Tag: Japan (Page 9 of 12)

STEVE JANSEN Interview

30 May 2017 /

Steve Jansen was just 18 years old when he recorded his first album as the drummer of JAPAN.

Founded with his brother David Sylvian and school friend Mick Karn in 1974, the trio soon recruited Richard Barbieri and Rob Dean before JAPAN were spotted by noted svengali Simon Napier-Bell who had managed Dusty Springfield and a pre-fame Marc Bolan. Signing to Ariola Hansa, JAPAN eventually found their sound with the sophisticated art rock of their third album ‘Quiet Life’. Decamping to Virgin Records in 1980, things began to gain momentum for the quintet with their fourth album ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’, as the arty poise of the New Romantic movement began to take hold within British popular culture.

However, JAPAN were moving towards a more synthesized sound, with Sylvian and Jansen now also contributing keyboards. This ultimately led to the departure of guitarist Rob Dean, but the remaining quartet went on to record what many regard as JAPAN’s most accomplished long player ‘Tin Drum’. ‘Tin Drum’ was to become their biggest seller and assisted by a two prong campaign also involving their former label’s various reissues, JAPAN enjoyed a run of 6 successive Top 40 singles in 1982.

Despite their success, personal and creative tensions led to JAPAN disbanding at the end of their year. Jansen remained on good terms with his brother and his bandmates, particularly Richard Barbieri. While working with them on their solo ventures and in various combinations under the monikers of THE DOLPHIN BROTHERS, RAIN TREE CROW, JBK and NINE HORSES, there was also Jansen’s long standing friendship with Yukihiro Takahashi of YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA.

Jansen did not actually release his first solo album until ‘Slope’ in 2007. Featuring a number of guest vocalists including David Sylvian and Joan Wasser, the pair’s striking electro-blues duet ‘Ballad Of A Deadman’ was one of the highlights. His second solo long player ‘Tender Extinction’ was an evocative blend of songs and instrumentals which developed on the template laid down by ‘Slope’. But while mixing the record, Jansen came up with the concept for ‘The Extinct Suite’.

Not a remix album as such, the more ambient and orchestral elements of ‘Tender Extinction’ were segued and reinterpreted with new sections to create a suite of instrumentals presented as one beautiful hour long piece of music. A gentle blend of electronic and acoustic instrumentation including piano, brass and woodwinds, ‘The Extinct Suite’ exudes a wonderful quality equal to Brian Eno or Harold Budd.

Steve Jansen kindly chatted about his varied career and vast catalogue of work.

‘The Extinct Suite’ is a new album but sort of isn’t… how did the concept come about?

I felt that there was a lot of musical content behind the vocal tracks on ‘Tender Extinction’ that leant itself to being reinterpreted as instrumental music. My aim was to extract these elements and link them into a ‘suite’ which meant composing some new pieces as well as, in some instances, significantly altering the original source.

Was there a feeling that ‘Tender Extinction’ could be taken further?

In the sense explained above, I felt there was more to be explored.

Do you feel you now have more in common with classical composers in wanting to explore variations on a theme?

I doubt it. I explore sonics and arrangements and spend many hours sound designing and keeping an open mind as to where it all might lead. I don’t have many musical disciplines.

‘Worlds In A Small Room’, ‘Swimming In Qualia’ and ‘A Secret Life’ are just some examples of your other ambient work, how did you become interested in that area and which particular artists or composers have influenced you?

I like the effects of calm and dissonance and subtle change, elements that have been present in most of the music I’ve been involved in.

I don’t really listen to other people’s music anymore because I find I’ve no real use for it, but there was a time when I would enjoy ambient releases during the 70s / 80s by all the knowns of the time.

How do you differentiate your approaches for instrumentals as opposed to songs? What do you get out of instrumental work that you wouldn’t get from writing a song?

Songs usually require more structure and chordal shapes. Ambient music is as I’ve previously described and affords you the chance to deviate from the path and explore things on a whim.

In THE DOLPHIN BROTHERS with Richard Barbieri, you were recording perhaps more conventionally framed songs, how do you look back on that period?

It was a lost period. We found ourselves in a bit of a limbo. We came from a pop background and, unlike today, in order to survive in the music business you needed label backing, and the business of music was dominated by labels acting as moneylenders that wanted to see big returns. Without being a part of that machine you would disappear altogether. Richard and I were signed and dropped by Virgin (and their subsidiaries) 4 times in all and during that time we had to wait for technology to significantly move the goalposts.

Your 1986 single ‘Stay Close’ with Yukihiro Takahashi was a fabulous one-off, do you ever regret that the two of you never did a full joint album together back then?

We did an album under the name ‘PulseXPulse’ but it was more aimed at the Japanese market. Yukihiro is not very exportable and he plays into his own market because that’s what serves him best. I’m sure we could have made a collaboration album in the vein of ‘Stay Close’ but it would have been very much of its time.

You’re a proven competent vocalist but for your first solo album ‘Slope’, you brought in guest singers, a tradition that has continued with ‘Tender Extinction’… what was the ethos behind that?

I beg to differ. I don’t enjoy working with my own vocals, it’s much nicer for me to be able to write music with vocalists whose singing brings an unexpected dimension and inspires me to bring out the best that I can from the collaboration between myself and them.

You’ve always been more than a drummer and you utilised keyboard percussion on ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’ and ‘Tin Drum’; what attracted you to experiment with that aesthetic?

During JAPAN’s days I was often asked to play keyboard parts that required precise timing (pre-computers of course) and this was my foot in the door into keyboards… that, and the marimba.

During the ‘Tin Drum’ period, you had access to the then state-of-the-art technology like the first Linn Drum Computer and Simmons Drums. How did you find those to use?

At the time the Linn Drum Computer was exciting to work with, however the Simmons Drums were another matter. Very limited sound and extremely physically hard to endure due to the fact that the drum heads were made of riot shields which had no give and created shockwaves that caused finger joints to swell dramatically.

You had co-writing credits on ‘Visions Of China’ and ‘Canton’. Had these two originally been your ideas?

That would have been put down to the fact that what I was doing rhythmically played a bigger part than usual in the inspiration and direction of the songs. But in reality I don’t think it was the right way of doing it. I think all JAPAN’s music was methodically arranged by each member and warranted some co-writing credit however small.

Richard Barbieri still uses analogue technology alongside modern equipment and techniques, do you have any continued interest in vintage equipment?

Not really. Nor vinyl.

