‘Sleepwalking’ is the long-awaited debut album from the classically trained German songstress NINA.
With a musical palette shaped by a love of QUEEN, DEPECHE MODE, DAVID BOWIE, ALPHAVILLE, KRAFTWERK, NENA, CHROMATICS and LADYHAWKE, it contains some of her most personal work yet; “I think it’s important to keep your work personal and evolve as an artist” she told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK.
Since her second single ‘We Are The Wild Ones’ in 2013, Berlin-born songstress NINA has grown in profile and stature. Support slots with ERASURE and DE/VISION followed in 2014 but it was her third single ‘My Mistake’ that became her breakthrough song. Beginning the long player, nocturnal warmth exudes from ‘Beyond Memory’, demonstrating how NINA’s own brand of pulsating electronic pop acts as a bridge between synthwave and synthpop.
With her vocals deliciously slicing the moonlit atmosphere with a superbly breathy chorus, ‘Beyond Memory’ is about past relationships. A close relative of the Mercedes-Benz endorsing ‘My Mistake’, ‘Beyond Memory’ more than makes up for its absence on the album.
Meanwhile, ‘Born To Live’ is embroiled in confidence with a soaring chorus recalling AVEC SANS, sweetened with a highly alluring almost spoken middle eight à la KID MOXIE, while the synth line recalls the rather obscure ‘There Goes the Cure’ by ONE DOVE.
Full of arpeggiators and pulsating synths, ‘Sleepwalking’ is a vibrant number that paces the mood to a gallop, with a delightful keyboard cascade finish. Bubbling electronics over a sparse intro lead into the nocturnal synth AOR of ‘It Kills Me’. With piano also entering the fray, it’s not unlike Toronto’s very own electronic pop combo PARALLELS.
The previously issued B-side ‘Purple Sun’ does what it says on the tin, is it a love letter to PRINCE or something else entirely? The layers of backing vocals might provide a clue…
The drive-friendly ‘Empire Of Love’ lifts the tempo again with a glorious whirring ULTRAVOX-styled synth solo to buoy up proceedings, but at the opposite end of the album’s colourful spectrum, ‘Diamonds In The Rough’ is a perfect Brat Pack movie ballad, while also emulating some of the best in Scandinavian pop overtures and allowing NINA’s soprano to shine. And although “everybody’s here, they’re having fun”, a forlorn NINA reflects on not fitting in… cut from a similar cloth, the cinematic Nordic pop of One Of Us’ is heartfelt, Fraulein Boldt’s musical catharsis about school bullying.
And when she is ‘Counting Stars’, the song utilises vintage synth sounds to the max, both rich and retro-futuristic with “a mission on our own” like classic PET SHOP BOYS. ‘Your Truth’ is more compelling neon-lit synth AOR, with another rousing chorus and some guitar inflections combining with those vintage love theme Emulator voices as she confirms “I’ll be there for you”.
For a fabulously optimistic conclusion to the album, ‘80s Girl’ comes beaming over like the missing theme song from the film ‘Mannequin’. With big Simmons drums, sampled orchestra stabs and driving synthbass triplets, it is however delivered with subtlety and restraint so that it doesn’t turn into a HEART or STARSHIP pastiche.
Dedicated to her mother, it’s great song that sums up the best in NINA. And in a telling message to everyone, she declares “don’t let the past hold you back”. Yes, it all does sound like a John Hughes film soundtrack but that’s not a bad thing.
A highly enjoyable musical journey that’s strong on melody, Richard X, Oscillian and Sunglasses Kid have each done a very good job working with NINA to produce a cohesive body of work.
A positive album for outsiders and individuals, NINA is a songstress who speaks for the lonely and disenchanted without going all Emo. It’s been many years in the making, but NINA’s ‘Sleepwalking’ has been well worth the wait.
FUTURE FIRE is an LA based project by the artists behind LOST IN STARS; the British born Dylan Willoughby and local boy Darren Burgos.
LOST IN STARS also featured Alysa Lobo, Jon McCormick and Elena Charbila aka KID MOXIE, dipping in and out of the ensemble.
Bred on synths of all sorts, Willoughby “was not one of the kids with an Emulator II in the bedroom; I had a humble Casiotone but a good imagination”.
Soon enough that imagination translated itself into full on music making, with Dylan taking his classical piano training and meeting Burgos, who led an Electronic Music Production class, which Willoughby attended.
“The synth appealed to me on many levels. It was a cool combination of piano and technology, and it wasn’t just about playing keyboard but about designing cool sounds.”
FUTURE FIRE sees the two producers continuing their collaboration with couple of guest additions on ‘Shattered Light’.
The Spirit features on Americana Noir meets ethereal synth on ‘Your Kiss Could Burn Fire’ and KID Moxie supports her buddies on ‘Beautiful Disguise’; a sparkly electronic gem à la SPECTRA PARIS. The ‘Dark Embodiment’ is “haunted by the ghosts of synthpop”, while a heavily melodyned voice glides over clever sounds in ‘Another Time’.
