VILE ELECTRODES are a colourful trio consisting of Anais Neon, Loz Tronic and Martin Swan who formed due to an unhealthy obsession with analogue synthesizers and a desire to escape reality through dressing up.
And dress up they do. They also describe themselves “Vulgar – Eloquent, Vitriolic – Electronic, Vintage – Embittered, Visceral – Epicurean, Vague – Ephemeral.”
Their best track so far is ‘Deep Red’, a title inspired by Dario Argento’s ‘Profondo Rosso’. It’s a gorgeous seven and a half minute synth ballad that comes over like Client B born and raised in the Home Counties fronting Dindisc-era ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK.
Their other material has disco potential, ranging from the dark neo-rave of ‘Empire Of Wolves’ to the shiny indie electro of ‘Play With Fire’ which musically is what THE SMITHS probably would have sounded like if Johnny Marr had picked up a Roland instead of a Rickenbacker!
VILE ELECTRODES will be playing a number of gigs towards the end of the summer at: London Putney Half Moon (19 August), Sheffield West Street Live (2 September), London Camden Purple Turtle with INERTIA and MECHANICAL CABARET (10 September)
Madame Jojo’s in London’s Soho was the location for a headline show by the highly rated MIRRORS, courtesy of indie club night White Heat.
The Brighton quartet have been busy finishing their debut album which is to be released on Skint Records later this year and doing superb Un Autre Monde remixes of WHITE LIES’ ‘A Place To Hide’ and AU REVOIR SIMONE’s ‘Tell Me’.
Following their well-received support slot with DELPHIC earlier this year, they’ve also been honing their stage presentation to compliment their pop noir sound. One dictionary definition of mirror is: “A pattern for imitation; exemplar: a man who was the mirror of fashion. Something worthy of imitation”. So when MIRRORS take to the stage tonight, they look like ‘Organisation’- era ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK beamed into the 21st Century.
Reflecting a sense of intelligent European modernism, the quartet arrive in stylish suits and thin ties to a industrialised stage set of alloy spaceframe structures housing all the incumbent technology. Some beautifully arty film projections enhance the image. MIRRORS “are attentive to minutiae”.
Consisting of James (lead vocals, synths), Ally (synths and backing vocals), Tate (synths) and Josef (electronic percussion), they open with ‘Fear Of Drowning’, its pulsing sequences and dense sweeping chords benefit from the loudness to take full hypnotic effect. It sounds magnificent. MIRRORS “are minimally over the top”.
New single ‘Ways To An End’ has a synthetic TALKING HEADS tribal flavour with a touch of THE HORRORS. James possesses a vibrant stage presence that matches his enthusiasm. He’s like a cross between the dancing Geography teacher of Andy McCluskey and the science student at the Vicarage tea party of Paul Humphreys. Could he actually be their love child? Maybe things went further in that plush sports car after the end of the Souvenir video? MIRRORS “are a vehicle for refraction”.
The mournful ‘Organ Song’ follows before the band launch into the brilliant ‘Into The Heart’. The audience reaction is certainly something to see; a young discerning music crowd, male and female, dancing away passionately just like in the early days of ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK… none of this arms folded sitting still at the front nonsense that has blighted some of the more recent shows of Wirral’s finest!
James laps it all up along with co-front man Ally. Tate though pensively keeps control at the back while Josef stands almost motionless as a sticksman in the KRAFTWERK stand-up tradition. He looks like he could be the younger electro version of BLONDIE’s drummer Clem Burke. MIRRORS “follow the straightest of lines”.
And in a sharply impressive but short set, they finish with the pure Vince Clarke-era DEPECHE MODE of ‘Searching In The Wilderness’ and the wonderfully melancholic grandeur of ‘Hide & Seek’. It climaxes with the foursome leaving the stage to a repeated drum machine pattern just like ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK used to do with ‘Enola Gay’.
Breathing new life into the classic ‘Synth Britannia’ blueprint, MIRRORS are synthly the best band to have come out of the UK for many years.
MIRRORS “are parallel to everything and equal to nothing.”
Special thanks to Debbie Ball at Create Spark
MIRRORS play: London Proud Galleries (July 31), Glasgow King Tuts Wah Wah Hut (August 2), Leeds Oporto (August 3), Sheffield Forum (August 4), Leicester Musician (August 5), Little London Fields (August 7), Birmingham Sound Bar (August 13), London Lexington (August 18), Bristol Start The Bus (August 20), York Basement (August 21), Brighton Audio (August 28)
Paul Humphreys is one half of the legendary synthesizer duo ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK whose 1979 debut single ‘Electricity’ has inspired the name of this website.