The 2015 release of the 1996 concert recorded in Amsterdam as the ‘Lumen’ EP was a reminder of what a fantastic combo of musicians you, Richard Barbieri and the late Mick Karn, with the addition of Steven Wilson, were. Do you miss full-on live work, especially as these days you appear to be more computer based?

I do miss it. I like performing live but I really don’t enjoy the cumbersome aspects of putting shows together where there are budgetary restrictions. There was a time when I would try to put a positive spin on such things but not anymore.

You have drummed for PROPAGANDA, ICEHOUSE, ALICE and MANDALAY as well as for Takahashi and Tsuchiya, while noted sticksman Gavin Harrison has cited you as one of his favourite drummers. Did the idea of session work ever appeal to you?

No, I wasn’t that versatile. I had my own way of doing things which meant that what I played wasn’t particularly universal and therefore the people that wanted to work with me did so because of the approach I took to drumming rather than fitting into place with a particular style of music.  This isn’t good form for a session drummer.

You worked with John Foxx and Steve D’Agostino on ‘A Secret Life’. Are there any other established artists you would be interested in working with?

That project arose from meeting at a Harold Budd concert in which we all took part. I didn’t have much to do that with that particular project except to take the Budd concept further of creating ambient sounds on a gong. I’ve never really looked to seek out other artists to work with except for vocalists, and even then I’m not keen on going for high profile people (which is just as well because why would they?).

You’ve been with major record companies, run your own independent labels, used distributors and have now adopted Bandcamp as a sales outlet. What is the future for an artist in your position?

I will continue to make music because it’s not a job as such, and certainly not a hobby, it’s more of a need to be creative and find a balance in myself. I don’t know if a time will come when I no longer feel the need to do it, have to wait and see.

You blog quite regularly on your Sleepyard platform. How are you finding engaging with a fanbase via the joys of the world wide web and all that it entails?

It’s nice to communicate with people. Not having been ‘a front man’ in the true sense of the word, I’ve not done a great deal of press. The idea of projecting my persona and claiming ownership of any one project has never really appealed to me as it might to some, but being able to answer specific questions that people might be curious about can be a pleasant exchange and sometimes gives me a chance to realign history a little. That’s all.

Photography is still very much a part of your life and artistic expression…

I have an archive of images that I’ve only recently been exploring and thus put a book out. I do appreciate photography and think it runs in parallel to being creative musically as music and visuals both paint pictures and are emotive in different ways but can also work in collusion.

What’s next for you?

I’m working on project EXIT NORTH (with the Swedes) and quietly working on new material.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its grateful thanks to Steve Jansen

‘The Extinct Suite’ is available in CD and download formats from the usual retailers and direct from https://stevejansen.bandcamp.com/album/the-extinct-suite-2

The double vinyl LP edition of ‘The Extinct Suite’ twinned with ‘Corridor’ is available from https://stevejansen.bandcamp.com/album/the-extinct-suite-corridor-lp-edition

Steve Jansen’s photo prints are available from https://www.thefloodgallery.com/

http://www.stevejansen.com/

https://sleepyard.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/stevejansenofficial

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
Photos courtesy of Steve Jansen
30th May 2017, updated 28th March 2020

RICHARD BARBIERI Live at Hoxton Hall

30 March 2017 /


Supporting the release of his third solo album ‘Planets + Persona’, Richard Barbieri presented an intimate live show that covered many facets of his recording career from JAPAN to PORCUPINE TREE.

While Barbieri’s rig featured the expected all mod cons like a MacBook, controllers and a Roland V-Synth, the set-up also included his beloved Sequential Prophet 5 and Roland System 700 Lab Series.

Accompanied by the versatile Swedish musician Lisen Rylander Löve on saxophone, percussion and voice manipulations, the pair began sedately with ‘Night Of The Hunter – (3) Innocence Lost’ from ‘Planets & Persona’.

Utilising a wide cinematic spectrum of electronic and organic colours, the show started in earnest with the sleazy rhythmic adventure of ‘Solar Sea’. The track’s atonal jazz feel with its spacey momentum saw Löve screeching into a Cold War vintage Russian Army microphone, while drowning her eerie larynx with a variety of gadgets. With a warping System 700 bass, it was part avant techno and part ambient as Barbieri moved across his four keyboards to provide texture and atmosphere.

Löve left the stage for Barbieri to perform alone in the evening’s first big surprise. After a series of improvised sweeps and shimmers, the iconic metallic cascade of JAPAN’s ‘Ghosts’

Barbieri handled the familiar detuned percussive blips on his Prophet 5 before playing the haunting string tones on the V-Synth as a drum loop kicked in. “Oh, I didn’t expect that much applause!” responded the Catford boy after the crowd roared with approval at the end.

Next, the rumbling sub-bass squelches of ‘Medication Time’ from Barbieri’s debut solo long player ‘Things Buried’ shook the fittings of the venue which was built in 1863. As elements of TANGERINE DREAM filled the room, there was yet another surprise when the melancholic electric piano motif from the JAPAN cover of THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO’s ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ appeared at various intervals.

Barbieri continued with the work of his former band by playing the gentle “dolphin music” of ‘The Experience Of Swimming’, the track he composed for the B-side of the ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’ single. As the beautifully nautical ambience reached its coda, elements of ‘Nightporter’ were subtly segued in.

Löve returned for ‘Unholy’ with the widescreen vibe countered by unsettling Nordic voice samples, before being followed by the spacey avant jazz of ‘New Found Land’ which was originally written by Barbieri for PORCUPINE TREE.

During this sequence of music, Löve added a kalimba to her repertoire which enhanced the electro- acoustic balance with an authentic ethnic touch.

Closing the main part of the show with ‘Hypnotek’ from Barbieri’s second album ‘Stranger Inside’, the rolling bass sequences, spy drama piano and muted Fourth World tension came together with a musicality that was like a masterclass in instrumental music… MG, please take note!

To rapturous cheers, Barbieri returned for an encore and with the self-deprecating humour he had displayed throughout the evening, he joked: “I didn’t want to wait too long, in case it died down”.

He treated the appreciative crowd with a superb electronic adaptation of PORCUPINE TREE’s ‘Idiot Prayer’. With the new arrangement at times sounding like SIMPLE MINDS’ ‘Love Song’, it was a fabulously energetic conclusion to proceedings.

Unafraid to delve into his glorious history, RICHARD BARBIERI ably showed why he is one of the most inventive synthesizer technicians that the UK has ever produced.

