Tag: OMD (Page 19 of 23)

VILE ELECTRODES Re-Emerge…

16 May 2013 /

Following the release of their self-titled debut EP featuring brilliantly quirky electronic pop such as ‘Play With Fire’, ‘Headlong’ and the magnificent splendour of ‘My Sanctuary’, VILE ELECTRODES remained silent for most of 2012 as they wrote and recorded more material.

Then as the year drew to a close, they premiered their first song from the sessions ‘The Last Time’. NOT a cover of THE ROLLING STONES track which was subsequently ripped off by THE VERVE in its Andrew Loog Oldham lounge arrangement, singer Anais Neon described it as “our aural Ferrero Rocher and / or L’Oreal. Hope you like!”. Wintery like prime ‘Architecture & Morality’ era OMD, ‘The Last Time’ sounded nonchalantly cruel like CLIENT running a Siberian labour camp; the simple but brilliant video however showed Anais sitting contemplatively in a hospital waiting room while time passes her by…

Invited to support OMD’s upcoming tour of Germany in May following Andy McCluskey spotting the band while perusing ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, they will also be opening for JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS at Brighton Concorde 2 in June. Not only that, VILE ELECTRODES will be releasing a new EP ‘Re-Emerge’ to coincide with the tour and finally, their long awaited debut album ‘The Future Through A Lens’ in June which includes fan favourites ‘Proximity’, ‘Feed Your Addiction’ and ‘Deep Red’.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK talked Synth Politiks with VILE ELECTRODES’ Martin Swan and Anais Neon and the practicalities of using antique synthesizers on stage…

Martin, what was your first keyboard or synth?

Martin: When I was about 14, my mum bought me a Casio PT20, which was a tiny keyboard just one step up from the old VL-Tone… and I wrote songs on it. I’d always known I had song-writing ability and, as soon I had this PT20, I was able to get on with it. When I was 16 the girl I was going out with had left school to get a job as a dental assistant. With pretty much her first pay packet, she bought me a Roland SH101 for my birthday! It was £185 from Vroom in Watford – where I ended up living above a few years later. So that was it! PT20, SH101 and, a few months later, I picked up an MC202, which is a little sequencer that goes with the SH101. It was only £50, which is unbelievable now. I used to write these little tunes (with no drums on them!) and record them onto cassette. It all started from there.

+AS_Vile Electrodes with Telemark

What types of synths do you like?

Martin: One of my real loves is string synthesizers. They’re not like regular synthesizers, in that they’re an older technology and quite primitive. None of the string sounds are that authentic by today’s standards. The manufacturers like Roland, Yamaha, ARP and Moog tried to make them sound like orchestras, so they put chorus units inside them to thicken their sound, and make them sound as big and as lush as possible. It’s the sound of a certain era of music for me. It’s that Gary Numan sound that sits over the Moog bass, it’s the sound of ULTRAVOX, it’s the sound of early OMD. It’s even the sound of indie acts like ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN and THE ICICLE WORKS. So I have a whole load of them and just fall into their swirly loveliness!

Your epic song ‘Deep Red’ from the forthcoming album has some great sounds…

Martin: For ‘Deep Red’, I set up some drones and held down the same key on about three different string synths and it creates this amazing atmosphere. There’s a Yamaha SK20, which plays the foreboding sound, and the higher parts are played on a Moog Opus 3. The thing about the Opus 3 is that it’s got a resonant filter, which is unusual for a string synth. With a chorus added on that, it sounds really spooky. There’s actually two melody lines, the first is played on a Yamaha CS15 and sounds like a filtered dying cat, for want of a better description, while the second one with the higher strings is played on the Moog.

Photo by Doralba Picerno

Your favourite instrument appears to be the Korg MS20? It must be a pain to use live?

Martin: The worst thing about using the MS20 live is lugging the flight case around. It’s actually pretty simple to use! It’s got big dials so it does look a bit like it’s controlling radar or something, but it means it’s easy to know where you are with it. It’s also really reliable, unlike some of the other gear that we have used in the past; it stays in tune and the filters are really strong. I know it really well so I can do what I want to do on it.

Anais, your set-up is a bit simpler, what do you use?

Anais: I’ve got the Korg mini-Kaos pad and the KP3 that I use for sampling my vocals and adding harmonies and sound effects. I play an SH-101, as does Martin, and a Roland RS-09 – one of our beloved string synths! I’m also controlling the sequencers these days as well. Basically I do everything and Martin just stands around looking pretty. *laughs*

I have inherited a love of synths from Martin, but I’m not a true synth geek and I don’t know all the subtle differences the way Martin does. For me it’s a case of “that one has a really lovely sound, we have to have more of that!”.

Martin: She does that a lot with the Juno 6, which is why a lot of our songs have got Juno arpeggios in them. ‘Proximity’ prominently features it.

Anais: Martin was in the studio and just started off a simple drum loop and kicked off an arpeggio sequence on the Juno and I went “oh my god”… half an hour later, ‘Proximity’ was written! It’s such a beautiful sounding bit of kit. We’ve actually decided to take it to Germany with us!

