Tag: Gary Numan (Page 15 of 20)

25 SONGS THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN SINGLES

19 February 2014 /

The concept of the single in the past has been to present an artist’s most immediate work for mass consumption and appreciation, often as a trailer for an album or compilation.
Like it or not, many acts’ best songs have been released as singles. They often reach an audience who would not normally be interested in the tribulations of a much longer journey.

Looking back throughout pop history, many pinnacles of a group’s career have been exclusively single releases; THE WALKER BROTHERS ‘The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore’, THE BEATLES ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, IAN DURY & THE BLOCKHEADS ‘Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick’ and THE JAM ‘Going Underground’ are a number of examples.

Today’s culture of individual track downloading now makes virtually every song in existence a single. However, a fair number of recordings which have become standards within live sets and have become a key part of a band’s history have never been accorded a single release. Such were some bands’ standings in their heyday that many were potential hits.

So here are 25 synth friendly songs which ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK felt should have been given singular status. Listing tracks not released as 45s or CD singles in the UK with a limit of one song per artist moniker, they are arranged in chronological and then alphabetical order.

GARY NUMAN Metal (1979)

With Minimoog riffage in abundance, ‘Metal’ would have made a perfect follow-up to ‘Cars’ and in hindsight, been less of a public anti-climax than the brave, but misguided release of ‘Complex’, as great a song as it is. Full of dystopian resignation with references to “liquid engineers” and chilling vox humana courtesy of the Polymoog, ‘Metal’ was Sci-Fi musicality at its best. Even NINE INCH NAILS covered it and nearly 35 years later, it is still part of the Gary Numan live set.

Available on the GARY NUMAN album ‘The Pleasure Principle’ via Beggars Banquet Records

http://www.numan.co.uk/

JOHN FOXX A New Kind Of Man (1980)

“I want to be a machine” cried JOHN FOXX as far back as 1977 on the first ‘Ultravox!’ album. Starting off side two of ‘Metamatic’, the former Dennis Leigh realised his mechanised JG Ballard inspired electro theories and went up to the next level with ‘A New Kind of Man’. Is it about genetically modified humans or homo superiors? Who knows? But the chilling Elka string machine and frightening detuned synthetics made it a distinctly new kind of song in a brave new world.

Available on the JOHN FOXX album ‘Metamatic’ via Edsel Records

http://www.metamatic.com/

JAPAN Swing (1980)

JAPAN found a refuge at Virgin Records who released their fourth album ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’. One of its best numbers was ‘Swing’ which combined David Sylvian’s muzak travelogue with Richard Barbieri’s Oriental synth textures. It was probably one of the last times JAPAN were fully as one. Guitarist Rob Dean made a full contribution before being forced out while the rhythm section of the late Mick Karn and Steve Jansen were amazingly fluid over the drum machine bossa nova.

Available on the JAPAN album ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’ via Virgin Records

http://www.nightporter.co.uk/

JOY DIVISION Isolation (1980)

OK, so JOY DIVISION never took singles from their albums but what if they had? This would have been a contender. Featuring an ARP Omni and an early version of the Simmons drum synthesizer, ‘Isolation’ was the most electronic track JOY DIVISION ever recorded although Hooky’s bass ensured there was a gritty punk rock edge. When NEW ORDER reformed for the first time in 1998, a drum ‘n’ bass flavoured rework of ‘Isolation’ was part of the live set.

Available on the JOY DIVISION album ‘Closer’ via WEA Records

http://joydivisionofficial.com/

THE HUMAN LEAGUE The Things That Dreams Are Made Of (1981)

Optimistic and aspirational, ‘The Things That Dreams Are Made Of’ is the key song from ‘Dare’ and was a metaphor for THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s then pop ambitions. Gloriously spacious and delightfully catchy, each synthesizer voicing has its place while Phil Oakey gives full justice to Adrian Wright’s shopping list of life’s pleasures to a perfect Linn Drum clap track. It certainly deserves to be played live more often… “New York – ice cream – TV – travel – good times”

Available on THE HUMAN LEAGUE album ‘Dare’ via Virgin Records

http://www.thehumanleague.co.uk/

KRAFTWERK Computer World (1981)

Hooky, catchy and futuristic, ‘Computer World’ with its Speak & Spell voices and infectious four note theme was an ideal KRAFTWERK single if ever there was one. However, the perky and novelty laden ‘Pocket Calculator’ was chosen to trail the parent album. It is unlikely ‘Computer World’ could have hit the top of the charts like ‘The Model’ did, but such was the song’s popularity, the native variant got released as a limited run remixed maxi-single in Germany.

Available on the KRAFTWERK album ‘Computer World’ via Mute Records

http://www.kraftwerk.com/

OMD She’s Leaving (1981)

It was a tricky call between ‘She’s Leaving’ and ‘Radio Waves’, but the North-by-North West melancholy of the former won over the upfront Germany Calling salvo of the latter. A wonderful synthetic cross between JOY DIVISION and Paul McCartney, ‘She’s Leaving’ was pencilled in as the fourth single from OMD’s huge selling ‘Architecture & Morality’ but was vetoed by the band.  However, when ‘She’s Leaving’ did come out as a single in the Benelux region, it flopped.

Available on the OMD album ‘Architecture & Morality’ via Virgin Records

http://www.omd-messages.co.uk/

SOFT CELL Secret Life (1981)

As proven by their covers of ‘Tainted Love’, ‘What?’ and later on during their 21st Century comeback ‘The Night’, SOFT CELL always had a love of the UK’s Northern Soul scene. Its influence would seep into their own compositions like ‘Secret Life’. Marc Almond’s narrative on a philanderer’s hypocrisy was an apt reflection of suburban life while Dave Ball’s solid use of keyboards provided a suitably accessible but gritty sub-Tamla soundtrack.

Available on the SOFT CELL album ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ via Universal Music

https://www.softcell.co.uk/

DURAN DURAN New Religion (1982)

The perfect balance between art and pop, ‘New Religion’ was a key highlight from DURAN DURAN’s ‘Rio’ album. “A dialogue between the ego and the alter-ego”, Simon Le Bon’s conflicting schizophrenic voices added tension in the bridges before a classic Duran chorus. With an ambient intro that JAPAN would be proud of, it then moved at breakneck speed through the quintet’s other influences like Bowie, Roxy, Moroder and Chic with speed being the operative word.

Available on the DURAN DURAN album ‘Rio’ via EMI Records

http://www.duranduran.com/

SIMPLE MINDS New Gold Dream (1982)

A huge song with two drummers drumming as well as lashings of Jupiter 8 and a marvellous bass engine, ‘New Gold Dream’ and its parent album highlighted an ambitious streak in SIMPLE MINDS akin to their Virgin label mates THE HUMAN LEAGUE when they released ‘Dare’ the year before. Already six minutes in length, an extended mix was released as a 12 inch single in Italy while as a sample on URSURA’s ‘Open Your Mind’, ‘New Gold Dream’ became a club hit in 1993.

Available on the SIMPLE MINDS album ‘New Gold Dream’ via Virgin Records

http://www.simpleminds.com/

VISAGE The Anvil (1982)

With its heavy metronomic beat sans hi-hats, ‘The Anvil’ was Steve Strange’s tale of a night out in New York’s notorious club of the same name. But that wasn’t all, Billy Currie’s screaming ARP Odyssey and Dave Formula’s brassy synth riff completed the excursion. Rusty Egan said: “For me, ‘The Anvil’ was the lead track, ‘The Anvil’ in German (‘Der Amboss’), the 12-inch remixes, all that which I did with John Luongo was for me, the single. But the record company didn’t support that!”

Available on the VISAGE album ‘The Anvil’ via Cherry Pop

http://www.visage.cc/

YAZOO Midnight (1982)

Showcasong one of the best Alison Moyet vocals, Vince Clarke’s minimal programmed backing gave her plenty of space to let rip with raw emotion on ‘Midnight’ . Back in those days, Mute Records usually only took two singles from an album so with ‘Only You’ and ‘Don’t Go’ already accorded singular status from ‘Upstairs at Eric’s’, a 45 was never likely. But it sort of belatedly became a single when it was sampled and manipulated by REX THE DOG for ‘Bubblicious’ in 2008.

Available on the YAZOO album ‘Upstairs At Eric’s’ via Mute Records

http://www.yazooinfo.com/

BLANCMANGE Game Above My Head (1983)

Originally the B-side to ‘Waves’, ‘Game Above My Head’ signalled the more disco based direction Neil Arthur and Stephen Luscombe later trod on ‘Blind Vision’ and ‘That’s Love, That It Is’ with American producer John Luongo. Merging the busy Linn Drum patterns that characterised BLANCMANGE’s debut ‘Happy Families’ with a funkier outlook, ‘Game Above My Head’ was included on their second LP ‘Mange Tout’. Today, the song remains a constant in the live set.

Available on the BLANCMANGE album ‘Mange Tout’ via Edsel Records

http://www.blancmange.co.uk/

HEAVEN 17 Five Minutes To Midnight (1984)

HEAVEN 17’s most underrated track and referencing The Doomsday Clock, ‘Five Minutes To Midnight’ followed on from ‘Let’s All Make A Bomb’ to highlight the absurdity of Mutually Assured Destruction. Using and abusing the Fairlight CMI, the ‘Protect and Survive’ styled civil defence announcements, deathly whoops and a doomy orchestral crescendo bring a frightening finality as the song suddenly stops… “Hot as a furnace – wing to wing contact! AARGH!”

Available on the HEAVEN 17 album ‘How Men Are’ via Virgin Records

http://www.heaven17.com/

HOWARD JONES Equality (1984)

‘Equality’ exploited new MIDI technology like the Prophet T8 and Yamaha DX7, combining it with a Jupiter 8 and Pro-One; “it was one of those ones that really suited my live rig” said Howard Jones With its poignant human rights message, whether ‘Equality’ would have made a better single than ‘Pearl in the Shell’ is a moot point, but the song was released as a single in South Africa as a commentary about Apartheid.