His modest, down-to-earth demeanour with a willingness to stay in the background has perhaps stopped him from being better known, but the music he produces today is still wonderfully intriguing and deserves further investigation.

‘Planets & Persona’ is released in CD, double vinyl and digital formats by Kscope

https://www.facebook.com/RichardBarbieriOfficial/

http://www.kscopemusic.com/artists/richard-barbieri/

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

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Richard Price
30th March 2017

LUSTANS LAKEJER Interview

25 March 2017 /

LUSTANS LAKEJER are the unga moderna trailblazers who were once described as Sweden’s answer to DURAN DURAN.

This was not entirely surprising with tall and handsome bassist Peter Bergstrandh’s rather striking resemblance to John Taylor and a song entitled ‘Rendez-Vous I Rio’, even though it was released first in 1981 on their second album ‘Uppdrag I Genève’!

Led by Johan Kinde, the band took a more electronic direction when keyboardist Tom Wolgers joined in 1981. Despite Wolgers leaving not long afterwards, LUSTANS LAKEJER continued their new found interest in synthesizers.

The 1982 sequencer driven reworking of their early single ‘Diamanter’ is hailed by many as a Swedish synthpop classic and the band came to international attention when their third long player ‘En Plats I Solen’ was produced by Richard Barbieri of JAPAN. The album was subsequently released in English as ‘A Place In the Sun’ in 1983, with the band changing their name to VANITY FAIR.

After two further albums ‘Lustavision’ and ‘Sinnenas Rike’, LUSTANS LAKEJER disbanded with Kinde embarking on a solo career. But the band returned with Tom Wolgers rejoining in 1999 for the album ‘Åkerberga’. They then entered Melodienfestival in 2007, competing to represent Sweden in the European Song Contest.

With LUSTANS LAKEJER to tour ‘En Plats I Solen’ later this year, mainman Johan Kinde kindly chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the band’s career…

You are performing ‘En Plats I Solen’ on tour this Autumn?

Yes, that’s the plan. No dates or venues are fixed yet, but the idea is to start the tour mid-October / early November, more or less exactly 35 years since the release of the album.

Why do you see this as the LUSTANS LAKEJAR album, the one that fans and critics have the most affection for?

Well, the critics’ choice is actually usually our first album. ‘En Plats I Solen’ is our third and the fans are pretty much split between one of the three first albums. Some, quite rightly, are also very fond of our two comeback albums ‘Åkersberga’ (1999) and ‘Elixir’ (2011).

I believe, however, that those who prefer ‘En Plats I Solen’ very much do so because of the atmosphere and the sound; it was a rather big step forward compared to the two previous albums. Of course, it also has some stellar songs.

How did Richard Barbieri come to be involved in ‘En Plats I Solen’? What was the thinking behind him being the producer?

It was actually Klas Lunding, the head of our record company Stranded Rekords, who got in touch with Richard first. I actually still don’t know how that came about. Richard was played ‘Diamanter’, the 1982 version that we had just finished; he became interested and came to Stockholm in the spring of 1982 to meet us. We all got along swimmingly and the project was given the go-ahead. The thinking behind it was of course to give the upcoming album a better sound, one that could perhaps even work on the international stage.

Although LUSTANS LAKEJER used synths on their first two albums, was the more dynamic electronic reworking of ‘Diamanter’ the seed to the new approach on ‘En Plats I Solen’?

That’s an interesting question, and in some sense that is correct. But that single was arranged, recorded and mixed before we had any contact with Richard and therefore is rather one of a kind in our repertoire. I do wish we would have revisited that hard synth-disco-oriented sound a few more times, if not on ‘En Plats I Solen’, then shortly afterwards.

As can be heard on ‘En Främlings Ögon’ (‘Eyes Of A Stranger’) and ‘Drömmar Dör Först’ (‘Something’s Got To Give’) , JAPAN were a key influence on this album, but what other artists were you listening to at the time?

Well, I don’t think ‘Drömmar Dör Först’ (‘Something’s Got To Give’) sounds very much like JAPAN at all, that one is more an example of another influence at the time, TALKING HEADS and especially their forays into funk and black music. We were very much into the rhythmic aspect of the music.

Then there’s all sorts of influences, from chanson (or at least CHARLES AZNAVOUR) to the more obvious like early ROXY MUSIC and Berlin-era DAVID BOWIE.

With the synthesizer textures prevalent on the album, how were these being procured? Was Richard Barbieri more involved in the programming, while Janis Bokalders did the actual playing?

Yes, that is basically the way it happened. However, Janis had just bought a Roland Jupiter 8 and he was also very good at programming, and since Richard hadn’t used that particular machine before, he worked mainly on the Prophet 5. But there were of course also a lot of cross-creativity, when Richard helped program the Jupiter 8 and Janis the Prophet 5; it was all very collaborative and non-prestigious.

I believe Richard even played some parts, but I can’t remember which or indeed if he actually did anymore. The vast majority of the keyboards were definitely played by Janis, but Richard had a huge part in the soundscaping. We also rented an Emulator, which they both experimented with. Lastly, Janis actually owned a EMS VCS3 which he used on some tracks without the keyboard, something he also does on the solo on ‘Diamanter.’

‘Den Glöd Som Aldrig Dör’ (‘Whispers In the Dark’) contained one of the first uses of an Emulator on a pop record; was utilising the state of the art technology an important aspect in the band’s direction?

The Emulator features prominently on both ‘Den Glöd Som Aldrig Dör’ (‘Whispers In The Dark’) and – perhaps even more – on ‘Något Måste Brista’ (‘In Spite Of It All’). And yes, we did like to experiment with new technology, but not for the sake of it, we always wanted to get something creatively interesting out of the new instruments. In the case of the Emulator, I think we only partly managed to do that.

What was it like to have the late Mick Karn contributing sax to three of the tracks on ‘En Plats I Solen’?

Absolutely fantastic. Mick flew in from LA so he had a great tan, a crisp suit and just looked like a pop star – or perhaps rather a movie star – in every possible way. He was so kind and helpful and came up with some great ideas and performances for the saxophone parts. He was also very entertaining and told some lovely stories from his youth. Even though he was only in Stockholm for about a weekend, I remember those few days with much joy. I was very sad to hear of his illness and subsequent passing.

Which tracks on ‘En Plats I Solen’ were the favourite ones for you and why?

