Tag: Jean-Michel Jarre (Page 6 of 8)

JEAN-MICHEL JARRE Oxygène 3

5 December 2016 /

When ‘Oxygène’ was released on 2nd December 1976, its hearty combination of pop melodies, technological experimentation and classical structures became a landmark in electronic music.

It made Jean-Michel Jarre a household name and 40 years on, the six part synthony still stands up. A second volume was released in 1997 and several parts captured the essence of the original opus, although like many sequels, it was not entirely successful. Releasing his third album in the space of 14 months, ‘Oxygène 3’ is an addition to a tradition that now expands the series into a trilogy. Composed after his two volume ‘Electronica’ project, Jarre’s aim was “keeping the dogma of embarking listeners on a journey from beginning to end with different chapters, all linked to each other”.

While not going as far as using an 8 track tape recorder, he has taken a minimalist approach and restricted each track to 8 instrumental elements. Recreating the restrictions of the era, Jarre challenged himself to record the album over a period of 6 weeks and deliver it by the 40th anniversary of ‘Oxygène’.

Sleeved in Michel Granger’s 3D reimaging of his iconic ecological warning, the continuation of the ‘Oxygène’ journey comprises of two distinct moods, a bright and a dark side as with the original. However, it is not an exclusively analogue work with many softsynths amongst all the vintage hardware.

jean-michel-jarre-oxygene-3-2016

The electric piano laden ‘Oxygène Part 14’ is an AIR-like introduction to the dark side that pulses away inconsequentially with little relation to the parent concept other than being composed and performed by Jarre; it’s a less than auspicious start.

Slightly better though is ‘Oxygène Part 15’ where the familiar tones of an Eminent 310 and Korg Polyphonic Ensemble penetrate through alongside the snakey rhythmic clicks of a Keio Mini Pops.

With its cocoon of bleeps, it’s easy to hear how Jarre was such a big influence on acts such as THE FUTURE SOUND OF LONDON. It all builds towards the more vibrant soundscapes of ‘Oxygène Part 16’. Here, the 21st Century spirit of ‘Oxygène’ really kicks in with beautiful layers of string synths resonating around a palette of hypnotic drum machine enhanced arpeggios; a relative of ‘Oxygène Part 8’, it is certainly one of the album’s highlights as the doom of ‘Oxygène Part 3’ lingers towards the piece’s conclusion.

The brighter side of volume 3 begins with ‘Oxygène Part 17’ which was premiered on the ‘Electronica’ tour. Like ‘Oxygène Part 4’, it adds more prominent melody within the wavey sweeps and uptempo percussive structure, but with references more akin to the second volume of the ‘Oxygène’ series.

The pretty ambience of ‘Oxygène Part 18’ paints the picture of a beautiful sunrise and sets an optimistic tone for the planet before ‘Oxygène Part 19’. This has a promising start as it aims towards a tuneful but dancefloor friendly trance anthem. Relying purely on bassline programming and gated synths as the basis of its rhythm, this could be Ferry Corsten without the beat. But despite Jarre’s deep responsive synth tones, it doesn’t really take off…

Closing with ‘Oxygène Part 20’, the organ driven intro plays with some stop/start varispeed tuning before a burst of ‘Oxygène Part 6’ interrupts the transmission… sadly it’s a moment which perhaps highlights what is missing from this third volume.

oxygene-trilogy

Arthur C Clarke once remarked to Jarre about how any sequel to ‘Oxygène’ needed a return to earth following the original’s fantasy journey into outer space.

And as the mournful Moby-esquse textures of ‘Oxygène Part 20’ soundtrack the foreboding drama of re-entry that ultimately burns up, the overall feeling of this album is it is slightly underwhelming and even unfinished. Perhaps there was too much expectation, but ‘Oxygène 3’ is a disappointment.

Does this matter? At 68 years of age, Jarre is at the top of his live game with the ‘Electronica’ concert spectacular and his contribution to electronic music is a huge legacy. He has taken a risk which perhaps hasn’t been as artistically successful as he had hoped, but at least he made the move. It’s certainly one more risk than say KRAFTWERK have managed in the last decade.

