Tag: Hyperbubble (Page 3 of 4)

HYPERBUBBLE Live In London

When Bionic Bubblepunk duo HYPERBUBBLE made a rare visit to the UK in 2014 to play at HELEN LOVE’s ‘Does Your Heart Go Boom?’ all-dayer at The Lexington in London, there were a lot of smiles in the audience.

Now that performance has been released as album, titled appropriately ‘Live in London’.

It was their first gig in the capital and with the crowd convinced they were about to witness a mutant Country & Western duo, synthpop’s own CARTER & CASH launched into a 45 minute performance of quirky electro with hints of The B-52s.

“We definitely play upon that” said lead singer Jess to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, “because we see ourselves as part-performance art, kitsch cabaret pop…”. Her partner-in-crime Jeff added: “With our stage clothes, we’re playing up to people’s expectations, then throwing in a paradox… looking like their pre-conceived idea of what a Texan is and then sounding nothing like it!”

‘Live in London’ is a highly quality recording featuring a set that could be regarded as HYPERBUBBLE’s greatest hits! Beginning with their calling card ‘Candy Apple Daydreams’, fun uptempo numbers such as ‘Synesthesia’, ‘Bionic Girl’, ‘Non-Biodegradable Hazardous Waste Disposal’ and ‘Chop Shop Cop’ also figure.

hyperbubble 2014live

But this is naturally audio only, so one can only imagine the onstage spanking that Jess gives Jeff during ‘Girl Boy Pop Toy’. However, his charming larger than life personality more that comes over on the recording, as does Jess’ Southern sweetness. This is Rayna and Deacon from ‘Nashville’, but in outer space! Despite having released five albums and several EPs, HYPERBUBBLE are still comparatively unknown in worldwide synthpop circles.

So ‘Live in London’ is a perfect starting point for those who are now curious.


‘Live in London’ is released in CD and download formats by Pure Pop For Now People Records on 22nd November 2015, available from https://hyperbubble.bandcamp.com/album/live-in-london

http://www.hyperbubble.net/

https://twitter.com/Hyperbubble


Text by Chi Ming Lai
21st November 2015

HYPERBUBBLE Dee Dee Rocks The Galaxy

HYPERBUBBLE’s award winning soundtrack to the independent Sci-Fi mini-movie ‘Dee Dee Rocks The Galaxy’ is now out as a CD. For anyone who has ever followed the quirky Texan duo’s work, it maintains the bionic bubblepunk standards of their previous albums and projects.

Under the influence of the great soundtrack innovators like John Carpenter, Wendy Carlos, Delia Derbyshire, Jerry Goldsmith and Suzanne Ciani, ‘Dee Dee Rocks The Galaxy’ is a wacky twenty five minute rocket ride where there is no time to take in the scenery!

With salvos of synths, stylophones, theremins, vocoders and electronic drums, there is even the unexpected appearance of guitars on the penultimate track ‘Showdown In Space’! HYPERBUBBLE told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK in Autumn 2014 that “guitars are retro”, but have blamed this particular invasion on Guitar Ninjas!

The film itself traces the story of Dee Dee and her adventures on the Planet Theremin, before a musical battle between our heroine and Emperor Korg’s Guitar Ninjas. A synth rock opera described by Jeff and Jess DeCuir of HYPERBUBBLE as “Flash Gordon meets The Wizard Of Oz”, there are songs, snatches of dialogue and incidental music.

The album begins proper with ‘Dee Dee’s Theme’ and can be best described as MÖTORHEAD’s ‘Ace Of Spades’ reimagined on Moog sequencers. The spacey bleep fest of ‘Galaxy A Go-Go’ reinforces the Sci-Fi vibe, while the frantic pace of the vocodered ‘Instruments of Doom’ only adds to the fun. ‘Moog Maneuvers’ is aural madness, with pulses and percussion appearing from all angles. ‘Runaway Love Slave’ takes it even further and comprises of programmed drums only.

