Tag: I Speak Machine (Page 1 of 4)

2022 END OF YEAR REVIEW

Photo by Tapio Normall

It was hoped to be a year of positive electricity but with the oddball burst of negative waves, 2022 was summed up by the title of its best album.

The product of Finnish duo SIN COS TAN, ‘Living In Fear’ captured the anxieties of living with The Bear Next Door in a post-pandemic world. With billionaires taking over social media with the intent of allowing the extreme right wing an increased voice, it was as if the lessons of Trump and Bolsonaro had not been learned.

‘The Wolves Are Returning’ warned xPROPAGANDA on a track from their excellent album ‘The Heart Is Strange’, the message coming from two Germans whose grandparents’ generation “did nothing” and had made the mistake of opening up the door to the Nazis was extremely poignant.

It was as if The Cold War had never ended; the poetry of one who has escaped ethnic genocide and been separated from next of kin as a refugee has substance. So for Alanas Chosnau on his second album with Mark Reeder, this was ‘Life Everywhere’ and provided a deeper statement on life during wartime. Meanwhile China’s STOLEN presented their ‘Eroded Creation’ and explained ‘Why We Follow’.

Battles both worldwide and personal were being reflected in music everywhere with ‘War’ by I SPEAK MACHINE being another example. Things did not get much cheerier with Rodney Cromwell whose long-awaited second long player ‘Memory Box’ provided commentary on a sadly post-truth world, the so-called “alternative facts” as Donald Trump’s extremely dim advisor Kellyanne Conway liked to put it.

The decade so far has not been a barrel of laughs and the likes of UNIFY SEPARATE, BOY HARSHER, O+HER, NNHMN, VANDAL MOON and ADULT. captured the zeitgeist of the past 3 years.

Meanwhile, MECHA MAIKO maintained it was still ‘NOT OK’, I AM SNOW ANGEL felt it was now a ‘Lost World’ and Swedish duo SALLY SHAPIRO made their comeback by reflecting on ‘Sad Cities’.

As sardonic as ever, DUBSTAR presented their second collection of kitchen sink dramas since they reconfigured as a duo with ‘Two’ and reunited with producer Stephen Hague for their most acclaimed record since their 1995 debut ‘Disgraceful’.

On a more optimistic note, Italians Do It Better brought their cinematic world to London with headline shows by DESIRE and MOTHERMARY who each had new long form releases to air, while shyness was nice for the most promising breakthrough act of the year Gemma Cullingford who got all ‘Tongue Tied’ on her second long player. Meanwhile DAWN TO DAWN, ULTRAFLEX and H/P offered electronically escapist solutions to the year,

But KID MOXIE was happy to ‘Shine’ with the best video of 2022 while CZARINA got mystical with ‘Arcana’, Karin Park looked back at her ‘Private Collection’ and Patricia Wolf explored ambience on ‘See-Through’. Other female talent that shone brightly in 2022 included Norway’s SEA CHANGE, Sweden’s Hanna Rua, Alina Valentina from The Netherlands, Mexican Valentina Moretti and Anglo-French avant songstress Julia-Sophie but sister / brother duos MINIMAL SCHLAGER and SPRAY proved siblings could continue to work well together in synth.

40 years after the release of their debut album ‘Happy Families’, BLANCMANGE returned home to London Records for a ‘Private View’ while mainman Neil Arthur was keeping himself busy with FADER too. Having being shelved for 30 years, the second ELECTRIBE 101 album ‘Electribal Soul’ finally saw the light of day. And some 39 years after it was first conceived, the lost Warren Cann and Hans Zimmer opus ‘Spies’ was released in a new 21st Century recording by the HELDEN Project’s lead vocalist Zaine Griff.

Although PET SHOP BOYS celebrated their career with the magnificent ‘Dreamworld’ tour for the best live event of 2022 and joined SOFT CELL in the ‘Purple Zone’, Marc Almond and David Ball presented the disclaimer ‘*Happiness Not Included’ before announcing that they would be performing at a run of outdoor events in 2023 despite having stated their 2018 O2 extravaganza would be their last.

Also having declared a final album in 2014, RÖYKSOPP returned with the triple volumed ‘Profound Mysteries’ that featured Susanne Sundfør and Alison Goldfrapp.

Veterans Howard Jones, William Orbit, Jean-Michel Jarre and Wolfgang Flür as well as long-standing Nordic combos LUSTANS LAKEJER and A-HA released new albums but while the quality across the releases was mixed, fans were loyal and happy. After various trials and tribulations, TEARS FOR FEARS returned with ‘The Tipping Point’ and erased memories of the lacklustre 2004 comeback ‘Everybody Loves A Happy Ending’, but the duo were unable to capitalise when the majority of the UK concert tour of stately homes was cancelled due to an unfortunate accident that befell Curt Smith.

Creating a dehumanised technologically dependent Sci-Fi world, DIE KRUPPS opted for more machine than metal under their EBM pseudonym DIE ROBO SAPIENS. With NASA making its first steps back to the moon with the Artemis project, fittingly Italian producer EUGENE spent ‘Seven Years In Space’ and Ireland’s CIRCUIT3 looked back at space travel’s past on ‘Technology For The Youth’. Back on earth, THE WEEKND was still being accused of stealing from synthwave while coming up with the song of the year in ‘Less Than Zero’. In the meantime, having infuriated audiences by saying “f*ck that ‘synthwave’ stuff as u name it” in 2018, KAVINSKY was ‘Reborn’ with a second album that had much less of the wave and expanded into broader electronically generated templates with the occasional funkier overtones.

