Established on 15th March 2010, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK celebrates 15 years online.
Aiming to feature the best in new and classic electronic pop music, during that time it has conducted over 550 interviews from fledgling independent acts and veteran cult artists to established international stars.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK prides itself in asking interesting questions that are a bit different and seeded by knowledge of the subject. As a result, these interviews have been appreciated by those music enthusiasts who know their tape recorders from their drum machines.
As for the interviewees, the vast majority have been a joy to work with and luckily, boring or difficult interviews have been rare. However, the most disappointing situations arise when someone agrees to an interview and continues communications for several weeks but doesn’t come clean to say they are not actually interested in participating… it is the interviewing equivalent of being ghosted 😆
Photo by Rob Harris
While sending questions via email for an artist to answer in their own time is the modern way of conducting an interview and is convenient with artists who have day jobs, don’t speak English as a first language or are in a different time zone, it is not particularly interactive and lacks a conversational flow. A true interview is a two way live conversation conducted face-to-face, by phone or a conferencing platform where opinions, thoughts and recollections can be obtained through reactive questioning.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK lists its 25 favourite interviews from over the years. Reading like a ‘Who’s Who?’ of electronic pop, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK all the interviews were conducted in-person or via a live call, except those with Alan Wilder, Karl Bartos and Rob Dean which were done by email.
PAUL HUMPHREYS (2010)
This Paul Humphreys interview put ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK on the map. At his studio complex in London, he chatted about the past, present and future of OMD, hinting at the contents of the upcoming album ‘History Of Modern’. The interview proved popular and was later quoted by The Guardian in a feature about OMD. This was the first of five interviews, the most recent of which was for OMD’s 40th Anniversary in 2019.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK bumped into Sarah Blackwood after a HEAVEN 17 concert in Cologne and so began a long lasting friendship. Conducted at a café in St Pancras, this interview captured an interesting interregnum with our heroine between the end of CLIENT and the start of the DUBSTAR reunion. This was to be the first of two Sarah solo chats while she would be interviewed with Chris Wilkie twice as DUBSTAR.
Conducted in London to coincide with the reissue of her debut solo album ‘Love: And A Million Other Things’, Claudia Brücken talked about her time in PROPAGANDA, ACT and ONETWO while she also talked about plans for a compilation called ‘ComBined’ collecting highlights from throughout her career. Her most recent ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK interview was together with Susanne Freytag as xPROPAGANDA.
The majority of interviews are cordial affairs but this one with Andy McCluskey following the release of OMD’s comeback album ‘History Of Modern’ was a bit ‘Frost/Nixon’. ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK echoed some of the fan disappointments about the record and to his credit, he was unrepentant and batted away criticisms with aplomb. A less confrontational interview followed in 2013 for ‘English Electric’.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were surprised when a request to interview Stephen Morris was accepted, especially as NEW ORDER had seemingly disbanded. The conversion had The Human Drum Machine at his best with stories about JOY DIVISION as well. But why was this interview taking place, why was he doing a fashion shoot for ‘Arena Homme+’? It was all subtle profile rebuilding as NEW ORDER was relaunched months later!
With many discussion points covered, a thoroughly entertaining hour was spent chatting to Neil Arthur in his studio during a break from rehearsals for the first BLANCMANGE live shows since 1986 in support of a new album ‘Blanc Burn’. The artist who has been interviewed the most times by ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, he has since been featured a further nine times including with his side projects FADER and NEAR FUTURE.
The intelligent aesthetics of MIRRORS made them ideal for ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s first interview using the Vintage Synth Trumps format. Conducted in the dressing room of Cologne’s Gebaude9 prior to the first show of their headlining German tour, James New and Ally Young chatted about the synths used on their ’Lights & Offerings’ album. But tension was evident between the pair and it ultimately led to the sad end of the band.
While often reluctant to talk about DEPECHE MODE, when Alan Wilder auctioned off a large collection of his studio equipment, vinyl and memorabilia, he was ready to talk about the band he left in 1995 again as well his own musical venture RECOIL. For the 25th Anniversary of the release of the ‘101’ live album and documentary film in 2014 , ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK was the only platform he granted an interview to.
One of the nicest guys in the music business, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK had the pleasure of chatting to Howard Jones about his then-upcoming tour performing his first two albums ‘Human’s Lib’ and ‘Dream Into Action’. Focussing on the period between 1983 to 85 when he became a household name and was many people’s entry point into the world of synthpop, the interview included lots of analogue and digital synth talk.
A short conversation conducted remotely, Karl Bartos talked about his new album ‘Off The Record’ and recalled his collaborations with Andy McCluskey, Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr. When he performed at Cologne’s Live Music Hall on the same night that KRAFTWERK received a Lifetime Achievement Grammyin January 2014, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were granted an audience with the man himself.
The album ‘the minutes’ saw the return of Alison Moyet to electronica and this inevitably led to reminiscences about YAZOO in this delightful and sweary interview conducted face-to-face in Islington. She was frank and open about all aspects of her career, the misconception of her being a “jazz singer” and which two songs from the YAZOO portfolio she particularly hated! Can you guess without look at the transcript which ones they are?
VILE ELECTRODES remain the act that ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has been proudest of featuring. Invited to support OMD on the German leg of their ‘English Electric’ tour following Andy McCluskey spotting the band while perusing ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, this informative interview was conducted in Anais Neon and Martin Swan’s synth-filled apartment and completed online to update it after the news was announced.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were literally given a few days notice that is was to interview Gary Numan at his home in Los Angeles by phone. Coinciding with the release of the ‘Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)’ album which had taken 7 years to complete, he was in buoyant mood after an artistic rejuvenation. Refreshingly honest, he admitted his original plan to make all the songs on ‘Splinter’ one-dimensional was “a sh*t idea”!
One of the fun things about the Vintage Synth Trumps series of interviews is that there is a degree of jeopardy for both interviewer and artist. Taking time to gain acclaim and recognition , the first Rodney Cromwell album ‘Age Of Anxiety’ was perfect for mainman Adam Cresswell to talk about his love of synths and DIY recording as well as the influence of NEW ORDER and SECTION 25 on his music over a fish supper in London’s Soho.
It was known that Richard Barbieri is often not that keen on talking about JAPAN and ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK assumed all the chat over the phone would be about his new album ‘Planets + Persona’. But unprompted, he chatted about his MicroMoog which was used on a number of JAPAN albums. But the crowning glory of the interview was how he did the metallic intro of ‘Ghosts’ using his Roland System 700 Lab Series.
While not as well-known as Giorgio Moroder or Conny Plank, producer Zeus B Held contacted ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK after it did a Beginner’s Guide feature on his career portfolio. A coffee meeting was arranged at Foyles bookshop in London and morphed into a full interview which saw the talkative German reflect back on working with GINA X PERFORMANCE, FASHION and DEAD OR ALIVE as well as John Foxx and Gary Numan.
When in Düsseldorf… despite the confrontational aspects of DAF, their drummer and sequencer programmer Robert Görl is something of a thoughtful and spiritual soul. This face-to-face interview was conducted before a performance of his ‘Glücksritter’ live only project and took in DAF, his wonderful solo debut long player ‘Night Full Of Tension’, working with Annie Lennox and the great standalone single ‘Mit Dir’.
Marc Almond and Dave Ball surprised all with a reunion for ‘One Night Only’ at London’s O2 Arena that has since become an ongoing world tour. But with it came a lavish boxed set, various books and new albums. In a London pub, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK had an in-depth chat with Dave Ball focussed on the ups and downs of SOFT CELL. This was followed up with an entertaining game of Vintage Synth Trumps in 2023.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has enjoyed seven interviews with Martyn Ware encompassing HEAVEN 17 and BEF, but this chat was about his time as a co-founder member of THE HUMAN LEAGUE to coincide with a live celebration of their first two albums ‘Reproduction’ and ‘Travelogue’. This was a fascinating insight into how THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s “vocals and synthesizers only” sound became the future of pop music.
Although he left JAPAN in 1980, guitarist Rob Dean gave an eye witness account to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK into the making of their third album ‘Quiet Life’ to coincide with a remastered boxset. JAPAN were in a state of transition from the growly glam funk of their first records to the mannered artful combo people remember them for today, so with him now residing in Costa Rica, this email Q&A provided some insightful commentary.