I would count these as my favourites: ‘En Kyss För Varje Tår’ (‘A Kiss For Every Tear’), ‘En Främlings Ögon’ (‘Eyes Of A Stranger’), ‘Läppar Tiger, Ögon Talar’ (‘Lips Are Silent’) and ‘Drömmar Dör Först’ (‘Something’s Got To Give’), together with ‘Vackra Djur’ (‘Just As Wild’).

Some of them because I like the songwriting aspect of them, I think they are melodically and harmonically good compositions, others because of the arrangements and how the band actually sound when playing them. I also think Janis’ instrumental title track, ‘En Plats I Solen’ (‘A place In The Sun’) is a wonderful piece of music.

The album was later released in English as ‘A Place In The Sun’ and the band changed their name to VANITY FAIR, had this always been part of the game plan?

The English version was actually recorded first, in the summer of 1982 when Richard was in Stockholm. The lyrics for the Swedish version were recorded in separate sessions in the early fall of ‘82. So in a way we did have a game plan, in the sense that we wanted the album to be released internationally. The name VANITY FAIR, however, was something we came up with at the last moment before the actual release. We weren’t that happy with the name then and I’m not that happy with it now… 😉

The verbatim translation of LUSTANS LAKEJER is ‘The Lackeys of Lust’ or maybe ‘The Slaves of Lust’, but this didn’t sound right in English so we never really got it right. Unfortunately THE LOUNGE LIZARDS was already taken by another band… 😉

How did you find writing lyrics in English for ‘A Place In The Sun’? Did your approach to subjects change and did you eventually find yourself starting to dream in English?

No, the subject matter was similar to the first two albums. Perhaps this one is even more centred around love and particularly the loss of it, but that had more to do with private circumstances than a change in language. I usually start a new lyric with a title that inspires me and working in a new language, I found this approach even more stimulating. With a new language, there was a fresh feeling about a lot of the title and lyric ideas.

About the dreams – it’s quite some time ago, but I’ve written quite a few songs in English since then and I’m quite certain that I rarely or never dream in English. However, because I read so much English, even news, and watch so many Anglo-American TV series and movies, I do sometimes have a hard time to find the correct Swedish synonym for certain words. Several English alternatives are popping up in my head, but the right Swedish one seems to elude me. Very annoying…

Of course, the music industry was different back then. But do you think in hindsight it might have been better to keep the LUSTANS LAKEJER name for ‘A Place In The Sun’ to utilise the press momentum that had been gained from Richard Barbieri being the producer?

Well, we kept the name in Sweden and all the Scandinavian /Nordic countries. As I explained earlier, we all (including several record companies) believed that LUSTANS LAKEJER would be to strange a band name for the international market. It does not make any sense if you don’t understand the meaning of the words.

Two of the original Richard Barbieri produced tracks were dropped for the VANITY FAIR version of the album and the running order was altered, why was this?

We recorded a single version of ‘Lips Are Silent’ (‘Läppar Tiger, Ögon Talar’) which we at that time felt very happy with, and decided to put it on the English album. However, when we play the song live nowadays, we play the original version.

The reason to swap ‘Could You Be The One’ (Räddaren I Nöden’) for ‘The Texture of Her Skin’ (the B-side of ‘En Främlings Ögon’, no Swedish version of this song exists…) was that we felt that it would make the album a bit more energetic. This was also the reasoning behind the altered running order – instead of having the two tracks that became singles as song number 1 and 2 on Side 1, we let them open each side of the album. So it was really more a case of trying to find a better balance for the album, than anything else.

LUSTANS LAKEJER have had a fluid line-up with you as the constant over the years, what would you say are the advantages and disadvantages?

Well, the advantage is that I have had the opportunities to work with different musicians during the years, but that can also be a disadvantage. It’s easy to make good-sounding but less interesting albums when you can bring anybody in to play on them. Looking back, I wish I never disbanded the group after ‘A Place In The Sun’. We had something special together and could have gone on making extraordinary music, at least through the 80s.

What inspired your return as LUSTANS LAKEJER for 1999’s ‘Åkersberga’ album?

The two LUSTANS LAKEJER albums after ‘A Place In The Sun’ and my first two solo albums ‘Johan Kinde’ (1989) and ‘Valona’ (1990) had some great songs, really nice compositions, but lacked the originality of the first three albums. I wanted to get back to that mood, that style, without compromising the quality of the songs. And I think the producer Jan Lundkvist (who basically plays all the instruments) and I managed to do that very well, with of course some participation from Tom Wolgers, who played keyboards on the second LUSTANS LAKEJER album ‘Uppdrag I Genève’.

‘Cynisk’ is a moody triumph. How had your headspace changed musically by this time?

Thank you, it’s one of my own favourites from the album. Musically, I think it’s inspired by very disparate artists, as varied as BARRY WHITE – the chord structure has a lot of minor 9s in the verses –– and DEPECHE MODE with the bass synth arrangement in the chorus.

While DEPECHE MODE might be a rather obvious influence, Barry White is an example of how my musical tastes had expanded by that time and how I now could use these more complex tastes to influence me, but not overwhelm me. I mean, I’m not trying to sound like Barry White, I just liked that chords and made something quite different out of it.

With ‘Allt Vi En Gång Trodde På’, LUSTANS LAKEJER entered Melodifestivalen in 2007 which is Sweden’s national selection procedure for the Eurovision Song Contest. How did you find the experience?

Well, it was an interesting experience, even though perhaps not gratifying in the end. Looking back I feel we should’ve had a more synth-driven song, or at least done the song in a crisper, more synth-driven arrangement.

In Scandinavia, they take this event more seriously than in the United Kingdom and for example, an act like RAIN TREE CROW or THE DOLPHIN BROTHERS would never enter it. What are your thoughts on this?

I think it used to boils down to the fact that ABBA made their breakthrough in Eurovision in 1974. That was basically the first Swedish act ever to make it big (or at least that big) on the international stage.

In England, it was never that important, you were almost automatically an international star if you became popular domestically.

And even if it would have been a big thing in the UK, I don’t think those kind of artists like RAIN TREE CROW or THE DOLPHIN BROTHERS would fit the bill. Now, PET SHOP BOYS, THE HUMAN LEAGUE or DURAN DURAN – that’s another matter, they could’ve done it! 😉

The most recent LUSTANS LAKEJAR album was ‘Elixir’ in 2011, how do you find the music industry today with Spotify and social media? How has it worked for you as a veteran artist compared with the past?

