Hosted by self-confessed pop rambler Iain McDermott, ‘Back To NOW’ is a podcast that celebrates all things related to the variously compiled world of pop, how our favourite compilation albums shaped our lives and now fondly stand as time capsules for our own musical journeys.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s Chi Ming Lai and Ian Ferguson were extremely pleased to be invited as guests on ‘Back To NOW’ and opted to choose the 2022 release of the ‘NOW ‘81 Yearbook’ 4CD set and its companion 3CD set of “Extras”. One of the reasons it was chosen was because, as described by the Now Music official website , “it was a watershed year for pop with new British artists emerging from the ashes of punk and disco by way of the New Romantic movement”
1981 saw key albums by ULTRAVOX, SIMPLE MINDS, HEAVEN 17, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, JAPAN, NEW ORDER, OMD, DEPECHE MODE and SOFT CELL as well as Gary Numan and John Foxx, released within a 10 week period that Autumn. The year also saw the return of KRAFTWERK and Jean-Michel Jarre after an absence of 3 years while DURAN DURAN issued their self-titled debut long player.
Among the discussion points in this episode are how the affordability of synthesizers was changing the musical landscape, Midge Ure was becoming particularly ubiquitous as a producer, ABBA’s ‘The Visitors’ album and how progressive rock elements were seeping into the sounds of the year. This was the year 1981 B.C.C. – before CULTURE CLUB!
Of course, the ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ series did not exist at the time so there is room for chat about the compilations of the period, in particular K-Tel’s ‘Modern Dance’ of 1982 which provided a near-definitive snapshot of electronic pop of 1980-1981. Featuring DEPECHE MODE, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, OMD, VISAGE, HEAVEN 17, JAPAN, SIMPLE MINDS, LANDSCAPE, FASHION and THE CURE, Radio1 DJ Peter Powell declared that ‘Modern Dance’ was “The best of total danceability, the sounds of modern dance, on one LP!”.
The trio also get to discuss what songs are missing on ‘NOW ‘81 Yearbook’ and ‘NOW ‘81 Yearbook’Extra’ be it be to licensing or artist veto, and in a year when quite a few brilliant songs did not actually get chart recognition, they each choose their three tracks which they would like to have been included.
The broad church of the UK singles charts at that time meant that it was not all good, with easy listening Radio 2 tunes, soppy Motown ballads and medley records dispelling the rose-tinted myth often portrayed by today’s internet radio DJs that the 1981 charts was full of synthpop! This becomes one of the talking points, as does the fact that heavy metal, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, jazz funk, disco, reggae, ska, post-punk, AOR and mainstream pop sat significantly alongside the New Romantics and Futurists.
1981 was a dazzling 12 months where the decade began to take shape and form an identity that remains with us today. Grab some blank tapes, switch off one of the 3 channels on your TV and join us as we head back to a glorious year in pop, 1981.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Iain McDermott
Unlike “New Romantic”, “New Pop” was a term that never truly stuck… it was coined by Paul Morley, then a polarising writer for NME. It was used to describe forward thinking music that, while rooted in post-punk, was accessible and looked to overthrow rockist conventions by unashamedly blending a variety of styles.
The acts who found themselves considered as part of this movement included THE CURE, SIMPLE MINDS, OMD, JAPAN, CHINA CRISIS, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, SOFT CELL, HEAVEN 17, EURYTHMICS, TEARS FOR FEARS, A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS, FUN BOY THREE, SCRITTI POLITTI, THE STYLE COUNCIL, ALTERED IMAGES, DEXY’S MIDNIGHT RUNNERS, MONSOON, THE TEARDROP EXPLODES, ABC, HAIRCUT 100, THE PALE FOUNTAINS, EYELESS IN GAZA, BLUE RONDO A LA TURK, RIP RIG & PANIC, JOBOXERS, THE HIGSONS and even THE STRANGLERS.
This was a broad church that many would not have granted a common association but that was the point. Even in what appeared to be traditional band formats, new technology meant synths emulated brass sections or funk basslines while drum machines took the place of conventional sticksmen and it could all be recorded in a DIY fashion with portastudios and the like.