Together with Andy McCluskey, they set a high standard of romantic retro-futurism with lyrical gists ranging from technology and war, to deceased religious figures and long distance relationships.
Not only did his KRAFTWERK, ENO and LA DÜSSELDORF inspired keyboard textures give OMD a distinctive melodic interface within an exciting era of electronic pop as featured on classic songs like ‘Messages’, ‘Joan Of Arc’ and ‘Maid Of Orleans’, Paul Humphreys was also the voice on two of the band’s biggest hits ‘Souvenir’ and ‘(Forever) Live And Die’.
Following his departure from OMD in 1989, Paul Humphreys continued making music. First there was THE LISTENING POOL with fellow OMD refugees Malcolm Holmes and Martin Cooper who released an album ‘Still Life’ in 1994 before working with PROPAGANDA’s Claudia Brücken, initially as producer on their aborted reunion album and then in 2004 together as ONETWO. The duo received critical acclaim for their excellent debut album ‘Instead’ and played prestigious support slots with ERASURE and THE HUMAN LEAGUE in 2007.
Simultaneously rejoining Andy McCluskey, Malcolm Holmes and Martin Cooper for the live relaunch of OMD, Paul Humphreys has been a very busy man over the last three years. Not only is there now a new OMD album ‘History Of Modern’ on the horizon but he has also added DJ-ing to his repertoire of talents. In a special interview, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK was invited down to Paul Humphreys’ brand new studio in London to talk about the past, the present and the future:
You had a very busy time the last couple of years touring with both OMD and ONETWO. With ONETWO, you toured with ERASURE and THE HUMAN LEAGUE and with OMD as support to SIMPLE MINDS? How did you find being a support act and how do you think you went down with the fans of those artists?
I’ve never minded being support, we did a lot of support tours in the 80s as well. We supported DEPECHE MODE, THOMPSON TWINS, THE POWER STATION, all kinds of people in America. It gives you a chance to expand your audience. And we chose to tour with SIMPLE MINDS because we did Night Of The Proms with them a couple of years ago and it was sort of a drunken night at the bar really, their guitarist Charlie Burchill went “Hey, why don’t ya come on tour with us?” so we said “oh alright, we’ll think about it”. And we got the call and we thought, it’ll be an arena tour playing bigger venues than OMD would normally play in.
But also, it gave us a chance to expand our audience because I think there’s still a whole lot of people of our age who think “OMD, it’s going to be boring electronic stuff and they’re probably not very good live” and all of these kind of prejudices. So it gave us an opportunity to play to people who may think twice about coming to see us to kind of win them over really so that next time we go round, their word will hopefully spread. And we went down really well on that tour.
Did you and Phil Oakey have a few laughs in the bar afterwards about the old ‘OMD versus HUMAN LEAGUE’ rivalry on their 2007 Daretour?
We had some nights actually! We had some great chats, Phil is just a lovely man, I really like Phil a lot. It was fantastic to be on the ‘Dare’ tour as well. Claudia and I would just go out and watch them every night because I love that album and they’re fantastic live.
We spent a few nights in the bar till late, just talking about the early days when we started out and what it was like. He was just as surprised to discover OMD’s existence as we were with THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s. We all thought we’d discovered this new sound ourselves and we were the only ones doing it! It turned out there was quite a few bands who latched onto the electronic synthesizer route in the late 70s.
What about that time when OMD and THE HUMAN LEAGUE made their first appearances on the same edition of Top Of The Pops in May 1980? Was there any tension there?
No more tension than with the other bands. There was terrific rivalry in the 80s between the bands and I think that was a healthy thing in a way because every band was trying to outdo the other, out-write them songwise! It upped the ante with the songwriting. Everyone was trying to write the best possible songs that they could. And I think the quality of songwriting in that period was fantastic.
The 30th Anniversary OMD tour in 2008 had an interesting set list featuring songs from ‘Organisation’ and ‘Dazzle Ships’ while the 2007 tour featured ‘Architecture and Morality’ in its entirety. What has it been like personally for you to revisit these classic albums?
The tour where we played ‘Architecture and 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.
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.
I think ‘Architecture and 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 and Morality’. We were refining our sound and then we found it.
Was the selection of songs from ‘Organisation’ and ‘Dazzle Ships’ for the 2008 tour quite natural?
We just played our favourites really! Because when you’re playing these songs every night, you have to enjoy it. You have to want to play these songs so you pick the songs you want to play.
But you must be keen to get stuck into some new material now. How is it all coming along for the new OMD album The History Of Modern?