Celebrating ‘40 Years Of Hits’ on a sell-out arena tour and issuing a new album ‘Direction Of The Heart’ which featured a guest appearance by Russell Mael of SPARKS on the single ‘Traffic’ with the obligatory ‘Acoustic Mix’, as the excellent book ‘Themes For Great Cities’ by Graeme Thomson highlighted, the best years of SIMPLE MINDS are now well behind them. They are a poor facsimile of the great band they once were and as a special Summer concert in Edinburgh in honour of ‘New Gold Dream’ proved, Jim Kerr and Co can’t even play their best album properly.

Music-related books continued to be popular with Martyn Ware and Karl Bartos respectively writing their memoirs ‘Electronically Yours Vol1’ and ‘The Sound Of The Machine’. In a wider historical context, that crucial 1978-1983 period where electronic pop was more or less invented got documented in the encyclopaedic ‘Listening To The Music The Machines Make’ by Richard Evans.

2022 saw several prominent figures depart for the jukebox in the sky; Vangelis, Manuel Göttsching, Angelo Badalamenti, Julee Cruise, Dave Smith, Herb Deutsch, Terry Hall, Robert Marlow and Andy Fletcher will be sadly missed but ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK was particularly devasted by the passing of German electronic legend Klaus Schulze only 4 days after he gave a rare interview to the site.

Meanwhile Dave Gahan and Martin Gore announced yet another tour of underwhelming arena shows plonked into stadiums for an as-yet-unfinished album that at least had a title ‘Momento Mori’. Ticketscalper took advantage with so-called dynamic pricing (or legalised touting) as hapless Devotees were fleeced thousands of dollars in North America… all this just to see a continually ungrateful frontman (who didn’t even sing is own words on a DEPECHE MODE song until 2005) gesture with a microphone in the air on a catwalk rather than actually singing on it and to possibly hear a pre-1985 song performed that will inevitably ruined by The Drumhead and The Noodler!

As Juls Garat of Massachusetts goth band PILGRIMS OF YEARNING observed via social media: “If you’re spending a kidney on DEPECHE MODE tickets and not attending a local show this weekend, I don’t wanna see you complaining that there’s no scene, local venues or new music anymore”. With the lack of curiosity amongst audiences who were content with nostalgia and the like, it was a difficult year for independent acts.

There is no easy answer and as the old saying goes, you can take a horse to water but you can’t force it to drink. But one promoter that did hit on an innovative idea was Duskwaves who came up with afternoon synth gigs. Hosted at various locations in the South East of England with the aim of drumming up daytime weekend business at venues, events started at 2.00pm and ended by 6.00pm to allow for an easy journey home or possibly dinner afterwards. Artists such as YOUNG EMPRESS, INFRA VIOLET, STRIKE EAGLE and AUW joined in the family friendly fun and while the concept was unusual, with classic synth audiences not getting any younger, it has potential.

While the worldwide situation remains uncomfortable and unsettling, for The Cold War generation, it all seemed strangely familiar. As Jori Hulkkonen of SIN COS TAN said in an interview with ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK recently: “It feels kind of comfortable to be back in that same state of mind that you grew up in!! It’s like you grew up in not a nice place, but you get 20-30 years out of it and then you get drawn back into The Cold War state of mind. It’s where I come from and there’s nothing good about it, but somehow feels very familiar so you can handle it in a different way”.

The Cold War inspired songs such as ‘Enola Gay’, ‘Fireside Favourite’, ‘All Stood Still’, ‘Let’s All Make A Bomb’, ‘I Melt With You’, ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’ and ‘Five Minutes To Midnight’ which encapsulated the nuclear paranoia of the times. So if the current tensions go on any longer, how will artistic expression be affected and driven?

But as Synthesizer Patel actor Sanjeev Kohli wittily remarked of the UK’s 41 day Prime Minister aka Mad Lizzie following her successful leadership bid: “Liz Truss has now been trusted with the nuclear button. I honestly wouldn’t trust her with the bossanova button on a broken Yamaha keyboard”.

In a year which saw the bizarre scenario of a black vicar worshipping Enoch Powell on the repulsive gammon TV channel GB News and the truth about Tory PPE scandals becoming clearer, Richy Sunak, Ugly Patel, Cruella Braverman and Krazi Kwarteng continued to be the ultimate race traitors in their Westminster tribute band A FLOCK OF SIEG HEILS. Failing to look in the mirror, their role as collaborators was all as part of a wider self-serving mission to help keep the whites Reich and line the pockets of their already loaded banker mates instead of paying nurses a fair wage. Nurses are for life and not just for Covid. So what did happen to that £350 million promised for the NHS by that pompous lying posh boy Boris Johnson if Brexit happened? As Tim Burgess of THE CHARLATANS summed it all up rather succinctly on Twitter: “Worth remembering that the real enemy travels by private jet, not by dinghy” ✊😉


ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s 2022 playlist ‘Stay Negative To Be Positive’ playlist can be listened to at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4Mw0Fn10yNZQcrGzod98MM


Text by Chi Ming Lai
22nd December 2022

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s 30 SONGS OF 2022

During lockdown, electronic music displayed its emotional empathy with isolation and solitary working.