New Pop was about the aspirations of those disenchanted with the Winter of Discontent and then the Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher to pick up musical instruments without any formal training. The intention was to be heard, whether in the clubs, on the radio or in the charts. The ever dependable Cherry Red present ‘Heaven Sent – The Rise Of New Pop 1979-1983’, a 4CD collection compiled by the team who curated the ‘Musik Music Musique’ sets.
Of the artists that ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK would appreciate, there are fine choices that are off the beaten track away from obvious hits; THE HUMAN LEAGUE are represented by the excellent ‘Boys & Girls’ which was the first single after the departure of Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh while the latter pair’s HEAVEN 17 contribute the locomotive snap of ‘I’m Your Money’. OMD have ‘Red Frame / White Light’, the lightweight ditty about the 632 3003 phonebox which served as their office in their formative years.
But synthpop was taken to the next level with the gritty social commentary of ‘Bedsitter’ proving that SOFT CELL were more than a one hit wonders and could chart with self-written material. A sign of how angst ridden youngsters were expressing their existential and political concerns to music came with fine debut offerings respectively from TEARS FOR FEARS and CHINA CRISIS but while ‘Suffer The Children’ and ‘African & White’ were not Top40 hits, they were hints of their mainstream success to come.
A year before they subverted the singles chart with ‘Party Fears Two’, ASSOCIATES were peddling the more challenging ‘Q Quarters’ while on THE CURE lightened up with ‘Let’s Go To Bed’ in the first of their fantasy singles trilogy that would later include ‘The Walk’ and ‘The Love Cats’. And prior to DEAD OR ALIVE becoming a HI-NRG disco act, they were a brooding goth band with ‘The Stranger’ in its original Black Eyes Records incarnation as wonderful evidence of that.
Maturer acts who made an impression during this period like M, THE BUGGLES and NEW MUSIK are all present and correct with their biggest hits while one song that deserved to be a hit was the bizarre but brilliant techno-swing of ‘An Englishman In New York’ from 10CC refugees Kevin Godley and Lol Creme.
Capturing two acts in transition, fresh after departing THE TOURISTS, EURYTHMICS get served by their first German influenced single ‘Never Gonna Cry Again’ while the 7 inch single edit of ‘The Art Of Parties’ by JAPAN and its brass-fuelled exploration of more rhythmic territory makes a rare digital appearance.
The epitome of New Pop has often been seen to be ABC with ‘Poison Arrow’ and with the band plus assorted session musicians tracing the pre-programmed guide track helmed by Trevor Horn with live instrumentation, modern production was born where funk, soul and orchestrations could sit alongside the mechanised synthpop that had achieved a wider breakthrough in 1981.
With New Pop, funk was often a constituent and FAD GADGET’s ‘Make Room’ brought that in spades alongside the synth, while COLOURBOX had a cross of electronics, funk and reggae in ‘Shotgun’, although both were perhaps too idiosyncratic to crossover to wider audiences.
There’s also the inclusion of the first Thomas Dolby single ‘Urges’ co-produced by XTC’s Andy Partridge and the boxed set’s title song ‘Heaven Sent’, Paul Haig’s excellent take on SIMPLE MINDS ‘I Travel’ polished for the New York dancefloor by producer Alex Sadkin; to have the former JOSEF K frontman and his song originally written for the band in this position is fitting as Paul Morley had designated Paul Haig“the enigmatic fourth man” in a quartet of New Pop saviours which also included Billy Mackenzie, Jim Kerr and Martin Fry.
The delight in these boxed sets is to rediscover music that has been largely forgotten over time and one is ‘Dance Sucker’, an electro-funk stomper by SET THE TONE; a combo featuring one-time SIMPLE MINDS drummer Kenny Hyslop, it was he who taped the track ‘Too Through’ by BAD GIRLS off Kiss FM in New York that inspired the band to write ‘Promised You A Miracle’; SIMPLE MINDS themselves feature with the underrated ‘Sweat In Bullet’ from 1981.