It’s coming along really well actually. I spent a few weeks up at Andy’s studio in Liverpool and I’ve been bringing stuff down here and working on it. We’re sending files using YouSendIt to each other. I have a play on it, he has a play on it! We just go back and forth but the album will be slightly more weighted with some of Andy’s songs because he did a lot of writing while I did the ONETWO album.
And last year for various reasons, I couldn’t do much writing. My mum died and I had a few things going on that kept me from writing. So Andy’s a bit further ahead with the songwriting but he’s done some really good things. And I’ve been taking some of his things that he’s already written and styling them.
How would you describe the sound of the album, if you can?
Electronic! Very electronic!
Photo by Hege Saebjornsen
How have you been dividing your time between working with OMD and Claudia Brücken as ONETWO? Are there any other new projects on the horizon?
I’ve been working with the best selling author Douglas Coupland who wrote ‘Generation X’. We’ve written a couple of things together for use in film, television and advertising stuff. One piece we’ve written together is entitled ‘Math is Hard’, and wouldn’t sound at all out of place on ‘Dazzle Ships’!
I’ve been working with Claudia but she’s been rather busy working with several other artists/producers.
She’s been working with Stephen Hague on a project, two songs from which will be featured on a forthcoming Claudia Brücken ‘Best of’ album scheduled for release in September. I’ve been doing some remixes for it as well. Claudia has done so many projects over the years and worked with such a variety of artists/producers that it’ll be great to have her best works all on one record. And, we’ve made a start on the new ONETWO album also. So yes, very busy!
Philip Larsen from production duo THE MANHATTAN CLIQUE is a member of the ONETWO live band. You once mentioned how important he was in helping to shape the ONETWO sound. How did he influence this?
Philip gives this edge and energy that we’d like to capture with the new stuff. We wished we’d re-recorded the album with Phil and James Watson, our live guitarist because they brought an energy to our live thing that wasn’t quite on the record. They’re really going to be involved in the next record.
I do really like MANHATTAN CLIQUE remixes, especially ‘Home (Tonight)’ and MOBY’s ‘Slipping Away/Crier La Vie’. They get the beat right and make it danceable but they don’t lose the song which is often the problem with a lot of modern dance remixes.
Philip loves songs so he tries to get as much of the song in there as he can. I really love the remix that he did for ‘Home (Tonight)’ because he took the song to a different place.
Are there any other musicians/producers you’d like to work with?
I’m always interested in collaborating with other writers, not necessarily producers anymore. After 30 years, I kind of know what I’m doing!
How surprised have you been by the number of young ladies who have embraced the synthesizer recently like LA ROUX, LITTLE BOOTS, LADYHAWKE and LADY GAGA and the whole electronic pop ‘revival’? Are there any of the new acts that you like, or don’t like?
It’s not that I don’t like them. I think some are more genuine than others.
Andy told me he doesn’t get LA ROUX!
LA ROUX do have some songs that I like, but I’m a bit suspicious that it’s just more marketing than substance, but I do hope I’m proved wrong. I’m concerned that a portion of the electronic music made these days is more electronic music by numbers. Theoretical, rather than from the heart. It’s great that she’s quite flamboyant and it’s good to have flamboyant pop stars out there because there’s very few these days, everyone is so safe, so I do like that aspect of her.
Any opinions on the others?
They’re not on my iPod any of them! *laughs*
What did you think of GOLDFRAPP’s new single ‘Rocket’?
I’ve always liked quite a number of GOLDFRAPP’s songs, but I don’t get the new album to be honest. It’s like an exercise in how to make an 80s song. What’s exactly is the point? It’s obvious that it was a conscious decision to make an 80’s album, and smacks of jumping onto the 80’s revival bandwagon a little too enthusiastically. The thing I find about GOLDFRAPP is, she/they are musical genre chameleons. I mean what/who is the real GOLDFRAPP? it’s hard to tell if you jump around stylistically so much.
BBC6 Music arranged for LITTLE BOOTS to do a live session with GARY NUMAN and LA ROUX with HEAVEN 17. Which new act you would like to collaborate with, either as ONETWO or OMD?
There are a few new acts I’d love to do things with. I’m a huge fan of ARCADE FIRE, I think they’re fantastic. And I like THE POSTAL SERVICE, they’re a great band. I also recently discovered HANNAH PEEL. I heard a COCTEAU TWINS cover ‘Sugar Hiccup’ on the radio on my way home in the car from my studio recently and loved it, I got home and bought it straight away from iTunes only to discover the second song on the EP was none other than a cover version of ‘Electricity’!!
You recently contributed to BBC4’s Synth Britannia documentary. How did you think the programme turned out and what do you think has been OMD’s long lasting contribution to modern electronic music?