Available on the HOWARD JONES album ‘Human’s Lib’ via Cherry Red Records

http://www.howardjones.com/

ULTRAVOX White China (1984)

Despite their use of synthesizers, it was rare that ULTRAVOX went the whole sequencer route. They did so with this song about the impending 1997 handover of the British Colony of Hong Kong to Red China. The lyrics captured a sense of pessimism over a bouncy electro disco soundtrack influenced by ‘Blue Monday’. Slated for release as a single in the UK, ‘White China’ had a special extended mix prepared but Chrysalis Records preferred the more obvious ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’.

Available on the ULTRAVOX album ‘Lament’ via EMI Records

http://www.ultravox.org.uk/

A-HA Scoundrel Days (1986)

A-HA were perceived as a teenybop group in their heyday, but their Nordic melancholic depth was apparent even on their only UK No1 ‘The Sun Always Shines On TV’. “Cut my wrist on a bad thought” is a superb piece of second language expression that no native speaker could have come up with. Morten Harket veers from a semi-spoken growl to a full voice salvo for the terrific chorus while Pål Waaktaar’s twanginess adds some edge to Magne Furuholmen’s glacial synthetic atmospheres.

Available on the A-HA album ‘Scoundrel Days’ via WEA Records

http://a-ha.com/

PET SHOP BOYS Tonight Is Forever (1986)

Mistakenly announced as a new single on ‘The Tube’, ‘Tonight Is Forever’ is one of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe’s best early compositions. From its blipping intro with an odd starting snare drum to the magnificently euphoric chorus, it captured the excitement of a fleeting romance on a night out in clubland. With its sombre synth brass riff and a wonderful middle eight, it was later covered by Liza Minelli in an orchestral arrangement for her PET SHOP BOYS produced album ‘Results’.

Available on the PET SHOP BOYS album ‘Please’ via EMI Records

http://www.petshopboys.co.uk/

NEW ORDER Mr Disco (1989)

‘Your Silent Face’ may be one of NEW ORDER’s best songs, but it was unlikely to have got radio play as a single with its “why don’t you p*ss off?” quip! Meanwhile, ‘Mr Disco’ was the club friendly Mancunians in their Italo prime, complete with holiday romance lyrics and tongue-in-cheek syndrums. Some fans were dismayed by its resemblance to PET SHOP BOYS, but Bernard Sumner went and founded ELECTRONIC, aided and abetted by Messrs Tennant and Lowe!

Available on the NEW ORDER album ‘Technique’ via WEA Records

http://www.neworder.com/

DEPECHE MODE Halo (1990)

One of DEPECHE MODE’s greatest moments, Alan Wilder said: “From memory, the drums were sampled from LED ZEPPELIN’s ‘When the Levee Breaks’ (but secondhand from a rap record)… For the end choruses, there are some string samples which I think were derived from Elgar. One of my techniques is to find sections of classical strings and transpose / stretch these, then add my own samples, in order to formulate new and unusual arrangements”.

Available on the DEPECHE MODE album ‘Violator’ via Mute Records

http://www.depechemode.com/

ELEKTRIC MUSIC Kissing The Machine (1993)

Undoubtedly, ‘Kissing The Machine’ is Andy McCluskey’s finest song without Paul Humphreys as an OMD band mate. It also featured one of Karl Bartos’ greatest melodies. Recorded for his first project after leaving KRAFTWERK, Karl Bartos said “He suggested we do something together and I was up for it… We picked some cassettes and finally I found the opening notes of ‘Kissing The Machine’. A month later he sent me a demo…He wrote the whole song and the lyric and the robo voice” 

Available on the ELEKTRIC MUSIC album ‘Esperanto’ via SPV Records

http://www.karlbartos.com/

ERASURE Because You’re So Sweet (1994)

The closing track on the ‘I Say I Say I Say’ album produced by HEAVEN 17 and BEF’s Martyn Ware, ‘Because You’re So Sweet’ was a pretty ballad representative of the maturer approach taken by Andy Bell and Vince Clarke for their seventh long player. Featuring ERASURE’s trademark sequences, there was also the self-imposed restriction of no drum machines being used, so that all the album’s percussive templates were created using synths and driven by sequencers.

Available on the ERASURE album ‘I Say I Say I Say’ via Mute Records

http://www.erasureinfo.com/

MOBY First Cool Hive (1997)

There were eight singles from 1999’s ‘Play’ but for 1995’s ‘Everything Is Wrong’, Mute Records were more restrained with just five! Surprisingly, this vivid instrumental missed out on singular distribution. One of the highlights from the genre hopping MOBY long player, the looping bass sample of ‘First Cool Hive’ was like an update of ‘Empires & Dance’ era SIMPLE MINDS while female voice samples and beautiful synth strings gave it a mysterious ENIGMA-tic touch.

Available on the MOBY album ‘Everything Is Wrong’ via Mute Records

http://www.moby.com/

LADYTRON Discotraxx (2001)

‘Mu-tron’ may have opened the LADYTRON  debut album ‘604’ but the pulsating salvo at the start of ‘Discotraxx’ signalled the album’s intent… the return of the synthesizer as an instrument of value and integrity, not as a novelty to mock the past. From the moment Mira Aroyo deadpans in Bulgarian and Helen Marnie’s sweet but resigned voice kicks in about “the boy I know”, a new dawn is heralding for electronic pop.

Available on the LADYTRON album ‘604’ via Nettwerk Records

http://www.ladytron.com/

GOLDFRAPP Lovely 2 C U (2005)

The surreal concept was Kate Bush does THE HUMAN LEAGUE on this buzzy percussive extravaganza, one of the more under rated songs in Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory’s canon. The sub-TOM TOM CLUB meets PRINCE electrofunk is aided by Charlie Jones’ treated bass runs over the zooming synth hooks and chunky riffs. Interestingly despite its immediacy or maybe because of it, ‘Lovely 2 C U’ has rarely made it into the GOLDFRAPP live set.

Available on the GOLDFRAPP album ‘Supernature’ via Mute Records

http://goldfrapp.com/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
28th February 2014

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s 30 SONGS OF 2013

16 December 2013 /

In one of the most productive years ever for electronic pop music, it has been extremely difficult to whittle down the list to 30 songs.

The standard has been extremely high and songs which would have made the listing in previous years have been left off. This has meant the controversial omission of DEPECHE MODE. Despite being as popular as ever, grossing over $99 million during the ‘Delta Machine’ tour, once a shortlist for 2013 was drawn, the competition was so stiff that nothing from the album even scraped in!

Yes, 2013 has been that good and wonderful songs by the likes of KELLI ALI, ELEVEN:ELEVEN, GAZELLE TWIN, GHOST CAPSULES, GOLDFRAPP, HANNAH PEEL, IAMX, KOVAK, MOBY, NIGHT ENGINE, NINE INCH NAILS, SAY LOU LOU, and SOFT METALS have just missed inclusion too!

So the songs on this alphabetical list have been released in physical formats, or digitally as purchasable or free downloads during the calendar year with a limit of one song per artist moniker.

ADULT. Idle (Second Thoughts)

The new ADULT. album ‘The Way Things Fall’ was fittingly described by one observer as “a snuff film version of Speak & Spell”. The fears of relationships and the outside world have very much fuelled the dystopian demeanour of ADULT. While still retaining their distinctive edge, their mutant love songs have a magnetic charm. This was particularly evident on the fabulous single ‘Idle (Second Thoughts)’, a vibrant electro hybrid of GINA X PERFORMANCE and SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES which showcased a strange blend of menace and melody.

Available on the album ‘The Way Things Fall’ via Ghostly International

http://adultperiod.com/

ANALOG ANGEL We Won’t Walk Away

Moving away from the industrial battleground in which they made their name, ANALOG ANGEL began the year with the enjoyably immediate ‘We Won’t Walk Away’, a laudable tribute to OMD’s classic ‘Organisation’ era. Complete with primary chord structures, one-fingered melodies and motorik rhythm programming, there was even a hint of the dulcet tones of Andy McCluskey in John Brown’s vocal. But just one thing though… Paul Humphreys wants his Prophet 5 back 😉

Available on the download EP ‘Pride’ via Carbon 12 Records

http://www.analog-angel.com/

KARL BARTOS Without A Trace Of Emotion

‘Without A Trace Of Emotion’ saw Karl Bartos conversing with his showroom dummy Herr Karl and confronting his demons as an ex-member of the world’s most iconic electronic group. The most straightforward pop song on the ‘Off The Record’ album, its autobiographical resignation was not unlike ‘Life’ from ‘Communication’. But whereas his former colleague Wolfgang Flür vented his spleen in book form with ‘I Was A Robot’, Bartos took a more ironic musical approach with the line “I wish I could remix my life to another beat”, a wry reference to ‘The Mix’ project which drove him to madness and out of Kling Klang!

Available on the album ‘Off The Record’ via Bureau B

http://www.karlbartos.com/

BEF feat DAVID J ROCH Same Love

The concept of BEF’s ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction Vol3 – Dark’ is dark interpretations of perceivably upbeat songs using a variety of guest vocalists. One of the beauties of this type of project is how seemingly incongruous elements are fused together for a blissful whole. Here, melodramatic Sheffield singer/songwriter David J Roch tackles Bill Withers’ ‘Same Love’ via Martyn Ware’s wonderful arrangement blending a neo-acapella intro into a meaty electro-disco tune with spacey whistles and haunting invader games like Giorgio Moroder producing SPACE’s ‘Magic Fly’.

Available on the album ‘Music of Quality & Distinction Vol3 – Dark’ via Wall Of Sound

http://www.britishelectricfoundation.com

MARGARET BERGER I Feed You My Love

Co-written by Swedish electro songstress Karin Park, Norway’s Eurovision Song Contest 2013 entry came fourth. ‘I Feed You My Love’ was like Robyn and Kelly Clarkson fronting ‘Songs Of Faith & Devotion’ era DEPECHE MODE. In fact, its performer Margaret Berger came second in the 2004 series of Norwegian Idol so the description was quite apt. The on-paper incongruous outcome was leftfield by Eurovision standards but perhaps not entirely shockingly, it got nul points from the United Kingdom; it summed up mainstream tastes in the UK and the country’s general Euro scepticism if nothing else!