There are two fascinating synths in your armoury; one you’ve just mentioned which is the Roland RS09 which Mick MacNeil from SIMPLE MINDS used on ‘Love Song’…

Martin: It’s a string synthesizer which does organ and strings…

Anais: It doesn’t make that many sounds really does it? *laughs*

Martin: It’s got very basic sounds, but what it does is quite unique. It has this ensemble, as soon as you add vibrato it starts to sound great, a real OMD vibe to it like ‘Almost’. Because it’s so simple, it’s a fantastic instrument to use live; four sounds but really strong. We use it a lot for top melody lines. It’s small for a string synth so it’s more practical. It’s got such a richness, very 1978-79! I think THE CURE used one on ‘The Funeral Party’ as well as an ARP Quartet but not many bands have used it, that’s one of the reasons why I like it as well.

And you have one of the most modern monophonic synths in the Dave Smith Mopho which features on ‘Re-Emerge’ from your new EP…

Martin: Our Mopho was in the first batch that came into the UK, and I was very lucky to get it. I can thank The Arts Council here, because I got it as part of their ‘Take It Away’ scheme so it didn’t cost me a penny up front and I’ve paid for it since on interest free credit. It’s a modern take on the Sequential Circuits Pro-One, which is a classic analogue monosynth that DEPECHE MODE and HOWARD JONES played.

The Mopho is a combination of that and the Moog Source, which was the first monosynth that had memories. Obviously, it really helps for playing live to switch from one patch to another. But it’s quite sturdy and the sounds are more contemporary than the SH101 for example. I think LITTLE BOOTS’ keyboard player Chris Kemsley was the first person in the UK to get one. It’s kind of old school vintage synth in one way but it’s got a modern aesthetic as well. It’s very muscley!

That’s the thing for me, VILE ELECTRODES music isn’t stuck in the 80s but neither is it completely contemporary, it’s somewhere between the two. And hopefully as a result, doesn’t date too badly! We’ve decided not to take the Mopho to Germany with us, though. We’re taking our new Analogue Solutions Leipzig SK instead!

How do you feel about being invited to support OMD and JOHN FOXX?

Anais: It’s a fabulous opportunity, and a genuine surprise! It may sound like a fawning cliché to say it, but they are honestly some of our favourite musicians, and naturally huge influences on us. I could be wrong but, particularly for OMD, I think fan opinion played a role in our being offered the slot, as there were lots of people talking about us in OMD forums, and we’ve had a wonderful show of support since we told people.

We keep saying that we feel so lucky, and there is an element of luck, as there are so many great and deserving bands out there. But at the same time we do work really hard at building relationships with the people who support us, and they in turn work hard to tell people about our music. Which is good, as we’re rather rubbish at that part!

Modesty aside, it’s a kind of validation, too, for what we do creatively. We are just who we are, and we haven’t tried to follow any particular format or formula, or create a special mystique. And we don’t have some grand plan or intended career trajectory. We just make pop music. We use electronic instruments. But what we do doesn’t sound like contemporary pop, but neither does it particularly sound like classic synthpop, or dance-pop, or minimal wave, or post-punk or whatever. Our songs really cross a whole load of different styles, and I think people recognize that we’re not easy to pigeonhole, and that we have something a bit different to offer as a result.

Martin: OMD were the first band I ever saw live, the band I spent my teenage years obsessing about and collecting everything I could of theirs. So it’s amazing!! But it still hasn’t really sunk in. It’s so exciting, but also quite daunting. Most small bands in the UK don’t get to play to more than about 50 people on a regular basis, so it’s big step up, and we’ve got a lot of work still to do to feel like we’re representing what we do properly on a big stage.

You’re known for your big live set-ups. Are you reducing what equipment you’re taking to Germany for the OMD tour?

Anais: We had planned to but, having spent some time in rehearsal with a stripped down set, it just didn’t feel… very us! So we’re back to ‘Neon and Swan, and an army of synths’! Though we’re not taking our drum pads! In one way that’s a shame, because when we play them live it adds a really great performance and visual element, but we realised we did need to streamline a little bit. And we didn’t want the tour management team to think we were taking the p*ss! *laughs*

It’s very important for us, when performing, to do as much as we can live, and you can’t do that for our songs with just a couple of synths and a drum machine. Most of our tracks have been recorded live in the studio, with everything running and being played (hopefully) in sync together. This includes some very old and very fragile pieces of equipment, some of which we definitely wouldn’t risk taking on the road, as we could never afford to replace them if something happened to them! As a consequence, our recorded sound can be difficult to reproduce on stage. If we think something is really integral to a particular track, then we do try to recreate it but, to us, playing live should be a unique experience each night. It isn’t the same as being in the studio – it should be a performance!

Martin: Not much of what we use has memories, and we purposefully don’t make detailed notes, preferring to go on how things sound rather than what the settings are supposed to be. And things will go wrong – they always do! Expect confused arm-flinging, puzzled looks and raised eyebrows… it’s part of the fun! For me, the idea that the live experience should be different from what you’re hearing on the recording is very important. Or else you could just sit at home and listen to the record! But in terms of capturing that, it’s just a matter of…

Anais: … excitement and enthusiasm really. At least it is now! I’d never been in a band before VILE ELECTRODES, and both song-writing and performing were totally alien to me. When we first started out I needed prescribed structures and sounds. It was so hard for me to be on the stage in the first place that, if something was different, it totally threw me off course. I forbade Martin from making any weird unexpected noises, as it made me think I’d missed my cue or something! But I’m over that now. Expect weird noises galore.