‘Oxygène 3’ uses the following electronic instruments: Eminent 310, EMS Synthi AKS, EMS VCS3, ARP2600, ARP2500, Electro-Harmonix Small Stone, Electric Mistress, Moog Sub37, Oberheim OB5, Mellotron D4000, Korg Polyphonic Ensemble, Philicorda, Keio Mini Pops, Metasonic S-1000, DigiSequencer, Roland TR8, Teenage Engineering OP1, Teenage Engineering PO12, Teenage Engineering PO24, Suzuki Qchord, Clavia Nord Lead 1, Access Virus, Moog Taurus 1, Animoog, Audiothingies Micromonsta, Synapse Audio Dune, Native Instruments Monark, Hollow Sun Cognosphere, Reveal Sound Spire, Xfer Records Serum

‘Oxygène 3’ is released by Columbia / Sony Music on CD, vinyl and download. An ‘Oxygène Trilogy’ triple pack is also available

http://jeanmicheljarre.com/

https://www.facebook.com/jeanmicheljarre

http://aerojarre.blogspot.co.uk/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
5th December 2016

JEAN-MICHEL JARRE Electronica Live at O2 Arena

9 October 2016 /


“Electronic music has a family, a legacy and a future…” said Jean-Michel Jarre in the sleeve notes for the first instalment of his ambitious ‘Electronica’ project.

The French Maestro “had this idea of merging DNA with musicians and artists of different generations, linked, directly or indirectly, to electronic music in a kind of sharing process in a world where we’re more isolated than ever by our smartphones and the Internet”.

So many of the artists he approached to work with said “yes” that a second volume of ‘Electronica’ came out earlier this year. But with so many collaborators involved in the ‘Electronica’ project ranging from YELLO, PET SHOP BOYS and THE ORB to Peaches, Gary Numan, John Carpenter and Moby, how was Jarre going to present this all within a concert setting?

Jarre solved this conundrum by effectively making the show an ‘Electronica’ remix project of its own and carefully chose tracks that would work best as a solo driven experience. Coupled to a high octane visual spectacular conceived by Jvan Morandi and a superb sound system that was not only loud but clear, it would be the largely mature audience’s first experience of something not far from a full-on rave!

Using a new Roland System 8 with a System 500 attached and a Grp A4, Jarre also had his Moog Sub37, AKS, Buchla and ARP2600 at his disposal. Assisted by Claude Samard and Stephane Gervais, both on drums and electronics, ‘The Heart of Noise’ gave the evening a synthesized Spaghetti Western styled introduction with the impressionistic aesthetic of Ennio Morricone. It segued into the uptempo section of ‘Automatic’, the Vince Clarke contribution to ‘Electronica 1: The Time Machine’, accompanied by a speedy backdrop of geometric shapes in yellow.

‘Oxygène 2’ was the first of only five classic oldies to be played during the evening, but 40 years on, it was still as enticing and hypnotic as it was back on record then; the noise sweep into its second section still brought with it that spine tingling sensation.

Gary Numan said Jarre was “one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my entire life” and the Frenchman certainly exuded charm as he addressed the O2 audience… this is a man who can count Charlotte Rampling, Anne Parillaud and Isabelle Adjani as previous wives / girlfriends don’t forget. He even took time to joke about Brexit and comment on his love of cricket!

The dance pop of ‘Circus’ and its robotic voices kept the pacey momentum going and there was the surprise inclusion of a new composition ‘Web Spinner’, proving that unlike KRAFTWERK, Jean-Michel Jarre is as interested in moving forward as he is in celebrating past glories. The frantic stop / start of ‘Exit’ with an on-screen monologue from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden gave proceedings a political slant, highlighting Jarre’s continuing concerns about the effects of technology on personal liberty.

Despite a new heavier beat for 2016, the dreamy ‘Équinoxe 7’ was another glorious reminder that it was actually Jean-Michel Jarre rather than KRAFTWERK who took electronic music to the masses; indeed his romantic melodic approach appealed to female music fans and this was highlighted tonight by the gender balance within the O2 complex.

On ‘Conquistador’, Jarre even strapped on a guitar for its ending while there was the treat of a toughened up rework of ‘Oxygène 8’ based on the Sunday Club mix. In a tribute to the late Edgar Froese of TANGERINE DREAM, there was a performance of ‘Zero Gravity’, albeit in ABOVE & BEYOND remix form. As cones of lasers brilliantly shot into the sky, it was as if Jarre was saying “hi” to the German electronic pioneer.

With PET SHOP BOYS not actually on stage for ‘Brick England’, Jarre got round this by substituting an absent Neil Tenant with a vocoder. A superb song that could have fitted onto the ‘Super’ or ‘Electric’ albums, Tennant and Lowe were represented visually as digital line drawings while layers of bending lead synths provided an anthemic celebratory feel.