Available as a download single via Macho Records

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Margaret-Berger/101820056564427

CHVRCHES The Mother We Share

The saviours of synthpop had an amazing year with sold out club shows and five dates supporting DEPECHE MODE in Europe. CHVRCHES‘ most accessible track ‘The Mother We Share’ was synthpop perfection with the concept of Taylor Swift gone electro having uprooted to Berlin. It deservedly scooped Popjustice’s Twenty Quid Music Prize for best UK single. Despite its wonderfully catchy chorus, it was not wholly bubblegum with its plethora of futuristic sounds and strange noises! Lauren Mayberry, Iain Cook and Martin Doherty delivered on their promise with an impressive debut album ‘The Bones Of What You Believe’, save the two incongruous indie synth numbers sung by Doherty!

Available on the album ‘The Bones Of What You Believe’ via Virgin Records

http://www.chvrch.es/

ELECTRONIC CIRCUS Roundabout

ELECTRONIC CIRCUS are led by Chris Payne, the keyboard and viola virtuoso who was a member of Gary Numan’s band between 1979 to 89 and featured prominently on the Top10 single ‘Complex’. He notably co-wrote ‘Fade To Grey’ which became a huge international hit for VISAGE. With his adopted home surroundings very much the backbone of ‘Roundabout’, the track itself possessed a sexy and authentic Gallic charm, courtesy of Chris’ wife Dominique. The exquisite, almost naïve vocals over the most incessant synth riff either had listeners dancing with delight or irritated to the point of submission… the seemingly banal words were actually a very clever metaphor for midlife!

Available as a download single via Coverdrive Records

http://www.electronic-circus.com

FEATHERS Land Of The Innocent

It had to happen and the world found its female DEPECHE MODE! Led by vocalist / songwriter / programmer Anastasia Dimou, the sound was probably more like post-apocalyptic BANGLES or Belinda Carlisle with gothic overtones in hindsight. The first single ‘Land Of The Innocent’ was a wondrous epic based around the arpeggio of ‘Ice Machine’ and driven by a hard incessant beat. Possessing an industrial gloom with an enlightening pop sensibility, it was what LADYTRON would have sounded like if they had formed in a Texan desert rather than spectre of Merseyside!!

Available on the album ‘If All Now Here’ via http://feathers.bandcamp.com/

http://www.feathers.fm/

FOTONOVELA feat MIRRORS Our Sorrow

Not content with producing MARSHEAUX and collaborating with OMD on ‘Helen Of Troy’, Greek production duo FOTONOVELA unveiled a new sophomore opus which was more song based using a number of prominent international vocalists. One of the numbers ‘Our Sorrow’ featured the majestic voice of James New from the missing-in-action MIRRORS. The string synth laden ditty was in the vein of classic OMD and with the South Coast combo calling it a day in 2013, this was a fitting way to depart The Hall Of Mirrors.

Available on the album ‘A Ton Of Love’ via Undo Records

http://www.facebook.com/undofotonovela

http://www.facebook.com/theworldofmirrors

JOHN FOXX & JORI HULKKONEN Evangeline

John Foxx and Jori Hulkkonen had worked together previously but never before on a body of work with a conceptual theme. Their latest collaboration took on a grainier downtempo template and the lead track ‘Evangeline’was all the more beautiful for it. Full of depth, coupled with an anthemic chorus and vibrant exchange of character throughout, this rousing yet soothingly futuristic number was quite otherworldly. The title of the parent EP said it all…

Available on the EP ‘European Splendour’ via Sugarcane Records

http://www.metamatic.com/

http://www.jorihulkkonen.com

GIRL ONE & THE GREASE GUNS Jessica 6

Nobody really knows for sure who are GIRL ONE & THE GREASE GUNS but names like Sissy Space Echo, Warren Betamax, Charles Bronson Burner and Bruce LeeFax are commensurate with their manifesto “to thrive on causing confusion with a mixture of pure synth pop and more experimental electronic sounds”. ‘Jessica 6’ is a tribute to the cult Sci-Fi favourite ‘Logan’s Run’. The eerie post-punk cacophony laced with icy Yamaha string machine makes it the perfect belated choice for the soundtrack. Add in a frantic reverbed backbeat and it all comes over like THE PIPETTES fronting collaboration between JOY DIVISION and OMD.

Available as a download single via Squirrel Records

http://www.squirrelrecords.co.uk/girl-one-and-the-grease-guns/

GOLDFRAPP Thea

From a long player with distinctly orchestrated and acoustic overtones, ‘Thea’ was the most overtly electronic song on ‘Tales Of Us’. Alison Goldfrapp’s vocal soared angelically, surrounded by very subtle synthetic dance textures and layers of percussive craft. While the beat was mechanical, it didn’t sound out of place on the very organic parent album.

Available on the album ‘Tales Of Us’ via Mute Records

https://www.goldfrapp.com

KID MOXIE The Bailor

KID MOXIE is the musical vehicle of Los Angeles based Elena Charbila. Her first full length album ‘Selector’ was bolstered by a MARSHEAUX remix of its best song ‘Medium Pleasure’. Always sounding her best when adopting a breathy continental vocal style, Elena Charbila recorded possibly her best song yet as KID MOXIE with ‘The Bailor’, a dreamy and sexy tunes that glistened in the Aegean Sea. The Wayfarer remix of the song was also issued later in the year in aid of The David Lynch Foundation .

Available as a download single via Kid Moxie

http://www.facebook.com/kidmoxie

MARNIE The Hunter

LADYTRON’s Helen Marnie released her long awaited debut solo album ‘Crystal World’ in the summer. Recorded in Iceland, it suitably captured the island’s beautifully relaxed but volatile atmosphere. Its opening track ‘The Hunter’ was a tremendous calling card and the vibrant electropop single that LADYTRON never quite got round to releasing. Very pretty and delectably glacial, the tune was vocally and musically expansive like an Arctic escapist fantasy, melancholic but free of doom.

Available on the album ‘Crystal World’ via Les Disques Du Crespuscle

http://www.facebook.com/helen.marnie.official

MARSHEAUX August Day

MARSHEAUX’s fourth album ‘Inhale’ had been a long time coming. And it appeared as though the Greek financial crisis had loomed heavy over its making, resulting in moodier, midtempo numbers taking centre stage. ‘August Day’ though was a grower, developing on the maturer outlook apparent on the album’s concept, with a hint of CHVRCHES’ steadier paced output. Less immediate but overwhelmingly dreamy, it captured the senses after multiple listens.

Available on the album ‘Inhale’ via Undo Records

http://www.marsheaux.com

MESH The Way I Feel

MESH’s founders Mark Hockings and Richard Silverthorn know their audience so the lattice of danceable electro-rock continued on their best album yet ‘Automation Baby’. But the beautiful ‘The Way I Feel’ showed a more sensitive side with hints of Ennio Morricone. Shaped by acoustic guitar and string machine washes, the atmospheric maturity that MESH were now showcasing was a welcome surprise.

Available on the album ‘Automation Baby’ via Dependent

http://www.mesh.co.uk/

MONARCHY feat DITA VON TEESE Disintegration

MONARCHY’s ‘Disintegration’ featured the sexy burlesque queen Dita Von Teese on vocals. With its vampish disco crashing into elements of Giorgio Moroder, it sounded like the SCISSOR SISTERS gone right and even threw in a few VISAGE frequency warbles! ‘Disintegration’ was a rather excellent, stomping floor filler of the first degree with some hook laden energy and cooing feline appeal.

Available as a download single via Hacan Sound

http://www.monarchysound.com/

http://www.dita.net/

GIORGIO MORODER Racer

Giorgio Moroder is now 73 years old but is as vital as ever having produced the dance track of the year! Commissioned by Google Chrome for their online game ‘Racer’, the piano line was like ULTRAVOX reworked for Studio 54 while the whirring synths and trancey elements made it come over like history of modern electronic dance music squashed into 4 minutes. But as these ideas were mostly borrowed from Da Maestro himself, it was now his time to grab it all back. Moroder easily rivalled any young hopeful with a set of double decks and a laptop.

Available as a free download single via Google Play

http://www.moroder.net/

ALISON MOYET Changeling

Alison Moyet made a return to the electronic experimentation that made her famous as one half of YAZOO on her new album ‘the minutes’. With contemporary synthesized backing over a powerful rhythm construction and stuttering guitar textures courtesy of new collaborator Guy Sigsworth, Moyet’s deep emotional vocal resonated on ‘Changeling’ with a confidence and energy that dispelled the public’s perception of her as just a jazz singer!

Available on the album ‘the minutes’ via Cooking Vinyl.

http://www.alisonmoyet.com

NIGHT CLUB Poisonous

NIGHT CLUB Love CaSUALTYPositively feline but dysfunctionally dark like Britney gone emo, NIGHT CLUB‘s cutely subversive ‘Poisonous’ based itself, like STEFY’s lost 2007 single ‘Chelsea’, around the riff of ‘Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)’. This superb slice of catchy electronic pop from the LA combo of Emily Kavanaugh and Mark Brooks roused with a huge crossover potential while possessing a sinister edge.

Available on the download EP ‘Love Casualty’ via Gato Blanco

http://nightclubband.com

NOBLESSE OBLIGE Hotel California

NOBLESSE OBLIGE are French theatrical performer Valerie Renay and German producer Sebastian Lee Philipp who specialise in a brand of abstract Weimer cabaret tinged with a dose of electro Chanson. NOBLESSE OBLIGE’s lengthy funereal deadpan cover of THE EAGLES’ ‘Hotel California’ highlights the chilling subtext of the lyrics to its macabre conclusion! The synthesizer interpretation of the original song’s iconic twin guitar solo will either be seen as total genius or sacrilege!

Available on the album ‘Affair Of The Heart’ via Repo Records

http://www.noblesseoblige.co.uk/

GARY NUMAN Who Are You?

‘Who Are You?’ is one of those great uptempo anthemic songs in the vein of ‘Listen To My Voice’ from 2000’s ‘Pure’ that confirms when Gary Numan hits the target, he hits bulls-eye! Written for a film about a musician with schizophrenic personality, it fitted well with the parent album ‘Splinter’ and its ‘Songs From A Broken Mind’. The album wasn’t just one-dimensional riff monsters and the varied material was some of Numan’s best work for years.