The tantric ‘Protect Us From Above’ conveys the opposite message to ‘Mother Space’, which lends itself perfectly as a film score, due to its cinematic soundscapes and storytelling textures.
For the uncertain feeling of non-belonging, ‘Three Scratches’ hovers above the perceived safety, while ‘Choking On Fumes’ (nothing to do with DM’s ‘Breathing In Fumes’) presents an easy listening, male vocal led piece.
A little bit of electronic sci-fi gathers its allegiance on ‘Ejected In A Capsule’, continuing the futuristic elements on ‘Electric Current’.
The latter is an extravaganza of what machines are capable of and that very notion wins the listener on ‘Old Feelings II VHS’, a number that could be a signature piece for the super synth soundtrack to ‘Stranger Things’. While nothing is getting older on ‘Dorian Gray’s Portrait’, ‘In The Time It Takes’ presents another notion of a synthtastic film score.
Wrapped up with the enigmatic ‘Tears Of The Future’, ‘Shattered Light’ is a movie in itself. Featuring some excellent soundtrack worthy pieces, interwoven with more poppy tracks with vocals, it can however leave one a bit confused. An album of nineteen songs always takes a tad too long to process, no matter how gripping the pieces may be.
While splitting the material over two separate records would have been a simpler idea, it has to be said that Willoughby and Burgos certainly know how to write considerably superior electronic music.
“My childhood was elegant homes, tree-lined streets, the milkman, building backyard forts, droning airplanes, blue skies, picket fences, green grass, cherry trees. Middle America as it’s supposed to be. But on the cherry tree there’s this pitch oozing out – some black, some yellow, and millions of red ants crawling all over it. I discovered that if one looks a little closer at this beautiful world, there are always red ants underneath. Because I grew up in a perfect world, other things were a contrast”.
And so we are invited to go in; into the mysteriously twisted, sickening at times, never straightforward world of David Lynch. One likes the arts and photography, another excels in music, or vocals, few make good films, while the rest write or paint; Lynch has done it all. Having introduced his unparalleled strangeness into American film making and being true to his own ideas, the “madman” (as Mel Brooks called him), even refused to direct ‘The Return Of The Jedi’, claiming that Lucas would do it better his way.
Meeting Angelo Badalamenti, while filming his hugely successful ‘Blue Velvet’, proved to be the start of a captivating musical relationship, which Lynch has proven to treasure till today.
Angelo Badalamenti, whose superlative musical understanding led to various working relationships with many a pop and rock band, with Pet Shop Boys, Orbital, Tim Booth, Anthrax, Marianne Faithful and others, all creating electrifying soundscapes with a little help of the virtuoso.
As Lynch’s films gained critical acclaim worldwide, his musical interests and collaborations grew in parallel.
Who directed a 2011 Duran Duran gig streamed live from Mayan Theater in LA? Lynch did…
Who collaborated with Interpol on ‘I Touch a Red Button Man’ animation? Lynch did…
Who directed Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Came Back Haunted’ video? Lynch did… (incidentally striking a further musical pact with Reznor)
Photo by Michel Delsol/Getty Images
As it often appears, happenstance creates the optimal conditions for working relationships, and that’s exactly what happened with Lynch and Cruise.
The ethereal sounding, dainty Julee may have never worked with the visionary, if it wasn’t for the fact that Lynch couldn’t use Tim Buckley’s ‘Song To The Siren’ covered by This Mortail Coil in a key scene of ‘Blue Velvet’. As an alternative, he commissioned Badalamenti to compose a song of similar feel, with lyrics by Lynch.
As someone had to sing ‘Mysteries Of Love’, Badalamenti recommended Cruise, known for her sublime voice. Recently the rather talented Kid Moxie re-visited the tune with Badalamenti , putting her own spin onto the Badalamenti/Lynch hit.
And so enter ‘Twin Peaks’; first aired in 1990 on ABC, later being taken off air due to dwindling popularity, the series was far more than the crime drama with a twist, expected by the fans of Lynch. Having teamed with Mark Frost, the master created a cult program, which is often described as one of the best TV series ever.
The story of the death of young and beautiful Laura Palmer, set in idyllic landscapes of rural Washington state, and the search for her murderer has, for years, evoked fear, lust, wonder and interest into the metaphysical and mystical.
Needless to say, a correct musical setting was necessary to depict the uncertainty, terror and weirdness of the events unfolding in, otherwise, quiet town of Twin Peaks.
A quiet town… at least that’s what one expects on the surface; but Twin Peaks has its own dark secrets. The horrors and wrongdoings that underline the death of Laura Palmer are palpable and Lynch made sure that his take on the human immorality is fully stamped on his characters.
Cruise was again chosen to perform a number of songs, and Badalamenti provided the musical mysticism, resulting in a multi-million selling soundtrack to the series, even with the tracks being largely instrumental.