The melancholic ‘Souvenir Of China’ provided a welcome comedown before more techno oriented offerings came via ‘Immortals’ and ‘The Architect’. An updated ‘Oxygène 4’ inevitably drew the biggest cheer of the evening while a percussive take on ‘Équinoxe 4’ emerged as Michel Granger’s iconic artwork spun into the projections.

Within the latter, an added tribal chant was worked in from ‘Glory’, Jarre’s co-write with fellow Gallic musician M83. While it had been a disappointing trailer to the ‘Electronica’ project back in 2015, ‘Glory’ was transformed live with Anthony Gonzalez’s vocal now removed and the end result sounded more like a Jarre original thanks to a 6/8 schaffel.

The main part of the show had a fitting climax with ‘The Time Machine’; out popped Jarre’s Laser Harp and as the tension rose , the track got faster and the light storms grew more in intensity. If this mind blowing segment was to have a “contains flashing images” warning, it was already too late!

At the age of 68, Jarre showed he was certainly not resting on his laurels. For the encore, he premiered ‘Oxygène 17’ from the third volume of his legendary opus, out later in December to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the original Disques Dreyfus release.

Ending with the tuneful trance of ‘Stardust’, it affirmed what many had suspected earlier… Jarre had in fact beamed his audience into the infamous Gatecrasher club. With it being the evening’s final number, some of the audience even got up to dance in the blue sea of effects.

If KRAFTWERK are the Godfathers of Techno, then Jean-Michel Jarre must be the Godfather of Trance. Yet, Jarre is not given that same kudos by the dance obsessed electronic music press, despite the Ralf Hütter-led brand doing very little as far as new material is concerned. Yes, it’s cooler to name drop KRAFTWERK in order to intellectually justify the more retarded elements of EDM.

But to the general public, Jean-Michel Jarre means much more. And while Kraftheads around the UK were busy fighting over themselves online for a chance to see a KRAFTWERK show that has basically stayed the same since 2009, they were missing out on a live presentation that really pushed itself artistically including 3D effects without the need for 3D glasses!

It’s a funny old world! More lasers please 😉

‘Electronica 1: The Time Machine’ and ‘Electronica 2: The Heart Of Noise’ are released by Columbia / Sony Music.

The third installment of the ‘Oxygène’ trilogy is released on 2nd December 2016

http://jeanmicheljarre.com/

https://www.facebook.com/jeanmicheljarre

http://aerojarre.blogspot.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/jeanmicheljarre

Text and photos by Chi Ming Lai
9th October 2016

APOPTYGMA BERZERK Exit Popularity Contest

6 October 2016 /

APOPTYGMA BERZERK have long been hailed as the best EBM act since FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY.

The founding member Stephan Groth has experimented with many a metamorphosis. But it has to be said that the Norwegian wizard is at his best while “emulating the analogue soundscapes of innovators like KRAFTWERK, TANGERINE DREAM, JEAN-MICHEL JARRE, VANGELIS and KLAUS SCHULZE, and the driving motorik Krautrock rhythms of NEU!”.

With his latest opus ‘Exit Popularity Contest’, APOP reinvents its core values, keeping closely with the drive to produce futuristic pop; this is synthwave fed on the essence from the pioneers of electronica, further elevated to the art level of sci-fi soundscapes.

The release is cleverly clad in the backstory of certain TP; an individual under the Reality Displacement Program who has started a new chapter in his life. However, wiping the slate clean from being a successful recording artist to a rural life in a new society to “start over, fit in and become a normal person” is not working out as expected.

The idea of Tabula Rasa has been challenged by the innate inability to be anything else but an artist. The journey has resulted in TP making music from his “deepest wellspring”, challenged by the quest to find “the source”, helped by multiple analogue synthesisers resurrected from the community vault. The outcome becomes known as “conducting voltage to choose sides”, or to the listener, a journey through an unexpected, peculiar and unbelievable mash-up of ideas and sources.

‘For Now We See Through A Glass, Darkly’ could have taken its simplicity from the works of KRAFTWERK, congealed with JEAN-MICHEL JARRE‘s ideas, a concept that whilst the “doors of perception are ajar: would it not be majestic to force them wide open?” On ‘The Genesis 6 Experiment’, “the Old Testament’s Rosetta Stone, unlocks understanding of mythology, legends, ancient history and religious belief” – is the chess match between two players going to finally see its resolution in ‘The Cosmic Chess Match’? Can the “Irresistible Force” be stopped?