One nice surprise is THE UNDERTONES’ synth flavoured ‘Beautiful Friend’ where they appear to have actually got THE HUMAN LEAGUE in to advise them while Pauline Murray with THE INVISIBLE GIRLS are delightfully rousing with the Martin Hannett produced ‘Dream Sequence 1’. Another fine inclusion is Edinburgh’s TV21 and their Mike Howlett produced single ‘All Join Hands’ with its combination of sequencers and strings.
By 1983, THE STRANGLERS had shed their more aggressive tendencies with the pretty ‘European Female’ but harking back to those days, Hazel O’Connor’s cover of their ‘Hanging Around’ begins as an enigmatic Casiobeat cover with the ‘Breaking Glass’ star trying to be Grace Jones before morphing into a more routine reinterpretation with synth and sax. And speaking of Grace Jones, her reggae cover of JOY DIVISION’s ‘She’s Lost Control’ has to be heard to be believed.
One hit wonders from THE FLYING LIZARDS, DEPARTMENT S and THE PASSIONS add to the fun but some of the inclusions have not aged well. ‘The House That Jack Built’ by Paul Weller protégée Tracie Young is frankly dreadful while the embarrassing ‘John Wayne Is Big Leggy’ by HAYSI FANTAYZEE only gets a free pass because Kate Garner and Jeremy Healy comically subverted Top Of The Pops by performing this song about anal sex with unambiguous actions to boot!
Not everything on ‘Heaven Sent – The Rise Of New Pop 1979-1983’ will satisfy the majority of listeners but what cannot be denied about most of the inclusions is that they are largely inventive and exciting. It is a period to savour because what then comes after is the bland sophisti-pop and cod soul meanderings of SADE, SIMPLY RED, GO WEST, SWING OUT SISTER, HUE & CRY, CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT, WET WET WET and LIVING IN A BOX with their far more musically conservative (with a small ‘c’) disposition.
With a sound seeded from post-punk, goth and new wave, VANDAL MOON are shaped as much by their use of drum machines and synthesizers as much as guitars and the inevitable deep baritone vocals.
Comprising of Blake Voss and Jeremy Einsiedler, the Santa Cruz duo opened their account with the self-released ‘Dreamless’ in 2013.
Their most recent long player ‘Black Kiss’ is their most electronic work yet, although the sound of THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS and THE SISTERS OF MERCY permeates throughout, perhaps not unsurprisingly as the two are linked by John Ashton who was the guitarist for the classic line-up of the former and an early producer of the latter.
In 2018 for the release of the ‘Wild Insane’ album, VANDAL MOON signed to Starfield Music, the record label of Shawn Ward, best known for his work as FM ATTACK. It is perhaps Ward who can be credited for championing VANDAL MOON to the wider synth community. Meanwhile notable collaborations with BETAMAXX and MECHA MAIKO have cemented that association further.
But despite their influences like THE CURE and DEPECHE MODE, Blake Voss and Jeremy Einsiedler have presented their own take on a classic approach with the potential to connect with wider tribes and enclaves. Front man Blake Voss talked about the rise of VANDAL MOON.
Who were the bands that inspired VANDAL MOON?
I was born right around the time THE SEX PISTOLS broke in the UK. So, by the time I was cognisant of what was going on around me, new wave was all over the radio. EURYTHMICS, TEARS FOR FEARS, BLONDIE… those were the bands of my early childhood. At the same time, my Dad’s record collection was filled with everything from Lou Reed to PINK FLOYD. Oddly enough, VANDAL MOON was initially envisioned as a sort of electronic-psychedelic project, and I think my childhood experiences, and imagination turned it into what it is now.
Had the use of synthesizers and drum machines in VANDAL MOON been more out of necessity to keep the creative process as a duo, or had you been like a conventional rock band previously?
Jeremy is my best friend. He and I have been playing music together since the late 90s, in all kinds of different bands. Noise bands, punk bands, acid folk… everything. We both loved the sh*t out of math rock, and all those post-rock bands of the early 2000s that nobody talks about anymore.
Typically, he played the drums and I played guitar and sang. But the synths and drum machines came into play because of our mutual love of the soundtrack to the movie ‘Drive’. That movie really affected us both in a profound way. It did that for many people.