No matter if you’re a veteran artist or a newcomer, it’s much much harder to get paid for recorded music today. That being said, I hope that one day soon Spotify and other streaming services will be able to pay a fair royalty to artists and composers because it’s far better than illegal downloading, and I think there’s no turning back to physical copies. I say this somewhat sadly, of course, because I love good album covers…

What’s next for you as LUSTANS LAKEJER after touring ‘En Plats I Solen’?

Well, we’re still touring with ‘Uppdrag I Genève’ and are still working on the venues and exact line-up of the band for the ‘En Plats I Solen’ tour in the Autumn / Winter of 2017, so that will possibly take us into 2018. I hope to get back to you with some exciting news about that soon!

I do have some new songs that I’ve been thinking about recording with the band, but this is just an idea at this point.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Johan Kinde

Special thanks also to John Linqwister

‘Uppdrag I Genève’, ‘En Plats I Solen’ and ‘A Place In The Sun’ are available as download albums via Universal Music

LUSTANS LAKEJER perform ‘Uppdrag I Genève’ live at Ystad Öja Krog on 14th April, Uppsala Katalin on 26th May and Gothenburg Liseberg on 13th July

Upcoming information on the ‘En Plats I Solen’ tour dates will be posted at https://www.facebook.com/LustansLakejer/

https://www.instagram.com/lustanslakejerofficial/

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
Photos courtesy of Johan Kinde
25th March 2017

RICHARD BARBIERI Planets + Persona

6 March 2017 /


Richard Barbieri releases his most sonically expansive album yet in ‘Planets + Persona’.

But despite a recording career of nearly 40 years, which began as a member the innovative art muzak combo JAPAN, ‘Planets + Persona’ is only Barbieri’s third solo work. Over the intervening years, he has worked with his former band mates in various guises, Steve Hogarth of MARILLION and most notably, prog rockers PORCUPINE TREE.

‘Planets + Persona’ comprises of seven lengthy instrumentals which while primarily electronic in nature, encompass organic tones and voice manipulation. Steve Hogarth, Barbieri’s wife Suzanne and Swedish musician Lisen Rylander Löve are among the vocalists who have been morphed into these new sounds. In an interview with ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, Richard Barbieri said of this ethos of innovation: “I layered up these voices that had quite interesting close harmonies so I manipulated them, put them into a sampler and further synthesized it… you know it’s real voices but it sounds slightly weird”.

Opening track ‘Solar Sea’ is a sleazy rhythmic excursion into another world. Using System 700 bass, the track’s atonal jazz feel is then augmented by the haunting voice manipulations of Lisen Rylander Löve; these warping noises are offset by soothing brass inflections and live drumming. Followed by the spacey avant jazz of ‘New Found Land’ which was originally written by Barbieri for PORCUPINE TREE, this one is probably the most melodically framed piece on the album, ideal for those who are perhaps a bit more cautious about sub-seven minute instrumental work.

The three movement ‘Night Of The Hunter’ begins sparsely with ‘(1) Summer’; cascading harps run in before some beautifully picked acoustic six string from Christian Saggese accompanied by Barbieri’s gentle orchestrations. However after those brighter beginnings, ‘(2) Shake Hands With Danger’ is much starker and sombre with the title’s announcer sample creeping in over the building percussive tension. The mood then subsides and on ‘(3) Innocence Lost’, sweeping synths, cacophonies of sax and a drum loop take things to their natural conclusion.

‘Interstellar Medium’ is the only piece that Barbieri performs totally solo on ‘Planets + Persona’ and here, he utilises the detuned pentatonic sound design that he pioneered on JAPAN’s ‘Tin Drum’ as well as more eerie manipulated voicing; it’s well-titled as it does what it says on the tin.

Meanwhile, the beautiful tinkling ambience of ‘Unholy’ is countered by unsettling Nordic voices before a deep synth bass rumble and acoustic guitars change the mood completely, aided by Löve’s soprano sax. As the album heads towards the final straight, ‘Shafts Of Light’ uses largely conventional instrumentation to achieve its icy atmospheric aims, featuring some lovely trumpet from Luca Calabrese.

Photo by Ben Meadows

Closing with the magnificence of ‘Solar Storm’, this is practically a full band jam with the legendary Percy Jones on bass and Kjell Severinsson on drums, while the ever versatile Löve blasts in with her sax. It’s all held together marvellously by Barbieri’s programming of bass and ethnic chimes, while what appears to be a guitar solo is anything but. As Jones solos with his fretless in the middle section over a mass of electronic sequences, it recalls why he was such a key influence on the late Mick Karn; JAPAN and ENO fans will love this!

‘Planets + Persona’ is not a one-paced ambient record, the variations in structure and tempo make this an enticing musical adventure outside of the conventional song format. Coupled with a sonic accessibility, this makes for a perfect mid-evening album of aural escapism.

As Barbieri himself put it: “‘Planets + Persona’ is more cinematic, it’s a wide spectrum of sounds so if I was a painter, you could say I’m using more colours”.

‘Planets + Persona’ is released in CD, double vinyl and digital formats by Kscope

RICHARD BARBIERI appears at Exeter Phoenix on Thursday 16th March and London Hoxton Hall on Tuesday 28th March 2017. He will also perform as part of The Seventh Wave Festival of Electronic Music in Birmingham on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th March 2017.

https://www.facebook.com/RichardBarbieriOfficial/

http://www.kscopemusic.com/artists/richard-barbieri/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Ben Meadows
6th March 2017

RICHARD BARBIERI Interview

23 January 2017 /

Photo by Ben Meadows

Richard Barbieri is the synthesizer technician who first found fame as a member of JAPAN.

Along with Catford Boys School pals David Sylvian, Mick Karn and Steve Jansen plus Hackney born guitarist Rob Dean, the quintet found fame in the country of Japan itself with their unusual hybrid glam funk rock. As an untrained keyboardist, Barbieri didn’t come into his own until he immersed himself into the brave new world of synths. His interest coincided with JAPAN’s change of direction into the more mannered, artful style as showcased on their third album ‘Quiet Life’ released in late 1979. However, the band were dropped by their label Ariola Hansa, but they had revealed their true potential and were quickly snapped up by Virgin Records.

As Barbieri grew more confident with his aural sculpting, JAPAN headed towards a more electronic sound with their final two albums ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’ and ‘Tin Drum’. Despite their success and a run of 6 successive Top 40 singles in 1982, all was not well within the camp. Although JAPAN split, Barbieri stayed on good terms with all of his bandmates, working with them on their solo ventures and in various combinations under the monikers of THE DOLPHIN BROTHERS, RAIN TREE CROW and JBK. In more recent years, Barbieri has been a member of prog rockers PORCUPINE TREE but with the band currently in hiatus, the veteran sound designer is about to unleash a brand new solo album entitled ‘Planets + Persona’.