While most of ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s interviews with Our Man In Berlin have been conducted remotely at his convenience, apart from an onstage interview at a 2016 event in Düsseldorf, this Vintage Synth Trumps chat was a rare live outing on Skype. Among the topics were his remixes for NEW ORDER and YELLO while there was also mention of the Transcendent 2000 which Bernard Sumner had built from a kit and given to him.
With his noted dry humour, Billy Currie was on top form for probably the best interview in the Vintage Synth Trumps series so far. With insight into the workings of ULTRAVOX and VISAGE as well solo work and his brief time in the Gary Numan live band. Of the latter, Currie went into detail about the ARP Odyssey solo on ‘On Broadway’ while also shedding light on how ‘Touch & Go’ co-written with former band mate John Foxx became ‘Mr X’.
Some say that the Belgians don’t have a sense of humour, but that was proved wrong when surviving TELEX members Michel Moers and Dan Lacksman gave a laugh a minute interview to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK in support of their self-titled boxed set released by Mute Records. The most hilarious moment was when the pair recalled their dismay when Portugal awarded them 10 points at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has had the honour of interviewing Midge Ure on a number of occasions, the first time at the world famous Abbey Road Studios. But the most recent occasion was the best where he discussed a life in music ahead of his 70th birthday and a special show at the Royal Albert Hall. This was an extensive chat which included music technology such as the PPG Wave and the Roland GR700 guitar synthesizer.
With ‘Metamatic’ about to celebrate its 45th Anniversary, it was a perfect time for ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK to chat to John Foxx about his close encounters with synthesizers over a game of Vintage Synth Trumps in Düsseldorf, the spiritual home of modern electronic pop. As well as talking about his seminal debut solo album, he recalled how ULTRAVOX came to utilise synths and drum machines in their music.
“The medium of reinterpretation” is still very much present in the 21st Century.
There have been albums of cover versions from the likes of SIMPLE MINDS and ERASURE as well as Midge Ure and Claudia Brücken celebrating their influences, as well as numerous various artists collections paying tribute to particular acts. However, the phenomenon of covering an entire album happened for a few years, something which MARSHEAUX, BECKY BECKY and CIRCUIT 3 attempted on works by DEPECHE MODE, THE KNIFE and YAZOO respectively.
On the other side of the coin in recognition of the cultural impact of the classic synth era, the Anti-Christ Superstar Marilyn Manson covered SOFT CELL’s cover of ‘Tainted Love’ but added more shouting, while David Grey took their own ‘Say Hello Wave Goodbye’ and turned it into a lengthy Dylan-esque ballad.
There has also been a trend for girl groups to cover songs from the period with GIRLS ALOUD, THE SATURDAYS and RED BLOODED WOMEN being among those introducing these numbers to a new younger audience.
So as a follow-up to the 25 CLASSIC SYNTH COVERS listing, here is ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s selection taken from reinterpretations recorded from 2000 to 2014, restricted to one song per artist moniker and presented in chronological order.
SCHNEIDER TM va KPTMICHIGAN The Light 3000 (2000)
Morrissey was once quoted as saying there was “nothing more repellent than the synthesizer”, but if THE SMITHS had gone electro, would they have sounded like this and Stephen Patrick thrown himself in front of that ten ton truck? Germany’s SCHNEIDER TM aka Dirk Dresselhaus reconstructed ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ to a series of minimal blips, blops and robotics to configure ‘The Light 3000’ with British producer KPTMICHIGAN.
God Made Me Hardcore was a label set-up by Andy Chatterley and Richard Norris for electroclash tracks they had involvement in and as THE DROYDS, they covered ‘Take Me I’m Yours’ was the debut single by SQUEEZE. The original was notable for its use of synths inspired by KRAFTWERK, so the duo reinterpreted it as a full deadpan electronic number that truly revealed its Kling Klang roots.
Available on the compilation album ‘This Is Hardcore’ (V/A) via God Made Me Hardcore
‘Automatic Lover’ was a 1978 disco-flavoured hit by Dee D Jackson and exploring a more electronic direction after his original trip hop success, the song was perfect foil for his fifth album ‘Antenna’. Filmic with layers of melancholic vocal and vocoder treatments over the gently pulsing electronics, the end result had something of a doomed romantic quality in its beautiful resignation.
From the JAY-JAY JOHANSON album ‘Antenna’ via BMG Sweden
A breathy Euro disco classic made famous by sultry Spanish vocal duo BACCARA, Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory’s take on this cheesy but enjoyable disco standard came over like The Cheeky Girls at The Nuremburg rally! Now that’s a horrifying vision! All traces of ‘Yes Sir I Can Boogie’ apart from the original lyrics were rendered missing in action as the stern Ms Goldfrapp played the role of the thigh booted dominatrix on this highly original cover.
Available on the GOLDFRAPP single ‘Twist’ via Mute Records
When BLACK BOX RECORDER went on hiatus, Sarah Nixey recorded a beautifully spacey cover of JAPAN’s ‘Ghosts’ with INFANTJOY whose James Banbury became her main collaborator on her 2007 debut solo album ‘Sing Memory’. The duo’s other member was ZTT conceptualist Paul Morley. MIDI-ed up and into the groove, Nixey later also recorded THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s ‘The Black Hit Of Space’.
Available on the INFANTJOY album ‘With’ via serviceAV
Of this mighty industrialised cover, Ralf Dörper said: “When I first heard ‘The Anvil’ (‘Der Amboss’) by VISAGE, I thought: “what a perfect song for DIE KRUPPS” – it just needed more sweat, more steel. And it was not before 2005 when DIE KRUPPS were asked to play a few 25-year anniversary shows that I remembered ‘Der Amboss’… and as I was a big CLIENT fan at that time, I thought it would be a good opportunity to ask Fräulein B for assistance in the vocal department”.
Comprising of Aggie Peterson and Per Martinsen, FROST have described their music as “upbeat space-pop”. Much of their own material like ‘Klong’, ‘Alphabet’ and ‘Sleepwalker’ exuded a perfect soundtrack for those long Nordic nights. Meanwhile their ultra-cool cover of OMD’s ‘Messages’ embraced that wintery atmosphere, while providing a pulsing backbone of icy synths to accompany Peterson’s alluringly nonchalant vocal.
In this “PINK FLOYD Goes To Hollywood” styled rework, Claudia Brücken revisited her ZTT roots with this powerful and danceable version of Roger Waters’ commentary on music business hypocrisy. ‘Have A Cigar’ showed a turn of feistiness and aggression not normally associated with the usually more serene timbres of Claudia Brücken and Paul Humphreys’ ONETWO project. But by welcoming pleasure into the dome, they did a fine cover version.
Budapest’s BLACK NAIL CABARET began life as an all-female duo of Emese Illes-Arvai on vocals and Sophie Tarr on keyboards, with their first online offering being a darkwave cover of Rihanna’s ‘Umbrella’. Already very synthy in the Barbadian starlet’s own version, it showcased their brooding form of electro which subsequently impressed enough to earn support slots with COVENANT and CAMOUFLAGE while producing three albums of self-penned material so far.
Liverpudlian easy listening crooner Michael Holliday was the second person to have a UK No1 written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, the first being Perry Como with ‘Magic Moments’. His second UK No1 penned by Earl Shuman and Mort Garson was a romantic guilty pleasure. CHINA CRISIS pledged their Scouse Honour with this jaunty synth / drum machine driven rendition of ‘Starry Eyed’ layered with reverbed synthbass warbles and harmonious vocals.
LITTLE BOOTS gave a dynamically poptastic rendition of Giorgio Moroder and Freddie Mercury’s only collaboration from 1984, retaining its poignant melancholic quality while adding a vibrant and danceable electronic slant. The recreation of Richie Zito’s guitar solo on synths was wondrous as was the looser swirly groove. While Blackpool-born Victoria Hesketh didn’t have the voice of Mercury, her wispy innocence added its own touching qualities to ‘Love Kills’.
Available on the LITTLE BOOTS EP ‘Illuminations’ via Elektra Records
Yuck, it’s Chris Martin and Co but didn’t Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe do well? Merging possibly COLDPLAY’s best song with the synth riff from their own Latino disco romp ‘Domino Dancing’, ‘Viva La Vida’ was turned into a stomping but still anthemic number which perhaps had more touches of affection than PET SHOP BOYS’ marvellous but allegedly two fingers Hi-NRG rendition of U2’s ‘Where The Streets Have No Name’. So altogether now: “Woah-oh, ooh-ooah!”