But as during The Cold War in its breakthrough years, it read the room again with the onset of worldwide and domestic conflicts, both armed and political. There were times in 2022 that were as if The Cold War had never ended and in amongst the turmoil, artists reflected their anxieties on top of those already existing.

Jori Hulkkonen of SIN COS TAN said: “Overall, this decade has been a real downer with the pandemic and now the war, so if we are trying to look for silver linings here, I think it will be interesting for the creative community to get something out of it, the frustration, the fears and all that.”

As further pandemic songs were released as well, what emerged were songs of varying moods and while there was fresh optimising in the air, there were calls to arms and resignation looming too. Overall, 2022 saw many great individual tracks issued and mention must be made of NNHMN, NATION OF LANGUAGE, O+HER, DIE ROBO SAPIENS, DESIRE and MOTHERMARY who were among those shortlisted for this year’s listing.

As ever on ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, rules help control the fun… so restricted to tracks available on the usual online retail platforms with a limit of one song per artist moniker, here are the 30 SONGS OF 2022 in alphabetical order by artist…


ANNIEE featuring VON HERTZOG Danger Electricity

Bubbling with a dynamic thrust, the angelic voice of Anniee evoked the excitement of a night clubbing while Von Hertzog provided the hypnotic backing and beautiful soundscape. “I was jogging in London and came across the words in the sidewalk ‘danger electricity’” she said, “I had always wanted to create a dance track – something that reflected my love for EDM”.

Available on the single ‘Danger Electricity’ via Anniee and Von Hertzog

https://www.instagram.com/anniee_music/


ALANAS CHOSNAU & MARK REEDER All You Need To Love

For Alanas Chosnau and Mark Reeder, the ongoing world tensions were a symbol of ‘Life Everywhere’. Like a Harry Palmer film given an electro soundtrack and hidden behind the facade of love songs, they poignantly made a statement on life during wartime. With a speedy conga mantra and a dominant digital clap, ‘All You Need Is Love’ entered funky electronic disco territory.

Available on the album ‘Life Everywhere’ via MFS

https://alanaschosnau.com/

https://www.facebook.com/markreeder.mfs


RODNEY CROMWELL The Winter Palace

Despite questioning selective memories on his second album ‘Memory Box’, with ‘The Winter Palace’, Rodney Cromwell was wanting to forget a former beau because “I dream of you regardless, whether I am asleep or awake”. With hints of classic NEW ORDER and OMD, the wonderfully icy number embraced motorik mechanisation and a glorious synth solo for a hopeful uplift.

Available on the album ‘Memory Box’ via Happy Robots Records

https://www.facebook.com/rodneycromwellartist


BOY HARSHER Machina featuring Ms. BOAN

BOY HARSHER made a short horror movie ‘The Runner’ and a soundtrack to go with it. Although comprising of their usual dark and danceable electronic pop, it featured several special guests. Sung in Spanish and English, ‘Machina’ featuring Ms. BOAN aka Mariana Saldaña was aimed at the dancefloor, recalling the Latino electronic disco of Bobby Orlando, particularly PET SHOP BOYS ‘A Man Could Get Arrested’.

Available on the album ‘The Runner’ via Nude Club / City Slang

https://boyharsher.com/


CIRCUIT3 Valentina Fly

For his third CIRCUIT3 album, Peter Fitzpatrick presented a retro-futuristic narrative on the world before the space shuttle. Valentina Tereshkova whose 1963 adventure in Vostok 6 made her the first woman in space was celebrated with ‘Valentina Fly’, the wonderful piece evoking OMD. “She’s not a celebrated as Yuri Gagarin” said the Dubliner, but “in some respects, what she achieved was much greater.”

Available on the album ‘Technology For The Youth’ via https://circuit3.bandcamp.com/

http://www.circuit3.com/


GEMMA CULLINGFORD Tongue Tied

If Yoko Ono’s ‘Walking On Thin Ice’ had been reconfigured as a Balearic friendly electronic disco number, then it would have come out like ‘Tongue Tied’, the title track of the second album by Gemma Cullingford. With a nonchalant but sensual vocal style reminiscent of Sarah Nixey, ‘Tongue Tied’ exuded a positive if nervous energy in a purer metronomic adoption of electronics. Shyness is nice…

Available on the album ‘Tongue Tied’ via Elmo Recordings

https://www.facebook.com/gemcullingford


DAWN TO DAWN Stereo

Canadian danceable dreampop trio DAWN TO DAWN celebrated the joy of music in times of adversity with ‘Stereo’. Driven by a Roland TR909, the song touched on the acceptance of confinement where “I wait for no one to ask ‘when do we go?’”. In its romantic reflection of good times, a breezy infectious allure was captured with a promise of better things to come.

Available on the album ‘Postcards From The Sun To The Moon’ via SSURROUNDSS

https://www.facebook.com/dawntodawnmusic


DUBSTAR Token

Since Sarah Blackwood and Chris Wilkie reconfigured DUBSTAR as a duo, there was always the impression that the comeback album ‘One’ was a warm-up. Opening album ‘Two’  was ‘Token’; co-produced by Stephen Hague, it pointed to his work with PET SHOP BOYS and ERASURE. Its narrative about leaving behind abusive relationships and minor gestures was a topic that many could relate to.

Available on the album ‘Two’ via Northern Writes

https://www.dubstarofficial.co/


EMMON The Battle

Since releasing her first sassy pop album ‘The Art & The Evil’ in 2007, Emma Nylen has got progressively darker and harder while still retaining an enigmatic presence. While most of her ‘Recon’ album headed in an EBM direction, synthpop was the sound on the ‘Black Celebration’ inflected mission that was ‘The Battle’, a timely commentary on world and deomestic events.