I thought Synth Britannia was great and I’ve had so much positive feedback on it. It was a really well put together documentary. And I think it really captured the essence of what IT was all about and there’s been very few documentaries that have done that. So it’s great that it’s actually out there now someone’s actually done it. And it was flattering to be involved in it.
As regards contribution to popular music? I don’t know if it’s for us to say. I think we’ve definitely made a contribution, there’s no doubt about it. I think we were involved in a movement that changed pop music.
Well, ‘Enola Gay’ gets played at French wedding receptions!
YES! RESULT! *laughs*
A lot of kids seem to know ‘If You Leave’ because of ‘Pretty In Pink’ being on TV and DVD but don’t know it’s OMD.
The song’s been covered to death by American bands and ended up in all kinds of TV series. We get requests for it all the time to be redone for TV shows…
… it keeps the bailiffs away!
Exactly!! *laughs*
Quite a number of the acts in the Synth Britannia documentary are playing live again like ULTRAVOX or have been revisiting their classic albums as OMD did like GARY NUMAN, THE HUMAN LEAGUE and HEAVEN 17. How do you think everyone shapes up with their live shows?
I think the bands that have gone out have been worthy. I think there are a few that shouldn’t be going out… I don’t think I should name them but there’s some who really shouldn’t be doing it!
Bands of our generation like HEAVEN 17 and THE HUMAN LEAGUE are playing to big audiences. THE HUMAN LEAGUE are fantastic! ERASURE are still doing it and doing good. So the criteria is, can you still deliver? A lot of these artists; they haven’t forgotten how to sing, they haven’t lost their voices. In fact, some sing better now than they ever did.
But after 30 years, you learn how to play as well. When we started out, we weren’t such great musicians but we’ve all become better musicians. And I think OMD play better now than we ever used to, there’s less mistakes in our set because we’re far more confident in what we’re doing!
But one thing I notice HEAVEN 17’s Glenn Gregory still does after all this time though is he still misses his cues!!
Oh he does, yeah! That gig in Sheffield, he missed a couple!! But he was moaning to me because ‘Penthouse and Pavement’ is so wordy. That’s the one thing that we all suffer from, Andy suffers from it too and so many singers do… you just forget your words!! It’s an age thing! It can become a head thing as well!
We’ve all got our cheat sheets to remind us on stage now. Claudia’s developed this technique where she’s got a book on the floor with all the lyrics printed bold in plastic and she flips the page with her foot and she looks like she’s dancing! *laughs*
But so many people have autocues, it’s just what happens. Trying to remember the lyrics for a one hour 45 minute show is a lot of lyrics to remember.
You had concerns about how music was being distributed over the internet in 2000. How do you see the future for musicians now in being able to make a living from their music? Is the physical format really on its last legs and therefore the future is in live performance, or soundtracks in computer games and films?
Yes, I think sadly the latter because the music industry has totally imploded! Some of it was its own fault in the corporate industry because it’s like a slow moving dinosaur. They should have latched onto the internet a lot earlier to sell music before this culture started of music for free. If they’d had done that and had reduced the prices, they would have created the culture of people just switching from buying music in shops to buying online.
But there was this whole limbo period that bred a generation of people downloading for free because some of the stuff just wasn’t even available. And kids grow up with that. They grow up thinking their entertainment should largely be free, particularly music. It’s been hugely frustrating because the internet is a fantastic place but it’s contributed to taking billions out of the industry which has brought it to its knees.
Your daughter must be of that generation?
Well, she’s been educated by me! So she’s knows and spreads the word with all her friends and frowns upon those who are downloading like mad!
Do you think with the internet that the word-of-mouth thing might work more now and we can by-pass the middle men in the record companies?
Yeah, that’s happening now. It’s not all negative at all but the whole culture of music’s completely changed. In the 80s you would tour, ticket prices were low and you would probably lose money but you would be promoting your record because that’s where the money was. But now bands put out a record, knowing they’re not going to make much money, as an excuse to go out on the road and they’ve put the ticket prices through the roof and make the money that way.
For bands like us that have made a name, the internet is an easy place because you’re a searchable commodity for a better phrase. There are people searching for OMD and there will be links to see what we’re doing individually. We’re all over the net because we were known. But for interesting artists starting out who need a kick start to make people search for what they’re doing, it’s a really difficult thing now. It takes money to do that.
So the worry is, artists in the future will be just stifled. You take the funding away from the arts, quality drops because people can’t do it full-time. Musicians have mortgages too and they’ve got kids that need new shoes and you’ve got to find that money from somewhere. If you can’t make it from music, then music is a hobby and you need that funding from somewhere to do it full-time.