No strangers to raiding the Bowie songbook having previously tackled ‘Fame’ in 1981, DURAN DURAN however blotted their copy book with their 1995 covers LP ‘Thank You’. They refound their stride with the return-to-form album ‘All You Need Is Now’, but just before that, this superb reinterpretation of ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ reconnected them to their New Romantic roots with washes of Nick Rhodes’ swimmy Crumar string machine and John Taylor’s syncopated bass runs.
This frantically paced cover of controversial neofolk band DEATH IN JUNE was recorded for the LADYTRON ‘Best Of 00-10’ collection and purposely uncredited. The antithesis of the midtempo atmospherics of ‘Gravity The Seducer’, this cutting four-to-the-floor romp was the last of the quartet’s in-yer-face tracks in a wind down of the harder ‘Velocifero’ era. With the multi-ethnic combo subverting the meaning of ‘Little Black Angel’, it deliberately bore no resemblance to the original.
Available on the LADYTRON album ‘Best of 00-10’ via Nettwerk Records
‘The Eternal’ from ‘Closer’, the final album by JOY DIVISION, was one of the most fragile, funereal collages of beauty ever committed to vinyl. But in 2011, the mysterious Brighton based songstress GAZELLE TWIN reworked this cult classic and made it even more haunting! Replacing the piano motif with eerily chilling synth and holding it together within an echoing sonic cathedral, she paid due respect to the song while adding her own understated operatic stylings.
MIRRORS revealed an interesting musical diversion with this haunting take of a rootsy country number originally recorded by Karen Dalton. Written by Dino Valenti of psychedelic rockers QUICKSILVER MESSENGER SERVICE, ‘Something On Your Mind’ was a touching ballad with its tortured yearning suiting the quartet’s pop noir aspirations. Ally Young said: “It was very nice for us to be able to apply our aesthetic to someone else’s song.”
THE XX had a minimalist approach which Andy McCluskey said was “really quite impressive”. This bareness made their material quite well suited for reworking in the style of classic OMD. ‘VCR’ had Paul Humphreys taking charge of the synths while McCluskey dusted off his bass guitar and concentrated on vocals. McCluskey added: “People go ‘how did OMD influence THE XX?’… but have you listened to ‘4-Neu’? Have you listened to some of the really simple, stripped down B-sides?”
Using a logo that was based on the DDR motor company that produced the Trabant, when German chiptune quartet WELLE: ERDBALL made their tenth album ‘Der Kalte Krieg’, they included numerous German schlager style covers as an ironic nostalgic trip back to the nuclear angst of that era. One of those was a joyous synthpop cover of ‘Ein Bißchen Frieden’, the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest winner sung by Nicole, known in its English version as ‘A Little Peace’.
Available on the WELLE: ERDBALL album ‘Der Kalte Krieg’ via Synthetic Symphony
Folk-oriented songs are just made for electronic reinventions and as COMPUTE, Sweden’s Ulrika Mild did just that on ‘Goodbye’, a song made famous by Mary Hopkin which was written by Paul McCartney who had also produced her debut hit ‘Those Were the Days’. The track formed part of a charity compilation under the supervision of Eddie Bengtsson from PAGE who covered ‘Cos I Luv U’ while it also included versions of ‘Silver Machine’ and ‘Heart Of Gold’.
Available on the compilation album ‘Friends Of Electronically Yours Present The Seventies Revisited’ (V/A) via Electronically Yours
‘My Blue Heaven’ was a popular song written by Walter Donaldson with lyrics by George A Whiting. A 1927 song used in the Ziegfeld Follies and a hit crooner Gene Austin, this atmospheric synth reinterpretation by the Finnish duo of Juho Paalosmaa and Jori Hulkkonen was recorded to celebrate the end of their first year as SIN COS TAN as a seasonal gift following the acclaimed for their self-titled debut album.
As I SPEAK MACHINE, Tara Busch has been known for her haunting and downright bizarre live covers of songs as diverse as ‘Cars’, ‘Our House’, ‘The Sound Of Silence’ and ‘Ticket To Ride’. For a John Foxx tribute EP which also featured GAZELLE TWIN, she turned ‘My Sex’, the closing number from the debut ULTRAVOX! long player, into a cacophony of wailing soprano and dystopian synths that was more than suitable for a horror flick.
Available on the EP ‘Exponentialism’ (V/A) via Metamatic Records
French theatrical performer Valerie Renay and German producer Sebastian Lee Philipp are NOBLESSE OBLIGE. Together, they specialise in a brand of abstract Weimer cabaret tinged with a dose of electro Chanson. Their lengthy funereal deadpan cover of THE EAGLES ‘Hotel California’ highlighted the chilling subtext of the lyrics to its macabre conclusion! The synthesizer substitution of the original’s iconic twin guitar solo could be seen as total genius or sacrilege!
I AM SNOW ANGEL is the project of Brooklyn based producer Julie Kathryn; her debut album ‘Crocodile’ was a lush sounding affair and could easily be mistaken as a product of Scandinavia were it not for her distinctly Trans-Atlantic drawl. Already full of surprises, to close the long player, out popped a countrified drum ‘n’ bass take of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’! Quite what The Boss would have made of it, no-one is sure but it was quietly subversive…
Available on the I AM SNOW ANGEL album ‘Crocodile’ via I Am Snow Angel
Reinterpreting Bowie is fraught with the possibility of negative feedback and MACHINISTA taking on ‘Heroes’ set tongues wagging. Recorded as the duo’s calling card when experienced Swedish musicians John Lindqwister and Richard Flow first came together, electronic pulses combined with assorted synthetic textures which when amalgamated with Lindqwister’s spirited vocal, produced a respectful and yes, good version.
Available on the MACHINISTA album ‘Xenoglossy’ via Analogue Trash
Comprising of frisky vocalist Emily Kavanaugh and moody producer Mark Brooks, NIGHT CLUB simply cut to the chase with their enjoyable electronic cover of INXS’ ‘Need You Tonight’. Here, the familiar guitar riff was amusingly transposed into a series of synth stabs before mutating into a mutant Morse code. It wasn’t rock ‘n’ roll but we liked it! Purists were horrified, but history has proved the best cover versions always do a spot of genre and instrumentation hopping.
A seamless majestic journey swathed in layers of vintage electronics and modern rhythmical dynamics, ‘Light & Offerings’ was the only album released by MIRRORS.
Founded by James New and Ally Young in 2008, the pair were soon joined by James ‘Tate’ Arguile and then Josef Page; New and Arguile had actually been members of one-time indie hopefuls MUMM-RA who were signed to Columbia Records and had supported THE KILLERS in 2007.
MIRRORS released their first two self-produced singles ‘Look At Me’ and ‘Into The Heart’ in 2009. As the quartet began to perform live with cerebral projections as visual accompaniment, they fostered a suited look based around 20th Century European Modernism inspired by Gilbert & George and designated their music pop noir.
Signing to Brighton’s Skint Records, after abortive recording sessions with Ed Buller and Richard X, MIRRORS opted to self-produce their debut long player and locked themselves away in a rural Sussex farmhouse for several weeks. Following headlining club shows and pre-album tours opening for OMD, DEPHIC and FUJIYA & MIYAGI, ‘Light & Offerings’ was released on 28 February 2011.
Photo by David Ellis
Mixed in New York by Jonathan Kreinik of DFA, the record began with superb sonic pulsar of ‘Fear Of Drowning’ with its dramatic overtures of young manhood before continuing with reworked recordings of ‘Look At Me’ and ‘Into The Heart’. The sublime ‘Hide & Seek’ was soulful electronic pop while ‘Ways To An End’ had a Germanic edge and proved MIRRORS could cut it on the dancefloor as well.
Elsewhere, the outlier was a superb cover of the largely unknown County song ‘Something On Your Mind’ originally performed by Karen Dalton while ‘Somewhere Strange’ took the listener on the most euphoric train ride since NEW ORDER’s ‘Temptation’. Breathing new life into classic synthpop, ‘Searching In The Wilderness’ recalled early DEPECHE MODE but to close, ‘Secrets’ presented an ambitious ten minute epic in three movements featuring its own ambient parenthesis.