Available on the album ‘Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)’ via Mortal Records / Cooking Vinyl

http://www.numan.co.uk

OMD Stay With Me

OMD-English-ElectricThe standard of ‘English Electric’ was so high that any one of its song based tracks could have made the list. But ‘Stay With Me’ is the album’s hidden gem. The first Paul Humphreys lead vocal for OMD since 1986’s ‘Forever Live & Die’, the song was originally demoed as ‘Idea 3’ and voiced by Andy McCluskey. Ever the master of melody and inspired by events around him, Humphreys reworked it into a more straightforward love song but added a beautiful cinematic resonance. It came over like ‘Love Theme From St Elmo’s Fire’ meets ‘Souvenir’ with subtle lashings of white noise!

Available on the album ‘English Electric’ via BMG

https://www.omd.uk.com/

PET SHOP BOYS Fluorescent

“Incandescent…”; yes the hypnotic ‘Fluorescent’ was basically a buzzy dancefloor makeover of ‘Fade To Grey’ with the chilling Polymoog string preset from VISAGE’s original remaining in the mix while waves of synth sirens attacked it like a Martian invasion. The parent album was ‘Electric’ by name and electric by nature, and easily the PET SHOP BOYS‘ best body of work since ‘Very’. It more than made up for 2012’s lame duck ‘Elysium’…

Available on the album ‘Electric’ via X2 / Kobalt Records

http://www.petshopboys.co.uk

QUEEN OF HEARTS United

A stomping electro disco number produced by Mark Reeder who previously has remixed John Foxx, DEPECHE MODE and PET SHOP BOYS, QUEEN OF HEARTS‘ cooing Bush-like howls and breathy euphoria are a total delight to the ears while the mighty cavernous sound provides the heat! Yet ‘United’ has ended up as the B-side of the less satisfactory ‘Secret’. However, if songs like this are being seen as outtakes, this is all a good sign for her debut album in 2014 which is eagerly awaited…

Available on the download EP ‘Secret’ via Night Moves

http://iamqueenofhearts.com/

REPUBLICA Christiana Obey (TENEK remix)

Originally, written by Saffron with noted producer Andy Gray, ‘Christiana Obey’ had been doing the airplay rounds in 2012 but finally secured a formal release to coincide with REPUBLICA’s touring comeback this year. With its suitably big chorus, Saffron was on good anthemic form while a meaty remix from TENEK enhanced the song even further and made it ready to go!

Available on the EP ‘Christiana Obey’ via Republica Music

http://www.republicamusic.co.uk/

POLLY SCATTERGOOD Wanderlust

Polly Scattergood made her debut in 2009 with a self-titled album released on the iconic Mute Records. With key influences such as Bjork and Kate Bush, it combined jubilant experimental pop with her innocent, affected vocals. From her second album ‘Arrows’, ‘Wanderlust’ realised her potential with a slice of deliciously wired avant pop in the GOLDFRAPP vein, although closer scrutiny revealed it to be more like electronic COCTEAU TWINS with that rousing air of fragility.

Available on the album ‘Arrows’ via Mute Artists

http://www.pollyscattergood.com/

SIN COS TAN Moonstruck

The Finnish duo of Juho Paalosmaa and Jori Hulkkonen swiftly followed up their acclaimed eponymous debut of 2012 with ‘Afterlife’. Hulkkonen said back in 2011 that it was being a fan of PET SHOP BOYS that inspired him to make music. ‘Moonstruck’ is a fine melancholic beat ballad in the Tennant/Lowe tradition where Paalosmaa’s emotive lost boy demeanour blends wonderfully with the sweeping drifts and building swathes of synth strings. It is also possibly the best song of its type that Neil and Chris never recorded.

Available on the album ‘Afterlife’ via Solina Records

http://sincostan.net/

VILE ELECTRODES Damaged Software

Like ‘Twin Peaks’ meets ORBITAL, ‘Damaged Software’ was an enticing piece of electro from Anais Neon and Martin Swan which affirmed their status as Britain’s premiere independent synth duo. With a tour supporting OMD in Germany where they encountered the likes of Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flür backstage, their vile adventure of meeting former KRAFTWERK members continued when they shared the bill with Michael Rother at Elektrofest. Three years in the making, the parent album ‘The future through a lens’ was well worth the wait.

Available on the album ‘The future through a lens’ via https://vileelectrodes.bandcamp.com/album/the-future-through-a-lens

http://www.vileelectrodes.co.uk

WESTBAM feat RICHARD BUTLER You Need The Drugs

Techno DJ WESTBAM celebrated 30 years in the music business with an intriguing mature collection of songs under the title of ‘Götterstrasse’. While the theme of the album centred on the joy and euphoria of underground nightlife, the album’s magnificent launch single ‘You Need The Drugs’ was not actually a celebration of illicit substance use. Voiced brilliantly by THE PSYCHEDLIC FURS’ Richard Butler, WESTBAM himself said it was “the first explicit electronic appeal AGAINST the use of drugs with a clear message: drugs are a bore!”. From a brilliant album that also featured vocalists as diverse as Iggy Pop, Bernard Sumner, Brian Molko, Lil’ Wayne and Kanye West, ‘Götterstrasse’ was the surprise electronic release of the year.

Available on the album ‘Götterstrasse’ via Warner Music Germany

http://www.westbam.de/dt/en/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
16th December 2013

2013 END OF YEAR REVIEW

12 December 2013 /

The Correct Use Of VCOs

The year started appropriately enough with an electronic number ‘2013’ by Belgian duo METROLAND.

For the first six or seven months of 2013, it proved to be one of the most productive periods in electronic pop music. Not since the Autumn of 1981 when had so many significant releases coincided. It was strangely quality and quantity, a rare occurance in modern times for music, especially of the synth propelled variety.

That time saw THE HUMAN LEAGUE ‘Dare’, GARY NUMAN ‘Dance’, ULTRAVOX ‘Rage In Eden’, DEPECHE MODE ‘Speak & Spell’, SOFT CELL ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’, HEAVEN 17 ‘Penthouse & Pavement’, SIMPLE MINDS ‘Sons & Fascination’, NEW ORDER ‘Movement’, JAPAN ‘Tin Drum’ and OMD ‘Architecture & Morality’ all coming out within weeks of each other!

Interestingly from that list, only JAPAN and SOFT CELL are missing as currently performing entities although Marc ALmond himself made a number of concert and theatrical appearances during the year.

OMD got back to their Kling Klang roots with their best album in 30 years entitled ‘English Electric’. Although enthusiasts of the band’s pioneering work were satisfied, fans of OMD’s pop phase were confused as to why Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys had recorded an electronic album influenced by KRAFTWERK! This was an indicator of how the band have mutated and been perceived over the years.

But that was nothing compared with DEPECHE MODE whose single ‘Soothe My Soul’ was remixed by ZZ TOP’s Billy F Gibbons… although recognisably reworked, listeners could barely notice the join, thus fully confirming DM’s development into the world’s premiere stadium electro blues combo. Their album ‘Delta Machine’ was a big improvement on 2009’s ‘Sounds Of The Universe’, but it was no ‘English Electric’.

Among the other evergreens with new long players in 2013 were PET SHOP BOYS, BEF and Alison Moyet.

Messrs Tennant and Lowe finally worked with the ubiquitous Stuart Price to produce an album that was ‘Electric’ by name and electric by nature.

Meanwhile Moyet found her most musically compatible partner since Vince Clarke in Guy Sigsworth for the stunning return to form of ‘the minutes’.

Over at BEF, Martyn Ware assembled his most impressive cast of guest vocalists yet including ERASURE’s Andy Bell and CULTURE CLUB’s Boy George for the third volume of the ‘Music Of Quality & Distinction’ covers series; subtitled ‘Dark’, it featured some of Ware’s most starkly electronic work since he was in THE HUMAN LEAGUE.

Another welcome return came from electronic disco pioneer GIORGIO MORODER. The icon is now 73 years old yet with his stomping track ‘Racer’, he proved could mix it with all the young pretenders. Indeed, his autobiographical contribution to DAFT PUNK’s tribute ‘Giorgio By Moroder’ reflected the respect and admiration he holds within the dance world.

Although only a few years younger, KRAFTWERK’s Ralf Hütter showed no real signs of moving his iconic brand forward despite the 3D spectacle of ‘Der Katalog 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8’ live retrospectives in Düsseldorf, London, Tokyo and Sydney.

With the various hosting art spaces still seeing their ticketing systems collapse, was this really just an elaborate publicity stunt? After all, how many heritage acts get on the news for sending websites into meltdown?

It certainly didn’t do KRAFTWERK any harm as a headlining slot at Latitude Festival and its resultant BBC TV coverage proved. However, new material was still not forthcoming but such is the demand that several unscrupulous eBay dealers in Russia were passing off CD-Rs of three tracks from METROLAND’s 2012 album ‘Mind The Gap’ as KRAFTWERK demos!

Meanwhile, former colleague Karl Bartos exorcised his Kling Klang ghost with ‘Off The Record’, a collection of his unreleased KRAFTWERK-era compositions which made a fine companion to OMD’s ‘English Electric’; his upcoming 2014 world tour is eagerly anticipated.

visage2013

Photo by David Levine

ULTRAVOX opened for SIMPLE MINDS but with Midge Ure spending most of the year doing the rounds with solo acoustic gigs, their synth lynchpin Billy Currie released his ninth solo offering ‘Balletic Transcend’.

Meanwhile in a revival of a project that both had been involved in, a fragmented VISAGE unleashed their first album in nearly 30 years to a mixed reception.

With just Steve Strange remaining from the original line-up, ‘Hearts & Knives’ was essentially a solo project.

There were heated exchanges on social networks between Strange and his estranged Blitz Club partner Rusty Egan about misappropriated royalties and the validity of the reconfigured brand. Whatever, the raw video recording of the new VISAGE performing ‘Fade To Grey’ live at London’s Hoxton Bar and Kitchen stood as possibly the most embarrassing moment of the year.

Artists who made their name during Electroclash such as ADULT. and MISS KITTIN made welcome returns in 2013 while also from that era, LADYTRON’s Helen Marnie released her first solo offering ‘Crystal World’ crowd funded via Pledge Music.