Richard Barbieri kindly took time out to chat about his upcoming opus and career, as well as expressing some frank views about Spotify and the current generation’s attitude to music consumption…

You’re releasing your third solo album ‘Planets + Persona’, how would you describe it?

It’s probably the most expansive sounding album I’ve made. Sonically, I’ve used a lot performers and acoustic instruments to mix with the electronics. With previous albums, I tended to work at home with a laptop and software, but the more you work alone, the more it seems to have just one sound. ‘Planets + Persona’ is more cinematic, it’s a wide spectrum of sounds so if I was a painter, you could say I’m using more colours.

You’ve been with PORCUPINE TREE for many years now, why did you feel the time was right for another solo work?

It’s been quite a while! I’m not that prolific, a solo album seems to come out every 6 or 7 years! *laughs*

I never really know when I’m going to do one, it’s just when the time feels right. If I tried to write and record all the time, I think the quality would suffer so I know inside when it’s right. I felt quite inspired and things moved along pretty quickly really. So I decided to put more money into this and travel around to work with lots of different musicians and make it a real kind of experience as well.

Which do you feel are the pivotal tracks on ‘Planets + Persona’?

I’m happy with them all, but I would say my favourite is the first track ‘Solar Sea’, it encompasses everything I wanted to do with this album. There’s my obvious love of electronics and analogue synthesis, but it came from a weird rhythm that I constructed out of various samples and machines. I’d call it a sleazy rhythm, it feels good but there’s something slightly jarring in there and this set me off on this pattern. I worked everything around it using a lot of bass from the System 700 and wrote these jazzy chord progressions over the top which is quite unlike me, but I liked the atonal feel and I built that up with trumpets and saxophones.

Then it goes into sections where this musician I’m working with Lisen Rylander Löve does live vocals, but she’s manipulating the voice in real time, so it’s a vocal performance but she’s not actually using words, it’s vowels and noises with pitch shifting, warping and delaying. She has this table full of gadgets and uses what looks like an old Russian Army microphone for that lo-fi sound! When I worked with her a couple of years ago, I was so impressed that I wanted to work with her again.

‘New Found Land’ is like spacey avant jazz, how did that come together?

That’s the oldest track of all of them, I originally wrote it for PORCUPINE TREE, but as there was nothing happening with the group, I thought I would develop it myself. I would say it’s the most accessible track on the album, probably the most melodic and maybe what people would expect of me.

There’s a guy I work with, Steve Hogarth and I used his vocals from another project we’d been working on. I layered up these voices that had quite interesting close harmonies so I manipulated them, put them into a sampler and further synthesized it, so I ended up with a choir patch from his voices. That was the backdrop to the whole thing and I started to write these chord progressions. It’s a bit like 10CC ‘I’m Not In Love’ where you know it’s not a Mellotron or string machine or a choir or anything, you know it’s real voices but it sounds slightly weird.

You’ve hit on something there… there’s a deep choir sound that doubles with the ARP Solina on ‘Despair’ from the ‘Quiet Life’ album; how did you get that sound, was it a synth or a Mellotron?

There were Mellotrons at Air Studios where we did the album, and one was THE BEATLES’ Mellotron because it was Paul McCartney’s studio, he was there all the time and there was always their gear around. It could have been from that, but there was a choir setting on the Solina and that was really nice…

That solves a mystery then… Percy Jones plays on ‘Solar Storm’ from the new album and he was a key influence on all of you in JAPAN, particularly Mick Karn. What was it like to work with him?

It was brilliant, he’s a bit of a hero to me. We used to listen to that Brian Eno album ‘Another Green World’, the rhythm section of him and Phil Collins is just amazing. I’d never really heard bass played like that before, it was something different. With Eno’s synths and everything, it was such a great combination.

I’d always wanted to work with him but when you have him on a track, you have to accept he’s just going to go crazy and do his thing! He’s not the person to have if you want a particular arrangement but I knew there was space for him to be himself. I had a feeling it would work really nicely and there’s a middle section where there’s all these sequences going on. He’s soloing against them and I really liked that.

Photo by Steve Jansen

There is a wide instrumental palette on the album, but vintage analogue synthesizers are still your primary source of expression. Which particular ones have retained the most affection for you?

I’m using the ones I’ve always used… I haven’t got a vast collection, I’ve just hung onto the ones that have been the most useful to me and cover all bases. I’ve got the Roland System 700 semi-modular, and it’s the Laboratory Series so that’s the main console with three oscillators; you can patch as well so you can go either way.

I’ve been using that since 1978 and I bought that from Rod Argent’s Keyboards in Denmark Street, London. I use it a lot for effects, bass and spacey stuff. Then there’s the Prophet 5 which I’ve been using since the 80s, I’ve never found anything that sounds as lush, warm and beautiful. And there’s the Micromoog…

…was that your first synth?

Yes, I’m still using it! *laughs*

It’s incredible, it stays in tune, it’s wonderful. I find it’s more flexible than a Minimoog. Because of the routing, there’s a lot more to it than you think. You’re limited because you’ve really only got one oscillator, although you have a doubling effect where you can have an octave below or above. But there’s so many ways that you can route the modulations. Through the modulation, you’ve got sample and hold, oscillator and filter combined, noise and you can route these things all together.

Photo by Yuka Fujii

Do you go with Eno’s notion that you are identified by the limitations of your instrument, but that then challenges you more to take the instrument further?

Yes, one of the big problems today is these massive libraries that you have with software synths, and it’s too much! You can get lost… when you’re in a creative mode, you just want to get these things down, you don’t want to search through 100 different versions of a bass synth because by the time you get to the 99th one, you’ve forgotten what you wanted to do in the first place! Even on JAPAN’s ‘Tin Drum’ album which was quite an adventure in programming, we more or less only used two synths, the Prophet 5 and the Oberheim OBX.

I noticed on your keyboard rack, you don’t appear to have the OBX anymore?

I don’t… I don’t know what’s happened to it! *laughs*

I lent it to Mick Karn who used it on his album… it’s funny to think but in those days, you didn’t feel so precious about this gear because it was just the technology of its time. Now, I would do anything to find out where it is! To get one now would cost me about £7000 – £8000 probably!