Photo by Doralba Picerno

How are you finding playing live now that you’ve streamlined to just the two of you?

Anais: VILE ELECTRODES started out as two-piece, but I was such a nervous performer that it was all I could do to stand behind a microphone and remember my lyrics. So we invited some good friends to join the band, in part as moral support for me, but also to fill the gaps where Martin didn’t have enough arms to do everything.

As the Vile schedule got busier, the others felt they weren’t able to commit the time and energy that the band was starting to require, so we went back to being a two-piece. By that time my nerves had mostly subsided, anyway, and I was able to take on more roles – and more equipment! Nowadays, Martin complains that he hasn’t got enough to do on stage! In short, being a two-piece is brilliant and has totally changed how we’re able to work together and make creative decisions.

Until recently Anais, you were moonlighting as Gillian Gilbert for NEW ORDER tribute band RE:ORDER?

Anais: We’ve just done our last ever RE:ORDER gig (until the Re:Union, of course!); basically, when VILE ELECTRODES were just starting out, I had a call from Will (RE:ORDER’s Barney, and a longtime friend of mine) to say that they were losing their Gillian, and did I maybe happen to know someone that could maybe play a little bit of keyboards and maybe a little bit of guitar hint hint… it seemed like a good chance to get a bit of on-stage experience where I wasn’t going to be the centre of attention, so I signed up. It’s been great fun, and we’ve played some brilliant venues, and it really helped with my confidence building as a performer. I’ll miss it, but I think I’ve got plenty of Vile activities to be focusing on at the moment!

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to VILE ELECTRODES

Please visit http://www.omd.uk.com for further details for VILE ELECTRODES’ 2013 German tour supporting OMD which includes: Hamburg Docks (21st May), Bielefeld Ringlokschuppen (22nd May), Berlin Tempodrom (24th May), Leipzig Haus Auensee (25th May), Köln E-Werk (27th May)

VILE ELECTRODES also open for JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS on Friday 7th June at Brighton Concorde

VILE ELECTRODES’ 3 Track CD EPs ‘Play With Fire’, ‘The Last Time’ and ‘Re-Emerge’ are available as downloads via http://vileelectrodes.bandcamp.com/

‘The Future Through A Lens’ will be released in Summer 2013. It can be pre-ordered along with other VILE ELECTRODES merchandise and music including their previous EPs via their online store at http://vileelectrodes.bigcartel.com/

http://www.vileelectrodes.co.uk

http://www.facebook.com/vileelectrodes

http://vileelectrodes.blogspot.com/

https://twitter.com/vileelectrodes

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
16th May 2013

OMD Interview

21 April 2013 /

Photo by Tom Oxley

‘English Electric’ is genuinely a stunning return to form.

Utilising their KRAFTWERK, NEU! and ENO influenced avant pop template, the original creative nucleus of Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey have married their classic sound to glitch techniques, modern computer voice generators and sympathetic contemporary production for a wonderfully cohesive work.

The long standing influence of Düsseldorf’s Fab Four – Ralf, Florian, Wolfgang and Karl – is more apparent on ‘English Electric’ than on any other previous OMD album. From first single ‘Metroland’ to ‘Kissing The Machine’, a sonic collaboration with Herr Bartos which also features PROPAGANDA’s Claudia Brücken, OMD’s Germanic circle is now complete.

Interestingly, some OMD fans weaned on ‘If You Leave’ and ‘Sailing On The Seven Seas’ appear to have been confused about OMD recording an electronic album with references to KRAFTWERK. But right from the off with ‘Electricity’ (which was effectively the song ‘Radio-Activity’ speeded up), Kling Klang has been the seed of OMD’s genesis. McCluskey recently included ‘Radio-Activity’ AND ‘Trans Europe Express’ among his baker’s dozen of favourite albums for The Quietus so this should not have come as any great surprise!

‘English Electric’ could well be the best OMD album since 1983’s ‘Dazzle Ships’. The sparkling but bittersweet synthpop of ‘Helen Of Troy’, the Edward Hopper referencing realism of ‘Night Café and the lovely Paul Humphreys vocalled ‘Stay With Me’ are all prime jewels in the OMD crown.

Meanwhile THE TORNADOS meet LA DÜSSELDORF blitz of ‘Dresden’ will have live audiences up on their feet despite its macabre lyrical context. Although closely related, ‘Dresden’ is however not actually about the bombing in the Second World War in the same way ‘Enola Gay’ was about Hiroshima. Instead, it uses the city as an unsubtle metaphor about relationship breakdown, an emotive topic that connects with the album’s theme of unfulfilled utopian dreams.

Photo by Ed Fielding

There are also unconventional chorus-less songs like the magnificent ‘Our System’ which sees drummer Mal Holmes turn into Phil Collns for the song’s explosive climax.

But the biggest surprise is ‘The Future Will Be Silent’, a squelch laden commentary about audio pollution… despite its dubstep drops, the end result remains somehow distinctly OMD!

OMD also embark on an extensive world tour and the various support acts in each territory showcase the best of established and new talent in a thoroughly reinvigorated electronic music scene.

Special guests in the UK are JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS who need no introduction; the former ULTRAVOX front man’s partnership with vintage synth collector extraordinaire Benge also features on stage, the multi-talented Hannah Peel whose ‘Organ Song’ was sampled for the OMD track ‘Bondage Of Fate’ from the previous OMD album ‘History Of Modern’. She also covered ‘Electricity’ for her debut EP ‘Rebox’.