But within those magical non word pieces, lay three acutely polished gems, all performed by Cruise. ‘Falling’, acting as the theme tune, must be, by far, one of the most recognised songs that go with any TV series.
Cruise further benefitted from the Lynch/Badalamenti collaboration by releasing her first album ‘Floating Into The Night’, which housed ‘Falling’, ‘Into The Night’ and ‘Nightingale’, all used in ‘Twin Peaks’.
‘Rocking Back Inside My Heart’ is one of the songs performed by Cruise live on stage at the Twin Peaks bar everyone gathers at, with most of the young female characters singing to it.
‘Falling’ has been so popular, that a number of artists decided to cover it, and further inspirations appeared by Apoptygma Berzerk, Bright Light Bright Light, The Joy Formidable, The Wedding Present and many others. The latest cover is, interestingly enough, performed by Chrysta Bell, who appears in the Twin Peaks revival series, and has been involved in working with Lynch for many years.
Joined by LA based music magician and celebrated producer John Fryer, Bell provides a synthy rendition, which is a true testament to the song’s longevity and prowess.
Lynch and Badalamenti also produced ‘Summer Kisses Winter Tears’, which, originally by Elvis Presley, was covered by Cruise and featured in ‘Until The End Of The World’ movie. A wonderfully presented come back of the 50s, with dreamy guitar and lazy piano, floating over the consciousness, not without an underlying uncertainty, however.
Chrysta Bell met Lynch in 1999 and the pair have collaborated since, with the master co-writing two of her albums. Her stunning song written with the director himself, ‘Polish Poem’, was featured in the closing scenes of ‘Inland Empire’. Not only is it hauntingly beautiful, but depicts the end of the movie in a sublime manner.
But Lynch sings himself too, oh yes! ‘Good Day Today’ is minimal electro, breaking into the popular culture, with heavily melodyned vocal pleading for the want of having “a good day today”. The lensman wants to be sent an angel, and complains of tiredness over a fast paced, catchy beat; all this happening against a back drop of a disturbingly Lynchian video.
Karen O joins the magician on ‘Pinky’s Dream’, which has been skilfully remixed by Trentemøller into an electronic burst of metallic beats and heavy bass. Together with ‘Good Day Today’, both taken from ‘Crazy Clown Time’, the first album by Lynch, the tracks have been described as having serious electro pop influences.
‘I’m Waiting Here’, performed by the Swedish singer and songwriter Lykke Li, found itself on Lynch’s second album ‘The Big Dream’. Featuring a video, which could have been taken from any of Lynch’s productions, the dreamy arrangement gets abruptly cut off by unexplained noise and the uncertainty is ushered, breaking off the waltzing style of the music. This is what David is about; nothing is ever perfectly straightforward.
He remixes too… ‘Evangeline’ by John Foxx and Jori Hulkkonen was masterfully adapted by the filmmaker. It’s gritty, dirty and fragmented: mechanical in texture. It feels like observing the intricate workings of a Swiss watch, while on blow, being surrounded by robots.
Moby has collaborated with the master for years too. This includes video directing, interviews and remixes. ‘Go’ was largely influenced by the Twin Peaks theme, which is sampled here, and it sold a staggering two million copies. And now Richard Melville Hall stars as the guitar player in Rebekah Del Rio’s band, performing live in Part 10 of ‘Twin Peaks’ Revival.
The Lynch collaborations are endlessly eclectic when it comes to genre and style. From ambient, pop, rock, via synth, classical and experimental. The working relationship with Marek Zebrowski, a Polish-American composer, also started during the production of ‘Inland Empire’, part of which was shot in Łódź. As both displayed interests in musical experimentation and improvisation, a concept evolved under the name of ‘Polish Night Music’.
More recently the hungry fans of the original ‘Twin Peaks’ series have been in for a treat. Lynch has always stressed that the story of Laura Palmer wasn’t complete and this year has seen the revival series hit the television screens. When Julee Cruise happily took to the stage in the original series, dazzling with a plethora of eerie, ethereal notes and semi-shy demeanour; the Revival brings plenty of musical surprises, inviting different performers to do their own sets in The Bang Bang Bar, a roadhouse in Twin Peaks. Each episode features a live performance from handpicked musicians, many of whom have a long history of association with the film master.
First off, Chromatics showcase ‘Shadow’, the video to which reminds of the Black Lodge’s red curtains. The Portland based band has undergone many a member change, but ‘Shadow’ certainly proves that the current set up is perfect. The track is Badalamenti dreamy, still bearing the electronic sounds of the now, and as an opener to the newest of the tales of the sleepy Washington town, it blends in nicely.
Au Revoir Simone from New York picks up the baton in Part 4, following The Cactus Blossoms. ‘Lark’ keeps in with the intangible atmosphere, leading through to Trouble’s ‘Snake Eyes’. An Americana rock and roll style, with added sexy saxophone and jazzy influences, this instrumental track leads into Part 6, with Sharon Van Etten’s ‘Tarifa’. With the copious amounts of folksy soothing day dream, the quirky vocal and bluesy elements, at times a la Fleetwood Mac, it’s a perfect summer evening track.