James New had certainly kept his promise when he described the album as a collection of “really great pop songs” that contained “very densely produced, heavily layered, emotional, soulful electronic music”. MIRRORS were worthy successors to the original Synth Britannia generation, but with the lukewarm response to ‘Lights & Offerings’, the band sadly fragmented in Autumn 2011 when Ally Young announced he was leaving; the most passionately synth-inclined of the four, his departure was a major blow.
Although there were two Bandcamp only releases ‘This Year, Next Year, Sometime… ?’ and ‘Hourglass’ by the now-trio in 2012, momentum had been lost and by 2013, MIRRORS had seemingly ceased to be. However in the years following, there was a qualitative lull in British synth music that still persists today and as a consequence, ‘Light & Offerings’ began to be discovered retrospectively by electronic pop fans who had missed the band in action first time around.
One of those new fans was Norman Cooke, who subsequently founded the MIRRORS Appreciation Society Facebook Group in 2022. As content for the group, he painstakingly transcribed the ‘Lights & Offerings’ album commentary by James New and Ally Young that came with the original iTunes download.
With that audio now no longer available, the track-by-track transcript has been reproduced here along with additional material on a number of B-sides from an interview conducted by ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK with MIRRORS in Cologne during their 2011 German tour…
Photo by Lars Diegmann
Fear Of Drowning
James: So this is ‘Fear Of Drowning’, the first track on our record and actually my favourite, although I’m going to say that probably about every song.
Ally: We always sort of knew this track would start the record, it has that sort of way. It builds, it starts from a low solitary pulse and gradually builds up and up to towards this big crescendo. Before we even started talking about track listings together, we knew that this would start the record. it just seemed so natural.
James: it’s very atmospheric, it was one of the first five tracks that we ever made and they become the crux of this record.
Ally: I think for me this track is one of the best examples of what sums up MIRRORS as a band, it has all the elements that we, with intention or not, apply to all of our songs. It’s got a lot of close synthesized sounds as well as a lush ambient feel to it, quite monotonous robotic drums, pinned together by a haunting wistful vocal.
James: It was also a breakthrough moment for us because it was the first song that we wrote over a groove, there wasn’t a chord structure, as you can hear, a pulsating pulse that drives the song along.
Ally: One of the challenges when we write songs like this, I think half of the record is probably groove based like this song and half of it is song based. It getting the dynamics, obviously the bass, the route note never changing. I think we achieved it well with this song.
James: The lyrics are sort of based on the idea of isolation. I actually wrote them when I was having a panic attack which took a couple of days out of my life but we gained these lyrics out of it. It has a feeling of alienation, I don’t know why but the music, the lyric, just work.
Ally: It’s almost for me that juxtaposition of those very monotonous, massively quantised, pulsating pulses that go through the whole track and then wrapped up in this sort of blanket of ethereal synthesizers.
James: It does feel like a journey.
Ally: Strangely nostalgic I always think as well, particularly for an opening track. Although it never occurred to me that anything else should be the opening track as it has that real sense of nostalgia.
James: For us as well it was that ‘Trans Europe Express’ feel, a contemporary equivalent in our brains, more a homage.
Ally: I’m sure it doesn’t come as a surprise that we enjoyed listening to that record. I think this track benefits from being listened to at a particularly loud volume, the song really does grow all the way through, if you’re in the right frame of mind, high volume and low lighting, a nice moment.
James: The sound of it as well, I think something we tried to achieve was to make a record where you couldn’t really pinpoint when it had been recorded. You get this kind of slightly low-fi feeling about it but at the same time it sounds if it could have been recorded anytime in the last 30 years.
Ally: It takes what we like about the last 30 – 40 years of music, our influences, certainly of that ilk. Obviously we live in 2010 so we don’t want to make a homage, it still sounds like a modern record, production and mixing techniques. I think that this is the best mix of ours that Jonathan Kreinik, the chap who mixed our album did, obviously we love them all but when we first heard this one, he nailed it!
Look At Me
James: ‘Look At Me’, my favourite song on the record *laughs*
Ally: I think possibly, genuinely my favourite song on the record.
James: I think this is the first song that we wrote properly together that we knew was the “MIRRORS” sound. It’s the song that defined us, and it’s the song still most unique to MIRRORS I think, it’s got a bit of everything.
Ally: I think there are lots of songs on the record with influences that you can pull around from all over the place, some fairly obvious and some a little less conspicuous, but I think this track possibly sounds the most like MIRRORS
James: Possibly the song which sounds most like a love song, we wanted to write a love song but we didn’t want to spell it out to obviously for people, so it’s more about the imagery of it and the memory of it.
Ally: I think the big part of this song again is the vocals. When we came to re-record the album, we didn’t actually re-record the vocal, this is the original vocal that we demoed in my bedroom in Brighton, sometimes you just capture that moment and we tried re-recording the vocal but there was just something about the original take on this that we couldn’t quite get or we were trying too hard. You know what they say, if it isn’t broke.
James: In fact, the demo, we didn’t change a lot about the demo at all, we really captured a great moment on it.
Ally: We didn’t really want to change much about the demo, I think maybe this was one of the easiest and the most difficult to re-record because it was so close in our minds anyway of how we wanted it to be on our album that we weren’t sure if we were going to re-record it at all. But then we did most of the other tracks first then listened to this and felt it had to be pulled up a little bit. Really most of it was just in the mixing process I’d say, mixed by Jonathan again.
James: In a way it’s sort of biggest pop song on the album, it’s like a really big pop song without ever really feeling like it’s trying too hard.
Ally: I think that’s the beauty of this track almost, is that its slow and emotive, a slow track that doesn’t try to make up for the fact that its slow or hide that, it sort of walks along doing its own thing.
James: I guess again it’s got that sort feeling of loneliness, confusion and abandonment about it which seems to crop up with us. We’ve always found it a bit more invigorating to write about the darker side of life.
Into The Heart
Ally: Another one of our so-called pop songs, a skewed pop song, a pop song shrouded in reverb and noise, a cavernous pop song.
James: This was probably the most difficult to get right actually, because we knew this was probably going to be the single or the biggest single on the record.
Ally: Just in terms of the song for us it’s a bit different as we talked about groove-based and song-based, this one is definitely one of the most song-based which spends most of the time in a major key, which we don’t tend to do that often and we found it quite difficult striking a balance, we wanted to preserve the nature of the pop song but really bring it into that MIRRORS aesthetic, without compromising it and it took a lot of different attempts and tries to get it where we were finally happy with it.
James: We’ve never set out to write singles, we create for creation’s sake and this just so happens to have a very catchy chorus.
Ally: I like the lyrics in this, they’re… I don’t want to say random because random reminds me of people’s photo albums on Facebook, but the lyrics are quite sort of wandering.
James: They are entirely random, they are the only lyrics on the record where I actually made them up as I was going along, it was meant to be a rough draft, I attempted to rewrite them but they then just felt weirdly unnatural after that. The only thing I did readjust was the “Into The Heart” chorus, because it needed to be more of a chant, a more repetitive thing. All the lyrics, I picked them out of a hat, there you go. It feels most euphoric actually on the record, it makes me want to put my hands in the air.
Ally: I’m struggling to think of things to say for this track, as much as the others though I think this track is much more obviously a song, in the traditional sense, the words, it’s much more about that than any of the sort acoustics or actual sound, this is much more about the song, probably more than any other song on the album actually.
James: It’s the most naturally, as it comes song.
Write Through The Night
Ally: We should talk about the little segue into ‘Write Through The Night’ by a very well-known Poet Laureate that we affected in the studio.
James: It’s nice to break the record up as well.
Ally: We spent quite a lot of time thinking about how the songs would firstly go on and how well they were going to work together in the context of the album and we felt by this point in we definitely didn’t want song after song after song, even that little 15 seconds there then this intro is a nice little break to prepare you for the next song.
James: It sort of takes your mind away from the music as well, we tend to use quotes quite a lot in remixes as well, it’s an interesting way of drawing your mind away from the music before you plunge back into it.
Ally: This song particularly is quite swirly and then it goes enormous and it’s quite a heavy hit.
James: It’s the most bombastic and, talking about festival moments, it’s the only one I ever imagine as a real stadium song as it’s quite rocky.
Ally: Definitely, it has got a sort of few Trad Rock elements…
James: …I wouldn’t say Trad, when we first did it I remember you saying this needs to sound like MY BLOODY VALENTINE if they had a Moog Modular and went mental.