The symbiosis of synth gentleness and extraordinarily deep train of thought manifests itself in ‘U.T.E.O.T.W’, while ‘Rhein Klang’ acts as an oscillating source of “electronic lifeblood”, VANGELIS style. The most poignant track on the long player must be the Wilder-esque ‘The Devil Pays With Counterfeit Money’, a political statement urging for standing up to the fraudulent ordinary, for the rejection of common rules and regulations, for the “exit from the popularity contest”. It is vital to degrade the beast we all feed. Wrapped up in KRAFTWERK sounding elements, the piece is wholesome and urgent; a superb synth work.

‘Exit Popularity Contest’ is what Martin Gore’s ‘MG’ should have been. APOPTYGMA BERZERK excels in instrumentals, achieving the same aims as JEAN-MICHEL JARRE’s productions. For a chameleon act, the Nordic synth king has created a coagulation between the good old synth era and the future of electronic pop.

If you’re expecting ‘Kathy’s Song’, you’ll be disappointed, but after all “…and man created machine, and machine, machine created music, and machine saw everything it had made and said ‘Behold’.”

Amen.

‘Exit Popularity Contest’ uses the following instruments: ARP Odyssey, Moog Source, Korg MS20, WintherStormer Modular, Kawai 100f, Logan String Melody II,  Roland SH2, Roland SH5, Roland VP330 Vocoder Plus, Roland Juno 60, Roland CR8000 Compurhythm, Siel Opera 6, Simmons Claptrap, Boss DR55 Doctor Rhythm, Sequential Circuits Drumtraks, Elektron Machinedrum, Vermona DRM1 Drum Synthesizer.

With thanks to Per Aksel Lundgreen

‘Exit Popularity Contest’ is released by Hard: Drive in CD, double LP and cassette formats only, available from http://www.stormingthebase.com/apoptygma-berzerk-exit-popularity-contest-cd/

http://www.theapboffice.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ApoptygmaBerzerk/

https://twitter.com/apoplovesyou

Text by Monika Izabela Trigwell
Photos by Tarjei Krogh
6th October 2016

VANGELIS Rosetta

25 September 2016 /

Space travel and synths were just made to go together. But while new Brighton artist JØTA pays tribute to the Soviet Space Programme of the Cold War era, Greek veteran VANGELIS brings things right up to date with ‘Rosetta’, his new album dedicated to the space mission of the same name.

Born Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou, the keyboard virtuoso was a member of prog rockers APHRODITE’S CHILD with the late Demis Roussos. After they split, VANGELIS considered an offer to join YES as a replacement for Rick Wakeman, but went out on his own.

Embarking on a notable solo career, his symphonic electronic style, as exemplified by wonderful iconic works such as ‘Pulstar’, ‘Dervish D’ and ‘To The Unknown Man’, won him many admirers. He even had a couple of UK Top10 hit singles in ‘I Hear You Now’ and ‘I’ll Find My Way Home’ as part of a successful partnership with YES lead singer Jon Anderson, while another of their songs ‘State Of Independence’ was an international hit for Donna Summer.

Of course, VANGELIS is best known for his award winning soundtrack work. But such is the timeless quality of his compositions, his music has appeared in period dramas like ‘Chariots Of Fire’ and ‘1492: Conquest of Paradise’ as well as cult science fiction films, most notably ‘Blade Runner’.

Launched in 2004, Rosetta was built by the European Space Agency to perform a detailed study of comet 67P while flying past Mars and several asteroids along the way. In 2014, Rosetta manoeuvred next to the comet and its lander module Philae successfully reached the surface.

VANGELIS was inspired to compose the album following a video call with astronaut André Kuipers from the International Space Station. But this is not his first musical foray into space having produced ‘Albedo 0.39’ in 1976; indeed, the frantic sixth ‘Rosetta’ track ‘Albedo 0.06’ is a reference that past work. he said: “Mythology, science and space exploration are subjects that have fascinated me since my early childhood. And they were always connected somehow with the music I write.”

The sweeping ambience of ‘Origins (Arrival)’ and the widescreen atmospheres of ‘Starstuff’ both provide a fitting introduction to ‘Rosetta’. But the drama unfolds with the orchestrated moods of ‘Infinitude’ and the ivory laced ‘Exo Genesis’. Continuing the journey, ‘Celestial Whispers’ drifts soothingly into the ether and acts as a gorgeous space lullaby with its gentle voice samples and cascading tuned melodies.