Available on the album ‘Recon’ via Icons Creating Real Art

https://www.facebook.com/emmonsweden


FADER Serpentine

As with previous FADER works, Benge worked alone on the instrumentation in Cornwall while Neil Arthur did his lyrics and vocals. Their third album together ‘Quartz’ was inspired by incidental atmospheric music used in vintage TV shows. Minimalistic structures provided a reflective and elegiac backdrop. The icy waltz ‘Serpentine’ opened the album with its sparse keys like Gary Numan meeting Brian Eno.

Available on the album ‘Quartz’ via Blanc Check Records

https://www.facebook.com/WeAreFader


THE GOLDEN FILTER Drive

A reinterpretation of THE CARS’ mournful classic’, this chilling version of ‘Drive’ by THE GOLDEN FILTER simply captured the zeitgeist in amongst the turmoil of world events… the work of Penelope Trappes and Stephen Hindman, the duo defied people not to well up on hearing the words “Who’s gonna tell you when it’s too late? Who’s gonna tell you things aren’t so great?”.

Available on the single ‘Drive’ via The Golden Filter

https://www.thegoldenfilter.com/


H/P Vicinities

H/P were formally known as HAPPINESS PROJECT, issuing their first album in 2008. For their H/P debut ‘Programma’, the trio not only shortened their moniker but also adopted a minimal synth approach. Acknowledging the debt of influence to cult French act MARTIN DUPONT, ‘Vicinities’ appled a complex spiral of delicate blips, while was enclosed is an emotional centre that recalled OMD.

Available on the album ‘Programma’ via BOREDOMproduct

https://www.facebook.com/hp.programma


I SPEAK MACHINE War

Adopting the dishevelled persona of a satanic Libertas, ‘War’ by I SPEAK MACHINE was another album that captured the zeitgeist. With hints of Gary Numan, the screeching title song set the scene. “It definitely has ‘Metal’ in there as an influence” she said, “It came about from me messing with my Casio SK1 and then running that through a Moogerfooger ClusterFlux to make it all bendy and provide actual notes from the feedback.”

Available on the album ‘War’ via https://ispeakmachine.bandcamp.com/

https://www.ispeakmachine.com


KAREN HUNTER Don’t Call My Name

Karen Hunter was a Gary Numan live band member between 1984-85 and recorded a wonderful cover of the ballad ‘Don’t Call My Name’ in support of The Ced Sharpley Drumming Bursary. The original was on the 1988 album ‘Metal Rhythm’ and given a serene feminine twist. Produced by music veteran Steve Hunter, Numan associates Chris Payne and Andy Coughlan also contributed.

Available as a digital single ‘Don’t Call My Name’ via Living Ornaments

https://karenhunter.hearnow.com/


KAVINSKY Outsider

Vincent Belorgey aka Kavinsky made his name with ‘Night Call’. But it was featured in the cult movie ‘Drive’, the Frenchman found it was an albatross around his neck. He upset people when he said “f*ck that ‘synthwave’ stuff as u name it”.  Now ‘Reborn’, channelling his inner Moroder circa ‘Midnight Express’, ‘Outsider’ was a magnificent instrumental laced with orchestrated drama and tension.

Available on the album ‘Reborn’ via Record Makers / Protovision

https://kavinsky.com/


KID MOXIE Shine

Taking both musical and lyrical inspiration from DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Never Let Me Down Again’, there were darker and harder aesthetics at play on ‘Shine’ with KID MOXIE assertively declaring “I’m taking the lead in the back seat”. “We definitely channelled some DM vibes” she remembered, “it was even a running joke while we were in studio recording it with FADERHEAD”.

Available on the album ‘Better Than Electric’ via Pasadena Records

http://www.facebook.com/kidmoxie


KITE Panic Music

“Sweden’s best kept pop-secret” returned with ‘Panic Music’ and exuded a fierce anxiety with front man Nicklas Stenemo presenting his characteristic screaming delivery. Over an epic neo-gothic backdrop now associated with KITE, Christian Berg continued his fascination for electronic drones and swoops while there was also the surprise of a guitar solo. The stress and strain of the past two years was captured in song.

Available on the digital single ‘Panic Music’ via Astronaut Recordings

https://www.facebook.com/KiteHQ


LEATHERS Runaway

From Vancouver in British Columbia, ACTORS keyboardist Shannon Hemmett continued with her more synth focussed solo project LEATHERS. Not completely divorced from the main band family, frontman Jason Corbett acts as producer and collaborator, just as Daniel Hunt did with Helen Marnie on her solo work during the LADYTRON hiatus. ‘Runaway’ was gorgeous dreamy synthpop to elope to.

Available on the digital single ‘Runaway’ via Artoffact Records

https://www.facebook.com/leathersmusic


MECHA MAIKO Sunny, Softly (I Feel Love)

Hayley Stewart returned as MECHA MAIKO with ‘NOT OK’ to highlight the social-political flashpoints that emerged during the pandemic. But focussing on warmer moments and feeling the force of some mighty electro, ‘Sunny, Softly (I Feel Love)’ threw in the iconic throb from the Giorgio Moroder produced Donna Summer hit for a glorious beat driven statement enhanced by an angelic delivery.