Meanwhile, the Belgian and Dutch dates will be supported by METROLAND, a duo with Kling Klang burned into their circuitry and whose debut album ‘Mind The Gap’ is an affectionate technological journey inspired by the London Underground network; their electronic restyling of IGGY POP’s ‘The Passenger’ has to be heard to be believed while their appropriate remix of ‘Metroland’ is a big favourite of Rusty Egan.

The striking VILE ELECTRODES will be the opening act for the German tour and ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK is particularly proud as they first  featured on the site in 2010. They were also chosen by Andy McCluskey as a direct result of him perusing this very site. Andy McCluskey spoke about OMD’s new opus…

What inspired you to make ‘English Electric’ more conceptual?

It was the logical step forward. ‘History Of Modern’ was a collection of songs in various OMD styles. But we got loads of sh*t for just making a good album with ‘History Of Modern’. If U2 or SIMPLE MINDS just make an album that sounds like them, everyone will applaud them for getting back to basics. *laughs*

I don’t think people who crave songs are going to be disappointed. Having said that, ‘Our System’ is probably more akin to things like ‘Stanlow’ and ‘The Romance Of The Telescope’.

You’re making a statement of intent by launching the album with one of the experimental tracks ‘Decimal’ AND releasing ‘Metroland’, the longest track on the album as a single?

‘Metroland’ is a beautiful song with a simple but beautiful lyric, even if I say so myself… we’re very happy with it. So the beginning of this campaign is yes, making a statement of intent and flagging that we believe in what we’ve done on this album. The people who will buy the album will buy it hopefully because they’ve heard ‘History Of Modern’ and hopefully because they are OMD fans; they will buy it in the first two weeks. Then, hopefully, the people who liked ‘Sister Marie Says’ and bought ‘History Of Modern’ because they heard it on Radio2 will then go and buy the album when they hear the next two singles… this is the theory! *laughs*

Photo by Tom Oxley

‘Dazzle Ships’ was made in a period of adversity and insecurity… with ‘English Electric’ we are sort of in that situation with the economic uncertainty and the spectre of terrorism. What similarities can you identify spiritually with the two albums?

That’s an interesting thought isn’t it… does it find itself in similar economic and political landscape? In some respects, yes it does. But I don’t think that bad as the economies are, I don’t think most people in the Western democracies probably feel quite as fearful as they did in the early 80s of atomic destruction.

So the landscape isn’t exactly the same… y’know you’ve asked me a question I don’t know the answer to, well done! There are similarities and there may be similarities in the way it is being conceived because of the environment, but I would have to admit they are unconscious. I do want to stress we have not tried to recreate ‘Dazzle Ships’! It was a little frustrating for people to be talking about ‘Decimal’ being just ‘Time Zones’ for 2013… no it’s not! It’s completely different. It’s like saying because it’s got a speaking voice in it, it sounds like ‘Time Zones’… that’s like saying THE CLASH were like THE BEATLES! It just doesn’t hold water!

What techniques have you used to conceive these shorter, collage pieces?

For ‘Atomic Ranch’, Paul turned me on to these Vox Machina plug-ins. It’s quite nice to hear the three voices offset against each other… and one of them which most people seem to think of as the wife, is she going off-message or is she going on-message at the end? I don’t know… she changes. ‘Please Remain Seated’ is a combination, there’s a second half with a programmed voice and my words but the first half is an airport recording in Chinese. When you hear them in the context of the album, the linking pieces actually set up the next piece of music very beautifully.

Is the internet today’s short wave radio?

In practical terms, the internet has influenced ‘English Electric’ because it’s a source of information in the same way that German imports were when we were teenagers and the short wave radio was; when you’re interested and alert, you soak up anything you can get. I discovered the sound of Voyager going through the magnetosphere of Jupiter on YouTube and I downloaded vocal machine programmes and samples from the internet. I used to have ring binder folders to do my homework in because OMD, we are geeks and we research our songs. My laptop became my ring binder with a load of stuff that we downloaded from the internet; information that we didn’t even get round to using like The Doomsday Clock… watch out for that one!!

Photo by Tom Oxley

Your 1993 co-write with Karl Bartos ‘Kissing The Machine’ has been reworked by Paul Humphreys for inclusion on ‘English Electric’ and Claudia Brücken is featuring too?

The original version was wonderful although not as many people have ever heard it as it was merited as I was very proud of it and I think Karl as well. I did want more people to hear ‘Kissing The Machine’ but the sound of it and lyrically concept of it fitted with the kind of dystopian vibe of the whole ‘English Electric’ album.

Paul has completely thrown everything else away and reworked the track from scratch. And yes, it sounds quite like KRAFTWERK! When Paul gets the bit between his teeth and he has a really great direction, he fires some wonderful stuff up! It’s interesting because Paul had the idea of asking Claudia to do the vocal in the middle eight and I said “let’s do that”. So we did it in the middle but I suggested we start it with the “I want you to want me – I need you to need me…” bit through a vocoder and went “y’know, could you ask Claudia to do it in German as well?” Oh! German in the middle, it’s so good on the music, it just sounds fantastic! It’s very exciting to be able to have Claudia Brücken on an OMD tune!