Ally: Which I think it sort of does.
James: A little element of Dubstep about this track Ally?
Ally: Yes, definitely the bassline, yet again it was totally unintentional. Only when we took this song apart in the studio, well the farm we went to, when we recorded the album, that we really listened and went yeah that’s got Dubstep written all over it.
James: We’ve always said we could get an amazing Dubstep version of this track, which would be amazing, if anyone wants to do that for us as it’s really not exactly our world. In retrospect this is probably the most desperate track on the record, there’s defiantly an angst, an anger about it. When I think about it, I’d probably just met you when I wrote this and it was sort of like I’d just moved to Brighton and I’d been in a band before since I was 15 and that had broken up, it’s quite lonely in a way, I’m definitely writing this song on my own.
Ally: We got the album mixed in New York, we were never there during the process, which is a good thing if you know us, as we are the most obsessive band in the world. We spent a lot of time on this track in particular as we wanted it to sound so enormous. James was talking about the stadium and MY BLOODY VALENTINE feel of the track which it definitely has, we really wanted to get that across, that almost OASIS ‘Definitely Maybe’ vibe
James: I know what you mean, you can play it quietly and it still feels really live and raw.
Ally: It’s got that sort of lolloping feel to it, you can get yourself lost in it.
James: I was listening to it in your car once when we were driving around and it came on your iPod and I went “oh no, it’s stoner rock” for a moment… it’s not stoner rock but I do remember being really concerned for about two hours, and then going no actually, it’s fine.
Ways To An End
Ally: Another single if you will
James: This isn’t even a skewed pop song, this is Krautrock fun
Ally: This was the most fun tracks, this came from a jam first, normally we write songs in a very studio based way where James or I or someone come up with a chord progression or an idea, then we work on that in the studio, building blocks, adding bits or taking away parts to the song, but this one we were actually in a rehearsal room practising for a tour and we jammed
James: Like a proper band. It’s the last song that we wrote for the record as well, which maybe have been a sign of how we potentially could write in the future. Back to the groove based, back to the one note stomper. Definitely think this is the one that has the most, sort of “70s” sound almost, it’s kind of got that, almost Krautrocky sound, but modern, definitely a hint of THE HORRORS.
Ally: It’s definitely got a nod towards Krautrock and also obviously TALKING HEADS of course, the extra percussion and James’ vocal.
James: We should probably say as well, that bloody ‘Senses Working Overtime’ which we didn’t realise at the time until it was too late. XTC were one of those bands who would have been in the back of our minds when we were making this record anyway.
Ally: Yeah, looking at that now you think “1-2-3-4-5”, yeah, that’s good, have I heard that before? I must have heard that before.
James: We even said it didn’t we, it seems way too obvious. A good video this one as well, our first video…
Ally: Shot on my birthday actually, between midnight and 6am in an empty cinema in Brighton, which was not as much fun as it seems. The “talkie bit” is just us talking nonsense over a bit of prose that Tate wrote, this poem is called ‘Traveling Through The Dark’ by William Stafford which Tate had a copy of on a 12”, I don’t know where he found it. We just recorded that in and manipulated it, really quite ominous sounding and I like that over this quite uplifting almost psychedelic piece.
James: It just diverts your attention again doesn’t it, that’s a nice thing and also who ever is reading it has an amazing voice. The song is so saturated isn’t it, so full of everything.
Ally: I particularly like the bass on this although it doesn’t really do much, locking with the kick drum quite tightly, it reminds me sort of a finger played electric bass, post-punk, I sort of think, quite seventies, not much weight to it.
Hide & Seek
Ally: A different mood entirely now with ‘Hide & Seek’.
James: I’m a particular fan of this song live, it’s much more chaotic and sort of messy live. This is more subdued and again an atmospheric sort of vibe on the record.
Ally: One of the ones we, I wouldn’t say struggled with but didn’t come easy to us recording this. We should probably mention at this point we self-produced the album, just the four of us and we locked ourselves away in a remote farm in the middle of Sussex, for more time than is healthy. The reason we did that was that we’ve worked with producers before, some very talented producers but we didn’t really feel that we’d made the track sound how we wanted them to.
James: I think we have our own world and our own very specific idea of what that is.
Ally: The label were very good to us and gave us the opportunity to do it and we live and die by our words. This is exactly the record we wanted to make and it sounds how we wanted it to, if it doesn’t do as well as we’d hope, then we’ve only got ourselves to blame, but at least it sounds of the moment, exactly how we wanted this MIRRORS record to sound like.
James: It’s quite a sad song, in a way. Lyrically it’s very childish, I think that almost makes it sadder in a way, like very simple. Sounds like an electronic ARCADE FIRE.
Ally: Yeah, definitely got elements of that.
James: Like a younger JOY DIVISION.
Ally: A younger, happier JOY DIVISION, I wonder how people would interpret this song if the vocal were missing, if it were just an instrumental, if they would engage that or not. The music, the drums, the backing perhaps don’t suggest that, which I like.
James: More hopeful, a lot of our songs have a lot of melodies within the music and a lot of other catchy bits whereas this is really, I don’t want to, it’s my vocal but the crucial point is the vocal and that sort of brings everything together.
Ally: And the song just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. We contemplated for a long time, where to place this on the record. When we play this live, we play this last and it works so well, one big crescendo to end the set and this endless “Minipops” drum loop that carries on. We were going to put this song last on the record but we ended up writing a track called ‘Secrets’, which just had to come last as far as I was concerned as it was ten and a half minutes long. This works for me in the middle of the record now really well, I’m used to it.
James: It’s a really great pop song, and I’m going to say that.
Ally: I’ll humbly second it.
Photo by Richard Price
Somewhere Strange
James: We weren’t sure we were going to put this on the record.
Ally: No, we really weren’t and then Dave our A&R at the label said he’d listened to it on the way out to visit us at the farm where we were recording the album to bring out supplies and boost morale. He insisted that we re-record it, he was convinced it would go on the album, and to be fair to him, he was right. I think in contrast to the song before this, it’s another quiet lonely vocal but I think it’s so full of hope this song, particularly in James’s vocal.
James: I’m still a big fan of the demo of this, it’s much more lo-fi.
Ally: It took us a long time to do if I remember. When we recorded this song, it took forever! That’s the sort of downside of working, producing and writing the songs, no decisions get made quickly, the longer it goes on the more time everything seems to take. We drove ourselves to a point when we were recording this where we had to have a couple of days away from the farm and the chickens and get our heads back together.
James: Yeah, this is the point we actually had to go back home.
Ally: Back to normal civilisation.
James: This was the biscuit incident!
Ally: The “famed” biscuit incident.
James: Because obviously we were living out of each other’s pockets to such an extent.
Ally: The farmhouse we were living in was literally three rooms. A kitchen, a studio room and a bedroom.
James: Our best friend was a chicken, I just remember we had some lunch, which wasn’t a particularly big lunch and I had a biscuit and you had a massive go at me, because I didn’t need it.
Ally: We insisted that you weren’t hungry… *both laughing*
James: …which ended up in a sort of argument with us packing our bags and getting away for a couple of days.
Ally: This is it, we’re arguing over Rich Teas now, it’s time to take a break.
James: Definitely this track has got a bit of that LCD SOUNDSYSTEM vibe about it, which are great modern records, which we love. I had really good fun making the visuals for this which never worked because it felt too clubby. I got my housemate, and I sort of sat him in a chair around different parts of Brighton, sort of busy areas and sped everything up and it looked fantastic.
Ally: And he was dressed up as a 19th turn of the century duke as well.
James: A good album this… it’s probably the first time that we have ever listened to the album without actually being really cynical about it picking at every moment.
Ally: Yeah, I think so, it’s been quite refreshing. We spent so long analysing every detail and then the mixing process. It’s really nice now to listen to it and be able to talk about it in a positive manner.
James: Do you remember the original, original demo of this, which had three different verses, we nearly did it with Ed Buller?
Ally: Oh! The QUEEN moment, your QUEEN vocal, oh I do remember that. That one may not see the light of day.
James: That’s the point with us, for every song there are usually about five different versions of it before it gets to this point.
Ally: There is a hard drive of “off cuts” somewhere.
James: There really are which are being burnt as we speak. We’re not the kind of band that releases a lot of material, we’re really more about the quality than the quantity. Hence, you’re getting a ten-track record, we wanted to make it a nine-track record.