‘The Kill Zone Kid’ revisits the synth MÖTORHEAD concept of ‘Dee Dee’s Theme’ before the film’s cast members join in on the marvellous ‘Showdown In Space’. The futuristic synth lead line even has echoes ROCKWELL’s ‘Somebody’s Watching Me’, which incidentally aped THOMAS DOLBY vocally!

Ending with the jaunty ‘Queen Of The Universe’, if you enjoyed QUEEN’s soundtrack experiments like ‘Football Fight’ from ‘Flash Gordon’, then ‘Dee Dee Rocks The Galaxy’ is an album for you. And like that film, it is all futuristic escapist fun, a quality that HYPERBUBBLE have been happily able to maintain after seven releases.


‘Dee Dee Rocks The Galaxy’ is released by Pure Pop For Now People Records as a download via the usual digital outlets. The autographed CD edition is available from http://hyperbubble.net/shop.html

queen of the universe EPA free EP sampler featuring ‘Queen Of The Universe, ‘Kill Zone Kid’ and a Synthetik FM Remix of ‘Queen Of The Universe’ can be downloaded at http://fellowshipwreck.com/audio#f061

http://www.hyperbubble.net/

https://www.facebook.com/hyperbubble


Text by Chi Ming Lai
2nd May 2015

HYPERBUBBLE Interview

hyperbubble also by Joe Wallace

Bionic Bubblepunk duo HYPERBUBBLE made a rare visit to the UK recently when they were invited to play cult indie queen Helen Love’s ‘Does Your Heart Go Boom?’ all dayer at The Lexington in London.

It was their first gig in the capital and in front of an audience more used to feisty indie pop, they won over the audience with their quirky electronic performance art. HYPERBUBBLE arrived on stage with Jess attired in a black sequined blouse while Jeff was in full Texan state costume including matching ten gallon Stetson… those watching were convinced they were about to witness a mutant Country & Western duo.

But synthpop’s own CARTER & CASH launched into their calling card ‘Candy Apple Daydreams’ for a 45 minute performance of quirky electro. With the wacky manner of THE B-52s, HYPERBUBBLE soon had the crowd smiling and eventually bopping away to fun uptempo numbers such as ‘Synesthesia’, ‘Bionic Girl’, ‘Non Biodegradable Hazardous Waste Disposal’ and ‘Chop Shop Cop’.

hyperbubble 2014live

With some finely tuned robotics, Jess even found time to play Theremin and venture over to Jeff to give him a good spanking during ‘Girl Boy Pop Toy’ as his larger than life personality charmed the crowd. And as a tribute to their host HELEN LOVE, HYPERBUBBLE also did an affectionate cover of her song ‘Better Set Your Phasers to Stun’ from 2000 which was appreciated by all present including ‘Never Mind The Buzzcocks’ team captain PHILL JUPITUS.

After their enjoyable set at ‘Does Your Heart Go Boom?’, HYPERBUBBLE kindly chatted about Synths, Justice and The American Way…

So how do you feel after your first gig in London?

Jess: I’m ecstatic, I’m giddy! *laughs*

I woke up this morning and had this visual of what it was going to be like and it was better than what I thought.

Jeff: The same… we have played other UK cities like Lancaster and Manchester but we were really excited when Helen Love asked us to play London.

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It was quite an eclectic line-up for this event so I had the impression some of the audience hadn’t heard a synthesizer played in a pop context for about 20 odd years! What did you think?

Jeff: Ours was the only music that had space between the notes! Instead of the strumming, there was suddenly all this airiness in the room! *laughs*

Jess: I actually think we fit more with Helen Love’s aesthetic because there’s some punk in there and bubblegum pop… so we chose our set with her in mind.

Jeff: We were banking on the audience not knowing what to expect, we threw in a few things to throw them off…

Jess: And, as Jeff likes to say, “guitars are retro…”

Jeff: Whenever anybody plays a synthesizer, the ‘80s’ comes up and the word ‘retro’ gets used. But we’re believers in what we’re doing is a continuance of something that may have stopped a little too prematurely and that hasn’t been explored as much or as often as it should be.