The ‘Rosetta’ title track actually takes a slight detour, courtesy of a dreamy harpsicord motif reminiscent of John Barry and Roy Budd, before returning to the mission with the expansive soundscape of ‘Sunlight’.

The tricky landing of Philae onto the P67 comet could be likened to aiming a paper dart at a passing car and berthing it on the roof, so the climactic overtures of ‘Philae’s Descent’ document the tension and the spark. And so with ‘Mission Accomplie’, ‘Rosetta’s Waltz’ comes as a classic VANGELIS symphony, full of thematic melody and expressive vibrato to celebrate the euphoria of the achievement.

‘Perihelion’ brings back the tension with the sequencer pattern and rockist fusion tracing the probe’s journey as it reaches the closest point to the Sun within the comet’s orbit. But as Rosetta’s mission comes to its conclusion, ‘Elegy’ and ‘Return To The Void’ are laced with melancholy, although the latter’s bleeps act as a symbol of hope as data continues to be gathered and sent back to earth while the probe continues to travel across the cosmos.

Carl Walker from the European Space Agency said: “what VANGELIS wanted to do was share a lasting memory of our Rosetta mission through his music”; this he has achieved. As most humans will never travel into during this lifetime, this cinematic soundtrack without a film will stimulate thoughts and images like any good piece of music should.

While naturally, ‘Rosetta’ is not the liveliest recording VANGELIS has ever made, its spacey and sometimes abstract movements are proof that he continues to reign supreme in his field. Those Jean-Michel Jarre fans who may not have wholly embraced the ‘Electronica’ concept might find something to like here.

‘Rosetta’ is released by Decca Records / Universal Music in CD, vinyl LP and digital formats

https://www.facebook.com/VangelisOfficial/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
25th September 2016

YELLO Interview

17 September 2016 /

Boris Blank founded YELLO at the end of the 1970s, together with Carlos Perón.

They were soon joined by singer Dieter Meier, and the Swiss group became one of the most respected and influential electronic acts in the world. Reduced to a duo after Perón left for a solo career in 1983, YELLO’s best-known songs include ‘Oh Yeah’, which featured in ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’, and ‘The Race’, which was a Top 10 hit in the UK.

YELLO recently thrilled fans by announcing live Shows in Berlin in October. Boris Blank took a few minutes to speak with ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the shows and YELLO’s new studio album, ‘Toy’.

The upcoming shows in Berlin are being billed as YELLO’s first live gigs, so how are they different from 1983’s ‘Live at The Roxy’?

The Roxy was more of a twenty minute gig, which was not a full live concert as we are playing now in Berlin – fully 90 minutes. It was very well prepared at the time with the Fairlight sampling machine. A few little things were live – and Dieter’s voice, of course, was live – but the rest was from this media.

yellology-yello

This time, in Berlin, the richest track, ‘Tied Up’, will have fourteen people together with me and Dieter on stage. So, there will be some real live musicians on stage, as well – that is the difference between New York and today. People ask, after 38 years – the hardcore fans of YELLO – why don’t you do this for us? So I think it is time to share our music and our visuals with our YELLO fans.

Will you be playing some of the classic material? Will we, for example, get to hear ‘Domingo’ live?

‘Domingo’ is not on the list – no, I am sorry. There will be more famous tracks – ‘Oh Yeah’, of course. There will be other tracks like ‘The Evening’s Young’ and many other tracks from our old list of YELLO music. There will be ‘Tied Up’ – a very wild track. There will be bits of ‘Liquid Lies’. There will be some old tracks, of course, as well as the new YELLO tracks – and hopefully they will also become classic tracks in the next 25 years.

‘Toy’ has the classic YELLO sound, but it also feels more mature and refined. In the studio, did you have a vision of how you wanted the album to sound?

When making the music for YELLO, I never think about a certain aesthetic or a certain kind of concept. It just comes out. When you work every day, like I do in my studio, more as a painter than like a traditional musician, then things come up that I never knew before. I just make music for fun, of course – it should be fun all the time. At the end, that is the result, reflecting more or less my fantasy from the past months and years that I’ve been working on those tracks.

What is interesting and makes me very happy – it is sort of a compliment – is when people say, “You know, Boris, I can say after three bars that this is your music or this is YELLO music”. That is still, I think, the case with this album, as well. You can feel it or hear the characteristics.

boris-blank-fairlight

You mentioned the Fairlight, and your use of it is famous. Your old machine currently lives in Australia. Is it right that the lucky owner inherited your library of sound files?

