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!
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)
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, BASEMENT JAXX and Armand Van Helden.
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*
Photo by LaRoache Brothers
‘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.
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 Richard Price
‘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.
Photo by Gavin Watson
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.
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
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)
1972’s ‘Popcorn’ could arguably be seen as Europe’s first electronic pop hit.
Made famous by HOT BUTTER, they were actually a combo of session players led by Stan Free who had been a member of FIRST MOOG QUARTET with ‘Popcorn’ composer Gershon Kingsley. It was largely considered a novelty record but it inspired many cover versions throughout the world including France where it was a No1.
There, one came courtesy of a young musician named Jean-Michel Jarre who recorded ‘Popcorn’ under the moniker of THE POPCORN ORCHESTRA. While working on his first proper full length electronic album in 1976, Jarre adapted a melodic phrase from ‘Popcorn’ as the main theme of what was to become the project’s lead single. That composition was ‘Oxygène IV’ and the rest is history.
After ‘Oxygène IV’ became a Top 5 hit in the Autumn of 1977, the synth instrumental became a popular medium, even spawning budget covers albums such as ‘Synthesizer Hits’ and ‘Synthesizer Gold’.
But coinciding with accessibility of affordable synthesizers, instrumentals were seen by some as a cop out for a B-side or album filler. A bridge between pop and experimentation, these tracks were actually an artform of their own and many would become cult favourites among enthusiasts who understood that music did not necessarily need words to convey an emotive atmosphere or make people dance.
However today, it does appear to be a dying art with some musicians not understanding that formless noodling, club racketfests or tracks in which the vocalist appears to have forgotten to sing don’t quite cut it. So here are twenty five other instrumentals from the classic era when the synth went mainstream and discerning listeners looked forward to an imaginative wordless wonder.
This chronological by year, then alphabetical list however has a restriction of one track per artist and features no tracks that use a repeated vocal phrase as a topline, thus excluding most recordings by KRAFTWERK! And if you’re wondering where GIORGIO MORODER is, his work was covered recently in his own Beginner’s Guide to him…
NEU! Isi (1975)
By 1975, NEU! had broken into two artistic factions with Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger unable to agree a direction for their new album. So they divided its space with the manic Dinger piloting his rambling proto-punk of side two and the more sedate and thoughtful Rother directing the less jarring first side. ‘Isi’ was a wonderful synthesizer and piano instrumental that was still driven by a motorik beat but less dominantly Apache.
Available on the album ‘Neu! 75’ via Gronland Records
Effectively the closing track on KRAFTWERK’s iconic ‘Trans Europe Express’ album, this neo-classical piece was eerily emotive with its combination of Vako Orchestron string ensemble over some gentle Synthanorma Sequenzer pulsing. The haunting elegance of ‘Franz Schubert’ was like Ralf Hütter had been possessed by the ghost of the great German composer, reflecting the art of his melodic and harmonic intuition.
Available on the album ‘Trans Europe Express’ on EMI Records
SPACE was the brainchild of Didier Marouani who went under the pseudonym Ecama and formed the collective with Roland Romanelli, and Jannick Top. With compatriot Jean-Michel Jarre and a certain Giorgio Moroder also in the charts, the space disco of the iconic ‘Magic Fly’ heralded the start of a new European electronic sound within the mainstream. With its catchy melody and lush, accessible futurism, ‘Magic Fly’ sold millions all over the world.
Available on the album ‘Magic Fly’ via Virgin France
Inspired by the grim Roman Polanski film, ‘The Tenant’ signalled the Lewisham combo’s move away from funk rock into artier climes. A merging of the second side of David Bowie’s ‘Low’ with classical composer Erik Satie, it saw Richard Barbieri play more with synthesizer and piano textures to create atmosphere while Mick Karn dressed the piece with his fretless bass rather than driving it. Karn’s burst of self-taught sax at the conclusion is also quite unsettling.
Available on the album ‘Obscure Alternatives’ via Sony BMG Records
For anyone who first became a fan of electronic pop during the Synth Britannia era, ‘Airlane’ was a key moment. As the opening track of ‘The Pleasure Principle’ and its subsequent concert tour, it was the calling card that literally announced “GARY NUMAN IS IN THE BUILDING”! Yes, Numan had done instrumentals before, but with its sparkling Polymoog riffs, ‘Airlane’ provoked excitement and anticipation.