It was a novel but effective way of securing a promotional budget that involved fans in the process by offering exclusive updates and an opportunity to purchase exclusive memorabilia. In MARNIE’s case, items on sale ranged from hand written lyric sheets to her Mini-Cooper and a bikini!

Meanwhile, former SNEAKER PIMPS sparring partners IAMX and Kelli Ali also went down the Pledge Music route, pointing the way forward to a music industry future without interference from record label middle men. But the failure of several crowd funding campaigns proved the model was not for everyone.

The Britpop era was not particularly known for its use of electronics but two acts who did indulge, REPUBLICA and DUBSTAR, made formal comebacks on the live circuit in 2013.

mesh-webSeeded from around the same time, Bristol’s MESH made possibly their best album yet in ‘Automation Baby’. Celebrating 30 years in the business, techno icon WESTBAM assembled a diverse cast including Iggy Pop, Lil’ Wayne, Hugh Cornwall, Bernard Sumner and Richard Butler for an intriguing set called ‘Götterstrasse’. It was the surprise electronic release of the year.

There were also sophomore albums from LITTLE BOOTS, HURTS and AUSTRA which all drew muted responses from fans following their well received debuts; the promising spark had been present in all three acts appeared to have faded although each album had strong highlights. But there were impressive debuts in 2013 by GHOST CAPSULES, COLLINS and MODOVAR; and all this happened before the summer had started!

On the more guitar driven end of the spectrum, NIGHT ENGINE pursued an art rock aesthetic that would have made Berlin-era DAVID BOWIE proud. And of course, The Dame himself returned with ‘The Next Day’ headed by the touchingly reflective ‘Where Are We Now?’.

Adopting a more post-punk attitude, GIRL ONE & THE GREASE GUNS showed how battered synths, clanky guitars and motorik drums could still come together in perfect harmony while maintaining an air of mystery.

Meanwhile, WHITE LIES continued their New wave odyssey into how THE TEARDROP EXPLODES would have sounded had Julian Cope not got upset by BLANCMANGE’s ‘Happy Families’; they even borrowed a snatch of ‘Fade To Grey’ for the title track of their third album ‘Big TV’. This was despite the mainstream music media’s attempt to downplay their use of synths although the band countered that by declaring TEARS FOR FEARS, TALK TALK and THE BLUE NILE as kindred spirits rather than INTERPOL or EDITORS.

The second half of the year brought the much anticipated debut from CHVRCHES entitled ‘The Bones Of What You Believe’. The trio have moved the goalposts as far as modern synthpop is concerned but they were not without their flaws such as the inexplicable decision to use dreary indie-styled male lead vocals on a pair of tracks.

But despite this, with sold out club tours, gigs supporting DEPECHE MODE in Europe and the might of Virgin Records behind them, world domination surely beckons and with it, a new raised profile for the synthesizer overall.

Virgin Records themselves celebrated 40 years in the business with a series of London concerts and its legacy in electronic music was represented by CHVRCHES, HEAVEN 17, SCRITTI POLITTI and SIMPLE MINDS. Although the label is now owned by the Universal Corporation (having been under the control of EMI since 1992), its colourful history remains associated with the championing of new and unconventional music forms during its fledgling years.

And in a diversion from music, one-time Virgin signee Thomas Dolby produced and directed ‘The Invisible Lighthouse’, a documentary on a monument local to his childhood home. In a novel style of presentation, the film went on a tour accompanied by a live narration and soundtrack from TMDR with some of his songs dispersed in between.

Gary Numan’s long delayed ‘Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)’ finally became a reality. A move to LA relaxed him to the point where he was posting his holiday photos on Twitter!

Musically though, he was as intense as ever but luckily, ‘Splinter’ was not the one dimensional riff monster that had been threatened and contained some of his best work in over ten years. Interestingly NINE INCH NAILS, who have been a major influence on Numan and vice versa, also returned after a period of absence with ‘Hesitation Marks’.

Over at Mute, there was another Sorcerer versus Apprentice battle when GOLDFRAPP and Polly Scattergood both released new records in the same month. Now no longer on Mute but very much still part of the extended family, MOBY released the impressive ‘Innocents’ which didn’t tinker too much with his well established formula and included a great collaboration with Wayne Coyne of FLAMING LIPS that sounded like Gary Numan in a Pentecostal church!

In 2013, North America appeared to be turning into a new haven for synth talent. There was LA pop duo NIGHT CLUB while also based in the region, SOFT METALS continued their Detroit Techno inspired progression with ‘Lenses’. Slightly eastwards, Texan based FEATHERS made an impressive statement with their debut long player ‘If All Now Here’; a European tour supporting DEPECHE MODE in January 2014 was fine recognition of their talent.

Fellow Texans ELEVEN:ELEVEN finally got their debut album ‘Through The Veil’ out too. New Yorkers HOLY GHOST! sprung the enjoyable electronic disco of ‘Dynamics’ while also from the area, AU REVOIR SIMONE returned with their fourth album ‘Move In Spectrums’ after an extended break.

But one slow burning combo were Canada’s TR/ST; led by the enigmatic and moody Robert Alfons, at times he sounded like a young LEONARD COHEN updating the sleazy demeanour of SOFT CELL. They toured extensively and garnered some more well deserved attention for their grower of a debut ‘Trst’ which actually came out back in January 2012!

However, all the good work was undone by a ticket lottery fiasco for an end of year London gig in which unsuccessful applicants were not notified until three hours before the concert, this despite communications to the contrary telling people to arrive at the door with ID. In this ever more challenging music industry, artists have to be innovative with promotion. But restricting availability and tricking fans into what was effectively a marketing scam for a larger London concert in May 2014 only alienated audiences.

Like in previous years, Europe was again a centre of creativity. Athens based synth maidens MARSHEAUX were back with their maturer fourth album ‘Inhale’.

Meanwhile, their production team FOTONOVELA gathered DUBSTAR’s Sarah Blackwood, MIRRORS’ James New, KID MOXIE and SECTION 25’s Bethany Cassidy for ‘A Ton Of Love’ while riding on a crest of a wave from ‘Helen Of Troy’, their acclaimed collaboration with OMD.

The song ‘Our Sorrow’ featuring James New turned out to be particularly poignant as after a year of minimal activity, MIRRORS called it a day.

From their Berlin HQ, NOBLESSE OBLIGE delivered an ‘Affair Of The Heart’ with its stark funereal cover of ‘Hotel California’ while Slovenian trio TORUL impressed audiences opening for MESH. Still fiercely independent and uncompromising, THE KNIFE divided opinion with their performance art presentation of their experimental double opus ‘Shaking The Habitual’. From Demark, TRENTEMØLLER delivered his third album ‘Lost’, an adventurous blend of real and electronic instruments that more than proved his suitability as a future prospective DEPECHE MODE producer.

With the critical acclaim still resonant for her 2012 album ‘Highwire Poetry’, Karin Park continued to tour the world but found time to co-write Norway’s Eurovision entry ‘I Feed You My Love’. Sung by Margaret Beger and leftfield by pure pop standards, it came a respectable fourth but predictably, the UK gave it nul points! Following their wonderful eponymous debut album in 2012, SIN COS TAN swiftly followed it up with the more organic but still synth friendly ‘Afterlife’.

Never one to sit still, the duo’s Jori Hulkkonen also released an EP ‘European Splendour’ with John Foxx which sounded every bit as good as its title. Foxx didn’t sit still either and collaborated with THE BELBURY CIRCLE while also curating a covers EP of his own songs featuring GAZELLE TWIN and I SPEAK MACHINE.

Back in the UK, ANALOG ANGEL, AUTOMATIC WRITING,  F.O.X, GAPTOOTH and MAPS flew the flag for the domestic scene.

But best of the local crew though were VILE ELECTRODES; they snagged a prestigious support tour with OMD in Germany where the local crowds connected with Anais Neon and Martin Swan’s analogue electricity and opened for John Foxx in Brighton on their return. Their long awaited debut LP ‘The future through a lens’ did not disappoint and from it, the closer ‘Deep Red’ was easily the best OMD song that Humphreys and McCluskey never recorded.

As with last year, attempts were made within the industry to centralise electronic pop and dance music. But as the cancellation of the Playground Festival due to poor ticket sales proved, the two factions do not mix. Scheduled to appear on the Saturday, despite the technological influence of Gary Numan, John Foxx and Wolfgang Flür on the dance scene, the fans of those artists generally loathe the lifestyle and attitude of club culture.

Most just want to see the headline act and go home… the idea of paying an extra premium on the ticket price for a couple of DJs tagged on the see out the early hours of the morning simply doesn’t appeal! And those who are there for the DJs and larging it certainly aren’t interested in live bands. The sooner promoters and record labels realise that electronic pop and dance music are NOT the same thing, the better. That said, it was a difficult time for live events generally with a number of name acts playing to half full venues.

Elsewhere, the music press were on the backfoot with rumours that the once mighty Q Magazine and NME were in trouble. But lazy journalism and lack of adventure by both were as much to blame as any proliferation of the internet or smart technology. That aside, 2013 was a superb year where the music spoke for itself. Many of the veterans gave the best up-and-coming artists a real run for their money.

And while the amount of new electronic music was at an all time high and the finest exponents rewarded with assorted high-profile opportunities as a result, a number of lesser accomplished acts suffered from the comparison with the best.

Helen Marnie said: “I think it’s great that electronic music is on a high right now but it’s so saturated as well. Everyone’s going it’s great cos it’s electronic and I’m like ‘I’m not so sure’… but there’s lots of good stuff”.

In fact, the standard was so high in 2013 that some of the acts who ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK featured in 2012 probably wouldn’t have got a look in this year. From those who sounded like the middling bands featured on the Janice Long Show circa 1985 to 21st Century synthpop reincarnations of HUE & CRY, the volume of music available in many ways made it quite easy to distinguish the excellent from the pleasant but ordinary material that was, as the dreaded ‘Say Nothing Auntie Of Landfill Indie’ Jo Whiley would say, “alright”!

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK accepts the continuing mission to maintain a degree of quality control in 2014 as it has done since its inception.

As @TheRobMo put it on Twitter: “gatekeepers / tastemakers… it’s what we go to you for”. Meanwhile on the site’s Facebook, regular reader Brian O’Malley correctly added: “Not all synth music is great, and not all guitar music is rubbish”.