None other than Lynch’s old collaborator Trent Reznor comes back to mingle with the master yet again, after having worked on the score for ‘Lost Highway’, and Nine Inch Nails’ video for ‘Came Back Haunted’. This time taking the role of a goth band frontman, the leather clad Reznor and co, take to the Roadhouse stage to deliver ‘She’s Gone Away’.
As the first band to be actually introduced by an MC, NIN hauntingly induce their semi psychedelic, disturbingly mish-mashed track full of guitars over Reznor’s seductive male interceptions. Backing vocals are provided by Mrs Reznor, Marqueen Maandig.
Hudson Mohawke takes the DJ reins on ‘Human’ in Part 9, while Au Revoir Simone returns in the same episode with ‘A Violet Yet Flammable World’, which begins with a similar beat to Depeche Mode’s classic ‘Ice Machine’, to develop into an all girl extravaganza of voice and purely electronic sound, reminiscent of Marsheaux.
Rebekah Del Rio delivers memorable rendition of ‘No Stars’ written by Lynch. The Latin-American songstress has been a muse for the filmmaker for years, providing a cameo appearance in ‘Mulholland Drive’ to perform a Spanish a cappella performance of Roy Orbison’s ‘Crying’. In ‘Twin Peaks’, she is seen in a dress with a pattern reminiscent of the Black Lodge floor, ushers in a stunning vocal, both in English and Spanish. Yet another classic ‘Twin Peaks’ track.
What follows in Part 11, is a twist: a beautifully composed piano piece ‘Heartbreaking’ performed by Count Smokula.
Chromatics return in the next episode with instrumental ‘Saturday’, while the ominous number 13 brings the original series’ familiar James Marshall with ‘Just You’, which also appears on ‘Twin Peaks Music: Season Two Music and More’.
Folksy Lissie performs ‘Wild West’, just where David Bowie appears for the first time in Cole’s dream as Phillip Jeffries of ‘Fire Walk With Me’ movie.
Bowie moves back in in Episode 15, which is wrapped up by The Veils performing ‘Axolotl’. The London based indie band has been yet another of Lynch’s favourites chosen to perform live in Twin Peaks and they don’t disappoint with the quasi electronic, gripping tune, which injects a further dose of fear and uncertain weirdness so typical of Lynch’s disciples.
Number 16 showcases none other than Pearl Jam’s finest, Eddie Vedder, introduced as Edward Louis Severson with ‘Out Of Sand’. The fact that Vedder had been listed as a cast member well before the episode aired, created a stir and many fans eagerly awaited his performance at the Bang Bang Bar. Although the tune had been available prior to the premiere of Part 16, EV toned it down to acoustic guitar as the only instrument accompanying his hauntingly hungry voice. Interestingly enough Vedder isn’t in the closing titles; Audrey Horne gets to perform ‘Audrey’s Dance’ once more, with a more sinister ending however.
The real treat wraps up Episode 17, with none other than Julee Cruise returning beautifully to finish the part, where Cooper and co go back to the past to try and save Laura Palmer. Julee’s second to none, ethereally magical voice on ‘The World Spins’ is an ultimate tribute to the whole of the series, with Number 18 (being the last) stripped off the, now familiar, musical end.
If anyone wanted answers in the Revival series, they’re probably banging their heads against the wall (or are getting tangled in the Black Lodge curtains), because more questions were introduced and the aura of weirdness has been intensified to almost mystical levels. Has the evil been eradicated? We don’t think so.
Have we got a happy ending? Certainly not so.
But isn’t that what Lynch is all about?
Riddles, riddles, riddles…
And what’s next for the genius? More music perhaps? Who knows, but with the wealth of experiences from the master over the years; musical or visual, haven’t we all been in for a treat?
LOST IN STARS is an electronic music project from downtown Los Angeles.
Led by British born musician Dylan Willoughby, the floating ensemble also includes Darren Burgos, Alysa Lobo, Jon McCormick and Elena Charbila aka KID MOXIE; the latter described Willoughby’s production mind as one that had “a lot of that synth mentality”.
Having released two singles and then an EP ‘Once You Were Fire’ in 2015, a self-titled debut long player from LOST IN STARS emerged earlier this year. With style and sophistication as well as more radical influences such as dubstep and rave, the album was received warmly by critics and electronic pop audiences alike.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK chatted to Dylan Willoughby and several of his willing conspirators about the LOST IN STARS concept.
The ‘Lost In Stars’ album has been a long time coming, how has the journey been for you?
Dylan: Journey is a good word for it. In a galaxy and time far, far away, in the place from which DEVO sprung, I was a teenager who loved the synth music I had heard during my summer stays with my family in London. I would bring back sheet music for all the songs and learn them, much to the chagrin of my classical piano teacher.