Photo by Richard Price
Something On Your Mind
Ally: Ahh, the lovely Karen Dalton.
James: It’s quite a relaxing thing this, isn’t it?
Ally: For those of you that don’t know, this is a cover of a song called ‘Something On Your Mind’ by a country singer called Karen Dalton who has the most incredible voice and if you haven’t heard it, you must listen to her. She died quite young which makes her story even more tragic. Her voice has as much emotion as you will ever hope to hear from anybody. Again, this was never meant to make the album, we were asked to do a cover for something, which incidentally we never ended up using. Again we played this to Dave, our A&R from Skint when he came to the farm to visit us and he just loved it. We hadn’t really given it much thought, its one of the quickest things we did, but he heard it and was really quite taken by it which is a lovely feeling for us because we had become so involved in it that hearing Dave, whose musical taste we trust say, you know, that’s really quite striking. I really enjoy listening to this.
James: It’s nice for us as well, because there is less pressure on it as it’s not our own. I think it’s a nice challenge as well, bands don’t really do covers anymore.
Ally: The antithesis of what MIRRORS do, listen to the original track, it’s just fantastic. It’s not as reverb laden as ours but I think it works with this track.
James: Short but sweet, the closest to a MIRRORS ballad we’re ever going to get. I wouldn’t ever write lyrics like this as well because the structure of it is so strange, it just goes all over the place.
Ally: Yeah, in rounds and rounds, I’m sure, ever since she recorded this, it would have been different.
James: Also, it’s just a nice challenge to be able put yourself in a different artist’s head, it’s just an interesting thing to do, it’s the same reason that we’re getting into remixes now, it’s just a totally different experience to recording your own music.
Photo by Richard Price
Searching In The Wilderness
Ally: ‘Searching In The Wilderness’, the track that always goes down very well live.
James: It’s a bit like Marmite for people, it’s very different from our other tracks in that it’s quite fun and light hearted
Ally: And definitely the most uptempo.
James: So people either find it their favourite track or something that Mirrors are not about, but I think it breaks the record up perfectly at this point.
Ally: It’s quite a nice injection of pace, I’m a big fan of the slow grooves.
James: Sometimes you’ve just got to have a dance.
Ally: Exactly, there has to be a point where you stand up.
James: The song title incidentally comes from a very good Garage Rock compilation.
Ally: Very good indeed, if you can get a copy, do, but you may struggle. I’ve only ever seen the one that we have. This song was in the public domain before the album was released, people commented on it being an homage to the 80s
James: That’s the slight problem with it, when people talk about the 80s which they invariably will with us, we don’t want them to think of this element of it really.
Ally: I personally think it’s a bit of a lazy journalistic view to say that we are an 80s band in 2010, I would say we are more 1977 to 1981 if you had to put a date stamp on it.
James: This is our debut 1977 record in our brains isn’t it?
Ally: I think so, yeah. I think this has many elements of the music of the late 1970s as opposed to the 1980s.
James: Yeah, this does, this track particularly, but when it does come back to the first chorus it has elements of Speak & Spell about it. This is definitely the record that will be our most dense, its all about that waterlogged sound, it gives it a feeling and definitely, entirely has its own vibe
Ally: It’s exactly what we wanted to do.
James: It gives us somewhere to go for the second record.
Ally: Exactly!
Photo by David Ellis
Secrets
Ally: This probably is my favourite track on the record I would say.
James: This is my favourite track on the record.
Ally: James’s Ten favourite tracks of ‘Lights & Offerings’.
James: This is a very old song.
Ally: Well it’s almost three songs in one this isn’t it.
James: It is now, yeah. The early original section was written almost three and a half years ago now, mad to think.
Ally: Again an amazing mix job here from Jonathan Kreinik, in a few bars or so when the drums come in it just sounds amazing, it sounds like it breaks through a window almost.
James: Mr McCluskey of OMD a big fan of this one. He hears a bit of ‘Maid of Orleans’ in it which is always a complement.
Ally: When he said it I thought you’re absolutely right, of course when the string riff which comes in, I hadn’t really thought of it until that point.
James: This is again a song we would say is very much of our own taste.
Ally: I think it has a…
James: …slow sexy groove
Ally: It has a few rock elements to it, I think it has a bit of that sort of, almost ‘Screamadelica’ vibe to it in the percussion and the drums and the vocals.
James: What’s that track on ‘Screamadelica’ that’s like 14 minutes long?
Ally: ‘Come Together’!
James: I think the vocal sounds the nicest on this, a really dreamy quality to it, I can definitely close my eyes and sway to this song.
Ally: Yeah this, the vocal sits in this so nicely for me. It’s almost one entity, the vocal is less of a part on its own but more a sort of texture in the whole song, I think it works really nicely. It’s interesting going back to the Andy McCluskey point, when he listened to this track he said “I think ‘Secrets’ could be a really good single”, I walked in and thought are you mad, its ten minutes long, but what of course he meant was just the first bit, not the self-indulgent latter bit.
James: It’s not self-indulgent, I mean it’s the end of our record isn’t it, we’ll get to that. I don’t think it’s self-indulgent for self-indulgent sake.
Ally: No I Don’t.
James: We actually had quite a big argument about it because I personally wanted this song to be in the middle as the sort of ‘Marquee Moon’ moment.
Ally: I did not.
James: Because I guess, it’s my favourite, I think for me it’s another one of those lynchpin moments on the record and a lot of people, me included, can be quite impatient and not get to the end of an album. I know that I tend to actually now listen to the first half, go have a cup of tea then listen to the second half of a record because I don’t have the patience, which I’m honest about, but I do genuinely hope people get around to listening to this because we want to play it live and I think this could be a favourite of people.
Ally: I think this is a song that you almost have to put a bit of effort into listening to, it’s not one to listen to on the train with your iPod headphones. If you’re lucky enough to have a nice set of speakers, sit in front of them and make yourself a brew and really get into it and I think you’ll enjoy it.
James: We wanted to have a moment on the record that wasn’t melodically based and it’s been useful because we use it now to start our live set off which is nice.
Ally: One of the things about your debut record is that you don’t want to look back on it and think I wish we’d have been bolder, and I think this track is not going to be to everybody’s taste. Were fully aware that people might get to track nine “Searching In The Wilderness” and then not listen to this, but I think for those people that do listen to this track, I think it could be one of their favourites, again it’s going to split people.
James: There’s more to listen to so you can go back to it a second and a third time and you will hear new things in it.
Ally: Definitely.
James: For me, musically, it makes things more exciting. I did feel a bit sorry for Jonathan Kreinik.
Ally: Yeah, the accompanying email I remember sending with the hard drive with this contained was probably a book in itself but god bless the man, patience of a saint, a very talented mixer.
James: I think when we were doing this, we almost wanted people to forget that the song previously had happened because in a minute, it explodes back into the song and it’s a shocking bold moment.
Ally: This was a lot of fun for those of us in the band who are more into synthesizers and sonics, mentioning no names, certainly including myself, just really having a bit of fun making this sort of ambient soundscape.
James: I was taking the piss out of them an awful lot when they were in the kitchen recording cutlery, dropping things, a little self-indulgent maybe.
Ally: Yeah, possibly.
James: Originally this was four parts as well.
Ally: It was, the missing part of ‘Secrets’, I think we will finish it off and do something with it one day.
James: I liked the fourth part. I like the third part more. Probably the only moment as well that sort of hints at a more modern dance moment in the background.
Ally: I love these Daniel Miller type vocals
James: Quite ‘Warm Leatherette’. Regarding talking over it, it’s not a very melodic moment so it didn’t feel right trying to sing anything over it.
Ally: After having four minutes of atonal nonsense, this wasn’t the most shocking thing to happen.
James: It’s good advice though.
Ally: What?
James: The lyrics!
Ally: Coping with life 101 with MIRRORS.
James: It seems strange being self-deprecating over a moment like that. The important thing for us is that we don’t do things like that to be pretentious. We do it because we think it enhances the record and enhances the music. So, don’t think we’re stone faced and cold.
Ally: No absolutely! We definitely thought of this record as a listening experience, there’s nothing worse when you hear an album and you think individually the songs are very good but that’s all they are a collection of songs put together. I feel really pleased and proud of the album we’ve got, it feels like a journey and makes for a really enjoyable listen.