But the final word on 2013 must go to BEF and Glenn Gregory (or HEAVEN 17 if you prefer) via their electronic cover of an Ervin Drake song made famous by Ol’ Blue Eyes:

“And it poured sweet and clear… it was a very good year”

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK Contributor Listings of 2013

PAUL BODDY

Best Album: MAPS Vicissitude
Best Song: MAPS Built To Last (Free School Remix)
Best Gig: ALISON MOYET at London Royal Festival Hall
Best Video: HOLY GHOST! Dumb Disco Ideas
Most Promising New Act: JUVENILES

KAREN BUXTON

Best Album: VILE ELECTRODES The future through a lens
Best Song: HURTS Someone to Die For
Best Gig: OMD + VILE ELECTRODES at Leipzig Haus Auensee
Best Video: OMD Night Cafe
Most Promising New Act: MARTYN BAILEY

DEB DANAHAY

Best Album: GARY NUMAN Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)
Best Song: COVENANT Last Dance
Best Gig: GAZELLE TWIN at London Roundhouse Studio Theatre
Best Video: TRUST Bulbform
Most Promising New Act: TRUST

STEVE GRAY

Best Album: CHVRCHES The Bones Of What You Believe
Best Song: MARGARET BERGER I Feed You My Love
Best Gig: BAS 2013
Best Video: IAMX I Come With Knives
Most Promising New Act: TORUL

CHI MING LAI

Best Album: OMD English Electric
Best Song: FOTONOVELA feat MIRRORS Our Sorrow
Best Gig: OMD + VILE ELECTRODES at Cologne E-Werk
Best Video: FEATHERS Land Of The Innocent
Most Promising New Act: FEATHERS

SOPHIE NILSSON

Best Album: ALISON MOYET the minutes
Best Song: SPACEBUOY Breathe
Best Gig: DEPECHE MODE at Copenhagen Parken
Best Video: DEPECHE MODE Soothe My Soul
Most Promising New Act: CHVRCHES

RICHARD PRICE

Best Album: PET SHOP BOYS Electric
Best Song: OMD Dresden
Best Gig: KARIN PARK at The Lexington
Best Video: MONARCHY featuring DITA VON TEESE Disintegration
Most Promising New Act: CHVRCHES

Text by Chi Ming Lai
12th December 2013

GARY NUMAN Splinter Live At The Roundhouse

17 November 2013 /

On a crest of an artistic wave right now is Gary Numan.

In a career which has seen more highs and lows than many people can care to remember, his new album ‘Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)’ has seen him put together his most significant body of work since 2000’s ‘Pure’. But it has been a difficult realisation with recording having started on ‘Splinter’ 7 years ago.

Battling with relationship problems, depression and a mid-life crisis, eventually he pulled through. Gary Numan said “we’ve come out of it stronger than ever… I found because of all the sh*t we’d gone through, I had a huge amount of things to write about”. The resultant journey has led to songs which possibly could stand up as being among some of the best of his career. Numan readily admitted though: “they’re not the happiest of tunes to be really honest, but it all came from a very difficult time! Food for creativity!”


Whether it’s a new found relaxed state of mind from being confident in his musical abilities again or moving to the sunnier climes of Los Angeles, Gary Numan is on mighty form at The Roundhouse in London. Intense yet relaxed, there’s a focus in the performance, the material and the presentation of the ‘Splinter’ show. The film projections have gone, replaced by a huge LED lightshow that enhances the more electronic but heavy aura of ‘Splinter’, relying more on surreal standpoints to stir the imagination rather than literal illustrations.

Gone too is the sluggish material from the one dimensional ‘Jagged’ album of 2006 which often ground Numan’s live sets over recent years to a halt. The opening salvo of ‘I Am Dust’ is a magnificent statement of intent for the evening. The sound is crisp, powerful and dynamic.

Following on with the evergreen ‘Metal’, this highlight from 1979’s ‘The Pleasure Principle’ sounds like it could have been written last year. Its toughened stance even sees Numan venture behind an Alesis Quadrasynth and replicate the NINE INCH NAILS arrangement of the song with its extended ‘M.E.’ based climax.

More material from ‘The Pleasure Principle’ comes in the shape of ‘Films’. But on ‘Splinter’ songs such as ‘Everything Comes Down To This’ and ‘Here In The Black’, the reinvigorated Numan is headbanging vigorously and snarling like it is the last gig of life! Meanwhile, ‘The Fall’ returns in its ‘Dead Son Rising’ form thankfully after the ill-advised sojourns into remix variants while the industrialised attack of ‘Pure’ rouses the crowd.

But it’s the newer material from ‘Splinter’ that is of a less obvious rockist nature which really impresses. The title track’s Arabian demeanour breathes with space, beauty and melody while the orchestration on ‘The Calling’ takes Numan’s music into wonderfully expansive cinematic territory.

Interestingly, ‘Down In The Park’ sits within this part of the set and while Numan is not recreating the eras of ‘Replicas’ and ‘The Pleasure Principle’, the fact that material from this 1979 era blends so seamlessly with ‘Splinter’ and its songs from a broken mind indicates why this 2013 album has gained so many plaudits.

The show continues bravely into ‘Lost’, a stark number that sees Numan bear his soul. Stripped to just piano and voice in its first couple of verses, it is moving to the nth degree with its humanity and vulnerability. Numan is quite visibility choked in a manner than hasn’t been seen he performed ‘Please Push No More’ on the ‘Micromusic’ DVD of his 1981 farewell Wembley concert. But then Numan almost steals defeat from the jaws of victory with ‘We’re The Unforgiven’.

It creates an unnecessary lull to the show when it might have been more prudent to blast ‘Who Are You?’ into action; it is the key track from ‘Splinter’ that is missing tonight. But it’s only one lull and three quarters into the set… not bad when your consider how some Numan shows over the last few years have had four or five!

It all gets back on track however with the blistering anthemic rocker ‘Love Hurt Bleed’ and the brilliance of the 1980 single ‘I Die: You Die’. Closing the main set with the heartfelt, blippy cacophony of ‘A Prayer For The Unborn’ which is only spoilt by the first distortion of the evening, this performance is a triumph for Gary Numan.

For the encore, Numan inevitably dusts off the two UK No1s which turned him into the first synth superstar back in 1979. Not surprisingly it has to be said, ‘Cars’ sounds really out of place, even in slightly goth-ed up form. ‘Are Friends Electric?’ however never ages and has the audience chanting along like a religious ritual. But for the conclusion, it is the brooding but beautifully dramatic ‘My Last Day’ that closes, a fine soundtrack to see in the apocalypse if ever there was one, with the vox humana synths providing a most chilling musical spectre.

Free from the ballast of ‘Jagged’ and incorporating the best elements of ‘Replicas’, ‘The Pleasure Principle’, ‘Telekon’, ‘Pure’ and ‘Dead Son Rising’, the ‘Splinter’ show was Numan back to his best. The dynamic and tempo variation plus the return of more electronics all appear to have done the trick… everything comes down to this!

Special thanks to Duncan Clark at 9PR

‘Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)’ is released by Mortal Records / Cooking Vinyl

GARY NUMAN tours Europe in 2014. Dates include:

Leuven Het Depot (13th February), Amsterdam Melkweg The Max (14th February), Cologne Luxor (16th February), Hamburg Docks (17th February), Dresden Reithalle Straße E (19th February), Vienna Szene Wien (22nd February)

http://www.numan.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/GaryNumanOfficial

https://twitter.com/numanofficial

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Steve Gray
17th November 2013

GARY NUMAN: The Splinter Interview

17 October 2013 /

Photo by Keith Martin

If there is one man who has put the synthesizer on the map within popular music, it is Gary Numan.

Under the moniker of TUBEWAY ARMY, his memorable appearance on ‘Top Of The Pops’ in May 1979 with ‘Are Friends Electric?’ became many a music fan’s entry point into electronic music. The huge international hit ‘Cars’ swiftly followed and with it, worldwide fame and fortune.

The outstanding legacy of those two songs has put Numan is an awkward position, particularly in the UK where mainstream media only want to feature and talk about those two songs.

But by the same token in the last 20 years or so, ‘Cars’ in particular has been particularly lucrative, having been used in commercials for Carling, American Express, Nissan and Churchill.

This has allowed Numan to pursue his own distinctive and heavier path with albums such as ‘Exile’ and the critically acclaimed ‘Pure’. In a career of over 35 years with well documented highs and lows, it is Numan’s highs that have established him as a highly influential music figure. Covers of his songs by heavyweights such as NINE INCH NAILS, FOO FIGHTERS and Marilyn Manson have been indicators of the high regard by which the former Gary Webb is held.

But is it not just the murkier world of alternative rock that has acknowledged its debt to Numan. Even in the dance and pop world where tales of dystopia and icy alienation are not easily embraced, samples of ‘Are Friends Electric?’, ‘Cars’ and ‘M.E.’ have respectively formed the basis of massive hit singles by SUGABABES, ARMAND VAN HELDEN and BASEMENT JAXX.

Gary Numan’s new album ‘Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)’ is the follow-up to 2004’s ‘Jagged’. Although 2011 saw the release of the out takes collection ‘Dead Son Rising’, ‘Splinter’ is Numan’s first full length album project for seven years.

Produced by Ade Fenton and mastered by Matt Colton, the album features amongst its guest musicians guitarist Robin Finck, best known for his work with NINE INCH NAILS.

It sees a reinvigorated Numan in dynamic form, experimenting with classical orchestration on ‘The Calling’ and a more vulnerable but soulful vocal style on ‘Lost’ that will be a fresh surprise to anyone remotely interested in his work.

Dark dubdrops and spaces provide the much needed variation from previous works while sitting alongside are blistering anthemic synth assisted rockers like ‘Who Are You?’ and ‘Love Hurt Bleed’. With the opening gambit of ‘I Am Dust’ as a formidable statement of intent and the beautifully dramatic ‘My Last Day’ as its closer, ‘Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)’ is possibly Numan’s most significant work since 2000’s ‘Pure’.

Gary Numan kindly took time out to chat to from his new home in LA where he was in good spirits despite his wife Gemma’s illness at the time…

‘Splinter’ is finally upon us…it’s been a long journey?