I was not one of the kids with an Emulator II in the bedroom; I had a humble Casiotone but a good imagination. At the end of high school, my pals Jon McCormick, Paul Lyren and I got together and recorded some original music. I rented some real synths (Yamaha DX-7 and Roland D-50), programmed the sounds, Jon wrote lyrics and sang, and Paul programmed the drum machine (a Casio RZ-1), added some sounds from his Casio CZ-101, and produced the music on a Fostex X-15 4-track cassette recorder. One of the songs was called ‘Growing Circles.’ That was 1989.
Flash forward to Los Angeles, July 2012: DJ Travis Holcombe plays ‘Growing Circles’ on KCRW and inspires me to start making synth music again. At that point, I had returned to classical piano training with a great piano teacher from Juilliard, Young Yoo. I then met Darren Burgos by taking his Electronic Music Production class, which introduced me to a whole new world with regard to composing, mixing and mastering.
A bit later, I met Alysa Lobo, who shared my love of synthpop, and then Elena Charbila who was already established as a singer and praised on ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, which is how I discovered her! So it was a confluence of all these lucky meetings and the great privilege of being played on KCRW. A team had formed, which included me, Darren, Alysa and Elena.
How did THE LOST IN STARS material start coming together?
Dylan: Our first song was ‘Flown,’ which I composed with Darren and Alysa. The song was straight-up synthpop, so it felt like I was continuing on from my past. We recorded in Studio A of Village Studios, a converted Masonic temple haunted by ghosts and huge hits. When Darren finished mixing the song, I knew we had something special.
I had also started to get into dubstep. My friend Sanjay had recommended BURIAL, and I was blown away by it. It turned out that Elena also loved BURIAL. So that was how ‘Once You Were Fire’ and ‘Elephant & Castle’ were born. As I was learning about dubstep and the Hyperdub artists in particular, I read about the untimely passing of The Spaceape, who was a poet and musician, and who was close to my age. So I wrote ‘Once You Were Fire’ for him, confronting my own mortality. ’Elephant & Castle’ I wrote in memory of my father, incorporating spoken word from my uncle and glitched poems. Elena’s singing on these two tracks was ethereal, otherworldly, transporting. She gave true tribute.
The next song was ‘Disappear,’ which Darren, Alysa and I composed. I wanted to branch out a bit from the straight synthpop of ‘Flown’ and we tried to mix a number of different genres, including synth pop, dubstep and 50s vocals. It was the first song whose lyrics I wrote ‘on the spot’, a strange love song lamenting a love that could have been. That was our debut EP, which formed the foundation of the album.
I got a lot of encouragement to continue: Earmilk premiered the EP, the songs continued to get airplay on KCRW and charted on college radio stations, DJ Rusty Egan picked ‘Once You Were Fire’ as one of his favorites of the year, and my friend Bert Ryan, a new wave connoisseur, said it was his favorite music of the year. I like to fool myself that I only care about composing as an act in itself, but without the encouragement I wouldn’t have made this album.
You faced adversity on several occasions?
Dylan: Throughout this whole period, I was battling catastrophic illness, which nearly literally killed me several times, so I couldn’t go as fast as I would have liked. Alysa too was severely injured in an accident and trying to recover. But we all pressed on, and the next batch of songs came to fruition, starting with ‘Light (Triumph & Disaster),’ which I wrote with Darren and Alysa as a companion to ‘Disappear.’
We’d all had our share of triumph and disaster. I wanted Darren to do a lead vocal, and so we wrote the song ‘Sky’ (which I’ll talk about later) based on some rough sketches I had put down with the bass line and strings. A friend of mine who was the screenwriter of ‘Monsters, Inc’ had sadly passed away at that time, so ‘There Were Stairs Here’ was a short song honoring him.
’Secret Language’ had many different versions, from Italo-disco to dubstep, but it really came into its own when Darren added the synth arpeggiation at the beginning of the song, which I joked sounded like a possessed COREY HART, and we created a synth out of a vocal sample.
We ended with the recording of two covers, BAUHAUS’ ‘All We Ever Wanted Was Everything’ and THE BEE GEES’ ‘Holiday.’ On this second batch of songs, I also wanted to incorporate some acoustic and electric guitar, and a very talented guitarist named Gaku Murata did some fine work. Darren then donated his excellent ‘Take It All’ (inspired by a devastating US election result), and I felt we had reached completion.
So you see, it was a journey, and making the music saved my life. I could have given up so many times and just given in to the weakness, the darkness, the pain, the illness, but the music pulled me through, as did Darren, Elena and Alysa.
When did you discover synthesizers?
Dylan: You will laugh at me for this answer. I lived in Toronto when I was younger, and my first instrument was the organ.
This was the time of shopping malls and old men with mustaches going nuts on those souped-up organs with all the multi-colored levers. I guess they were their own kind of rock star. As cheesy as they seemed at the time, those organs revealed that you could play the keyboard and manipulate the sounds.