Available on the album ‘NOT OK’ via New Retro Wave

https://www.mechamaiko.com/


MINIMAL SCHLAGER Submission

Sister and brother duo MINIMAL SCHLAGER began in 2020 as a consequence of the pandemic. Based between London and Berlin, Alicia Macanás and Francisco Parisi began to develop a brand of synth heavy dreampop. While bubbling with glistening synths, ‘Submission’ was a more of a new wave number with subtle guitar and a rhythmic bounce that set it apart from the other songs on their first album.

Available on the album ‘Love, Sex & Dreams’ via Duchess Box Records

https://www.facebook.com/minimalschlager


R.MISSING New Present City

Fronted by enigmatic Sharon Shy, having released some fabulously ethereal singles in the past 18 months, New York-based darklings R. MISSING presented the sinister beauty of ‘New Present City’. In their embracement of the fragility of life with gently propelled soundscapes swathed in icy melancholia, this slice of electronic pop noir fittingly filled a gap left by the now disbanded CHROMATICS.

Available on the digital single ‘New Present City’ via Terminal Echo

https://rmissing.com/


RÖYKSOPP & ALISON GOLDFRAPP Impossible

‘The Inevitable End’ in 2014 was said to be the final RÖYKSOPP album but after various singles and soundtracks, they returned with the ‘Profound Mysteries’ trilogy. Featuring Alison Goldfrapp, the delicious ‘Impossible’ was a mighty avant disco excursion with a seductive high soprano middle eight drifting into an intergalactic twist.

Available on the album ‘Profound Mysteries’ via Dog Triumph

http://royksopp.com/


HANNA RUA Light In Your Dark

Swedish songstress Hanna Rua has a dreamy electronic pop sensibility with the emphasis on the pop, but her debut EP ‘Light Up Your Dark’ also demonstrated her scope and capability using darker aesthetics. With a wonderfully gritty austere, the title song played with gothier influences while remaining melodic, coming over like a Nordic NINA in her more recent work in a battle against the demons.

Available on the EP ‘Light Up Your Dark’ via Aztec Records

https://www.hannarua.com/


SALLY SHAPIRO Fading Away

Although they announced a retirement of sorts in 2016, Swedish duo SALLY SHAPIRO joined the Italian Do It Better family in 2021 to make an unexpected return. ‘Fading Away’ was an epic dance tune where an atmospheric template was merged with a relentless disco synthwave hybrid, utilising a glorious plethora of trancey electronics and thumping rhythms across its seven minutes.

Available on the album ‘Sad Cities’ via Italians Do It Better

https://www.facebook.com/shapirosally


SIN COS TAN Endless

With the bear next door, the title of SIN COS TAN’s fourth album ‘Living In Fear’ resonated with anyone resident in Finland or anywhere in the civilised world; “Do you fear the dark, love, war, or yourself? Whatever the answer, you can be certain: Fear is a powerful thing.” The windswept electro-motorik of ‘Endless’ used the melodic synthy highs of OMD to counter the melancholic expression.

Available on the album ‘Living In Fear’ via Solina Records

http://solinarecords.com/sincostan/


SOFT CELL Nighthawks

The tense industrialised pulse of ‘Nighthawks’ recalled the sweaty alternative club overtures of one-time Some Bizzare stable mates CABARET VOLTAIRE. Featuring a deranged expletive laden rap from drag performance artist Christeene, SOFT CELL fans were even treated to the deep growly voice of Mr Ball himself alongside Marc Almond while ‘Staying Alive’ backing vocals provided another counterpoint.

Available on the album ‘*Happiness Not Included’ via BMG

http://www.softcell.co.uk


UNIFY SEPARATE Closure

Documenting a period of personal struggle, the new UNIFY SEPARATE album attempted ‘Closure’ which set the scene with a building atmospheric trance tune that simply mesmerised, especially when front man Andrew Montgomery hit his trademark falsetto. Instrumentalist Leo Josefsson cited influences such as MODERAT, NITZER EBB, UNDERWORLD and FRONT 242.

Available on the album ‘Music Since Tomorrow’ via How Music Group

http://www.unifyseparate.com


BELLA UNWIN Cold Breeze

With shades of Alison Goldfrapp, Hannah Peel and the often forgotten Stella Grundy, the positively feline and angelic ‘Cold Breeze’ was the London-based Aussie Bella Unwin’s best song yet. The additional production and mix by Finlay Shakespeare boosted the punchy and immediate machine funk that was laced with wispy and alluringly coy vocals.

Available on the single ‘Cold Breeze’ via GOTO Records

https://www.facebook.com/bellaunwinmusic


THE WEEKND Less Than Zero

THE WEEKND again reminded the mainstream of the emotive beauty that can come from classic synthpop with ‘Less Than Zero’. ‘Less Than Zero’ itself sounded not unlike Michael Jackson produced by Tony Mansfield. The cross of catchy hooks, glorious counter-melodies and acoustic strums were reminiscent of Mansfield’s own combo NEW MUSIK who went produced most of A-HA’s debut album.

Available on the album ‘Dawn FM’ via by XO / Republic Records

https://www.theweeknd.com


xPROPAGANDA The Wolves Are Returning

Porduced by Stephen J Lipson, a stark warning on rise again of the far right was highlighted on ‘The Wolves Are Returning’. The message coming from two Germans whose grandparents’ generation had made the mistake of opening up the door to the Nazis and “did nothing” was poignant. Claudia Brücken and Susanne Freytag provided a worthy follow-up to ‘A Secret Wish’ as xPROPAGANDA.