Available on the album ‘The Pleasure Principle’ via Beggars Banquet
With their eponymous debut under their belt, YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA fully found their technopop sound on ‘Solid State Survivor’. Written by drummer Yukihiro Takahashi, ‘Rydeen’ was a percussively colourful pentatonic tune filled with optimism and flair. This was the trio at their best as the later ‘Technodelic’ was a quite doomy, while their swansong ‘Naughty Boys’ was overtly mainstream.
Available on the album ‘Solid State Survivor’ via Sony Music
Armed with an ARP Odyssey, Elka string machine and Roland Compurhythm, John Foxx’s ‘Mr No’ was like a futuristic Bond theme or a signature tune for some space gangster. The mechanical giro was menacingly snake-like while the swirling chill invaded the speakers to prompt some almost funky robot dancing. The ‘Metamatic’ era track originally surfaced on the ‘No-One Driving’ double single pack with aother instrumental, the more sedate ‘Gilmmer’.
Available on the album ‘Metamatic’ via Edsel Records
Written by Jeff Wayne for a cinema advert, THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s cover of ‘Gordon’s Gin’ kicks in like an commercial for Moloko Plus being sold at the Korova Milk Bar. Glorious and euphoric with futuristic sounds that weighed more than Saturn, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh left the band shortly after to form a project named after an imaginary group from a scene in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ discussed by anti-hero Alex with a couple of devotchkas at the disc-bootick!
Available on the album ‘Travelogue’ via Virgin/EMI Records
Of ‘Astradyne’, Billy Currie said: “Midge started with that strong melody, Chris’ bass was also a very strong feature. I played a piano counter melody behind. The track was so strong that we felt at ease to lengthen it with a long textural piano bit that is sort of bell-like with the metronomic bass drum beats and the violin tremolo solo… Midge came up with that final section lift taking it out of the long ARP solo. I double it! It is a very good strong keyboard part. It is very celebratory at the end…”
Available on the album ‘Vienna’ via Chrysalis/EMI Records
One of two Martin Gore compositions on the Vince Clarke dominated DEPECHE MODE debut ‘Speak & Spell’, ‘Big Muff’ was a fabulous highlight on the album’s more superior second side. Highly danceable and enjoyably riff laden, this futuristic romp was named after an effects pedal made by Electro-Harmonix who later branched into portable synths. It allowed many a synth obsessed teenager to declare “I like big muff” without embarrassment!
Available on the album ‘Speak & Spell’ via Mute Records
Even with the advent of the free download era, ‘Theme for Great Cities’ is one of the greatest freebies of all time having initially been part of ‘Sister Feelings Call’, a 7-track EP given gratis to early purchasers of SIMPLE MINDS’ fourth album ‘Sons & Fascination’. Starting with some haunting vox humana before a combination of CAN and TANGERINE DREAM takes hold, the rhythm section covered in dub echo drives what is possibly one of the greatest instrumental signatures ever!
Available on the album ‘Sons & Fascination/Sister Feelings Call’ via Virgin/EMI Records
Not actually written as an instrumental, the original was the B-side of VISAGE’s first single ‘Tar’ and much faster paced, featuring Steve Strange rambling about not very much. For its dance mix, ‘Frequency 7’ was slowed down and Strange’s vocal removed. The result was a masterclass in Barry Adamson’s bass counterpointing with Billy Currie’s ARP Odyssey bursts of screaming aggression and Rusty Egan’s metronomic electronic beats for a creepy robotic aesthetic.
There are two versions of this cult classic; a mutant countrified ambient piece based around the bassline of Brian Eno’s ‘The Fat Lady Of Limbourg’ from the ‘Some Bizzare Album’ and the lively Mike Oldfield inspired album version from ‘Happy Families’. Each has its merits but the percussively jaunty re-recording just wins over with its synthesized wallows, chiming guitars and crashing Simmons drums.