It’s f***ing ridiculous isn’t it? *laughs*

It hasn’t taken 7 years to make; it’s just been 7 years since the last one! Half of it was written in the last 8 months since I moved to LA. A bit was in the 6 months before the move but the bulk of it was written in the last year and a half plus there were some of it that came from various half hearted attempts at the start… I’d probably got about 30-35 songs in the course of that 7 years but never got stuck into it until the last year or so.

There are many reasons for that; shortly after ‘Jagged’ we had a baby which was really cool; but then we had another unexpectedly and then another shortly after! So our life went from being fairly free, easy and hedonistic to suddenly having a family where your life’s not your own anymore! I, in particular didn’t adapt to the family thing very well at all!

I really love the children but the life that came with them I did not love at all… I really missed my old life. I’d turned 50 and was having a mid-life crisis; I got really panicky about dying and getting illnesses, weird paranoia, crying in the streets when I saw old people… I properly weirded myself out! So I went on anti-depressants, Gemma had post-natal depression from the second baby right through to our third so she had a terrible time. We both struggled with the responsibility of parenting and its fears, so we were both at our worst when we needed to be strong for each other. We started to have problems and it was horrible!

The last thing I wanted to do was start another album. I do them quite challenging I have to say. I find each one more difficult than the one before… the emotional rollercoaster that you go on!

They’re massively important to your life and to your future so it’s very easy to become overly self-critical and to have confidence issues. If I have a bad day in the studio, it has a terrible effect on me and it’s hard to keep positive. And that has a knock-on effect on your family. So you grate on each other again.

Luckily, we worked all through that and we’ve come out of it stronger than ever. I‘ve adapted to family life and it’s brilliant, I love it… we are honestly stronger than ever. We loved each other and got through it. I started working on the album more seriously but by now I had the children and they were massively distracting. I didn’t want to miss anything and so I spent far too much time being a dad. So when I got used to be a dad, I spent far too much time doing that rather than being a songwriter!

But then, the album started to go really well and I found because of all the sh*t we’d gone through, I had a huge amount of things to write about. So songs like ‘Lost’ and ‘The Calling’, they’re not the happiest of tunes to be really honest, but it all came from a very difficult time! Food for creativity! *laughs*

How did the momentum for finishing ‘Splinter’ begin? 

I actually did get a lot of confidence from ‘Dead Son Rising’ because that had its own problems; Ade bullied me into finishing that! *laughs*

It’s entirely to Ade’s credit that album ever happened because he was trying to do that while this sh*t was going on. At one point I said “I don’t like it” and I turned my back on it for a year and a half! I only rediscovered it by accident when we were on holiday; Gemma was playing a track in another room and I didn’t recognise it… I thought it sounded great!

So I went running to her and said “What’s that? It’s brilliant! If I’d written that stuff, I’d be writing albums” and she went “…it is you, YOU F***ING IDIOT!” – she said it was the ‘Dead Son Rising’ stuff that I didn’t like! I didn’t even recognise it and I went “I was wrong then because that’s really good!” *laughs*

So I rang Ade up and apologised about being so stupid so that we could finish the album. I suddenly did a whole load of work and got it done. I ended up being really proud of it. It got great reviews and the fans liked it. But I still didn’t throw myself wholeheartedly into ‘Splinter’ as it still felt like a huge project but that was the turning point. And when I came to LA, I built a new home studio and my work ethic was like I was 21 again. I was in there every day churning stuff out. The children were forbidden from even knocking on the door… as soon as I turned a machine on, a red light went on outside so they knew! I hadn’t been that efficient before!


Had ‘The Fall’, which was on ‘Dead Son Rising’, originally been intended for ‘Splinter’?

No, that was a demo from ‘Jagged’ or ‘Pure’. ‘Dead Son Rising’ had started out as a collection of stuff I hadn’t released. It ended up being mainly new songs funnily enough but that was the way it worked out.

Often you will write a song but decide not to put it on an album, not because it’s a bad song but it doesn’t quite suit that album. So you put it on a shelf and normally, you forget all about it. It was only a few years ago that I started keeping stuff I didn’t use, I used to erase everything!

Ade was round my house and asked whether I had any unreleased stuff. We went to the studio and found about 14-15 songs that we thought were good that were of a similar vein we could use. So when I got back from holiday, I wrote some new stuff so it ended up an album of more new songs but ‘The Fall’ and ‘When The Sky Bleeds He Will Come’ were definitely old ones.

On first listening, although it’s still heavy, ‘Splinter’ appears to be a lot more freer, looser than ‘Jagged’ with more variation?

I think that’s true. It’s far more varied than ‘Jagged’ and ‘Pure’, more variation in tempo, it doesn’t hammer on about God the way the last few have done! I learnt a lot from ‘Dead Son Rising’ because my original idea was really bad.

I was just going to make 12 songs, everyone of them was going to be a huge anthemic singalong epic… aural assault, brain damage, all that kind of thing! Then when ‘Dead Son Rising’ came out, that was very varied and I thought that was actually much more interesting from a songwriting point of view. A lot of the fan and media reaction commented on the fact that it was varied compared to what I’d done before.

So when I started to work on ‘Splinter’ in earnest, that became a requirement that we wouldn’t do this one-dimensional idea I’d envisaged. We did the opposite and made it more varied. We were careful about what songs we chose to make sure that we had that. I honestly think it’s a much better album to the one before it, a much more interesting listening experience than if I’d have stuck with my original idea… which was a sh*t idea! *laughs*


‘I Am Dust’ is a terrific opener that is a lot more electronic than some were expecting? Some have reflected it’s thematically close to ‘We Are Glass’…

We definitely moved away from guitars but they’re still on it; Robin Finck’s on it for a start, he’s one of the best guitar players in the world. But it’s an emphasis thing. On the previous albums, it’s shifted very much towards guitars being very prominent but this one is very much on electronic music… some songs don’t have any guitars on at all! It’s still the same mixture of instrumentation as before but the emphasis is different.

I don’t think I play guitar on any songs at all on ‘Splinter’… I may have done on the demos but not on the finished versions. It was a conscious decision right from the outset to make a more electronic album. But we still wanted it to be heavy and that industrial rock vibe running through it.

Arabic overtones come into the atmospheres of your work quite a bit now like on the ‘Splinter’ title track?

I’ve actually wanted to make an Arabian kind of album, that sort of vibe, for a long time but never actually done it. What I have done with ‘Splinter’ is sprinkled it over top of some of the songs. I really love it, some of the instrumentation in particular, the structures and the melody flows are beautiful, very atmospheric and emotional. And I do think it translates quite well to the sort of thing I do, I think it works. I just haven’t had the courage yet to go into it wholeheartedly, I’m still cowardly tinkering round the edges of it. But on this album, it’s more than I’ve done before but it’s still very much just a flavour like a gentle herb drizzled across the top.

Photo by Keith Martin

That’s interesting that you mention beauty, because it’s not necessarily been a term used to describe your work…

…but there’s always been melody; if you strip out all of the heaviness, quite often what you’re left with is quite pretty melodies.

I really noticed that on the ‘Jagged’ album. During the sessions, we would strip the songs back down to piano and the melodies were quite pretty.

But it’s the way we produce them that makes them heavy. You could take them in a very different way and have a beautiful album. I think a lot of that is true on ‘Splinter’.

If you listen to the song ‘Lost’, we deliberately haven’t produced that… it’s stayed sparse and naked; essentially it’s just a piano and a vocal all the way through it. The quality of the melody on that really shows because it’s undisguised. I think it’s the thing I’m best at from the melody point of view… it’s my only string point! I’m not a particularly good musician truth be told and Ade is by far a better producer than I’ve ever been. But melody is probably the one thing that I can do.

The vocal on ‘Lost’ intrigued me because it’s kind of… soulful?

Me and Ade had so many arguments about this! *laughs*

Ade decided and I reluctantly agreed to put the vocal on with virtually no effects on it whatsoever. When I used to make albums up to ‘Jagged’, I put a lot of effect on my voice because I’ve never been confident about it. I didn’t think it was very good and I would put double tracking on it, delays, reverbs… I would just swamp the f***er!

Ade and Gemma had been saying for ages that I should let the voice come out on its own and louder in the mix. So we have done it and it’s very reduced effects, one or two delays and gentle reverb. There’s no ADT, no harmonising which was my in-the-pocket effect for whatever I did… that’s all gone! And so to my ears, it’s horribly naked and I’m really uncomfortable about it! *laughs*

Photo by Keith Trigwell

‘Love Hurt Bleed’ is a good hybrid of guitars and electronics, a real highlight… did you change the ‘Splinter’ songs much from having played them live?

Not a lot, they were pretty well worked out but they are different. ‘Love Hurt Bleed’ has been played live for a couple of years now, it’s almost like an old song. It is different on the record but in detail really rather than anything dramatic. The structure is as it was, although we’ve made it more powerful than what we were able to do live funnily enough.

We played ‘I Am Dust’ live and that might be a little bit different on the album with the main groove. I’ve been compiling all of the demos and I noticed some of them were quite different, others were just more polished. But as songs, they were very much the same.

The way I work is I write them here and I work them up to a reasonably finished level, but knowing Ade is going to change everything! I give him a quality direction as to what I’m aiming for. He then works on them, sends them back and we have an argument. We change things, we argue again and we end up with what we end up with.

You joked in the ‘Splinter’ trailer about having a song at 150BPM. Do you find you have a natural aversion to faster tempos now?

Yes, I do! I think it’s impossible to convey any kind of atmosphere at that sort of speed! It’s just going to be a mental dance track and that’s it! The thing on the trailer that I was joking about was my drummer has been having a go at me for ages that I couldn’t write a song at 150BPM. I said “I can, I just don’t want to”! So we had a £50 bet on it! So there is one that’s 150 but it’s actually at half tempo, it’s running at 75… you can write everything at double time and halve it when you record. So technically, he owes me £50! But he’s not having it because he goes “it’s not really is it? It says 150 on the machine but it isn’t!” *laughs*

Which one was that?

I can’t remember! It might be ‘Love Hurt Bleed’! *laughs*

‘Who Are You?’ will be popular with those who like your uptempo anthemic songs like ‘Listen To My Voice’, what’s that one about?