Available on the album ‘The Heart is Strange’ via ZTT Records

https://www.xpropaganda.co.uk/


A selection of ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s favourite music of 2022 is featured in its ‘Stay Negative To Be Positive’ playlist


Text by Chi Ming Lai
12th December 2022

A Short Conversation with I SPEAK MACHINE

Although a personal album dealing with the themes of addiction and mental illness, the new I SPEAK MACHINE album ‘War’ is on point with regards its parallels to world events.

Adopting the dishevelled persona of a satanic Libertas, I SPEAK MACHINE is an audio visual project fronted by Tara Busch.

She released her first solo album ‘Pilfershire Lane’ in 2009 having previously been a member of DYNAMO DRESDEN alongside Maf Lewis and Rohan Tarry. Today, Lewis acts as Busch’s visual partner in I SPEAK MACHINE and together, they have worked on numerous horror / sci-fi film projects including ‘The Silence’ and ‘Zombies 1985’, giving their specialisms equal prominence.

Constructed remotely between Los Angeles and Sheffield over a three year period, ‘War’ has been co-produced by Dean Honer of I MONSTER, THE ECCENTRONIC RESEARCH COUNCIL and INTERNATIONAL TEACHERS OF POP fame. A severe but rather appealing and cerebral listening experience, ‘War’ offers cathartic joy despite a discomforting exorcism of demons.

Just before setting off to open for Gary Numan on the European leg of his ‘Intruder’ tour, Tara Busch spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about why I SPEAK MACHINE declared ‘War’…

‘War’ is quite different from previous I SPEAK MACHINE albums in that it’s not a soundtrack, it’s much more personal and entirely comprises of songs ie no instrumentals or interludes?

Yes. I wanted the songs and the voice front and center as the main elements. This album’s been brewing for a long time; it does have a lot of film-music DNA in it as well, and I feel like it would be a very different album without my composing experiences and live scores with Maf Lewis and I SPEAK MACHINE over the past 10 years. The deep dive into creating and performing live scores felt different and fresh, and I really craved exactly that. I’m glad we were able to just “follow our noses” and indulge ourselves in that concept, basically do whatever the hell we wanted.

So, in keeping with following our noses, I simply craved writing an album again. ‘War’ is simultaneously very much of the moment, yet a sort of anthology of everything I’ve done, all the versions of myself, including when I first started out in rock bands in the 90s. I actually did write interludes for a few of the songs at first – but it eventually felt like overkill as the album is already so dense. There needed to be some space.

The voice is very much central to this album and it features quite a bit of eerie vocal processing using Korg MS20 and vocoder?

Yes. This album was done 100% remotely, so any real-time analogue vocal manipulation was created, recorded and comped by me (the latter being not nearly as much fun). The topline of melody of ‘Santa Monica’ was created by singing through my MS20 through the external signal processor, which takes a lot of patience to get it just right – you have to really boost the signal first (which I chose to do with a Moogerfooger Ring Modulator). I then ran it into a Moogerfooger 104Z Analog Delay.

The very distinctive gnarly bass sound on ‘Ruined Me’ is also done by me singing through the MS20, oscillators 2 octaves down. The whole rest of the song was built around this bass. Comping the bass recordings together in a cohesive way was another story… quite gruelling picking through 2 hours of me grunting into a synth and improvising, which takes a whole other mindset – certainly the pragmatic “editor’s” mindset.

Using this process for voice is particularly fun as it picks up all the breathing and other noise… when you stop singing, it does this really odd sounding, crumbly drop, as if it’s somehow defeated and in some sort of distress. It brings such a human element to it. As for vocoder – here’s a really subtle bit of vocoder in ‘I See You’ that you can barely register, the Roland SVC350.

How did Dean Honer become involved? Were there any pieces of work of his that you admired?

Dean and I have known each other for quite some time, met probably somewhere around 2007 – I think it was Myspace! I was a big fan of I MONSTER, and dug a bit deeper to find out about his previous projects as well. We also played together in Sheffield at the Sensoria Festival, got to horse around in his studio for a bit when Maf and I were in town… he’s responsible for my Oberheim Two Voice obsession!

THE ALL SEEING I, MOONLANDINGZ, THE ERC and his work with ADD N TO X were big ones for me – but it was really I MONSTER that sucked me in, as well as a few projects he had done with Kevin Pierce. I’ve been involved in a few projects of his – I always knew our styles would be complimentary and I totally trust his judgement and he’s really straightforward, no bullsh*t. Plus the art direction on all his projects is always so f*cking cool, he has great taste. To boot, he’s also a killer mixing and mastering engineer.

Aside from that, I had been self-producing for many years since 2005, and really wanted to bring in a co-producer – but was a bit hesitant at first – production-wise, as a woman, you have to prove you can do EVERYTHING or it’s assumed you’ve done nothing. Very exhausting. I was sick of that sh*t, all the stupid double standards – yet sick of working alone… I really wanted to work with Dean and that superseded all the discrediting I’d possibly have to put up with. The album being what it needed to be, was of course more important.

What was the production relationship like between you both despite being an ocean apart?