Available on the album ‘Happy Families’ via Edsel Records
The hypnotic B-side to ‘Face on The Wall’ showcased the fusion of the classical, rock and prog elements that were the core talents of Chris Payne, RRussell Bell and CedSharpley who had been the mainstay of the first GARY NUMAN backing band. Not a cover of Edward Elgar’s near-namesake composition ‘Pomp & Circumstance’ , DRAMATIS‘ rousing number would however make a perfect closer for the Last Night Of The Proms in the 22nd Century!
Available on the album ‘For Future Reference’ via Cherry Red Records
Technically, ‘DNA’ is not a really synth instrumental with the hook line being far too guitar oriented. However, it had a key role breaking down barriers for music with a more futuristic bent in synthobic America and snatched a 1983 Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. And for that, ‘DNA’ deserves kudos! A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS‘ cultural impact can be measured by leader Mike Score’s iconic hair style being lampooned in ‘The Wedding Singer’ and ‘Friends’.
Available on the album ‘A Flock Of Seagulls’ via Cherry Pop
A solo Dave Ball composition that was on the B-side of ‘What?’, the tall, pensive synthesist created an electronic disco number while Marc Almond was off doing the first MARC & THE MAMBAS’ album that would have done GIORGIO MORODER proud. Reminiscent of the Italian producer’s ‘Chase’, ‘….So’ featured wonderful percolating synths over a fabulously danceable groove and a solid metronomic beat that required no additional vocal histrionics or energetics.
Available on the album ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ via Mercury Records
CARE was a short lived project comprising of soon-to-be main man of THE LIGHTNING SEEDS Ian Broudie and THE WILD SWANS’ vocalist Paul Simpson. Combining acoustic strums with synthesizer melodies, CARE had promise but imploded due to musical differences. ‘On A With Cloud’ was an epic instrumental with thundering percussion, castenets, ringing guitar and heavenly synthetic layers that appeared the 12 inch B-side of the duo’s best 45 ‘Flaming Sword’.
Originally released on the 12 inch single ‘Flaming Sword’ via Arista Records, currently unavailable
CHINA CRISIS recorded a variety of instrumental sketches and the results were often superb. But as the duo of Gary Daly and Eddie Lundon only had a couple of hits, most of this material was little heard having been tucked away on B-sides. ‘Dockland’ is a prime example having been the flip of the flop single ‘Working With Fire & Steel’. The sublime nautical transience inspired by Liverpool’s once vibrant docks lying wasted in a period of high unemployment was captivating.
Available on the album ‘Collection: The Very Best of China Crisis’ 2CD edition via Virgin Records
‘Tiger Tiger’ is the best JAPAN instrumental that Sylvian and Co never recorded plus some would consider any DURAN DURAN track without a Simon Le Bon vocal to be a bonus. That aside, John Taylor and Nick Rhodes had more artier aspirations so indulged on this musical tribute to the William Blake poem. Taylor does a superb Mick Karn impersonation on fretless bass while Rhodes adds a great synth melody to proceedings.
Available on the album ‘Seven & The Ragged Tiger’ via EMI Records
Strangely enough, Vince Clarke is not really known for his instrumentals. Co-composed with Eric Radcliffe, ‘Stop/Start’ was effectively Clarke’s first instrumental as DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Any Second Now’ had a ‘(Voices)’ variant while YAZOO’s ‘Chinese Detectives’ was only played live. A Casiotone infused ditty with Linn drums and a cute melody, ‘Stop/Start’ was the B-side to THE ASSEMBLY’s only single ‘Never Never’.
Available on the boxed set ‘Mute: Audio Documents’ via Mute Records
Throwing off his mental chains, Mr Jones took inspiration from his own Buddhist spirituality and the overtures of Vangelis’ 1979 album ‘China’ for this rather beautiful piece which used to open his early shows. Using pentatonic melodies and sweeping chords on ‘Tao Te Ching’ in the style of Tomita and Kitaro, it’s a shame that this aspect of Jones’ quite obvious musical capabilities has never really been explored.
Available on the album ‘The Very Best Of Howard Jones’ via Warner Music
Inspired by a ‘Blade Runner’ sample, ‘Junk Culture’ was a reggae-ish number set to a bizarre time signature and signalled OMD’s move away from Germanic electronica. Still experimenting, only this time with more World Music forms thanks to the advent of sampling technology, the detuned Tijuana brass, deep dub bass and schizo voice snippets recalled the work of Jah Wobble, Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit.
