into what makes them a band is really important to who they are, what they do, and how it’s presented, and I don’t think that will ever change. If anything, Anton was super positive about how much trust that Dave, Martin and Andy placed in his judgement, and how rare it is to find that these days. I didn’t get the impression that DEPECHE MODE are ignoring his counsel and doing their own thing at all.
That night, I do remember that Daniel said that they’re still a Mute band, even though they’ve left the label. I think that says a lot about how he approaches artists on the label, as well as how much he cares about them; I guess it’s like waving your kids off when they leave home – they’ll always be family. In the same way, Daniel will always be their A&R guy and creative mentor.
Daniel Miller = DM = DEPECHE MODE. That’s a complete coincidence, but it also isn’t.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK often likes to highlight a musical connection it has noted between CHVRCHES and Taylor Swift, do you hear it as well in her songs like ‘Out Of The Woods’, ‘Gorgeous’ and even ‘Blank Space’?
It’s not something I’ve noticed especially, but it says a lot about the way we music critics approach very overtly successful music that we can only give a pop artist credibility by comparing it to something a little more underground, or something less popular.
Electronic music has been mainstream for the last forty years and it’s only natural that stuff coming out of the underground would feed into popular music. That’s just how it has always worked, all the way through musical history.
Things start outside of the public eye, in almost cultish micro-scenes, they blossom, become popular, popular acts co-opt them, a new thing comes along and it starts again. If it didn’t, this would all be pretty boring and we’d all still be listening to easy listening music. Is Taylor Swift consciously riffing off CHVRCHES’ ideas? Probably not. Does she have the budget and bankability to attract any producer she wants to work on her record? Absolutely.
Do those producers and her A&R team have their fingers on what’s cool and what’s not? For sure. To me it’s not that surprising.
As far as electronic based artists are concerned, who are the up-and-coming acts that you would rate at the moment?
Electronic music – in its broadest sense – is having one of its most fertile creative periods, from the mainstream to the most avant garde of locales. For example, there’s a German producer called VONICA whose music I’m enjoying right now. He makes this fantastically skewed, very densely-layered music that is umbilically linked to dance music, with all its attendant euphoria and drama, but this slightly off-centre quality. He’s one to watch, for sure.
Elsewhere, I find myself listening to lots and lots of fusion music. Back in the 70s, stuff that fused jazz, electronics and rock together was seen as hugely innovative but over time it became a shorthand for naffness, something that my older self thinks is massively short-sighted as I’ve begun to appreciate things like CHICK COREA’s underrated ‘Return To Forever’. The new groups tackling fusion music are just incredible. James Holden I’ve already mentioned, but there are others like Kamaal Williams and RATGRAVE that manage to create these amazingly fresh pieces of music out of seemingly incompatible reference points.
How do you think Mute had managed to maintain its position as a credible brand in the music industry after so many years?
I think it all comes down to being artist-led. When you’re artist-led you’re prepared to take more risks to allow them the space to realise their creative vision. When Daniel Miller started Mute again as an independent enterprise, I think that’s why he named it Mute Artists.
That’s a very egalitarian, equitable way of approaching running a label – it emphasises that without those artists the label wouldn’t, and couldn’t, exist. That’s not to say that Mute have always just let artists get up to what they want, because I’ve heard that Daniel is a very hands-on guy, even if he’s not in the studio with every artist on the label. However, if you start with the primacy of the artist and are focussed on allowing them to realise their vision in a supported way, you’re probably going to get the best results.
Going back to what I said about his relationship with Depeche above, he evidently cares for his artists, and I personally think that’s ultimately why he sold Mute Records to EMI – faced with seismic changes in the record industry, he deemed that was the best thing for his artists to allow them to stay creative. It wasn’t for commercial gain, but to give his artists some sort of financial stability. I think it came from a fundamentally good, well-meaning place. It wasn’t like he’d decided to disown his kids and start a new family with someone else. You might think of everything released on Mute as songs representing Daniel’s enduring faith and devotion in the artists whose music he elects to release. I can’t see that ever changing.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Mat Smith
Philadelphia and subsequently New York City are home to BOOK OF LOVE.
The band, which created a stir with American synth music crowds, came into being in 1983 when Susan Ottaviano joined forces with Ted Ottaviano (no relation) in Philly, later recruiting Jade Lee and Lauren Roselli Johnson.
The name was adopted from a song by THE MONOTONES and soon the entire crew worked out of New York.
Citing influences from anyone from Bowie, through COCTEAU TWINS, THE RAMONES, OMD to DEPECHE MODE, the quarter started writing their own material, and equipped with few demos, notably ‘Boy’, hoped for a label to take an interest.
And a label did… not just anyone but Sire Records, whose president at the time Seymour Stein loved the tubular bells and happy go lucky melody of the track. ‘Boy’ went on to become a notable dance hit, positioning itself at number 7 on the Billboard Dance Chart. Furthermore, it gave the band such success and exposure, that the group happily left their day jobs to dedicate themselves to the craft of music exclusively.
And that’s how their love affair with DEPECHE MODE took off. Having met Basildon’s finest, BOOK OF LOVE were invited to support them, not only on ‘Some Great Reward’ Tour, but to return for the ‘Black Celebration’ live shows as well.