But it’s really frustrating that people don’t see free download as stealing. I’d love to walk into Waitrose and help myself to some of the stuff on the shelves and walk out but I’d get arrested! But for some reason, music is not viewed that way. At some point, people are going to turn round and say “where’s all the good music?” but they’ve contributed to it. Fortunately, there are still good bands around and there’s still some great songs to be found but it’s getting really hard to find them.
There’s no money in the labels because there’s no money in selling records; so there’s no investment in new artists. There are some artists now that are really successful who wouldn’t have existed in this climate because they needed investment to develop them like being put together with interesting producers who helped develop their sound. We learnt so much from the early producers we worked with like Mike Howlett.
Photo by Eric Watson
So who’s your favourite producer that’s worked with OMD?
Mike Howlett, he really taught us how to refine our sound cos it was quite raw. The edginess was good but we needed tweaking to make us palatable to the masses.
Stephen Hague taught us how to arrange songs, we learnt so much about arrangement from him.
Tom Lord-Alge; we learnt so much from him.
Stephen Hague is one of my favourite producers but I often thought OMD worked with him too early. What I mean by that is he was only just starting out as a producer in his own right when he worked on ‘Crush’. It was almost like he was learning his craft working with OMD and then he had it sorted out when he worked with PET SHOP BOYS, ERASURE, JIMMY SOMMERVILLE and NEW ORDER. I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that?
We heard that Malcolm McLaren track ‘Madam Butterfly’ which he worked on and we just adored that. I don’t want to knock him because we did some really good things with him.
But he fundamentally changed our sound at perhaps the wrong time. I think you’re right. It happened at a time when… it helped us in a way to break America cos that’s what we’d tried to do for years and Steve was instrumental in that. He refined our sound and in some ways made us less electronic.
Although the irony of course is he’s now best known for being an electropop producer…
Yeah, that’s right, it is the irony! He did make us less electronic which made us more palatable to America.
And then PET SHOP BOYS go and have an American No1 with ‘West End Girls’ produced by him and it’s quite electronic!!
I KNOW!! It’s weird!
You recently performed your first DJ set at HEAVEN 17’s aftershow party in Sheffield. How did it come about?
I think it might be my first and last!! *laughs*
It went really well actually, it was really good fun. It was Glenn Gregory’s idea. I know Glenn really well and see him socially from time to time. Claudia and Glenn have been best mates for years so Glenn said “how d’ya fancy DJ-ing?” cos I told him I was to going to come up to see the Penthouse and Pavement show anyway as Claudia was singing with them. And he said “whilst you’re up here, why don’t you DJ in the VIP room” and I was like “I’ve never DJ-ed in my life so forget it”! BUT, he announces it on the HEAVEN 17 website and I’m thinking “YOU ****!”*laughs*!!
So I’m doing it now! And I couldn’t get out of it. So do you want to know what I played?
Yes please…
ANDAIN Beautiful Things
KRAFTWERK Aero Dynamik [Hot Chip remix]
DEPECHE MODE vs BOOKA SHADE Enjoy The Silence In White Rooms
OMD vs LORRAINE I Feel Messages
SAM TAYLOR-WOOD & PET SHOP BOYS German Film Star [Gui Boratto remix]
GOLDFRAPP Strict Machine [Ewan Pearson remix]
ONETWO Home (Tonight) [MHC remix]
Was DJ-ing as difficult as you thought? Or was it quite easy, literally switching songs on and off?
I found a great piece of software so I cheated in a way cos this software is brilliant. You can play a song, bring in the next one and if you hit synch, it just locks it up! I just kept dropping things in and it’s got great effects on it as well to make fills etc. It’s kinda fun to do, I did enjoy it.
Which is your favourite synth, the one that you have the fondest memories of?
Synths have been my love so pretty much every synth I’ve owned has got something good about it.
I have fond memories of the Korg Micro-Preset because that was our first synth we ever got and we got two really great albums out of that one synth. What’s great about it is that it’s really limited, so your options are really narrow. And sometimes that’s really good in songwriting because you can have synths with a billion sounds and you spend your day going “I wonder if there’s a better sound”.
You lose sight of what you’re doing. Whereas the limited synths are great because they may only have a few sounds so you end up concentrating on the part rather than the sound. With this synth we just bathed it in reverb because it sounds sh*t on its own.
I just re-bought the Roland Jupiter8 as a virtual synth. The original was a staple synth for OMD that got us through ‘Junk Culture’ and ‘Crush’. It was a brilliant synth and even though it’s quite complicated, I learnt how to programme it completely. So it’s one of those synths where if I think of a sound, I can programme it. There’s very few synths I can do that.