Jump forward to ‘Gentleman Take Polaroids’ and you’d purchased the Oberheim OBX and Prophet 5 while also using the Jupiter 4, ARP Omni and Polymoog. Bearing in mind how costly somewhere like Air Studios was, was there ever enough time to explore the synths that were hired in, as opposed to the ones that you owned?

Some was hired and some was just there. The studios used to be pretty well equipped in those days. It was weird that album, ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’ was where the set-up was in transition; on ‘Quiet Life’, I had a very basic set-up that I stayed with and afterwards on ‘Tin Drum’ as well.

But here, we were using whatever came to hand. I did get quite into the Polymoog which I never owned, but used and enjoyed a lot. Sometimes in my mind, I think I’ve played something when I haven’t, like I imagined there was a Yamaha CS80 there, but I don’t think there was!

You also had the Oberheim Mini-Sequencer, what was that like as it’s not as widely known as say, the ARP Sequencer?

It was what I was recommended when I got the System 700, because I wasn’t getting the giant version with the Roland sequencers. It was pretty hard getting the right bits of gear to talk to each other in terms of control voltage, there all’s kind of problems but this combination worked perfectly with the System 700. I’ve struggled to find anything that ever worked as well with it.

I understand it had a limited number of steps and wasn’t the full 16?

No, it was just 8! Each control had separate tunings for CV1 and CV2, so you could make nice counter-melodies and harmonies. It was fairly limited although when I listen to it now on things like ‘Quiet Life’ and ‘Methods Of Dance’, it sounds pretty good.

On ‘Tin Drum’, you employed a policy of keeping things minimal by primarily using only the OBX and Prophet 5? What were the artistic challenges for you there?

The music was heading into being more minimal and things connected together like a jigsaw. So it was very much ‘question and answer’ melodies and riffs. In rehearsals, which was where most of the stuff was written and arranged, David Sylvian and I would just have one or two keyboards each.

But in rehearsals, you couldn’t record anything so in effect, you were making just one overdub. It influenced the way it went, but we had the discipline to keep things sparse. Space in very important in music, it’s as vital as the event. That album had a separation to it, people were playing in a sequence and you can hear the definition in everything.

Yes, ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’ was quite woolly sounding while ‘Tin Drum’ is very sharp…

It is very sharp and quite cold sounding I’d admit, but it’s precise. And ‘Polaroids’ is more woolly and warm.

I understand that on ‘Ghosts’, that cascading metallic sound in the intro was programmed by you and triggered using just one key?

That’s something I’ve tended to do from the very beginning… my introduction to music was basically trying to find ways of creating something without having to play too much! *laughs*

Not being a technically gifted player, the keys were of less importance to me than the actual controls. What I tried to do was to make more events happen from one note than playing 200 notes. The prime example to that is the intro to ‘Ghosts’ because it’s just one triggered note on the System 700, but I’d programmed in this evolving series of movements with filters, LFOs and pitch frequency oscillation. I’ve never been able to quite get that sound again, but it caused havoc for the engineer because there were lots of peaks and it was quite difficult to record.

There’s a really mad cascading synth thing at the very end of ‘Television’ from ‘Adolescent Sex’ too…

Yes, it’s on the Micromoog… it’s basically sample and hold where the pitch is going haywire! *laughs*

Photo by Fin Costello

If there had been a sixth JAPAN album recorded and released in 1984, how do you think it might have sounded?

That’s interesting, that’s a good question, I’ve never been asked that. Obviously, enough time had passed for RAIN TREE CROW that we went in a completely different direction. But if we’d recorded something maybe a year or two after ‘Tin Drum’, I don’t think the change would have been as drastic.

When I heard the David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto single ‘Bamboo Houses’ / ‘Bamboo Music’, to me that sounded like JAPAN without me and Mick, it was more computerised. I think we might have sounded like that possibly. And then there was a really nice single David did called ‘Pop Song’ which was using the extrapolated tunings on the Roland D-50 where you can widen out the octave or bring the octave in, you can get some really interesting scaling going. We started messing around with something like that on ‘Tin Drum’.

You mention the D-50, how did you find the digital and sampling revolution that followed after ‘Tin Drum’?

Of course, you get into it. It’s something of the time and it’s exciting, so you want to try these things. I think I’m lucky because the D-50 was one of the best, I never warmed to the Yamaha DX7 because it was too cumbersome with all those layers and layers of menus on a tiny little screen. I had the programmer with the D-50 which really helped. I think it’s amazing with nice analogue tones on the waveforms, I used it on so much. In later years, I was using a JV-2080 and the Roland V–Synth, they’re great. I think I’ve made the right choices.

Your own early self-compositions for JAPAN like ‘A Foreign Place’, ‘The Experience Of Swimming’ and ‘Temple Of Dawn’ indicated you had a more ambient, textural approach. Was that where your interest lay rather than conventional pop?

Yes, in JAPAN we weren’t really listening much to the current stuff at the time. What we were mainly listening to was either very ambient music, or world music and I think you can hear that come on things like ‘Tin Drum’. Ethnic music was of interest to us because of the tunings and the strange sounds of the instruments. We always loved this sense of space in music.

We used to listen to a lot of Chinese orchestral music which had a very unison sound with lots of octaves all playing the same line and a very dominant melody. We also listened to a lot of Japanese, Turkish, Greek and Middle Eastern music as well… this was instead of THE HUMAN LEAGUE or Gary Numan *laughs*

You later worked on with Steve Jansen under your own names, as THE DOLPHIN BROTHERS and as JBK with Mick Karn…

With THE DOLPHIN BROTHERS, it was the one point in our career where we tried to do something commercial, in a way against our better judgement. Listening to it now, there’s a couple of tracks on the album I still love that are pretty timeless like ‘Catch The Fall’ and ‘My Winter’. But I think the rest is pretty much of its time. After that album, we quickly went back to making more experimental, alternative stuff.

More recently, you released a great 1996 live performance featuring you, Steve and Mick as a mini-album under the title of ‘Lumen’?

‘Lumen’ was one of those rare occasions where you get invited to do something and this was a show in Holland. It was an opportunity for the first time for us to focus on our instrumental music and we fleshed out the band by having Steven Wilson from PORCUPINE TREE as well. It was just one of those things, we found out it was recorded and thought it sounded pretty good, so these things happen through chance and luck really. Nowadays, I always like to try and get a recording of a live performance.

When you founded Medium Productions in 1993, you established an outlet for your work. How do you find self-release outlets like Bandcamp? Does an artist need a conventional record label today?