I wrote that for a film; when I moved to LA, I was asked by a company to write the end credit song. It came out really well and I thought it would be good to have it on the album because it would help their film and the album but I don’t think that will work now due to the scheduling. So lyrically, it’s to do with the subject matter of the film which about a musician who has a schizophrenic personality. He’s actually a murderer but is also very charming so it’s about that.

In a sense, it doesn’t sit quite as comfortably within ‘Splinter’ for that reason but it works well. It sounds like it belongs there and gave the album another big uptempo track which it needed. I think the balance of the album is right; without that song, there would have been too many slower, doom steady kind of things so it gave it the right balance.

Do you know the title of the film?

I don’t actually, it had a working title but they’re not calling it that and they haven’t told me what they’re releasing under yet but we might know soon.

Your friend John Foxx still plays with vintage analogue kit while you’re happy with using the latest gear. What’s your favourite piece of equipment at the moment whether virtual or hardware, and where do you see music technology heading?

I’m very software based. There’s a company called Native Instruments who do some great stuff.

There’s another called Spectrasonics who make the backbone of what I do, they’ve got a bit of software called Omnisphere which is phenomenal but everyone’s got it unfortunately. So you have to be careful that you don’t use sounds everybody else has heard, you got to try and manipulate them into something new or else you will just become a preset jockey as so many people are!

It’s difficult to avoid it really because some of the sounds are just so amazing! Much as I understand other people wanting to go back to old equipment, I absolutely do not share it. I have no interest in it really… it might be because I’ve been around a long time, but I feel I got all the good sounds out of that equipment when I had it the first time.

And if I go back to it, it’s going to sound reminiscent… if I could come up with different sounds, they’re still coming from the same place, they going to have that buzzy analogue sound to them. And much as I love it, I feel like I’ve used it and for me, it will sound as if I’ve gone backwards… people will be going “ooooh great, that sounds like ‘The Pleasure Principle’”! I don’t want people to say that!

My interest in electronic music has always been to try and find sounds that I’ve not heard before. That’s always been the thing that’s most exciting and fun about it. So going back to old equipment will sound like variations of things I have done before, it doesn’t hold any real interest but each to their own. If other people find that inspiring and of interest, then that’s great.

I look forward to what Spectrasonics are going to do next. I get really deep into the technology for new sounds. When I was making this album, I was finding all kinds of software. I got loads of stuff from a company called, and it’s a terrible name, Best Service! What a sh*t name for a company but brilliant software! A lot of the Arabian stuff that you mentioned came from them. Mark Of The Unicorn did a fantastic bit of software with Arabian stuff too.


So what did you do with the Minimoog you found in your garage?

That is still being rebuilt! I got an email a few months ago from the guy who’s repairing it with a photo and it looked perfect.

He said he was waiting for some more parts which are quite hard to find and… I’ve heard nothing from him since! *laughs*

I had another Minimoog before that which I had rebuilt but the one that I found in my garage when I was moving to emigrate to the US, that was in a terrible state! F***ing hell, I couldn’t believe it! You’re hacking away at a bush and there’s a synthesizer underneath it! *laughs*

Is that going to end up in a museum, or are you possibly going to use it?

I was going to sell it because I’ve got no love for them whatsoever. But I’m beginning to build some kind of affection for that little one because it’s had such a horrible life… it’s toured with me around the world and been on my albums, and then I’ve abandoned it in a loft and a bush grows on top of it. That’s harsh! And now it’s hopefully all lovely and working again… whether I ever use it again, I doubt very much but I think I will keep it. I might actually mount it on the wall and just have it there, I think it deserves to be kept. Or I might even donate it to the Hard Rock Café or someone like that who might want it for a display item. But I’ll probably sell the other one…

I was interested in asking why with the excellent ‘A Prayer For The Unborn’ remix Andy Gray did back in 2001, you hadn’t pursued that more blippy but dark electronic direction as it appeared to suit you?

Yeah, I do like it… and that’s the version we always do live. I’ve not played the original version of that since Andy did his version. He did an amazing version of ‘Dead Sun Rising’ as well. He’s just brilliant, he’s a f***ing genius. In the future, I would definitely want to make a full album with Andy Gray and it would be more that way. We’ve done a couple of songs together and I love them both.

Sometimes, it’s about your own ambitions and what you want to do. Me and Ade go in a certain direction which I love and that is what I want at the moment, I’ve been pretty clear about where I want to go. It could be that we will go in different directions, I don’t know. With Andy, I would go into it with a slightly more open mind and see where it takes us.

Photo by Keith Trigwell

Your US tour includes two dates opening for NINE INCH NAILS. Is the possibility of you and Trent Reznor writing and recording together getting closer to becoming a reality?

It’s something that we’ve mentioned in the past a few times. Before, being in England was always a bit of an issue because you can’t just drop in when you have a free hour.

Trent works constantly, I’ve never known anybody with a work ethic like it! It should be much easier now, I’m only 20 minutes away from him.

But now the whole NINE INCH NAILS thing is up and running again and he’s mega busy with that. I’ve seen two of the shows already and it’s amazing. He sent me the album a few weeks back and it’s really cool. He’s just really good at what he does isn’t he? It’s always going to be good.

So I hope to, that would be something I’d be really excited about doing at some point in the future, but somewhat intimidated… it’s the only outstanding one for me. We’re mates and we live near each other, so it would seem to be something that is likely to happen at some point in the future but we’ll see… it’s been 10 years since we first talked about it so it’s obviously not going to happen anytime soon! *laughs*

You were spotted at DEPECHE MODE’s first London date on the ‘Delta Machine’ tour. How does it feel to know you and DM have both made such a worldwide impact from your Synth Britannia beginnings?

Yeah… their career’s done rather well compared to mine I would say! They’re doing football stadiums in every country on the planet and I’m not! I’m not jealous! Not envious at all about what’s happened to them! *roars of laughter*

They’ve done amazing and go from phenomenon to phenomenon. Just unbelievable really how well they done. Alan Wilder is a really good mate of mine, I regret that he’s not in the band anymore. I love DEPECHE MODE but my favourite period is ‘Songs Of Faith & Devotion’ where they went darker, heavier and frightening almost!

I think Alan has to take the lion share of the credit for that because I know he shaped that whole sound on ‘Black Celebration’, ‘Violator’, ‘Songs Of Faith & Devotion’ etc. For me, it got more and more interesting, and was really inspiring.

‘Songs Of Faith & Devotion’ was a key album in my music becoming much heavier back in 1994 and having the long career that I have had. In the early 90s, my career was pretty much dead and buried. But then I made ‘Sacrifice’ which resurrected me and off I went again. ‘Songs Of Faith & Devotion’ has a real big hand to play in that album so I’ve got a huge gratitude to Alan Wilder. He probably more than anyone was instrumental in saving my career. I wrote the songs, but I don’t know I would have done if I hadn’t had heard ‘Songs Of Faith & Devotion’. It just made me think differently and it made me want to make a different kind of music. It was massively important and that’s just the truth of it.

Have you and Alan Wilder ever discussed working together?

We never have actually but that would be great! He’s another one who’s an absolute genius. I love all of his RECOIL stuff and moan at him a lot that he should work more and get a singer! *laughs*

The work that he does is fantastic and maybe that’s something I should pursue because I love him, we get on really well… yeah… you’ve got some good ideas!


The move to the States appears to have relaxed you, you’ve even been tweeting photos of your holiday and dog Wilbur…

It hasn’t changed my songwriting at all, I still write the same sort of things as I did before. But in terms of life, it’s an amazing place to be. It’s difficult to praise up somewhere else without offending the British, because they get very easily offended of you don’t love Britain. *laughs*

I do love Britain, but moving here was very difficult decision to make. I have to say having done it, and there and many things I do miss like friends and family, it’s amazing here.

And 20 minutes drive away is the ocean, Malibu or Hollywood. I’ve had breakfast in Hollywood and you can park outside a restaurant… it’s not like England where there’s one parking space for every 2000 cars and if you do find one, you have to pay £10 a minute! Here, there’s valet parking for $2 for the day! Brilliant!

The weather is beautiful, you can live a very outdoor life because it doesn’t rain. It’s pretty here because they’re got irrigation and there’s greenery. There’s so much to do and so much entertainment here. It’s a culture unashamedly geared to having a good time. In England, you’re kind of made guilty for having a boat. It’s so different here and they seem to enjoy life and living in way I’ve not experienced anywhere else.

There is far less cynicism, less aggression. The British view of America is guns and violence, and although that is here, it’s very much located in certain areas. Where I live is peaceful and calm. I’ve not seen a fight since I’ve been here and I’ve been here 9-10 months now. I guarantee I could get off the plane in England and see that within an hour anywhere, any time of the day!

You gonna see a little drunk f***er or some thug in the street shouting or spitting! It’s kind of part of our culture and for all the talk of guns and violence in the US, it is not part of your day-to-day life. I’ve not been out for one single moment with the children where I tried to shoo them away or take them to one side or move on, not at all! Yet, it happened regularly in England, even in my little local village. So from that point of view, it really is better.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to GARY NUMAN

Special thanks to Duncan Clark at 9PR

‘Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)’ is released on 14th October by Mortal Records / Cooking Vinyl as a CD, deluxe CD and double vinyl

GARY NUMAN’s ‘Splinter’ Tour includes:

Atlanta Masquerade (25th October), Asheville Mountain Oasis Festival (26th October), Washington Black Cat (27th October), Brooklyn Music Hall of Williamsburg (29th October), Sunrise BB&T Center (October 30 – with NINE INCH NAILS), Orlando Amway Center (31st October – with NINE INCH NAILS), Bristol 02 Academy (7th November), Dublin Button Factory (8th November), Sheffield 02 Academy (11th November), Newcastle 02 Academy (12th November), Glasgow 02 ABC (13th November), Manchester Academy (14th November) Oxford 02 Academy (15th November), London Roundhouse (16th November), Brighton The Dome (18th November), Wolverhampton Wulfrun Hall (19th November)

http://www.numan.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/GaryNumanOfficial

https://twitter.com/numanofficial

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
Album artwork photography by LaRoache Brothers at Woolhouse Studios
Other photos as credited or from Gary Numan’s Official Facebook page
17th October 2013

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