So there’s technology today which does things that couldn’t possibly have been done back in the 80s… I mean, aren’t those guitars and the style of music most often played with them retro? But with electronic music, there’s always been a sense of looking forward, of building upon something instead of looking back.

There were a lot of smiles in the audience during your performance?

Jess: We definitely play upon that because we see ourselves as part-performance art, kitsch cabaret pop…

Jeff: We were taking band photos and coming up with costumes as part of the art concept before we bothered doing the songs… HYPERBUBBLE is very much an art / music project.

So what would you say to observers who might say “it should only be about the music, it shouldn’t matter what a band looks like”?

Jess: I have to say, and not being too irreverent here, but I’m so tired of ‘sincerity’… people say music has to be sincere but art can be anything. And it can be humourous, it can be dark humour, it can be political commentary like our song ‘Non Biodegradable Hazardous Waste Disposal’… when you put limitations on what art or music can be, then you can miss a whole lot.

Jeff: I think the bands should be the ones making up their own rules and not having someone else making them.

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In the US at the moment, EDM is popular… is that helping or hindering HYPERBUBBLE?

Jeff: EDM gives the potential audience something they can relate to and creates an open-mindedness. So our music has a point of reference now for people who didn’t understand it. Little do people know but they have been weaned on electronic music since the 60s with television commercials and movie soundtracks so there has finally been a breaking down of barriers that this wasn’t music. People are recognising that “yes, this is a valid art form now”!

Jess: I have this memory when I got my first synthesizer, my sister who played French Horn said “you can’t make real sounds on that thing! You can’t make the sound of a saxophone or French Horn” but I told her “I’m not trying to, I’m making new sounds”… flash forward to 2014 and she’s HYPERBUBBLE’s biggest fan, you’ll find her all over Facebook liking everything we do.

Jeff: When we were in Glasgow a couple of tours ago, I was in an elevator and there was this guy in there with a mandolin case and I was holding my microKorg case. He said “what’s that?”. I replied “a synthesizer” and he said “when the electricity runs out, you’re f***ed!”. I was thinking, when the electricity runs out, the last thing I’m going to be worried about is where I can plug in my synth! *laughs*

You went to Moogfest 2014 which featured KRAFTWERK and Giorgio Moroder?

Jess: I didn’t go, Jeff went with his brother who’s in the band NITE RISK…

Jeff: Oh, it was like a disciple going to The Sermon On The Mount, it really was. KRAFTWERK were a band I first heard when I was 13 with this otherworldly sound…I listened to ‘Autobahn’ daily! In my mind, they are this perfect combination of music and art concept. To see it played out… I was actually weeping during ‘The Robots’! But the most poignant moment though was when they had a technical issue and you saw human beings behind the keyboards having to deal with an error… they were so graceful about it. And instead of sending out some flunkey to tell the audience to hold tight, Ralf Hütter took responsibility and came out to apologise. I think we were lucky to see the human part of this band. I think we saw one of the best KRAFTWERK shows ever because we got a little peek behind that mystique that has been built up.

Likewise, attending a seminar with Giorgio Moroder and watching him perform live laid to rest the mythology of him being a cold, robotic producer. He was warm, and actually quite funny. Also, like seeing KRAFTWERK, hearing Moroder speak about monumental singles like ‘I Feel Love’ and the soundtracks from ‘Midnight Express’ and ‘Cat People’ brought those early HYPERBUBBLE influences full circle.

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Your main project this year has been the soundtrack for the film ‘Attack Of The Titans’, and you’ve won an award?

Jeff: Yeah, the award was for ‘Dee Dee Rocks The Galaxy’, a film that was made by the same crew as ‘Attack Of The Titans’. It won ‘Best Soundtrack’ at the 48 Hr Film Festival. It’s going to be coming out next year, because we’re trying to pace the releases a little.