BOOK OF LOVE’s second single ‘I Touch Roses’ was an instant head turner, with the additional kudos of being remixed in its single version by none other than Daniel Miller of Mute. The innovative feel to the song opened more doors for the group and enabled them to get a go ahead from Sire to finish the album. Delicately placed bells, chimes and quirky synth worked wonders for the moody vocals of Ottaviano.
By then the eponymous ‘Book Of Love’ was also recorded, bearing more alternative influences alongside the synths. With a nursery rhyme feel, and musicality recalling JOY DIVISION, it grabbed instantly, providing a fresh substitute to what was out there at the time, and yes, the bells were there too!
The album came, heralded with ‘You Make Me Feel So Good’, a typical dance oriented synth tune with a twist thanks to the vocals encapsulating a merger of SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES, KATE BUSH and all the BANANARAMA girls.
Self-confessed admirers of art, BOOK OF LOVE named the second single from the opus after an Italian artist Amedeo Modigliani. ‘Modigliani’ features wonderfully arpeggiated synth, delicate choirs and a plethora of noisy synth thrown in for good measure with a very PET SHOP BOYS-esque ending. A version was used in an episode of ‘Miami Vice’ and the 1987 film ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’.
Touring with the mighty DEPECHE MODE and didn’t leave much room for any studio work, therefore the continuum ‘Lullaby’ was recorded after the ‘Black Celebration’ Tour was completed. Mark Ellis aka Flood took the reins of production, fresh from working with ERASURE and U2.
The title track introduced somewhat folky elements to its composition and featured a gentler approach to the whole enterprise. The influences from ERASURE and DEPECHE MODE are clearly palpable, without stripping off the absolute uniqueness of what BOOK OF LOVE were about.
‘Pretty Boys & Pretty Girls’ which was the first single from ‘Lullaby’ openly tacked the hot topic of AIDS. The plea to practise safe sex was a novelty in synth music, and it was warmly received, given the candied feel of the track and its easy listening qualities. As the tubular bells were essential in BOOK OF LOVE’s proposition, a snatch of MIKE OLDFIELD’s classic composition also found itself on the production.
‘Witchcraft’ presented a notion of sampling, with the original series ‘Bewitched’ in its heart. Consisting the peculiar rapping from all the three girl members, combined with simple melody and candid vocals, it was the only single to fail to chart.
‘Candy Carol’ was the third album, released in 1991, and with the changing musical landscape and introduction of new genres, there was a need for Ottaviano and co to provide a quirky alternative. Inspired by carols and the need for a decent melody, tracks like ‘Alice Everyday’ and ‘Counting The Rosaries’ performed by Lauren Roselli or ‘Sunny Day’ with harps, bells and simple guitars added up to an uncomplicated proposition against rap, hip hop and the raise of Seattle’s grunge.
Ted Ottaviano produced the fourth BOOK OF LOVE’s album ‘Lovebubble’ himself, with the band members doubting their place in the current musical climate, and the record proved to be the quartet’s last. ‘Boy Pop’ was a big dance club hit and an ode to gay love, while ‘Sunday A.M.’ represented a beautifully sculptured melody and gentile additions.
‘Hunny Hunny’ brought the tempo up to speed with a punctuated arpeggiated synth beat a la ERASURE, American style. ‘Chatterbox (Pt 2)’ was a part of the double single with Jade Lee on vocals.
BOOK OF LOVE have previously released couple of ‘Best Of’ style compilations and now, Susan and Ted Ottaviano are back by popular demand, releasing and touring ‘The Sire Years: 1985-1993’, with all the aforementioned tracks and more, to relive and enjoy the quirkiness, simplicity and joy of their heyday.
If you weren’t a fan back then, or it slipped your radar, jump on the bandwagon now, because BOOK OF LOVE are just what the doctor ordered.
BOOK OF LOVE play Miami The Kitchen Club (13th January), Orlando The Social (14th January), Seattle The Crocodile (9th February), Dallas Granada Theater (16th February), New Orleans One Eyed Jacks (24th March), Atlanta Aisle 5 (7th April), Denver Herman’s Hideaway (21st April)
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became a pop album, but by the time of 
, we wanted to make something a bit more grown-up because we were getting a bit sick of being on TV programmes like ‘Tiswas’ and being perceived as lightweight pop fluff which we obviously weren’t. When we did ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’ on the BBC in 1982, it was amazing the gravitas that programme had. People started treating us as more of an albums band because before that, we were seen as a singles act. So when we made ‘The Art Of Falling Apart’, it was a statement and much more heavyweight and mature, we were taken more seriously I think.
actually got in the Top10 despite being our least commercial album, it even has a track called ‘Mr Self Destruct’! It was wilfully self-destructive and we made a conscious decision that it was going to be the last album, we’d do a couple of final shows and call it a day, we’d just had enough!
and started shopping it around, eventually Cooking Vinyl bought it and we toured it, playing festivals in Europe. Then we went over to America but it was not exactly the most successful tour in the world, it was a bit of a disaster that one but you live and learn. Then we came back from a festival in Venice and there were plans to do more shows and another record, but the awful motorbike accident happened and Marc was in a very bad way. That was it almost, we sort of lost touch and didn’t speak for about 15 years…
is released as a CD by Note For Note Music on 19th January 2018
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