How did the collaboration with MARSHEAUX producers FOTONOVELA, ‘Helen Of Troy’ come about? Most people in the UK and US won’t have heard of them…

George Geranios and Nick Bitzenis of FOTONOVELA were our label bosses in Greece via their Undo Records and they sent me this track… the demo had Nick going “Helen Of Troy – Helen Of Troy” so I took his vocal off as you do [*laughs*], chopped it all up and rearranged it… it’s gorgeous! I have used some of Nick’s backing vocals. It was the third one completed on the album, I love it to bits! And ‘Helen Of Troy’ is much more of a metaphor than either of the ‘Joan Of Arcs’ were.

Several of OMD’s best songs have been inspired by the ethics of conflict and war… ‘Enola Gay’, ‘Bunker Soldiers’, ‘Silent Running’; does ‘Dresden’ fall in that category?

‘Dresden’ is a whopping great, unsubtle metaphor… it was interesting that we found ourselves in Dresden, it was quite incredible but the song had already been written before I went. It’s not about the bombing of Dresden in the same way as ‘Enola Gay’ was about the aeroplane that dropped the atom bomb.

‘Idea 3’ has been turned into ‘Stay With Me’, is there’s an ‘Idea4’?

We’ve always got bits and pieces left over. I think they will get used. ‘Ideas 1-3’ were all melodies written by Paul, it was just a question as to whether they would get turned into songs. ‘Idea 1’ became a B-side. ‘Idea 2’ became ‘History Of Modern (Part II)’ and ‘Idea 3′ has finally became ‘Stay With Me’ and that’s another great melody.

What are the bonuses that come with the various formats of the album?

The B-side of ‘Metroland’ is ‘The Great White Silence’. In the collector’s tin, there is a 7 inch vinyl; one side has got ‘Our System’ which by general consensus is everyone’s favourite song on the album while on the back of it is a song called ‘Frontline’ which is only available on that 7 inch vinyl.’Frontline’ was influenced and inspired by The Arab Spring and the vast majority of the drum track is entirely made out of machine gun, cannon and artillery fire. The song’s working title was ‘Artillery’.

There’s one more track called ‘No Man’s Land’ on iTunes and there’s also a couple of totally instrumental abstract pieces that don’t even have actual titles that may be further B-sides down the line.

You just signed a worldwide deal with BMG…

We’ve signed to BMG for publishing and global rights on this album only. It’s a new model, they’re a rights company, not a record company. They don’t have a great big building with 500 staff that is a massive overhead, they have a small office with a handful of people. Each deal they do is a bespoke deal for each artist in each territory, employing freelance people to work the project for its lifespan; that’s all it costs them. This is one of the new models in the music industry to see if there is a functioning new model! *laughs*

How does ‘English Electric’ compare with ‘History Of Modern’?

‘History Of Modern’ is what it was because of the circumstances it found itself in. There’s a feeling abroad that ‘English Electric’ is quite powerful and well conceived. That’s nice. There will be people who will have a whinge about it, but I don’t think the people who like songs will be in any way disappointed.

‘English Electric’ has been a hard album to make… really hard! Much harder than ‘History Of Modern’, it’s been torn out in several different ways for several different reasons.

By the time it was completed, both of us were emotionally and physically exhausted. We’re starting to get our energy back and we are getting feedback which is incredibly positive. Many people who have heard the album are very excited about it. It’s been an interesting journey these last couple of years writing this album. It’s been very exciting.

Where do you stand on modern vocal processing technology? I find it surprising some people who adore Kraftwerkian vocoders go “UGH! Autotune!”?

People draw lines in sound in weird and arbitrary places don’t they? *laughs*

I would say anything is fine. I’m a little bit bored of pop vocals with Autotune as an effect but modern production is so clean that you can hear all the separation between the instruments and the voices so clearly that unless you are the most incredible singer, actually most people are Autotuned! It’s just a case of how much they’re Autotuned… have you just pulled it into tune or is it patently obvious and sliding? I have no problem with anything being used, all I’m interested in is does it work for me, what do I get out of it? If I get something out of it, then everything is fine!

How are you finding new electronic acts these days?

I enjoy your website and I’ve discovered some very interesting bands actually…

Oh, who have you found recently?

I can’t say… cos one of them is going to support us in Germany!

Is it CHVRCHES?

No! But a young British electronic band is supporting us in Germany. Obviously JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS are supporting us in the UK and how could we say no to John Foxx! *laughs*

How did JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS supporting in the UK come about?

We were just asking around as to who might be available that would be complimentary and somebody said John Foxx and we were like “NO WAY? Would he tour with us?”; he said “yes” and we said “yes please”! *laughs*

Well, you get to see Hannah Peel again!!

EXACTLY!! I emailed her as soon as I found out and said “Hello, are you on the tour?” and she said “Too right!”… so yeah! *laughs*

I’m looking forward to hearing who the young British electronic act is!

Yes, and we have a Belgian two-piece supporting us in Brussels and Utrecht…

…oh! METROLAND???

Yes, METROLAND are supporting us!

Have you checked out ANALOG ANGEL? Their track ‘We Won’t Walk Away’ sounds just like OMD!

I’ll have to check ANALOG ANGEL out, the last few weeks have just been f**king mental!