With the soundtracks, we’re going back into what got us into this kind of music in the first place, listening to those TANGERINE DREAM soundtracks like ‘The Park is Mine’, ‘Sorcerer’, ‘Risky Business’ and ‘Thief’, which, by the way, worked great while riding the London Underground this trip.

We’d done ‘Drastic Cinematic’ which was a make-believe soundtrack, and it led us to being invited to do actual soundtracks. I just love being given a concept and a visual and asking myself “what are you going to do that suits this?” – ‘Dee Dee Rocks The Galaxy’ is the next step forward for us, because it’s a mini-synth rock opera which required us to work with singing actors.

Jess: Speaking of concepts, our costumes tonight are foreshadowing what’s to come… we plan to produce, mix and create the first electro Country & Western LP *laughs*

Jeff: Actually, ‘Switched On Nashville’ may have been the first! *laughs*

With our stage clothes, we’re playing up to people’s expectations, then throwing in a paradox… looking like their pre-conceived idea of what a Texan is and then sounding nothing like it! So now we’re going to flip it all the way over. Synthesizers with their pitch bend and portamento really lend themselves to that country twang! And the first three letters of “Moog” spell MOO! *laughs*

MOOGATE

It’s been four years since the ‘Candy Apple Daydreams’ album and you’ve been doing these soundtracks and EPs. Has that been conscious? Do you think albums are an outdated concept?

Jess: My first thought is that we keep trying to do something new each time and not repeat it.

Jeff: Also, when we try to do something, we try to do the best version of that concept we can and we were really satisfied with ‘Candy Apple Daydreams’… it was like “let’s do an electronic pop rock opera with a theme and a storyline”. A lot of what we like about electronic music came from the ‘song’ bands that wrote pop tunes but much of it has also come from soundtrack and experimental music. Those first three albums were about establishing ourselves enough to have room to stretch out a little bit more.

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Although Texas has a great crop of electronic based acts such as FEATHERS, ELEVEN: ELEVEN and IRIS, do you ever feel that being there that you’re out of sorts in terms of location as far as electronic music is concerned?

Jeff: Well, Texas is the home of NASA and you can’t get much more technical or electronic than that *laughs*

Jess: I think San Antonio has come along way since its heavy metal days, there’s a lot more up and coming bands who are duos or have a minimal set-up. But of course, we’re close to Austin which is the state’s music capital so it’s a great place to be. And our biggest supporters have been the visual art community in Texas so we really cross over into that realm.

Jeff: San Antonio actually has a secret synthpop history. Shortly after THE SEX PISTOLS played at Randy’s Rodeo in our hometown of San Antonio in 1978, you had this explosion of bands that were inspired by that, but who also listened to FAD GADGET and THE NORMAL. As a result, in the early 80s, there were actually a lot of San Antonio synth-driven acts like DEM VACKRA, BA SYNDICATE, INNOCENT X, CHARLES ATHANAS, MANNEQUIN, LUNG OVERCOAT (of which I was a founding member) and GET REAL. We tip our ten gallon hats to them. Yee-haw!


ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to HYPERBUBBLE

‘Better Set Your Phasers To Stun – The Next Generation’, the ‘Attack Of The Titans’ soundtrack and HYPERBUBBLE’s four albums ‘Drastic Cinematic‘, ‘Candy Apple Daydreams’, Solid Pop’ and ‘Airbrushed Alibis’ are available on CD from http://www.hyperbubble.net/

https://www.facebook.com/hyperbubble

https://twitter.com/Hyperbubble

https://www.instagram.com/hyperbubbleofficial/


Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
20th December 2014

HYPERBUBBLE & MANDA RIN In The Movies

hyperbubble & Manda Rin

‘In The Movies’ is a colourful cartoon pop tune from Texan synth duo HYPERBUBBLE and MANDA RIN, one-third of Glaswegian indie popsters BIS.