The reason is that the hard drive didn’t work anymore, so I sent the whole Fairlight to Australia to have the system fixed. They played out all of my old library, which was immense – it is a huge library – and sent it back to me on two or three hard disks.

It is very nice going back into those sounds. I’m not using them for this album, but the next time that I find some space, I would like to recover or recycle those sounds with the newest technology for sampling and go deeper – like with a microscope, going deeper into the molecules of all those sounds – and make new sounds.

It is a tragedy for me, because there was a lot of heart and sweat in those old samples. I recorded everything at the time. I threw a snowball at the studio wall and worked it into a bass drum in the end – things like this. It is nice to go back and see, in retrospect, how I worked at the time; how my mind and my feeling for sounds today has changed. It is a funny kind of history – a documentary for myself – to dig out all those old sounds and recover or recycle them.


Do you work more these days with computers or do you prefer hardware synthesizers?

I do have, for sentimental reasons, still, the ARP Odyssey and a few other ones, but I hardly work with them because I am not an emotional or sentimental person. I work today with the newest plug-ins which are available.

Of course, it keeps my mind and my brain in a good condition. I think that, if I want to have a really dirty Moog type of sound, I can do this as well using some tricks. So, I am not a traditionalist – I am looking to the future.

We know you are a fan of THE NORMAL’s ‘Warm Leatherette’ / ’TVOD.’ Are you also a fan of FAD GADGET or other early electronic artists?

FAD GADGET, of course! I am also a fan of musique concrète. I am a big fan of Pierre Boulez, of course, György Ligeti, and even some parts from Karlheinz Stockhausen and Raymond Scott. They are real pioneers in using electronic music. They are big influences for my own music, as well. They gave me the original kick to start making electronic music.

At the shows in Berlin, Dieter will be front and centre, but is there a chance that we will get to see some of your collaborators – perhaps Malia and Fifi Rong?

Fifi Rong and Malia will be live there. Fifi will sing two tracks, Malia one track and two tracks in a duet or collaboration with Dieter. We are looking forward to keep them happy, of course!


You worked with Malia on another project, ahead of the YELLO album. How did you come together?

It is kind of a long story, because friends of Malia came to me and asked a few times whether I would like to collaborate with her to produce four or five demo tracks that she could use to get a new contract. Finally, we started working between YELLO works, over about two years.

It was not enough doing four tracks – why don’t we do a whole album? On and off, she came to the studio and we worked together for at least two years. She is still a good friend of YELLO, of course, so that is her voice – it fits well on our new album.

In the past, you have worked with Shirley Bassey and Billy Mackenzie, who are two of the great vocalists of the last century. Malia’s voice sounds just as rich.

Yes, she has a special touch in her voice. It is not a colour which you find every day on this planet. She has a really special characteristic to her voice. She is one of the most respected Nina Simone interpreters; so, yes, she has a great voice. She has something alive and emotional in this voice, which is very unusual.

You recently collaborated with Jean-Michel Jarre, what was that experience like?

The experience with Jean-Michel Jarre was, if you compare it to chess players, like if you send a move to your friend in Stockholm or Tokyo. He was in Los Angeles and he sent me the track which he would like to collaborate on with YELLO for his album. As our move, Dieter and I sent him back some voices and a story, which Dieter came up with, and a few rhythmic and sound ideas from myself.

We haven’t met so far, but it was a nice experience and I admire his musical life a lot. I remember ‘Oxygene’. When I was very young, l thought “Wow, this is a whole other world of electronic music” – you know, it had the characteristic that Krautrock, all the German electronics, had at the time.

It was a pleasure and a big honour for us to be on this album, in such great company, with MASSIVE ATTACK and all these great people involved in the project.

YELLO released a music-making app called the Yellofier. Do you think you could see YELLO making a commercial track using that technology?

There are some sounds – some parts, some fragments – on the new album which I had done with the Yellofier. Also, we are developing some more effects or features for the Yellofier quite soon. I would like to get in a collaboration to build some hardware or a sampling machine that has the architecture I wish to work with – an expanded version of the Yellofier – just limited somehow. But that is an idea for the future.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Boris Blank

Special thanks to Duncan Clark at 9PR

‘Toy’ is released via Polydor / Universal Music on 30th September 2016, available as a CD, deluxe CD, double LP and digital download

YELLO appear at Kraftwerk Berlin on 26th, 28th, 29th and 30th October 2016

http://yello.com

https://www.facebook.com/yello.ch/

Text and Interview by Simon Helm
17th September 2016

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