Available on the album ‘Junk Culture’ via Virgin Records
‘The Marauders’ and ‘Empire Building’ showed TEARS FOR FEARS were adept at instrumentals and their best was ‘Pharaohs’, the B-side of ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’. Launched with a crunchy 6/8 heartbeat, the sedate piano motif and drifting synths gave a distinctly nautical feel, enhanced by sound bites from the BBC shipping forecast. But out of nowhere, the middle eight Emulator voice theme from the A-side introduces its partnering chordial guitar solo!
Available on the album ‘Songs From The Big Chair’ 2CD deluxe edition
This theme was composed in 1988 for the eight part Granada TV series hosted by Factory Records’ supremo Tony Wilson and featured two of Manchester’s most iconic club footballers, George Best and Rodney Marsh. With a great string synth melody, Hooky bass, clubby beats and Italo piano stabs, this prompted the FA to commision NEW ORDER to write ‘World In Motion’ for the 1990 World Cup, while the series allowed ‘Best & Marsh’ to embark on a popular speaking tour.
Available on the album ‘Technique’ 2CD Deluxe edition via London Records
Dramatic, tense and melodic, Vangelis’ closing theme to the acclaimed 1982 Ridley Scott directed Sci-Fi movie ‘Blade Runner’ succeeded in orchestrating a score using just synths and samples to maintain the futuristic unsettlement of the story. However, the glorious track was not actually released until 1989 on the ‘Themes’ compilation, while an actual soundtrack album didn’t actually see the light of day until 1994.
Available on the album ‘Blade Runner’ via Warner Music
“Living in a dream since 1983”, MAISON VAGUE’s ‘Synthpop’s Alive’ was one of the surprise albums of 2011 and possibly the best wholly independent release of that year.
Paying homage to Synth Britannia and in particular, Gary Numan, it was the work of Clark Stiefel, an Essen domiciled American musician based in a modern day Neudeutsche Schule. A classically trained virtuoso who studied piano and electronic music at a conservatoire, it was there that where he got to grips with both the Moog and Buchla modular systems that lit his passion.
With the eccentric demeanour of Hungarian 19th Century composer Franz Liszt, Stiefel added some quality musicianship and a wry sense of humour to the quirkily authentic proceedings. ‘Synthpop’s Alive’ was very much an album with air synth potential. The title track with its arching battlecry was initially a reaction to a YouTube video entitled ‘Synthpop Is Dead’. Totally disagreeing with its creator, Clark responded but instead of protesting via the comments section, he composed a song in a classic synthpop style.
Like the result of coitus between DEVO and PLACEBO, the opening Sci-Fi synth salvo and the line “Everyone’s entitled to opinion…you have yours and well, I have mine” was wryly countered with a retort of “And though it seems that our opinions differ… you’ll agree in time!” The blistering solo using an Oberheim OBXa is a total delight: “The OBXa has more of a rock’n’roll tone to it. I like that!” Stiefel told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK
Another familiar, stirring sound came courtesy of the Arturia Virtual Minimoog and its meaty octave bass drive. “One of the most brilliant pieces of software ever” added Stiefel. That particular VST dominated many of the album’s chunky riff laden tracks such as the immediately enjoyable ‘Pixelated Lover’. The combination of OBXa and Moog colours effectively revived The Gary Numan Principle and on the bouncily brilliant ‘Give Them Away’, ‘Observer’ from ‘The Pleasure Principle’ was developed into a far more complete composition. It also climaxed with a simulated violin solo that recalled ULTRAVOX’s Billy Currie who incidentally played on that same album.
Its more steadfast cousin ‘Buried In Sandstone’ was also decidedly Numan-esque in a ‘Conversation’ style while ‘My Situation’ took its inspiration from THE HUMAN LEAGUE but presented itself with a more symphonic overlay. Voiced by Stiefel’s snarling mid-Atlantic tone, it was as if PLACEBO had come from industrialised Sheffield.
Slightly punkier, ‘We’re Not Human’ was also cut from a similar cloth. The album however was not all Numanoid pastiche. Changing the rhythm stance slightly, the superb reggae inflected electro of ‘Tunnel Vision’ featured a terrific chorus high which was punctuated by lovely string layers and some fluid bass guitar. Meanwhile, ‘Colored Glasses’ journeyed into more cerebral depths via some terrific classical interludes in the muse of Beethoven but using multi-tracked Roland Jupiter 4s.