I moved to the US and started taking classical piano. We didn’t have enough money for a real piano, so we went to the local music shop for a keyboard. When we walked over to the keyboard section, the salesman was engrossed in playing a STYX riff on a Korg Mono/Poly. It was a beautiful looking and cool sounding synth, and I think at that moment I decided that the synth would be my instrument. Soon after that, I was in London staying with my grandmother, and new wave was sweeping the UK. I saw FREEEZ play ‘IOU’ on Top of the Pops, with one of the singers rocking out on a Roland SH-101 ‘syntaur’ strapped around his shoulder, and that sealed the deal.
How did you decide this was the musical path you wanted to take?
Dylan: The synth appealed to me on many levels. It was a cool combination of piano and technology, and it wasn’t just about playing keyboard but about designing cool sounds. So there was that mad professor element. The synth had also moved from the backstage to the front — here were people standing behind keyboards with weird hairdos and outfits, as opposed to long-haired dudes wailing on guitars like SPINAL TAP. You could be a pop star and a keyboard player! New wave was tight and sharp, and there was an aura that was sophisticated and urbane.
What was your first synth and what was it like to use?
Dylan: At the music shop mentioned, the salesman convinced my parents to buy me a Casiotone CT1000P and hold off on the dangerous synths until I learned the piano. I played on that keyboard literally hours a day, imagining that I was Alan Wilder on the Roland Jupiter 8.
The first real synths I got my hands on were the Roland D-50 and the Yamaha DX-7. I remember the Roland D-50 having a pretty clean, crisp sound, and that one of the presets had been used by Phil Collins. The DX-7 was a ‘frequency modulation’ synth and it took me a little time to get my head around it. But the outcome was pretty cool.
On ‘Growing Circles,’ for example, I was able to get a bass line that didn’t sound overly digital, and some decent pad sounds for the higher frequencies. I didn’t have the money to buy these synths, so I would compose the songs on the Casiotone, and then rent the real synths for short periods of time for our actual recordings. I also didn’t know about sequencing, and couldn’t afford a sequencer anyway, so I would play all the parts out by hand in one take. I suppose that’s where the classical training helped.
In college, a friend of mine Ko Matsuo had an Ensoniq ESQ-1 synthesizer. I used to wake the poor guy up really early on Saturday mornings to use it, and he would teach me sequencing and sound design, and give me input on song structure. I wrote a lot of songs on his synthesizer, and woke him up a lot of times! Eventually, I bought my own Ensoniq VFX-SD, which was a great synth for multi-tracking and sequencing, but my songs sounded a bit muddled. I then got a hold of a beautiful Roland Juno 106, which is a simple synth, but has pretty great analog sound and this incredible Chorus effect. After that, software was getting better and better, and I gravitated towards soft-synths.
What equipment and software were you using for the album?
Dylan: On the ‘Lost in Stars’ album we stayed ‘in the box.’ Darren and I used Logic Pro X for recording and mixing, and Darren also mastered in Logic. Both of us relied on a lot of great synth plugins, including iZotope Iris 2, Native Instruments Massive, FM8, and Battery, u-he Diva, ACE and Bazille, Xfer’s Serum, Cataract’s glitchy synths, Rob Papen’s Blue II, Roland System 1 plug-outs, D16’s luSH-101, Dune 2, Sylenth1, Spire, Kick 2, Omnisphere, and the Arturia Jupiter-8.
In mixing, Darren and I used a lot of the SoundToys, Fab Filter, Eventide, Celemony, Antares, SugarBytes, Waves, and Universal Audio plugins.
For songs like ‘Elephant & Castle’, SugarBytes’ Effectrix played a key role.
For drums, we heavily edited and chopped audio samples and used a number of drum machines, including Logic’s own Drum Machine Designer.
We recorded vocals at Village Studios using a Neumann U-67 microphone, in my studio using an sE Electronics 4400a and various AKG mics, piped into a Universal Audio Apollo or through a Focusrite pre-amp. For microphones, we also used the Apogee Mic, and the Rode K2. We processed the vocals with Valhalla reverbs, UAD Neve 1073 and 88RS preamps, Waves, Logic and FabFilter compressors, and certain plugins like SonicCharge’s Bitspeek.
I wrote and recorded the short song ‘There Were Stairs Here’ on my iPhone using Moog’s Animoog app, and sent the audio file to Logic, adding a few sound effects later. The real guitars were played by Gaku, and then processed using Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig and some of his own pedals.
The album is swathed in dubstep influences, what fascinates you about the form?
Dylan: Blame my friends Sanjay and Elena! When I think dubstep, I really think BURIAL. I love BBURIAL because the music casts a lot of shadows. You are always moving between light and darkness, and on the journey of the song, you find respite in particular silences. The beats skip and quiver, more like a tell-tale heart than the insistent pounding dictated by a DJ. Things are far away, muffled. Singing emerges from the distance, as if from a forgotten memory. The message is scratched and scraped, the imperfect slowly reveals its beauty. Burial reminds me of this TS Eliot line: “So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”
‘Disappear’ featuring the voice of Alysa Lobo is one of the highlights of the album, what was its genesis?