These days, I make the choice to go with a label if I can. I could probably make a bit more money if I did the whole thing myself. But I would rather it reach more people, so more people get to hear it and buy it. That means I make slightly less, but that doesn’t really matter to me. The machinery that a record label has does give you a lot of headaches, but it does get the music out there and there are benefits.

Did the business side of Medium Productions ever distract you from making music?

Luckily we had Debi Zornes working for us who ran the label and that really helped us. Although we had to make all the decisions as directors, it took a bit of the pressure off. We had distributors, and once you have them in place, you just hope that they get the stuff out there.

It was diminishing returns really, it started off amazingly in terms of sales, but then eventually it goes down. It’s like anything, if you leave a long gap and do a gig, it sells really well but if you start to do a lot of gigs, it’s harder to sell tickets because people have seen it and wonder if it’s going to be different. Obviously having been with Virgin on-and-off throughout all that time, it was just nice to not have any record company expectation.

Photo by Ben Meadows

Have you any views on Spotify and streaming services?

Yes, I hate it! I can’t see how it would benefit artists who don’t have enormous record sales and I don’t see how it can benefit new artists trying to breakthrough. I can see how it would work for entertainers and big artists, but if you’ve got to have 2000-3000 streams to make the same amount of money as a CD sale, I mean really? What hope is there for these kids who are trying to have a career in music?

It will suit the big artists because they can say “I don’t care about record sales, this will get me enough people to my shows who will buy a T-shirt”, and a T-shirt costs less to make than a CD! And I can’t stand this thing about how you can spend months making music and you’re supposed to just put it up on a site for people to have for free. I guess I’m from a generation that can’t my head around it.

For this generation, music is an accessory to their lives. You have your video games, social media and then you’ve got a bit of music. In my time when I was growing up, music was my life even before I was making music. Just going to the record store and buying a new album was such a big deal, I was happy to save pocket money to buy an album and it would be a real experience.

People in my generation still love to buy packaging and have beautifully crafted artwork, but that’s slowly fading away to this era of streaming. A lot of people’s excuses for streaming is they “go on there to listen to everything and when I find something I like, I buy it”…

I find people seem to hop though stuff and don’t listen to it properly with streaming…

You’re so right, because when I first bought an iPod, I had all my favourite music on there and I thought this was the most amazing thing. I started playing a track and about 30 seconds in, I thought I’d play something else… I was so excited about having everything on there, I kept switching from one track to another, I didn’t listen to anything!

But with this modern environment, have you managed to make social media work for you?

I have… I only got into it about a year and a half ago. I injured my knee and I was laid up for a long while recovering and I got so bored, I thought I’d try Facebook. So I gradually started to work my way around it and you could sort of tell the ok people from the nutters! *laughs*

But I noticed all these groups that were to do with my music from JAPAN and the solo projects. I was impressed by how informed they were and how keen they were about everything we’d ever done. So I got involved in that to a certain degree and found that social media really worked. People wanted to help promote things.

Making this album, I started running these auctions as I was getting rid of all this memorabilia. Because I don’t have kids and I haven’t really got anyone to leave all these things to, I’d rather they go to people who really appreciate them. I started putting up old JAPAN stage clothes, test pressings and people were paying a lot of money for it. So it was funding my album as I went along, which was brilliant. The interest was incredible, so I now use social media quite a lot.

Photo by Debi Zornes

You’re performing a synth masterclass at the Birmingham & Midland Institute at the end of March, what can attendees expect?

The masterclass at the Birmingham & Midland Institute is going to be me with a selection of gear including vintage analogue synths plus some newer stuff and software.

Basically, I’ll demonstrate the old synths and my techniques, I’ll show people how I tend to make less action on the keys but more action on the programming so you can hear how sounds evolve.

I’ll deconstruct the whole programming process that I go through so people can hear the start points and play some live stuff. Plus I’ll invite the audience to have a go if they want to try any of the old gear and do a question and answer session. It’ll be an insight into my mind and the way I work with music.

And you’re doing some shows too?

Yes, Lisen Rylander Löve who’s the main contributor on the album will be on stage with me. She’s an incredibly flexible person to have because as well as voice, she does all the electronics and saxophone so that fleshes out the sound quite nicely. We’ll have some film as well, so hopefully it will be a lot more of a production than before.

What have been your most favourite pieces of work from throughout your career?

When I get asked this, I usually go in terms of albums. The albums I like the most are the ones where there’s been a big change in direction.

So with JAPAN, my favourite albums are ‘Quiet Life’ and ‘Tin Drum’ because each one represented a huge change in the sound and the approach. If you’d heard the first two JAPAN albums, you’d agree. *laughs*

Likewise, ‘Tin Drum’ is pretty different to ‘Quiet Life’ and ‘Gentlemen Take Polaroids’. I suppose the big achievement is ‘Ghosts’ on ‘Tin Drum’, because it’s such an adventurous and strange piece of music that we got onto ‘Top Of the Pops’ and had a Top5 single with that. It’s something I’m really proud of.

Following on from that, on the Medium label, me and Steve Jansen made an album with a Japanese DJ named Takemura called ‘Changing Hands’. That to me is one of my favourite albums because it was a different way of working. Me and Steve normally have control over arrangements, but we gave some of that up to this DJ. They work in this hip-hop / trip-hop thing rhythmically where everything is not on the beat, it’s around the beat and it’s strange… but the combination worked really well. It’s a mesmerising, trancey album.

From PORCUPINE TREE, there are two albums I love, ‘In Absentia’ and ‘Fear Of A Blank Planet’. Again, both were taking a new direction with the group and a real step up in production.

‘Rain Tree Crow’ is definitely one of the highlights… for me, David, Mick and Steve to have got back together and come up with something so very different was quite an achievement really. I think we all feel a certain amount of pride from that album.

And moving on to more recent times, my latest solo album 🙂

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Richard Barbieri

Special thanks to Andy Overall of BLUE ZOO

‘Planets + Persona’ is released on 3rd March 2017 in CD, double vinyl and digital formats by Kscope, pre-order from https://www.burningshed.com/

Richard Barbieri appears at Exeter Phoenix on Thursday 16th March and London Hoxton Hall on Tuesday 28th March

http://www.richardbarbieri.net/

https://www.facebook.com/RichardBarbieriOfficial/

http://www.kscopemusic.com/artists/richard-barbieri/

https://richardbarbieri.bandcamp.com/

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
23rd January 2017

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