I sent the songs to Dean after they were written, the later ones like ‘Beat Down By Heaven’ and ‘Rats Rise’ were produced to a point where I felt the gist / vision of the song was in there – but leaving him space to mangle it and have fun with it as well, plus some very general notes. Once we got some traction on the process, it flowed quite nicely. It did take a few years, as I also had a few film projects pop up so it slowed us down a lot- and of course Covid. It was hard to work (especially in 2020!) with so much anxiety and uncertainly around but we took it easy and got there.

I wanted and, dare I say, needed to be compassionate with myself. And I miraculously still loved the songs as time progressed. Some of the songs, like ‘Santa Monica’, ‘I See You’ and ‘Left For Dead’ existed for quite a few years, and were quite far along production-wise, whereas ‘Rats Rise’, ‘The Metal of My Hell’, ‘Beat Down By Heaven’ and ‘Until I Kill The Beast’ were written in a different timeframe and he had much more of a hand in those – especially ‘Beat Down by Heaven’ and ‘Rats Rise’. He really made those shine. Drums are his superpower, among many other great elements he added. I can hold my own programming drums and machines and experimenting with sounds, but he’s another level totally. Basically in the end, we were communicating mostly by WeTransfer files!

The ‘War’ album has this harsh sound but it is listenable and accessible, did you define distinct roles in how it was going to be made?

Not really; we didn’t need to do that once we got going. After the songs were written, I initially asked Dean to help with drum sounds, and add some sorcery on the programming if possible – but if he really wanted to try other sounds and experiment, have at it! Some songs like ‘War’ and ‘Beat Down By Heaven’ started out with weirdly processed drum machines as their basis (‘War’ being a Casio and Heaven being a Drum Brute Impact – both run through a Moogerfooger ClusterFlux whose feedback provided fundamental notes), which were very important elements, and Dean worked with those.

I was revisiting a fair bit of industrial music like MINISTRY, PRICK and REVOLTING COCKS – as well as properly discovering SUICIDE, CURVE, THE CRAMPS and ADD N TO X. And there’s always the ubiquitous Judy Garland and Doris Day running on a loop in my head as well. I wanted to blend in my film music sensibilities as well as very dense rhythmic elements. There is definitely an indescribable sweet spot with how this album feels. It is an odd bird.

As mentioned before, I gave Dean some limited notes to describe where I was coming from, but it really came down to just doing. There’s only so much you can do to describe what you haven’t made yet, you just have to give it space to become its own thing, I guess. The second one “tries” to sound like something specific, it drains any kind of magic out of it. You know the “essence draining” scene in ‘The Dark Crystal’? That.

Which synths featured most prominently on the album, did you have any favourite particular tools?

The Oberheim Two Voice is probably the most featured. Most of ‘The Metal of My Hell’ was made with the on-board sequencer (though some think it’s guitar, it is not.).

Also ‘Santa Monica’ is mostly Oberheim Two Voice and the vocal MS20 line, which was originally written for piano!

Otherwise it’s quite a big flurry of machines – Polyvoks on ‘Bloodletting’ and ‘War’, 808 and Minimoog Model D on ‘Rats Rise’, Arturia Drum Brute Impact through a ClusterFlux on ‘Beat Down By Heaven’. ‘Dirty Soul’ was created on a very old and banged up Rhythm Ace through a ring mod and delay, and a few top lines with a Roland SH5. Then ‘Until I Kill The Beast’ is all ARP 2600 and the 1613 Sequencer. The onboard spring reverb is so beautiful and ghostly. Dean added a bunch more too, of course. Polyvoks, WASP and OB6, I believe.

The ‘War’ title song that opens the album states its intentions, but had you been subconsciously channelling Gary Numan’s ‘Metal’?

Glad you caught that! It definitely has ‘Metal’ in there as an influence. It came about from me messing with my Casio SK1 (the “Pop Drums” program, I think) and then running that through a Moogerfooger ClusterFlux to make it all bendy and provide actual notes from the feedback.

‘War’ is a fierce body of work with songs titles like ‘The Metal of My Hell’, ‘Left For Dead’, ‘Ruined Me’ and ‘Dirty Soul’? What was your mindset?

Basically, for better or worse, I had to verbalize a bunch of sh*t so that it would stop destroying me. ‘The Metal of My Hell’ and ‘Left for Dead’ is addiction. ‘Ruined Me’ is the snarled confusion and fear from growing up with Catholic parents with a bit of dysmorphia and self-loathing thrown in. ‘Dirty Soul’ is basically shedding the self-loathing with a bit of mockery, bitterness and sarcasm. These may seem like done-to-death themes (addiction, mental illness, religion, shame, body dysmorphia) but they are new to me as far as expressing them. It’s basically external and internal war.

I had been battling an alcohol addiction since I was 25, and one day I just realized it was ultimately going to be the thing that kills me, plus the years of panic attacks, anxiety and depression, and not seeking help (I have luckily found the right meds now!); that plus the horrible state of the world politically and socially, I wanted to try and bring some light into my corner of the world via a bit of catharsis – maybe it could make someone else out there feel less alone, too. The only way I know how to feel better these days is make a noise (sorry, I really meant to keep it light!). In the back of my mind I knew I’d want to perform it live as well.

The sparser moods of ‘I See You’ allow for reflection, is that a real harp being used?

It’s harp samples with the built-in “tape delay” in Logic. Nothing fancy. I was obsessed with Clint Mansell’s ‘Moon’ score (‘The Nursery’) and Johan Johansson’s ‘The Sky’s Gone Dim’ – those certainly inspired me. That gentleness and very deep melancholy. I felt that way very often (melancholy) and it need to be part of the story.