Of course, the original European definition of goth which was doomy but melodic has mutated over the years into this American take which is more like dark metal, any thoughts?
I don’t know much about dark metal, but I love goth music and goth culture. I’m not a goth and I don’t pretend to make strictly goth music, but we have a lot of fans from the subculture. I’ve never met nicer, more thoughtful people. I’m just happy to have been accepted by some of them. And I love them back.
How do you look back on the first three VANDAL MOON albums and how you’ve developed?
We’ve moved in a lot of different directions as a band. THE BEATLES sort of set that precedent for pop music; never doing the same thing for too long. Eventually they became a corporation more than anything, but we all learned the same lessons from them.
Art isn’t about being born fully formed from the head of Zeus or something. It’s a journey and a process. It’s about leaving a beautiful mess behind you and letting the kids sort it all out.
Oh yeah, and being a celebrity sucks. THE BEATLES taught us that as well.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK first heard of VANDAL MOON though collaborations with FM ATTACK and then MECHA MAIKO and BETAMAXX, so how did this synthwave association begin and has it expanded your audience?
I didn’t even know the synthwave community existed until a gentleman by the name of Axel from Neon Vice Magazine reached out to me around 2013. From there it just snowballed. The synthwave kids embraced me as an artist, and that was so heart-warming.
Because of that, I’ve been fortunate enough work with some artists who have forged a place for themselves in the history books. Shawn, Haley and Nick are all legends in their own right. These are people who have created something from nothing. Back when MTV mattered, they would have been featured on ‘120 Minutes’ or something. They deserve to be celebrated. History will not forget them, and neither will I.
You have described ‘Black Kiss’ as your most electronic record yet, had you been looking to evolve in this direction or did the acceptance by the synthwave community accelerate this and give you the confidence to make more of an artistic jump?
When I make a record, I imagine it in very abstract terms. To my imagination, this record wanted to be more angular and dark. A primarily electronic pallet was the best way for me to elaborate on that vision. I’ve written literally hundreds of songs on guitars, so it felt good to write this album on synthesizers. It gives it a different vibe. But who knows, maybe I’ll do something weird like a ‘VANDAL MOON: Unplugged’ album next. Or maybe a synthesizer style punk record. Who knows!
How would describe the creative dynamic within VANDAL MOON?
Much of the time, I’m alone in my studio, just f*cking around until something decent emerges. For every album, I write maybe 50 or 60 songs, and pick the best 10 or whatever. When I die, you can rummage through all my hard drives and release bullsh*t demos to your heart’s content. Jeremy and I get together a lot at his place, and drink vodka until we’re screaming at 2am and creeping the neighbours out. It’s a good way to let off some steam. A lot of songs come out of that process as well.
‘Wicked World’ does that epic gothic thing like FIELDS OF THE NEPHILM, did you know ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK was in the same class at school as The Neph’s drummer Nod but he was into jazz funk then!?! Were there any genres of music you explored before settling where you are now?
I’ve listened to and made all kinds of music. I listen to hip-hop, math rock, Turkish psych music… you name it. I’ve done soundtracks for documentaries where I’m playing a dumbek drum and a melodica and just chanting. I’ll play any instrument. I might play it sh*ttily, but I’ll play it nonetheless. I just love making music. F*ck everything else. I’m determined to succeed at creation. The rest is just happenstance.
‘Hurt’ really plays on making THE SISTERS OF MERCY’s template more synthy, had that been intentional?
I don’t intentionally model any of my songs after particular artists. The bands I liken us to, for PR purposes, are just based upon what people tell me we sound like. The thing I love about this project is that people struggle to pigeonhole us. VANDAL MOON sounds like a lot of different things, but we don’t fit neatly into any one genre. That means we’re doing something unique. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.
The moody gothwave of ‘We Are Electric’ sees you collaborate with FM ATTACK again, Shawn Ward really loves his dark musical side doesn’t he?
Shawn is the warmest, most enthusiastic and supportive person I know. He invited me out to this home in Mazatlan and we made a bunch of songs together for this last album ‘New World’. He’s my friend first and foremost. And yes, he loves dark music.