They’re a trio of weegies, I said your dad played for Celtic and it turned out they were Rangers fans! *laughs*

Ha! Ha! Y’know, it turns out I don’t think my dad played for Celtic! I think he was pulling a Walter Mitty on me! He played football and he was something to do with Celtic because he knew people at the ground when I was a kid and he used to take me up there. I’ve walked on the pitch and been in the trophy room… turns out he never played for the first team as far as I could find out!! Funny old world eh?

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its grateful thanks to Andy McCluskey

Special thanks to Toby Harris at 100%

‘English Electric’ is released by BMG in CD, deluxe CD+DVD, download, vinyl and tin box set formats

OMD’s 2013 UK tour with special guests JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS includes:
Margate Winter Gardens (28th April), Birmingham Symphony Hall (29th April), Nottingham Royal Centre (1st May), Ipswich Regent Theatre (2nd May), London Roundhouse (3rd May), Bristol Colston Hall (5th May), Oxford New Theatre (6th May), Sheffield City Hall (8th May), Leeds Academy (9th May), Manchester Academy (10th May), Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (12th May), Gateshead Sage (13th May), Liverpool Empire (14th May)

The Benelux shows featuring special guests METROLAND include:
Utrecht Tivoli (Friday 17th May) and Brussels Ancienne Belgique (Monday 20th May)

The German tour with special guests VILE ELECTRODES includes:
Hamburg Docks (21st May), Bielefeld Ringlokschuppen (22nd May), Berlin Tempodrom (24th May), Leipzig Haus Auensee (25th May), Köln E-Werk (27th May)

Please visit the official OMD website www.omd.uk.com for further details on all shows on the ‘English Electric’ tour including the rest of Europe and North America

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
21st April 2013

OMD English Electric

4 April 2013 /

OMD-English-Electric

When a band has been established as long as OMD, there is often a creative dilemma faced when deciding how to approach new studio material.

For such occasions, Brian Eno produced a pack of cards called ‘Oblique Strategies’ designed to get producers and musicians out of sticky situations when lacking inspiration in the studio. Helpful suggestions include: “What would your closest friend do?”, “Try Faking It!” and my favourite “Be Dirty!”

So, with such a rich back catalogue of albums to reference and a sizeable amount of hits under their belt, what would OMD’s strategy be on their 12th long player? “Be experimental!” and revisit the ‘Dazzle Ships’ era.

“Be melodic!” and follow a more tuneful path as evidenced by ‘So In Love’ and ‘If You Leave’. “Wear your influences on your sleeve!” and reference elements of bands that have shaped your sound and finally the risky one: “Get down with the kids!” and try to incorporate more contemporary sonic elements to show you’ve moved with the times.

So with this, their follow-up to the successful ‘History Of Modern’ comeback album, what have OMD done? To be honest, rather than following a single path, they’ve gone down the eclectic route and tried incorporating bits of the above, cherry-picking sounds and styles from a few of their periods and in a move which is bound to please a lot of hardcore fans, even revisiting the ‘Dazzle Ships’ era which although proved a mid-period career-suicide move, spawned the epic ‘Telegraph’ and ‘Genetic Engineering’.

With this album more than any previous OMD one, there is an elephant in the room and it’s a big, KRAFTWERK-shaped one… lead-off single ‘Metroland’ re-imagines ‘Europe Endless’ but with a stomping kick drum, ‘Kissing The Machine’ has its roots in ‘Neon Lights’ (more about this track and its Germanic links later) and throughout the album, there are riffs and sounds which remain in debt to the German meisters. In interviews, it has become apparent that Paul Humphreys has taken the reins with much of ‘English Electric’ and gone for a classic, monophonic sequencer-driven approach, yet still retaining enough elements to brand each of the tracks as OMD.

The album opens with ‘Please Remain Seated’, one of the three shorter speech synthesized tracks. In the context of the album, both ‘Decimal’ and ‘Atomic Ranch’ now reveal themselves as musical red herrings, as when the snippets of the album first started to appear, gave the false impression that the band were about to return wholesale to the days of ‘Dazzle Ships’. Instead, they simply provide short links between the more conventional songs.

First impressions of third track ‘Night Café’ is that of a saccharine-sounding electro ballad with a vocal melody strangely reminiscent of John Denver’s ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’.

But by dissecting the lyrics it becomes clear that the major-scale melodies are counterpointing a song about a jilted lover drowning their sorrows at the song-title’s location…

One of the more surprising tracks is ‘The Future Will Be Silent’ which welds contemporary, enveloped dubstep bass and chordal sounds to the more familiar Mellotron-style choir textures that seem to be an OMD staple now, the track climaxing with a rising ‘Numbers’ style synth riff which takes the track to it’s conclusion.

The song itself could be seen as being a thinly-veiled critique on what modern electronic music has now become, with the wub wub synth bass sounds becoming accompanied by a female vocal intoning “the future was not supposed to be like this!” …the song’s inspiration is cited by Andy McCluskey as “audio pollution”, whether that is musical or otherwise is left up to the listener to decide!

‘Kissing The Machine’ will be familiar to those that followed the career path of former Kraftwerker Karl Bartos – the song originally featured with McCluskey’s vocals on the ELEKTRIC MUSIC album ‘Esperanto’. Although similar in sound to that version, the Humphreys’ update / re-work’s synth programming is even more reminiscent of ‘The Man Machine’-era than its predecessor with an added vocoder-led intro and middle eight being spoken in German by Claudia Brücken.