Dylan: First, thank you very much for that. That was our first song to reach No1 on a college radio chart. For me, it was a watershed moment because I wanted to mix dubstep and synthpop, and have a unique vocal as well.
The song started out with a strange sequence from Rob Papen’s synth Blue II, a sample from a horror movie, some vocal stabs, and a pretty strong dubstep beat.
I think Blue II really inspired the whole song. Darren and Alysa composed the melody. Alysa was listening to Dionne Warwick at the time. So the song’s vocals feel to me almost from a different era, yet are sung over a dubstep beat with a lot of synths. For some reason, I think of the wonderful SHIRELLES when I hear Alysa sing. Darren was instrumental in making all these differing genres work together.
It was one of the few songs where I wrote the lyrics mostly on the spot, while Alysa was recording with us. It’s a strange love song — about the possibility of a love that never was but could have been. Gone are the days that never were! A certain person set my heart on fire, but the stars were crossed…
Alysa: At the time, I was studying and taking a sight reading course and found myself creating three part harmonies to everything that I was listening to. The girl group sound really came organically. I enjoyed how Darren and Dylan engineered the voices to sound like they were almost caught in a radio transition from another station crossed with a song from another time.
‘Sky’ has a bit of a NEW ORDER vibe doesn’t it?
Dylan: That is very perceptive, wow! The song started out as a homage to ‘Your Silent Face’ and ‘Love Vigilantes.’ The first thing I wrote was the arpeggiated bass line using u-he Diva and mimicking a Juno 106. I then added some soaring strings that were also NEW ORDER inspired. Gaku’s guitar was also in the vein of ‘Love Vigilantes.’ Darren composed the vocal melody, and his singing really made the song in my opinion.
Darren: I wanted to mix the feel of synth pop vocals like NEW ORDER, PET SHOP BOYS and DEPECHE MODE with a more soulful tone. I think the last great combination of this was Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke in YAZOO and wanted to carry on that feel in a new way.
Elena Charbila aka KID MOXIE contributes on a number of tracks, in particular two covers of songs originally by BAUHAUS and THE BEE GEES? What’s the story behind these recordings?
Dylan: Elena really supported the dubstep direction, and she saw something in my rough versions of ‘Once You Were Fire’ and ‘Elephant & Castle’ that I was unsure about. I love the vocals she sang on those songs, and we had so much fun recording them.
The BAUHAUS cover idea came to me when I happened to listen to ‘All We Ever Wanted Was Everything’ on Spotify – I had not heard that particular song before, only the vampire, gothic songs that came later. When I heard it, I knew Elena could bring something out in that song, a voice of longing, a voice of time gone past. Darren, Elena and I worked very quickly on that song, and we kept it minimal. Elena sang her heart out, and then played the bass part, which we processed to recall JOY DIVISION and YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS. Gaku added a guitar that we wanted to sound a bit like THE JESUS & MARY CHAIN.
When we finished recording, Elena proposed ‘Holiday,’ another song I had never heard of. It was an early tune by THE BEE GEES that KID MOXIE used to end their live shows with. I thought it would be a good way to end the album.
How did you come to be working with KID MOXIE on her ‘Perfect Shadow’ EP?
Dylan: By the time WestOne commissioned ‘Perfect Shadow’, Darren, Elena and I had worked together quite a bit, including on her album ‘1888’, the ‘Lost In Stars’ songs and the remix of ERASURE’s ’Sacred’ for Mute and Undo Records. We worked great as a team.
So Elena trusted both Darren and I from a production and co-writing standpoint. We were all really in sync, and Elena could tell that we understood her vision for the new work
So how does the creative dynamic between you differ when it is a LOST IN STARS track as opposed to a KID MOXIE one?
Dylan: LOST IN STARS is ostensibly my project, with the heavy involvement of Darren Burgos. I consider it a collaborative effort, and LOST IN STARS would not exist but for the stars: Darren, Elena and Alysa. KID MOXIE is Elena’s project and is ultimately her vision, that cinematic pop that is not afraid to go to dark places. When Darren and I work on KID MOXIE music, it is a great collaboration but our contributions are intended to fit into the KID MOXIE world.
Are you planning any further collaborations with Elena Charbila?
Dylan: Yes, I hope that Elena will always be involved somehow. I definitely would like Elena to sing on some of the songs I’m writing that are inspired by the artist Ren Hang’s ‘depression diary’. I think her voice will capture the beauty and the sadness.
How do you think that electronic pop is seen within the LA environment you are based and where do you see it generally heading?
Dylan: I think electronic pop has been an important part of the LA music scene for quite some time, and didn’t totally die out when grunge came along. The kind of fandom that you see in the DEPECHE MODE ‘101’ documentary from the 1988 Rose Bowl concert has not really diminished.
I think that electronic pop has sparked interest in a younger generation who have been introduced to it anew with the resurgence of 80s music. It’s not even just hipster-ironic to enjoy 80s music again – younger listeners actually like the music without condescension.