He understands how to create something dark that touches people’s hearts in a way that is multi-faceted, and not just like “oh me, I’m angry, boo hoo”. That’s because he is a special soul, and talented as hell. We’ll probably make a full-length FM ATTACK // VANDAL MOON album together at some point. It’ll be like THE GLOVE or something.
You’re not afraid to play with post-punk disco templates as ‘Suicidal City Girl’ shows? What had this been influenced by?
I think I was listening to a lot of Sally Dige when I made that song. You can hear it in there. Sally is so talented. I hope I get to work with her one day. She’s a real artist in the lifestyle sense.
Her life is art and art is her life. At least from what I can see. She draws, paints, makes music and film. She’s what we all aspire to. I was supposed to get my ass out to Berlin to do a music video with her, but it never happened.
‘Robot Lover’ is like DEPECHE MODE meeting THE MISSION, how did this track come together?
That’s a lovely compliment, thank you. This is one of those songs that Jeremy and I wrote together at his house. I think I wrote the bass line and Jeremy came up with the chords. Jeremy came up with the idea for me to sing higher during the verse line “we are enslaved for life, our pain is real”. And I think that’s what really pushed the song forward. It’s a very futurist song.
The apocalyptic gothic trance of ‘No Future’ no doubt surprised your fans, but how has the reception been on the whole to ‘Black Kiss’, has anyone said you are “betraying your goth roots”?
To hell with anyone who tells me I’m betraying my roots. The first CD I ever purchased with my own money was LL Cool J’s ‘Mama Said Knock You Out’, just based upon the power of the album art, so what the fuck do they know about my roots? I put ‘No Future’ last on the album because I felt like it was just a really nice closer. It’s aggressive, but in a more EDM kind of way. Of course, it’s not EDM. Nobody knows what it is, and that’s the beauty of it. It’s a really fun song to perform, and it’s very powerful at loud volumes. It’s a song dedicated to dystopia, and also to John Lydon. Thank you for everything, John. We love you.
How have European audiences taken to VANDAL MOON, will some of the directions taken on ‘Black Kiss’ make that more palatable for the future?
We live in interesting times. We have followers from all over the world. We get an extreme amount of support from Brazil and the rest of South America. But in the end, we’re all humans who hurt and laugh and love.
I don’t give too much credence to where our audience is from, but rather I try to embrace their love and acceptance and express gratitude back towards them as individuals. I don’t know if ‘Black Kiss’ will connect more with European audiences, but I believe it will connect with those who listen with open hearts.
The ‘Black Kiss’ album title does rather capture the zeitgeist, any thoughts?
I don’t groom my music to pump people up or bring them down, like Coca-Cola or something. I just follow my instincts and make songs based upon how I’m feeling at that moment. As a result, I think it sort of follows the emotional ups and downs of my human experience, which people can innately relate to.
I don’t want to make any commentary on what this album is or isn’t in terms of emotional content, because I want listeners to create their own experience and connections. The world is f*cked up, but it’s also filled with beauty.
The worldwide lockdown has made it difficult for everyone to make plans, but are there anymore collaborations planned for the future, or live appearances?
I’m working on a remix album with a bunch of insane artists that I won’t name here. But rest assured, it’s packed with talent. All 10 songs from ‘Black Kiss’ will be remixed by 10 different artists. I can’t wait. I also have like 3 different, full on collaborations that are in the works, which I think will surprise people.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Blake Voss
‘Black Kiss’ is released by Starfield Music as a white vinyl LP, cassette or download, available along with the rest of the VANDAL MOON back catalogue direct from https://vandalmoon.bandcamp.com/
During the MTV era, the advent of college radio with an Anglophile stance on American campuses and stations such as KROQ in Los Angeles featuring DJs like expat Englishman Richard Blade had a huge effect on youth in the US.
Considering themselves smarter than the average mainstream BON JOVI fan, this audience facilitated a breakthrough for a number of darker tinged acts alongside the bands who had been featured in John Hughes teen flicks like ‘Pretty In Pink’, ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Some Kind Of Wonderful’.