The Prophet5 is the other one where I can imagine a sound and build it myself. I can programme it inside out. Those two synths are still my favourites.
Photo by Brian Griffin
Is there a synth you actually never owned but wish you did?
I’ve never owned a Minimoog which is funny isn’t it? I got this Minimoog module here, it’s the guts of one but it’s not quite the same. It is a Moog, all the electronics are the same but it’s not the Moog with the keyboard. There was something really sexy about the Moog with the keyboard and the back tilted up.
What about a synth you bought and didn’t use because it sounded rubbish!
A Wasp! It looks fabulous but I could never get it to work in a song. It had this touch keyboard which was a bit annoying, not very pleasant to play really. I just never really liked it!
How do you feel about the concept of deluxe edition albums with extra packaging and tracks? Is it the best way to go to market to fans?
There’s pluses and minuses to this. I think you have to use some of these tricks to get people to buy CDs because I still believe in the CD format. It sounds a hell of a lot better than MP3 and people are buying the whole album. It’s good to do tricks with iTunes to make people buy the whole album. People are doing certain tracks now that you can only get if you buy the whole album. The one thing that iTunes is doing is killing the album. People are cherry picking based on a 30 second snippet.
Call me a traditionalist, I used to love buying an album and I’d put it on. I’ve always found when you listen to an album all the way through, the band selected these songs to take you on a journey. And you are belittling their vision by just cherry picking songs. I always found, even with people like DAVID BOWIE that sometimes I’d put an album on and you’d go “that song’s s***, I hate that song” but you just leave it on anyway. And by the third listen, it becomes your favourite song! It’s the obscure track on the album you wouldn’t cherry pick. And I think people are missing out on that experience.
So what are your favourite albums of all time?
Bugger me, that’s a tough one! I can definitely tell you some of my favourite albums:
KRAFTWERK ‘Radio-Activity’
DAVID BOWIE ‘Heroes’
BRIAN ENO ‘Before and After Science’
DAVID BOWIE ‘Low’
LA DÜSSELDORF ‘La Düsseldorf’
NEU! 75
ROXY MUSIC ‘Roxy Music’
JOY DIVISION ‘Closer’
TALK TALK ‘It’s My Life’
ARCADE FIRE ‘Funeral’
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Paul Humphreys
BBC4’s marvellous ‘Synth Britannia’ celebrated the rise of the synthesizer and how it changed popular music forever, particularly in the UK.
Superbly produced and directed by Ben Whalley with interlinking cultural commentary provided by ‘Rip It Up And Start Again’ author Simon Reynolds, it was an empathetic documentary that captured the spirit of a golden era.
The contributors to the programme read like a ‘Who’s Who?’ of electronic music: Wolfgang Flür; Daniel Miller; Richard H Kirk; John Foxx; Gary Numan; Phil Oakey; Martyn Ware; Andy McCluskey; Paul Humphreys, Martin Gore; Vince Clarke; Andy Fletcher; Midge Ure; Dave Ball; Alison Moyet; Susanne Sulley; Joanne Catherall; Bernard Sumner; Neil Tennant; Chris Lowe.
They were to become the heroes of the revolution, rebels with a cause, poster boys and girls of the VCO! Although there were a few errors, especially with regards dates like when OMD signed to Factory and the single of ULTRAVOX’s ‘Vienna’ was released, this was an entertaining 90 minutes.
The new attitude brought about by punk in 1977 was still a bit too rock’n’roll for some like the young Daniel Miller, learning three chords was still three too many! But armed with newly affordable silicon-chipped technology by Korg and Roland from Japan, the true DIY spirit encouraged by the new wave would be fully exploited. Wonderful and weird sounds could be made using just one finger, knob twiddling would become the new art! Daniel Miller and Martyn Ware gleefully tell of their first synth purchase, in both cases it was the Korg 700s. The accessibility of the budget priced synthesizer offered the ultimate challenge to musical convention. It was electric dreams over acoustic nightmares!
Like some on this programme, my first introduction to the sound of the synthesizer came via KRAFTWERK and Walter (now Wendy) Carlos. In the summer of 1976, my junior school teacher was the young and pretty Miss Neilson.
She’d already shown her Bohemian colours by naming our pet guinea pig ‘Bilbo’!! But one day in PE, she made Class4 interpret movement to ‘Autobahn’ and the soundtrack to ‘A Clockwork Orange’!!!