With further nods to their past, the trademark McCluskey live bass makes a welcome re-appearance on ‘Dresden’ and on the aforementioned ‘Night Café’, as do Paul Humphreys’ vocals on ‘Stay With Me’. ‘Our System’ sonically revisits the ‘Architecture & Morality’-era with a live drum-led climax and thematically ‘Helen Of Troy’ also harks back to ‘Joan Of Arc’, albeit with a far more synthetic backbone.

Probably the most out there and experimental track is the closing and fittingly titled ‘Final Song’ which combines a CR78-style drum pattern, upright bass, female semi-gospel vocal sample and almost Steve Reich-esque serial music vocal loops. This track shows that the band is still not afraid to take risks and will probably be the standout track for many on this album.

Criticisms? The synth lead sound that Ralf Hütter wheeled out on the ‘Minimum – Maximum’ tour is maybe over-used on a couple of songs and the overall sonic palette is a little limited in places, but these quibbles aside, ‘English Electric’ is a fine album and one which will undoubtedly delight their hardcore fans, put the band back on the radar for casual listeners and might even pick up a few new ones along the way.

‘English Electric’ uses the following instrumentation…

Paul Humphreys: Synth-Werk, ARP 2600, M Tron Pro, Trillion, Omnisphere, Oberheim SEM V, Morphoder, Jupiter 8V2, Minimoog V, Prophet Pro 53, Massive, Vacuum, Boom

Andy McCluskey: Vacuum, Indigo Virus, M Tron Pro, Jupiter 8, Vox Machina

‘English Electric’ is released by BMG on 8th April 2013 in CD, deluxe CD+DVD, download, vinyl and tin boxset formats. The tin boxset includes a bonus 7 inch vinyl single of ‘Our System’ featuring an exclusive track ‘Frontline’ on the B-side.

OMD’s 2013 UK tour with special guests JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS includes:

Margate Winter Gardens (28th April), Birmingham Symphony Hall (29th April), Nottingham Royal Centre (1st May), Ipswich Regent Theatre (2nd May), London Roundhouse (3rd May), Bristol Colston Hall (5th May), Oxford New Theatre (6th May), Sheffield City Hall (8th May), Leeds Academy (9th May), Manchester Academy (10th May), Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (12th May), Gateshead Sage (13th May), Liverpool Empire (14th May)

The Benelux shows featuring special guests METROLAND include:

Utrecht Tivoli (17th May) and Brussels Ancienne Belgique (20th May)

The German tour with special guests VILE ELECTRODES includes:

Hamburg Docks (21st May), Bielefeld Ringlokschuppen (22nd May), Berlin Tempodrom (24th May), Leipzig Haus Auensee (25th May), Köln E-Werk (27th May)

http://www.omd.uk.com/

https://www.facebook.com/omdofficial/

Text by Paul Boddy
Photo by Tom Oxley
4th April 2013

OMD Live: Architecture & Morality & More DVD+CD

2 April 2013 /

So… Here We Are Again!

Fact: OMD’s ‘Architecture & Morality’ is a benchmark of electronic pop, not just within the Synth Britannia era but the genre itself.

Founder member Paul Humphreys said back in 2010: “I think ‘Architecture & Morality’ was a complete album, it was just so whole. The sound of it was unique, every song… it wasn’t a ‘bitty’ album. A few of our albums are ‘bitty’ but that was where we finally found a sound that was OMD. I think the first two albums were leading to ‘Architecture & Morality’. We were refining our sound and then we found it.”

The classic OMD line-up of Andy McCluskey, Paul Humphreys, Malcolm Holmes and Martin Cooper split in 1989 but when it was announced in 2007 that they would be reuniting to play ‘Architecture & Morality’ and more at a series of shows in Europe, they sold out within a few hours. Fans from around the globe gathered in anticipation and OMD knew they had to do their legacy justice.

But there was the technical issue of capturing the distinct textures of their meisterwerk: “It was a real challenge on that tour because we really wanted to do that album justice but we didn’t have any of the synths or anything we used to make those records. But we wanted to be true to the album. So we had to buy synths off eBay to get those sounds back, and we then just re-sampled them. We even went back to the multi-track tapes. Anything that was a monophonic sound, I could slice up into notes, loop them and put them on each key so I could play the sound exactly how it was. It was great, great fun; I loved doing that and it was a really lovely moment.”

One of these concerts was captured for posterity as both a live album and DVD. Titled ‘OMD Live: Architecture & Morality & More’, it was recorded at Hammersmith Apollo on Saturday 19th May 2007.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were present so more than qualified to pass judgement on this pair of artefacts which are now reissued as a combined package, although the DVD bonus features from the original Eagle Rock release are now omitted. First things first, the concert itself was a glorious celebration of a great band and their inventive catalogue of work.

Andy McCluskey’s voice was better than it was back in 1981 when the ‘Live At The Theatre Royal – Drury Lane’ concert was recorded, save a few really high notes. His geography teacher at the sixth form disco dancing was still intact too after 14 years away from the stage, if slightly more restrained and assisted with the odd strobe effect.