So unlike the UK where they were more than likely to have totally different audiences, American fans of SIMPLE MINDS, DEPECHE MODE, OMD and ERASURE could often be seen attending the concerts of THE CURE, SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES, THE PSYCHEDLIC FURS, ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN, THE SMITHS and THE SISTERS OF MERCY alongside the goths and positive punks.
As a result, the New Wave movement in North America turned out in a way that would be considered incongruous by British music fans. But what it did culturally was influence generations of aspiring music creatives to mix and match genres without necessarily being self-conscious about it.
One of those acts is California’s VANDAL MOON. With a sound seeded from post-punk, goth and new wave, they are shaped as much by their use of drum machines and synthesizers as much as guitars and the inevitable deep baritone vocals.
Front man Blake Voss manages to sound somewhere between Andrew Eldritch and Richard Butler, while instrumentalist Jeremy Einsiedler is the more electronically inclined of the pair. Having guested on records by FM ATTACK, BETAMAXX and MECHA MAIKO, the Santa Cruz duo has ended up with a foot each in the synthwave scene.
As a result, ‘Black Kiss’ is by their own admission is the duo’s most purely electronic work yet, largely written using synths while being inspired by THE CURE, DEPECHE MODE, THE SISTERS OF MERCY and THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS.
Conceived around the futuristic love story of two androids escaping enslavement, ‘Black Kiss’ begins with the profound statement that is ‘Hurt’; now if THE SISTERS OF MERCY’s ‘Lucretia My Reflection’ was redone with synths, it would sound like this.
‘Dead’ plays along with a more typical gothic template using a guitar-laced setting, but pretty cascading synth hooks add to the chilling atmosphere while metallic percussive samples provide some industrial edge. Meanwhile, the ‘Black Kiss’ title track signals impending doom and chipmunk voice samples provide a foreboding not-of-this-world aesthetic.
The more obviously synth driven ‘We Are Electric’ uses pulses and drones simultaneously for its low end, penetrating the darkwave via its hybrid overtones. This is perhaps not surprising as FM ATTACK’s Shawn Ward makes a notable guest contribution.
However, ‘We Live Forever’ surprises as a moody synthwave ballad; featuring Leanne Kelly from the San Francisco indie-pop duo NEW SPELL on vocals, it sees an understated Blake Voss adapting to a less overwrought singing style and delivering it very well.
But the frantic ‘Wicked World’ puts everything back on the epic gothic path with a thundering run of percussion that recalls Stevenage’s finest FIELDS OF THE NEPHILM and their ‘Moonchild’; trivia fact pop pickers, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK was in the same class at school as The Neph’s drummer Nod!
‘Robot Lover’ enjoyably passes ‘Enjoy The Silence’ through a Wayne Hussey filter while ‘Suicidal City Girl’ is superb, showcasing electronic post-punk disco at its best with enthralling echoes of THE DANSE SOCIETY.
With the more laid back approach premiered on ‘We Live Forever’, ‘Pretend To Die’ sees Shawn Ward return on synths and here the FM ATTACK synthy shades are strong.
Hypnotic to the point of being gothic trance, the apocalyptic closer ‘No Future’ is another surprise, a magnificent four-to-the-floor dance number complete with squealing drops and a mighty climax. If this track doesn’t crossover into the German alternative club scene, then ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK will eat its copy of SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES ‘Superstition’…
But despite all these retrospective alternative influences, what VANDAL MOON have come up with is something unique at this moment in time. THE CURE and THE SISTERS OF MERCY were never as synthy as VANDAL MOON, so with their melting of styles, Voss and Einsiedler have presented their own take on a familiar classic approach.
Mixed and mastered by Maurizio Baggio who worked on THE SOFT MOON’s ‘Criminal’ and the BOY HARSHER breakthrough album ‘Careful’, ‘Black Kiss’ sits up there as a great modern alternative pop record with its gothwave aesthetics. If it had been released in 1984, many of these songs would have gone down extremely well at The Batcave, the famous London goth haunt where Hamish Macdonald and Rusty Egan DJed. Today, they wouldn’t sound at all out of place at Slimelight.