A lot of the great music venues in town feature electronic acts, from the Hollywood Bowl and The Greek Theatre to the Wiltern, the Regent, the Echo, and the Troubadour, to name a few. Alpha Pup Records and the Low End Theory concerts have also enabled electronic artists to flourish, including musicians like FLYING LOTUS, THUNDERCAT, THE GASLAMPKILLER, ASTRONAUTICA, DAEDELUS and TOKIMONSTA. Musicians who are masters of modular synths, like Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, are also gaining a good deal of attention. Radio stations including KCRW and dublab have been big supporters of all kinds of electronic music.
Where it’s heading? Hopefully not rows of people each wearing their own Virtual Reality headpieces and accidentally hitting each other.
The thing I love about electronic pop is that it makes you dance. And dancing is joy. And dancing with other people takes place in the real.
I think that electronic music will keep broadening in appeal and will not be limited to niches. I think it will continue to become more legitimate as a genre and as an influence on other genres.
What’s next for LOST IN STARS?
Dylan: Health permitting, I will try to write a sequence of songs inspired by the artist Ren Hang, whose journal I discovered in Guernica Magazine, translated by Amanda Lee Koe. The journal entries are almost unbearably sad and gut-wrenching, but also beautiful, well-observed, insightful and poignant.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to LOST IN STARS
Dylan Willoughby is the LA based producer, poet and composer behind the LOST IN STARS project.
Having debuted in 2015 with the ‘Once You Were Fire’ EP, which was regularly charted in the US on various independent radio stations, Willoughby was hailed as “essential new music”.
The London born boy, whose love of electronic genre flourished in England, dabbled with various bands while growing up, having been classically trained to play the piano.
His break from sounds involved creative writing and poetry, but his innate musicality took precedence and a wonderful mixture of synth pop and dubstep-type concoctions have been delivered since.
These days, many producers choose to work with talented vocalists; it’s a trait heavily popular with big names like John Fryer or DELERIUM. Willoughby also chose his preferred voices, which he found in Elena Charbila aka KID MOXIE and Alysa Lobo.
Charbila said to TEC after the release of her ‘Perfect Shadow’ EP: “Dylan Willoughby from LOST IN STARS and my other producer Darren Burgos, those two guys have a lot of that synth mentality and were instrumental in getting that production value you’d get from an electronic record”.
The ‘Lost In Stars’ album features the man himself on synths and drums, Darren Burgos in charge of vocals, backing vocals, drums and synths, KID MOXIE also on vocals and bass guitar, Alysa Lobo on vocals and Gaku Murata with his guitars.
‘Once You Were Fire’ consisted of all four tracks now appearing on the album, with its title number being an elegy to HYPERDUB’s poet and MC, The Spaceape, who was a key player in the discographies of artists like KODE9, BURIAL and MARTYN before his untimely demise.
With beautiful vocals by KID MOXIE over heavily punctuated synth and an urgent melody, this feel continues on ‘Elephant and Castle’, which reminisces about Willoughby London childhood and his late father.
Another track from the EP which has found itself on the album is ‘Flown’ performed by Alysa Lobo. It’s a perfect synthpop dance tune, just like the Lobo vocalled ‘Disappear’. ‘Light’ combines dance and dubstep-like sequences and ‘Sky’ invites with a warm male vocal, slowing the tempo down first, just to flourish into a slice of gentle German rave, with added guitar and drum elements.
A version of the stark BAUHAUS favourite ‘All We Ever Wanted Was Everything’ from ‘The Sky’s Gone Out’ hauntingly invites in with an airy ethereal vocal from KID MOXIE, while ‘Take It All’ is a perfect pop love song.
The long player closes with a cover of THE BEE GEES ‘Holiday’; a more subdued, delicate melody and a perfect way to close the opus, it’s another serene vocal from KID MOXIE.
LOST IN STARS may not have millions behind them, or may not be up there with the big names, but this music ticks all the right boxes for a fan of synthpop.
KID MOXIE’s tracks are as always, done in her very style and ooze sophistication, which adds to the overall experience. This is an excellent effort from Dylan Willoughby.
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Meanwhile, ‘Born To Live’ is embroiled in confidence with a soaring chorus recalling AVEC SANS, sweetened with a highly alluring almost spoken middle eight à la KID MOXIE, while the synth line recalls the rather obscure ‘There Goes the Cure’ by ONE DOVE.
For a fabulously optimistic conclusion to the album, ‘80s Girl’ comes beaming over like the missing theme song from the film ‘Mannequin’. With big Simmons drums, sampled orchestra stabs and driving synthbass triplets, it is however delivered with subtlety and restraint so that it doesn’t turn into a HEART or STARSHIP pastiche.
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are available now via Rhino Records
consisted of all four tracks now appearing on the album, with its title number being an elegy to HYPERDUB’s poet and MC, The Spaceape, who was a key player in the discographies of artists like KODE9, BURIAL and MARTYN before his untimely demise.
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