Likewise, Paul Humphreys had become a more accomplished musician and on his two vocal party pieces ‘Souvenir’ and ‘(Forever) Live & Die’, his voice had particularly strengthened. On the drum stool, Mal Holmes lost none of his energy or power despite a heart attack a few years previously although keyboardist Martin Cooper was now seated behind his Roland Fantom X8 for health reasons. As the band’s trained instrumentalist, he picked up like he had never been away, and handled the solos of tunes he wasn’t actually involved in like ‘Sailing On The Seven Seas’ with vigour.

The band certainly enjoyed the experience as Paul Humphreys recalled: “The tour where we played ‘Architecture & Morality’ in full was particularly great for us. We just loved playing those songs and we played a few songs that we’d never played live before so it was really fantastic”. 

Visually, the show was stunning with bespoke projections by Hambi Haralambous while the crisp sound was top notch too.

However, despite the presentation of ‘Architecture & Morality’ alongside iconic singles such as ‘Messages’, ‘Enola Gay’ and ‘Electricity’, the inclusion of ‘So In Love’, ‘Talking Loud & Clear’ and ‘If You Leave’ in the set slightly numbed the artistic momentum established by the first part of the show, while ‘Pandora’s Box’ lacked drive in its live rendition.

Now considering how good the concert actually was, the DVD is comparatively disappointing. The editing in particular is poor with McCluskey’s windmill moves on ‘Maid Of Orleans’ slow-moed to the point of making no sense with the emotional tension in the music. The widescreen visuals lose their impact too… it really was a show you had to have been at to fully appreciate. Also, with so many enthusiastic fans in the audience who could have been captured for prosperity, the cameras choose to focus on three rather bored looking, ungrateful individuals in the front row who stand motionless with their arms folded through most of the performance!

But while this DVD is not up there with the best live music films such as DURAN DURAN’s ‘Live From London’, RAMMSTEIN’s ‘Völkerball’ or ERASURE’s ‘The Tank, The Swan & The Balloon’, it is still a worthy memento that documents the return of one of the UK’s most under appreciated bands. Don’t forget ‘Maid Of Orleans was actually the biggest selling single of 1982 in Germany at a time when Der Bundesrepublik was the biggest music market after the USA and Japan… maybe they should have filmed this tour in Cologne?

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK were there too and that gig was even better than this one! The crowd chant of “ZU-GA-BE, ZU-GA-BE” to the closing Compurhythm beats of ‘Enola Gay’ remains unforgettable…

With thanks to Stuart Kirkham

‘OMD Live: Architecture & Morality & More’ CD+DVD is released via Salvo Sound & Vision on 22nd April 2013

OMD’s 2013 UK tour with special guests JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS includes: Margate Winter Gardens (28th April), Birmingham Symphony Hall (29th April), Nottingham Royal Centre (1st May), Ipswich Regent Theatre (2nd May), London Roundhouse (3rd May), Bristol Colston Hall (5th May), Oxford New Theatre (6th May), Sheffield City Hall (8th May), Leeds Academy (9th May), Manchester Academy (10th May), Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (12th May), Gateshead Sage (13th May), Liverpool Empire (14th May)

The Benelux shows featuring special guests METROLAND include: Utrecht Tivoli (17th May) and Brussels Ancienne Belgique (20th May)

The German tour with special guests VILE ELECTRODES includes: Hamburg Docks (21st May), Bielefeld Ringlokschuppen (22nd May), Berlin Tempodrom (24th May), Leipzig Haus Auensee (25th May), Köln E-Werk (27th May)

The new OMD album ‘English Electric’ is released on 8th April 2013 by BMG

http://www.omd.uk.com/

https://www.facebook.com/omdofficial/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Achim Peter
2nd April 2013

OMD Metroland (Appropriately Remixed by METROLAND!)

21 March 2013 /

Belgian electronic duo METROLAND have finally unveiled their remix of OMD’s new single entitled, appropriately enough, ‘Metroland’ and have even produced a promo video too.

Ironically, despite the accusation by some of them being KRAFTWERK copyists, METROLAND have actually stripped away the more obvious Kling Klang Synthanorma elements.

The Blitz Club’s legendary DJ Rusty Egan even enthusiastically commented “now it’s LOST the Kraftwerk, I like it MORE!”

METROLAND told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about their remix: “We both hate those darn f*cked up club mixes where you can barely recognize something of the original. We started all from scratch. So, every sequence and bass line, melody was played as-new (we did not have a MIDI file), and we searched for new sounds. In the end, it became a more orchestral mix spiced up with the typical bass sounds from METROLAND, along with our famous layered sequences.”

Passenger A and Passenger S remembered: “It was a tough job as the song itself is a splendid OMD song with a KRAFTWERK spirit, a shivering combination, so we hope our remix will attract OMD fans”.

On receipt of this reworking, Andy McCluskey emailed METROLAND to say he was “loving it!!” The duo were extremely chuffed with the reaction: “Just imagine: making a joyful remix and getting such a reaction from someone you have been looking up to since you were a teenager!!”

OMD ‘Metroland (Appropriately Remixed by METROLAND)’ and the ‘Metroland’ EP are released as downloads on 25th March 2013 by BMG

METROLAND support OMD at Utrecht Tivoli on Friday 17th May and Brussels Ancienne Belgique on Monday 20th May 2013

http://www.omd.uk.com/

http://www.metrolandmusic.com/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
21st March 2013

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2017 ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK | Email: [email protected]
Privacy Policy

Up ↑