Although too young to really appreciate what was going on, my aural palette was being shaped by this fantastic cacophony of electronics. Noveltyinstrumental hits like Jean Michel Jarre’s ‘Oxygene Part VI’ and SPACE’s ‘Magic Fly’ soon followed and caught my pre-teen futuristic mind as I eagerly waited for the next episode of ‘Space 1999’! The importance of science fiction in the development and imagination of electronic music cannot be underestimated with ‘Dr Who’ and the writings of JG Ballard being particularly important influences.
Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’ was Year Zero for modern electronic pop music as we know it. Producer Giorgio Moroder‘s throbbing sequencers and dance beats were “the future of the future”.
But Gary Numan’s first appearance in May 1979 on ‘Top Of The Pops’ was for many including myself, their ‘Ziggy Stardust’ moment in the birth of synthpop, ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ was cold and detached, the discordant Moog machinery and the haunted vocal sneer connected with many during this gloomy period in Britain. It seems unbelievable now, but it was the talk of school the following morning. Electronic music had just found its first pop star!
Unemployment in the UK was at an all time high. Margaret Thatcher was now in power while across the Atlantic, Ronald Reagan was “President Elect”! With fascist gods in motion, the Cold War had heightened to the point where no-one’s future on this earth could be guaranteed. Whilst OMD’s ‘Enola Gay’ related to the nuclear holocaust paranoia of the time via some incongruous melodic warmth, there were a number of other pop-orientated bands just around the corner.
Photo by Deb Danahay
The new Mk2 version of THE HUMAN LEAGUE, SOFT CELL and DEPECHE MODE all possessed a defiant spirit of optimism in the face of adversity because ultimately “everybody needs love and affection”! The music was emotive and avant, all at the same time! “We never wanted to be KRAFTWERK” says Phil Oakey, “we wanted to be a pop band!”
The use of synthesizers was a statement of intent, like an act of artistic subversion. But as Marc Almond once said, you can only truly subvert when you have access to the mainstream. How can you change the world if no-one hears you? Musically, the best way to achieve this was going to be through pop songs! Whilst owing a debt to KRAFTWERK and taking advantage of the door opened by Gary Numan, these acts managed to appeal to people who didn’t necessarily know what a Linn Drum Computer was! Joanne Catherall and Susanne Sulley amusingly recalled when the UK’s first Linn LM-1 was delivered to Martin Rushent’s Genetic Studios for the making of ‘Dare’: “They were all very excited… OK boys!”
There are several technology driven insights like Paul Humphreys playing ‘Enola Gay’ on the Korg Micro-Preset, John Foxx demonstrating the ARP Odyssey and Daniel Miller operating the ARP 2600 which was used on all the early DEPECHE MODE albums. There were often misconceptions about how this stuff worked though. “The number of people who thought that the equipment wrote the song for you: ‘well anybody can do it with the equipment you’ve got!'” remembers Andy McCluskey, “F*** OFF!!”
“You’ve got to remember it was the first time ever that someone could sit and make a record on their own” says Midge Ure, stating the recording of EURYTHMICS ‘Sweet Dreams’ in a basement on an 8 track tape machine as an example! But as the success of synthesizer continued, the backlash set in. Numan was particularly the victim of some venomous media attacks; not only was he doing electronic music but he had none of the anti-hero stance of punk… he wanted to be a popstar: “I don’t speak for the people because I don’t know them!” he exclaimed!
Andy Fletcher tells of the Battle Royale that DEPECHE MODE were always having with the press. People insisted it wasn’t proper music. The Musicians Union even tried to ban the use of synths in studios and live performance!
I remember fellow classmates unceremoniously smashed up and burned a copy of ‘Cars’… AND THEN presented me with the remains! If I wasn’t already feeling isolated, then this sort of intimidation was certainly going to seal it!
Martin Gore quotes a disgruntled rock journalist who described the genre as being for “alienated youth everywhere, and Germans!” As an outsider with a typical post-war ‘Boys Own’ fascination for Airfix kits and Messerschmitts, this music would define me! What did these narrow-minded hooligans know?
Worshipping America was not what I wanted! To me, soul and jazz funk (much like R’n’B today) was the horrid soundtrack of the school bully! SYNTHPOP and its Mittel Europa romanticism appealed to my sense of elitism. I could wear my intelligence on my sleeve, it would become my badge of honour! Pretentious… MOI?
Photo courtesy of Alex Machairas
The move towards today’s electronic based dance music as pioneered by Giorgio Moroder is symbolised by the success of NEW ORDER and PET SHOP BOYS. Legend has it that KRAFTWERK were so impressed by the sound of ‘Blue Monday’, they sent an engineer down to Britannia Row Studios to check out the equipment only to find out it was comparatively unsophisticated! But ‘Synth Britannia’ actually goes on to suggest that the success of the third generation acts like Howard Jones and THOMPSON TWINS was the death of this fantastic period. “There was too much synthpop around, it was all very well being on a synth but actually the melodies and how some of the songs were structured was quite traditional and trite…” sighs Simon Reynolds, “it wasn’t that inventive as electronic music!” – he was right!