Affirming the multi-dimensional aspirations of the album, the hilarious and appropriately titled ‘No Show’ was a fine example of Bette Midler gone electro or even ‘Bugsy Malone’ with lasers instead of splurge guns… inspired by death of Michael Jackson, its sense of irony was an amusing musical diversion and wholly fitting in the context of MAISON VAGUE.
But to bookend ‘Synthpop’s Alive’, album closer ‘Living On Ice Cream’ returned to the former Gary Webb and looked back at his TUBEWAY ARMY days to ape ‘Replicas’ outtake ‘We Have A Technical’. As icy and surreal as the title, ‘Living On Ice Cream’ was a terrific closer that was both exhilarating and fun. As a whole, ‘Synthpop’s Alive’ combined midlife paranoia with fish-out-of-water eccentricity but a tongue-in-cheek slyness allowed the listener not to take it all too seriously…
The future could be seen though ‘Colored Glasses’ but for the follow-up, there may be some other plans as Stiefel has surmised: “I definitely feel musically I’m heading in a more minimal and transparent direction. This is an extreme example but if you could imagine Leonard Cohen playing synths. When one thinks of singer / songwriters, the first thing that comes to people’s heads is a guitar. You don’t really think of a singer/songwriter with a synth. But if the song is strong enough, then maybe you could just have a minimal accompaniment – perhaps only a Jupiter 4 and TR 606 drum machine? It’s only a dream at this point but this is definitely brewing in the back of my head.”
MAISON VAGUE ‘Synthpop’s Alive’ uses the following synthesizers and drum machines: Oberheim OBXa, Roland Jupiter 4, Roland Promars CompuPhonic (MRS 2), Roland MKS 50, Roland JP8000, Roland XP60, Arturia MinimoogV, Digidesign Xpand, Roland CR8000 CompuRhythm, Roland TR606 Drumatix, Native Instruments Battery and Submersible Kitcore Deluxe.
‘The Adam and Joe Show’ was a Channel 4 comedy programme, written and presented by Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish which ran between 1996 and 2001.
Featuring a variety of school boy minded antics and sketches, most weeks would see Adam and Joe recreating a popular film or TV show using cuddly toys or ‘Star Wars’ action figures. But another regular feature was ‘Vinyl Justice’ where Buxton and Cornish would visit various rock stars’ homes to search for criminal records in their possession.
The skit involved illicit and embarrassing vinyl or CDs being uncovered, the owner being interrogated and then humiliated by being made to perform the song to the cameras as part of the forfeit. One particular week in 1997, Buxton and Cornish knocked on the door of Gary Numan. Among the records that Mr Numan is questioned about are releases by BELOUIS SOME and SIMPLE MINDS!
Among the rituals Numan is forced to undertake are trying to play ‘Cars’ on a portable keyboard and passing wind in-synch to the phrase “incontinent” to Thomas Dolby’s ‘Windpower’! However, on closer scrutiny, his record collection is not actually that shameful when compared with some of the other musicians featured in the series!
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, ‘The Tenant’ signalled the Lewisham combo’s move away from funk rock into artier climes. A merging of the second side of David Bowie’s ‘Low’ with classical composer Erik Satie, it saw Richard Barbieri play more with synthesizer and piano textures to create atmosphere while Mick Karn dressed the piece with his fretless bass rather than driving it. Karn’s burst of self-taught sax at the conclusion is also quite unsettling.
was very much an album with air synth potential. The title track with its arching battlecry was initially a reaction to a YouTube video entitled ‘Synthpop Is Dead’. Totally disagreeing with its creator, Clark responded but instead of protesting via the comments section, he composed a song in a classic synthpop style.
uses the following synthesizers and drum machines: Oberheim OBXa, Roland Jupiter 4, Roland Promars CompuPhonic (MRS 2), Roland MKS 50, Roland JP8000, Roland XP60, Arturia MinimoogV, Digidesign Xpand, Roland CR8000 CompuRhythm, Roland TR606 Drumatix, Native Instruments Battery and Submersible Kitcore Deluxe.
is released by Video Collection International
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