Lights & Offerings
Ally: ‘Lights & Offerings’ was so close to making the album…
James: The reason it didn’t make it was because ‘Secrets’ did, it’s as simple as that. They come from a similar place and we didn’t want to have too many epics. With ‘Somewhere Strange’, ‘Fear Of Drowning’ and ‘Secrets’, you’ve got three lynchpin moments; we didn’t need another one of those.
Ally: We’ve always played it live, it goes down excellently.
James: It’s one of my favourite tracks of ours! ‘Broken By Silence’ as well, I like that one.
Visions Of You
James: That’s another of the ones we looked at when we were making the record. The label really wanted it to be on the album and we had to put our foot down and say…
Ally: …this doesn’t feel right to do this on our first record. It didn’t make it in the UK but we’re happy to release it in Germany and I think we’ve come back to it a bit.
James: It’s a very big pop song but there’s part of me that thinks it might be a little too big.
Ally: It sort of scares us almost! They are tracks that, for whatever reason, didn’t make the record, be it for mood or that there was already a song of a similar nature on there.
James: We didn’t in a lot of cases think they were worse. Every single B-side could happily have had a place. We didn’t want it to be too self-indulgent and long. If you’ve got fifteen brilliant songs, it’s going to be an hour and forty five minutes!
Ally: No-one going to have time for that, we’re not RADIOHEAD! *laughs*
James: It’s nice that people really appreciate that we do put as much of an effort into the B-sides because it means they’ll come back to the singles.
Photo by Richard Price
Toe The Line
Ally: That was a song we didn’t really consider for the album until the very last minute and we thought “What about this? It’s actually quite good!”
Falls By Another Name
Ally: It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure…
James: …we do have a habit of writing quite big melodies and choruses, we come from a poppy sort of place.
Ally: James and I normally do that, it’s Tate that reins us in! *laughs*
James: And Tate will tell you right now that he’s not a big fan of ‘Falls By Another Name’…
Tate: It’s alright… *everyone laughs*
‘Lights & Offerings’ used the following equipment: ARP 2600, Akai MPC1000 Production Station, Dave Smith Instruments Prophet 08, Doepfer MAQ16/3 Sequencer, Kawai R50 Drum Machine, Korg MicroPreset, Moog Little Phatty, Minimoog, Memorymoog, Nord Lead 2X, Octave Cat, Roland Juno 60, Roland SH101, Roland TR808 Rhythm Composer, Roland MC202 MicroComposer, Roland SPD-S Electronic Percussion Sampling Pad, Siel Cruise.
‘Lights & Offerings’ was released by Skint Records and is still available as a CD or download via assorted online retailers
‘This Fractured Mind’ is the best of the three trailers released so far by NATION OF LANGUAGE ahead of their upcoming second album ‘A Way Forward’.
Dealing with the spectre of unrealised dreams and jealousy towards more successful others, by the end of ‘This Fractured Mind’, any inferiority complex is countered with hopeful acceptance in line with the new album’s optimistic title.
Vocally like a majestic cross between THE NATIONAL and A-HA, NATION OF LANGUAGE are led by singer /songwriter Ian Devaney; his wife Aidan Noell on keyboards and returning bassist Michael Sui-Poi complete the line-up.
Using a rigid motorik backbone and capturing a danceable ethereal shudder, ‘This Fractured Mind’ breathes new life via its sprightly synth tones in a reference to the past. Although there is also some frenetic bass guitar grit to provide a hint of claustrophobia, the machines that had only been friends previously have now become family…
Possibly the nearest act musically to the much missed MIRRORS at the moment, NATION OF LANGUAGE seem to get synthier with each release. ‘On Division St’ from their debut long player ‘Introduction, Presence’ revealed itself to be a second cousin to NEW ORDER’s ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ with its sharp synth lines and programmed bass triplets. But a late 2020 standalone single ‘Deliver Me From Wondering Why’ used a more blippy construction compared with the post-punk approach of their earlier work and explored the more experimental phase of OMD.
Ian Devaney’s artistic epiphany came when he heard OMD’s ‘Electricity’ in his father’s car for the first time in years, having grown up with it as part of his domestic soundtrack. Inspired to write songs with modern monophonic synths like the Behringer MS-1, Moog Sub37 and reissued Korg MS20, he adopted a fresh beginner’s mind towards the electronic pop form.
With such an affinity towards pioneering British new wave bands like NEW ORDER and OMD, NATION OF LANGUAGE’s tour of the UK in early 2022 could be seen as a sort of spiritual homecoming for the Brooklyn-based trio.
Copenhagen Ideal Bar (15th January), Stockholm Obaren (16th January), Oslo Bla (17th January), Berlin Kantine Am Berghain (19th January), Zurich Kater (20th January), Barcelona Laut (22nd January), Madrid Sala El Sol (23rd January), Paris Supersonic (25th January), Leeds Hyde Park Book Club (27th January), Glasgow Broadcast (28th January), Dublin Grand Social (29th January), Manchester YES Pink Room (30th January), London Lafayette (31st January)
Brooklyn-based duo NATION OF LANGUAGE are singer / songwriter Ian Devaney and his wife Aidan Noell on keyboards.
Gifted with a voice of anguish, Devaney had fronted New Jersey alternative rock band THE STATIC JACKS who released their only album ‘In Blue’ in 2013.
Legend has it that NATION OF LANGUAGE came into being when Devaney heard OMD’s ‘Electricity’ in his father’s car for the first time in years, having grown up with it as part of his domestic soundtrack. This led to Devaney adopting what he termed the “beginner’s mind” of those pioneering synth acts.
So he began writing songs with monophonic synths like the Behringer MS-1, Korg MS20 and Moog Sub37 while like OMD, also using bass guitar. Issuing a series of singles since 2016 including an electronic cover of PIXIES’ ‘Gouge Away’, NATION OF LANGUAGE finally released their debut album ‘Introduction, Presence’ in Spring 2020.
Now if Rodney Cromwell had joined MIRRORS or if MIRRORS had more of a Factory Records fixation as opposed to looking up to OMD, then that would be the sound of NATION OF LANGUAGE. So despite having dense production aesthetics in common, the more inherent gloominess means that NATION OF LANGUAGE are perhaps less obviously immediate than MIRRORS. NATION OF LANGUAGE have also made more use of NEW ORDER style melodic lead bass provided by Michael Sui-Poi from THE STATIC JACKS, while Fabrizio Moretti from THE STROKES occasionally guested on drums.
‘On Division St’ is a close relative to ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ with its sharp synth lines and programmed bass triplets, while ‘Rush & Fever’ plays with sequencers and electronic effects to reinforce the NEW ORDER influence but perhaps more unexpectedly, Devaney starts to sound like Morten Harket of A-HA.
The spectre of the Norwegian pop trio looms on the superb synth driven album highlight ‘Friend Machine’ which examines society’s addiction to technology and the standalone synthpop flavoured single ‘A Different Kind Of Life’. However, the shadier tones of CHVRCHES collaborator Matt Berninger of THE NATIONAL is who Devaney mostly emulates vocally.
Album opener ‘Tournament’ imagines an artistic union of A-HA and LCD SOUNDSYSTEM while ‘Automobile’ adds full chords via some Roland Strings; continuing the driving theme, there’s the partly spoken robopop of ‘The Motorist’.
While the album closer ‘The Wall & I’ exhibits more of a post-punk feel like FM ATTACK meets SECTION 25, the glorious brand new single ‘Deliver Me From Wondering Why’ uses a more blippy construction and takes a leaf out of the more experimental phase of early OMD while eschewing bass guitar following the departure of Michael Sui-Poi.
This Paul Humphreys interview put ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK on the map. At his studio complex in London, he chatted about the past, present and future of OMD, hinting at the contents of the upcoming album ‘History Of Modern’. The interview proved popular and was later quoted by The Guardian in a feature about OMD. This was the first of five interviews, the most recent of which was for OMD’s 40th Anniversary in 2019.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK bumped into Sarah Blackwood after a HEAVEN 17 concert in Cologne and so began a long lasting friendship. Conducted at a café in St Pancras, this interview captured an interesting interregnum with our heroine between the end of CLIENT and the start of the DUBSTAR reunion. This was to be the first of two Sarah solo chats while she would be interviewed with Chris Wilkie twice as DUBSTAR.