The song is accompanied by a video directed by Jeff and Jess De Cuir of HYPERBUBBLE; the various cartoons drawn by Jeff himself also pay tribute to a number of classic Hollywood movies. How many can you identify? Warning! This video is classified F-Feline with pervasive sense of humour, synths and scenes depicting criminal activity…

HYPERBUBBLE once said “guitars are retro and sequencers are the key to the future”. Together with MANDA RIN, who sold 100,000 albums in Japan with BIS and composed the theme song to the ‘Powerpuff Girls’ cartoon, their brand new six-track EP about “females, felines and outerspace” even features their cats Akiko, Smokey and Flyboy on the closing track ‘Attack Of The 3-D Space Kittens’. With lashings of vintage reference points, HYPERBUBBLE and MANDA RIN is a quirky collection of synthesised fun.


The HYPERBUBBLE & MANDA RIN CD EP is released by Pure Pop For Now People and available via HYPERBUBBLE’s online store

It is also available worldwide as a download via Amazon.com, CDBaby, iTunes and Napster

http://www.hyperbubble.net/

http://planetmanda.com/


Text by Chi Ming Lai
22nd January 2013

HYPERBUBBLE Drastic Cinematic

Soundtrack albums to imaginary films are nothing new. Brian Eno did two including ‘Music For Films’ and ‘Original Soundtracks’ with PASSENGERS aka U2 while Paul Haig had ‘Cinematique’.

But what HYPERBUBBLE have come up with is the Texan equivalent of Barry Adamson’s ‘Moss Side Story’ only it’s not actually very American at all. Dedicated to the films of Jean Luc-Goddard, HYPERBUBBLE have forsaken their cartoon bubblepunk as exemplified by their last album ‘Candy Apple Daydreams’, and recruited a number of willing collaborators including Aidan Casserly of EMPIRE STATE HUMAN and Manda Rin from BIS with her cat Akiko for a journey into the darker side of the Moog.

Saying that though, this isn’t witch house or industrial goth; ‘Drastic Cinematic’ is still very much HYPERBUBBLE. With no conventional lead vocals as such, Jess and Jeff Decuir have paid homage to the electronically derived soundtracks of Giorgio Moroder, Wendy Carlos, Ennio Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith and TANGERINE DREAM to accompany their own widescreen filmic adaptation of ‘The Avengers’; Jess as electro’s answer to Emma Peel and Jeff playing John Steed as an eccentric synthmeister.

The album does what is says on the tin and is a largely instrumental based celebration of monochromatic audio noir using synths, snippets of dialogue and the odd French horn. Starting moodily with the Middle-Eastern textured ‘Vox Noir’, the ambience is disrupted by the pulsing spy drama of ‘Midnight Cruiser’. The title track features drones of different timbres to a seemingly random beat before the ambient interlude ‘Rue Des Dames’. ‘Geometry’ is perhaps what one would expect as more typical of HYPERBUBBLE’s sound, very pop with Manda Rin paraphrasing a singular “Geometry” as a vocal point.

‘Blame It On The Bot’ is characteristically retro-futuristic Sci-Fi before the more John Carpenter influenced Explosive which could easily be a collaboration with ORBITAL. As ‘Quiet On The Set’ creepily stutters and claps, the Part 1 album take of ‘Welcome to Infinity’ is Vince Clarke-styled sequenced magic which then breaks down into Part 2, bookending the esoteric section of ‘Drastic Cinematic’ with some more textured ambience.

After the abstract first half hour, the three bonus tracks are more conventionally synthpop with remixes by I EUROPEAN, HABERDASHERY and MARKYMIX. As with HYBERBUBBLE’s other albums, the collection is short but sweet. However, this departure explores other synthetic depths and can be enjoyed at all levels.


‘Drastic Cinematic’ is released by Bubblegum Records (UK) and Pure Pop For Now People Records (Germany) on 1st July 2011

https://www.hyperbubble.net/

https://www.facebook.com/hyperbubble

https://twitter.com/Hyperbubble


Text by Chi Ming Lai
27th June 2011

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