Unfortunately by the mid-80s, most of our heroes had given up the fight and went conventional. “We were all a bit lost by then” says Phil Oakey, “like we didn’t have anything to prove!” After declaring in 1980 that ‘Travelogue’ contained “synthesizers and vocals only”, THE HUMAN LEAGUE had by the disappointing ‘Hysteria’ credited Jo Callis with “guitars, keyboards, vocals”, sadly in that order!
Meanwhile OMD went from listing all their equipment on their ‘Dazzle Ships’ and ‘Junk Culture’ albums to Paul Humphreys simply being on “vocals, electronic keyboards, piano” for ‘Crush’! The lure of dollars to water down the synthesized sound for synthobic America just couldn’t be resisted anymore! This classic era of quality synthpop was sadly now over!
However, while the others fragmented, DEPECHE MODE got darker and stuck to their electronic blueprint, eventually achieving massive success in the US from 1988. So it would seem these pioneering acts’ original Eurocentric electronic manifestos had been right after all.
Their legacy is evident today: LITTLE BOOTS and LA ROUX have hit the Top 10, and collaborated on the marvellous BBC6 Music ‘Back To The Phuture’ live sessions with Gary Numan and HEAVEN 17 respectively; rock band MUSE credit “synths and programming” on their new album while featuring a song that sounds like ‘Vienna’; and a girl group cover of ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ is a ‘Comic Relief’ charity single!
Meanwhile, the synthpop era’s big international No1s ‘Don’t You Want Me?’ and ‘Tainted Love’ are still being played at weddings and night clubs, ironically often being sung along to by the same bully boys who were setting fire to Gary Numan records years earlier!! “It was exciting to be part of a musical movement that had never been done before, it was a fine time” smiles Vince Clarke.
Photo by Deb Danahay
‘Synth Britannia’ ends appropriately enough with ‘Together in Electric Dreams’ and this final quote from Andy McCluskey: “We were trying to do something new, that is specifically why we chose electronics, we wanted to sweep away all of the rock clichés! And then what happens towards the end of the 80s and even worse, the mid 90s? Everybody decides guitars are back, synthesizers are somehow old fashioned AND, we get Oasis!!”
McCluskey holds his hand to his head in despair but today, most of the acts featured in ‘Synth Britannia’ are still playing to packed audiences around the world. What was originally an electric dream is now a full blown reality. JUSTICE and a job well done 🙂
Ohm Sweet Ohm! The ‘Synth Britannia’ Soundtrack
DEPECHE MODE New Life
WENDY CARLOS William Tell Overture
WENDY CARLOS Title Music from ‘A Clockwork Orange’
KRAFTWERK Autobahn
THE CLASH White Riot
THE NORMAL TVOD
THE NORMAL Warm Leatherette
THE FUTURE 4JG
THE HUMAN LEAGUE Being Boiled
DONNA SUMMER I Feel Love
CABARET VOLTAIRE Seconds Too Late
CABARET VOLTAIRE Nag Nag Nag
OMD Messages
OMD Enola Gay
JOY DIVISION Atmosphere
JOHN FOXX Underpass
THROBBING GRISTLE Still Walking
THROBBING GRISTLE Hot on the Heals of Love
FAD GADGET Back to Nature
SILICON TEENS Memphis Tennessee
TUBEWAY ARMY Are ‘Friends’ Electric?
GARY NUMAN Cars
VISAGE Fade to Grey
THE FLYING LIZARDS Money
DEPECHE MODE New Life
DEPECHE MODE Just Can’t Get Enough
DEPECHE MODE Sometimes I Wish I Was Dead
THE HUMAN LEAGUE Don’t You Want Me
HEAVEN 17 – Penthouse & Pavement
CABARET VOLTAIRE Landslide
SOFT CELL Tainted Love
YAZOO Only You
YAZOO Don’t Go
OMD Maid of Orleans
EURYTHMICS Sweet Dreams
ULTRAVOX Vienna
KRAFTWERK The Model
DEPECHE MODE Everything Counts
DEPECHE MODE Master and Servant
PET SHOP BOYS West End Girls
NEW ORDER Ceremony
NEW ORDER Blue Monday
PHILIP OAKEY & GIORGIO MORODER Together in Electric Dreams
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is due for release in 2010
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