Conducted in London to coincide with the reissue of her debut solo album ‘Love: And A Million Other Things’, Claudia Brücken talked about her time in PROPAGANDA, ACT and ONETWO while she also talked about plans for a compilation called ‘ComBined’ collecting highlights from throughout her career. Her most recent ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK interview was together with Susanne Freytag as xPROPAGANDA.
The majority of interviews are cordial affairs but this one with Andy McCluskey following the release of OMD’s comeback album ‘History Of Modern’ was a bit ‘Frost/Nixon’. ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK echoed some of the fan disappointments about the record and to his credit, he was unrepentant and batted away criticisms with aplomb. A less confrontational interview followed in 2013 for ‘English Electric’.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were surprised when a request to interview Stephen Morris was accepted, especially as NEW ORDER had seemingly disbanded. The conversion had The Human Drum Machine at his best with stories about JOY DIVISION as well. But why was this interview taking place, why was he doing a fashion shoot for ‘Arena Homme+’? It was all subtle profile rebuilding as NEW ORDER was relaunched months later!
With many discussion points covered, a thoroughly entertaining hour was spent chatting to Neil Arthur in his studio during a break from rehearsals for the first BLANCMANGE live shows since 1986 in support of a new album ‘Blanc Burn’. The artist who has been interviewed the most times by ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, he has since been featured a further nine times including with his side projects FADER and NEAR FUTURE.
The intelligent aesthetics of MIRRORS made them ideal for ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s first interview using the Vintage Synth Trumps format. Conducted in the dressing room of Cologne’s Gebaude9 prior to the first show of their headlining German tour, James New and Ally Young chatted about the synths used on their ’Lights & Offerings’ album. But tension was evident between the pair and it ultimately led to the sad end of the band.
While often reluctant to talk about DEPECHE MODE, when Alan Wilder auctioned off a large collection of his studio equipment, vinyl and memorabilia, he was ready to talk about the band he left in 1995 again as well his own musical venture RECOIL. For the 25th Anniversary of the release of the ‘101’ live album and documentary film in 2014 , ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK was the only platform he granted an interview to.
One of the nicest guys in the music business, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK had the pleasure of chatting to Howard Jones about his then-upcoming tour performing his first two albums ‘Human’s Lib’ and ‘Dream Into Action’. Focussing on the period between 1983 to 85 when he became a household name and was many people’s entry point into the world of synthpop, the interview included lots of analogue and digital synth talk.
A short conversation conducted remotely, Karl Bartos talked about his new album ‘Off The Record’ and recalled his collaborations with Andy McCluskey, Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr. When he performed at Cologne’s Live Music Hall on the same night that KRAFTWERK received a Lifetime Achievement Grammyin January 2014, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were granted an audience with the man himself.
The album ‘the minutes’ saw the return of Alison Moyet to electronica and this inevitably led to reminiscences about YAZOO in this delightful and sweary interview conducted face-to-face in Islington. She was frank and open about all aspects of her career, the misconception of her being a “jazz singer” and which two songs from the YAZOO portfolio she particularly hated! Can you guess without look at the transcript which ones they are?
VILE ELECTRODES remain the act that ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has been proudest of featuring. Invited to support OMD on the German leg of their ‘English Electric’ tour following Andy McCluskey spotting the band while perusing ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, this informative interview was conducted in Anais Neon and Martin Swan’s synth-filled apartment and completed online to update it after the news was announced.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were literally given a few days notice that is was to interview Gary Numan at his home in Los Angeles by phone. Coinciding with the release of the ‘Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)’ album which had taken 7 years to complete, he was in buoyant mood after an artistic rejuvenation. Refreshingly honest, he admitted his original plan to make all the songs on ‘Splinter’ one-dimensional was “a sh*t idea”!
One of the fun things about the Vintage Synth Trumps series of interviews is that there is a degree of jeopardy for both interviewer and artist. Taking time to gain acclaim and recognition , the first Rodney Cromwell album ‘Age Of Anxiety’ was perfect for mainman Adam Cresswell to talk about his love of synths and DIY recording as well as the influence of NEW ORDER and SECTION 25 on his music over a fish supper in London’s Soho.
It was known that Richard Barbieri is often not that keen on talking about JAPAN and ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK assumed all the chat over the phone would be about his new album ‘Planets + Persona’. But unprompted, he chatted about his MicroMoog which was used on a number of JAPAN albums. But the crowning glory of the interview was how he did the metallic intro of ‘Ghosts’ using his Roland System 700 Lab Series.
While not as well-known as Giorgio Moroder or Conny Plank, producer Zeus B Held contacted ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK after it did a Beginner’s Guide feature on his career portfolio. A coffee meeting was arranged at Foyles bookshop in London and morphed into a full interview which saw the talkative German reflect back on working with GINA X PERFORMANCE, FASHION and DEAD OR ALIVE as well as John Foxx and Gary Numan.
When in Düsseldorf… despite the confrontational aspects of DAF, their drummer and sequencer programmer Robert Görl is something of a thoughtful and spiritual soul. This face-to-face interview was conducted before a performance of his ‘Glücksritter’ live only project and took in DAF, his wonderful solo debut long player ‘Night Full Of Tension’, working with Annie Lennox and the great standalone single ‘Mit Dir’.
Marc Almond and Dave Ball surprised all with a reunion for ‘One Night Only’ at London’s O2 Arena that has since become an ongoing world tour. But with it came a lavish boxed set, various books and new albums. In a London pub, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK had an in-depth chat with Dave Ball focussed on the ups and downs of SOFT CELL. This was followed up with an entertaining game of Vintage Synth Trumps in 2023.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has enjoyed seven interviews with Martyn Ware encompassing HEAVEN 17 and BEF, but this chat was about his time as a co-founder member of THE HUMAN LEAGUE to coincide with a live celebration of their first two albums ‘Reproduction’ and ‘Travelogue’. This was a fascinating insight into how THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s “vocals and synthesizers only” sound became the future of pop music.
Although he left JAPAN in 1980, guitarist Rob Dean gave an eye witness account to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK into the making of their third album ‘Quiet Life’ to coincide with a remastered boxset. JAPAN were in a state of transition from the growly glam funk of their first records to the mannered artful combo people remember them for today, so with him now residing in Costa Rica, this email Q&A provided some insightful commentary.
While most of ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s interviews with Our Man In Berlin have been conducted remotely at his convenience, apart from an onstage interview at a 2016 event in Düsseldorf, this Vintage Synth Trumps chat was a rare live outing on Skype. Among the topics were his remixes for NEW ORDER and YELLO while there was also mention of the Transcendent 2000 which Bernard Sumner had built from a kit and given to him.
With his noted dry humour, Billy Currie was on top form for probably the best interview in the Vintage Synth Trumps series so far. With insight into the workings of ULTRAVOX and VISAGE as well solo work and his brief time in the Gary Numan live band. Of the latter, Currie went into detail about the ARP Odyssey solo on ‘On Broadway’ while also shedding light on how ‘Touch & Go’ co-written with former band mate John Foxx became ‘Mr X’.
Some say that the Belgians don’t have a sense of humour, but that was proved wrong when surviving TELEX members Michel Moers and Dan Lacksman gave a laugh a minute interview to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK in support of their self-titled boxed set released by Mute Records. The most hilarious moment was when the pair recalled their dismay when Portugal awarded them 10 points at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1980.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has had the honour of interviewing Midge Ure on a number of occasions, the first time at the world famous Abbey Road Studios. But the most recent occasion was the best where he discussed a life in music ahead of his 70th birthday and a special show at the Royal Albert Hall. This was an extensive chat which included music technology such as the PPG Wave and the Roland GR700 guitar synthesizer.
With ‘Metamatic’ about to celebrate its 45th Anniversary, it was a perfect time for ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK to chat to John Foxx about his close encounters with synthesizers over a game of Vintage Synth Trumps in Düsseldorf, the spiritual home of modern electronic pop. As well as talking about his seminal debut solo album, he recalled how ULTRAVOX came to utilise synths and drum machines in their music.
via 
via Mute Records
via serviceAV
via Frost World Recordings
(V/A) via EMI Records
via Elektra Records
via EMI Records
(V/A) via Manimal Vinyl
via Nettwerk Records
via Anti-Ghost Moon Ray Records
via Skint Records
via Repo Records
via I Am Snow Angel
via Analogue Trash
Follow Us!