A fine record that captures a dystopian outlook on life with an appealing electronic sensibility, ‘Black Kiss’ has the potential to connect with a number of different tribes and audiences.
Founded in 2012, BETAMAXX is the musical vehicle of Pittsburgh based Nick Morey, a vintage synthesizer enthusiast who released his debut album ‘Lost Formats’ that same year.
Among his armoury are a Roland Juno 106, Roland Juno 60, Minimoog, Korg Poly6, Korg Mono/Poly, Oberheim OBXa and Sequential Prophet 6.
Despite four albums acclaimed by the synthwave community, as seems to be common among its exponents, a retirement of the BETAMAXX name was announced by Morey in 2015. But sure enough, a return came with 2017’s ‘Archaic Science’.
The most recent BETAMAXX album ‘Lost In A Dreamworld’ was a more confident affair, with Morey bringing in wider influences such as goth and new wave, perhaps taking a leaf from Shawn Ward, best known of course as FM ATTACK and now his label boss.
One of those songs is ‘Never Sleep Again’, a collaboration with post-punk Santa Cruz duo VANDAL MOON. Entering darker territories, courtesy of some great Robert Smith-tinged vocals by Blake Voss, ‘Never Sleep Again’ breaks away from the definitions of synthwave by offering a propulsive electronic take on THE CURE, although the Keith Forsey-era of THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS would be another reference, if slightly more distant.
Reflecting its tale of love and disaffection, ‘Never Sleep Again’ comes with a superb video directed by Dan Przygoda and shot by Brad A Kinnan. It’s kind of a tribute to ‘The Lost Boys’ that not surprisingly exudes a sinister air of foreboding while our heroes perform as the house band in a vampire nightclub. Blink and you will miss Holly Dodson of PARALLELS in the audience.
‘Lost In A Dreamworld’ has perhaps been a slow burner outside the confines of synthwave but extends beyond its expectations and is well worthy of investigation. Living up to the album’s title and with an angelic feminine air, the sparking synthpop of ‘Skyhigh’ featuring GLITBITER (who also makes a cameo in the ‘Never Sleep Again’ video) was another appealing facet to ‘Lost In A Dreamworld’, with the song’s vibrato treated vocal stabs on the coda being a particular delight.
One of the other guest vocalists was the delectable MECHA MAIKO whose girly avant pop stylings on ‘No Fun’ added an eclectic twist to proceedings, its bass sequencing looking more towards European electronic acts like VISAGE and SIN COS TAN.
But ‘Lost in a Dreamworld’ isn’t just about its songs; the glitterball energy of ‘Disco Dreamgirl’ is a brilliant instrumental that blips gloriously, while the ringing hypnotic overtures of ‘Vacation’ in collaboration with Swedish producer Robert Parker decorate another great club-friendly instrumental.
Then there was ‘Opaque Fog’ which glistened via its crisp production and fabulously rigid rhythms in a pacier take on Hollywood-era TANGERINE DREAM. And with a churning arpeggio sweetened by actual synth playing, the delightful ‘Stargazer’ did exactly what it said on the tin.
Taking a more open-minded approach, BETAMAXX has an album in ‘Lost in a Dreamworld’ that could appeal to those who might see themselves as synthwave synics. Throw in the inherent Giorgio Moroder vocoder influences on ‘Getaway’ and ‘I’ll Walk You Home’ as well and maturer listeners may have a further point of reference to appeal.
BETAMAXX + FM ATTACK appear with special guests MECHA MAIKO + VANDAL MOON at Vancouver’s Rickshaw Theatre on Saturday 25th April 2020 – tickets from http://www.theinvisibleorange.com/
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is their most electronic work yet, although the sound of THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS and THE SISTERS OF MERCY permeates throughout, perhaps not unsurprisingly as the two are linked by John Ashton who was the guitarist for the classic line-up of the former and an early producer of the latter.
album, 
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was a more confident affair, with Morey bringing in wider influences such as goth and new wave, perhaps taking a leaf from Shawn Ward, best known of course as 
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