Were ‘Santa Monica’ and ‘Push The Grease’ co-written with Kendra Frost of KITE BASE conceived when you both were on the ‘Troika’ tour in the UK back in 2016? How did the songs develop to the finished tracks they are now?

Kendra co-wrote ‘War’ and ‘Push The Grease’, not ‘Santa Monica’ – she sang backup and contributed vocal arrangements on ‘Santa Monica’. ‘War’ was originally created as part of a short film called ‘Deep Clean’ that KITE BASE and I worked on, and she came up with the “la-la-la-la” part, and I pulled together the weird bendy Casio part and verse / chorus with her la-las in mind… the ‘War’ lyric just happened as a result of how relentlessly awful living under the Trump Administration was. Anyway – never would have thought of any of it without her.

‘Push The Grease’ was when she visited me in LA on a stopover during KITE BASE’s support slot for NINE INCH NAILS in 2018 – and we were horsing around with her Tempest through the ClusterFlux. We had originally set out to cover ‘I’m Looking Through You’ by THE BEATLES, but it turned into something else. We sat and glued that one together over a few days; then began the production process with Dean – I love the drums he added on ‘Push The Grease’.

The cover of ‘Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)’ by CONCRETE BLONDE fits right into the concept of ‘War’, you’re no stranger to reinterpretation having tackled ‘Cars’, ‘Our House’, ‘Let’s Go To Bed’ and ‘My Sex’ in the past, but what drew you towards this song?

This came about from a horror film I did the score for, ‘Jakob’s Wife’. The director Travis Stevens asked if I would be into covering ‘Bloodletting’ for a scene in the film, and it all rolled from there. It’s got stacks of Polyvoks and is another one make with the Arturia Drumbrute Impact through the ClusterFlux pedal. Same process – passed to Dean with some production notes and that was that! We were going for a bit of SLADE-like 70s glam. I actually was going to drop it from the album but Dean convinced me to keep it! There’s two versions out there – one on the ‘Jakob’s Wife’ score that Lakeshore Records released, and there’s the ‘War’ version.

The album closer ‘Until I Kill The Beast’ indicates that the fighting isn’t entirely over yet?

Well, this is going to sound a bit sappy, but here goes – the “beast-killing” that I refer to is really forgiveness and self-acceptance, not really a “fight”, per se. I think other tunes like ‘War’ and ‘The Metal of My Hell’ are more a result of the raw emotional shredding one goes through with addiction and mental illness. I had to get sparse and gentle with this one, which really is difficult for me. All voice, backing vocals and one instrument.

I SPEAK MACHINE is an audio visual project, so how did you decide which songs you would do promo videos for and the imagery that would be portrayed? Are there any interesting or funny stories from filming?

I’ll just say that these videos were really fun to make… incredibly tough physically, but fun. Handing this over to Maf Lewis, who is the wizard behind all of our visual elements:

“The first step is for me to fully understand the songs and any of Tara’s visual ideas. Keeping that in mind, I just listen to the songs in different environment – hiking, driving, in bed etc… and images come to me, or are expanded on. For ‘The Metal Of My Hell’ for instance, I felt it has to be a furious and fast video with lots of cuts, movement and aggression. I had visions of frantically and maniacally running through woods and tunnels. I had access to a Snorricam that was used in a short film I’d shot in the UK in 2011 – it straps to the actor and basically enables you to shoot a constant moving selfie. It’s great for a very dynamic and disorientating shot, and perfect for that idea. As the budgets for these videos are effectively sub $100 but wanting them to look like we’ve spend $20k, we’re always looking to use equipment we already have, locations that are free, and making good use of the things that we find – I like to think I’m the David Lynch of ‘The Wombles’.”

“As we’re generally shooting guerrilla style in Los Angles, we tend to encounter some weird stuff – an 18 wheeler truck racing around the LA river flats in the exact spot that the ‘Terminator 2’ truck and motorcycle chase scene was filmed, a naked man on horseback galloping through the woods (we reckoned it was an actor), and someone hitting golfballs at us from a nearby practice range. But none of that is particularly odd for LA. Ultimately we’re just lucky we didn’t find a body in the woods!”

You’ve been opening for Gary Numan on his US tour and are returning for the European dates, how has it gone so far and will you be making any adjustments for this next leg?

I’d never been on a tour that big and I had no idea how, at 48, I’d hold up – but it turns out it’s nothing short of electrifying and it’s the most fun I’ve ever had – especially since I’m in a place where I can be lucid and grateful. The US tour has been infinitely beneficial for us, just immense. We had so much fun. I mean, it’s been my dream to sing at the Fillmore where Janis Joplin once took the stage.

I’m so grateful to Gary and the whole crew, band and family for how wonderful they are to us. We luckily resonated well with the crowd, and were a really good fit. ‘War’ is a fun yet intense one to perform and I hope it shows. I’ve been dying just to go utterly batsh*t on stage again and these songs pretty much demand that. It’s hard to put into words, but it’s gone exactly as I wanted it to.

It helps infinitely to have Dean’s amazing ears mixing and mastering those backing tracks for live. For the EU, I’m dropping the synth and just running my backing tracks and voice. It took me a long time to get over any kind of inhibitions about doing it this way, but I wanted to be completely free to perform. I’m very inspired by artists like Billy Nomates that just use playback and f*cking destroy. It feels right to me now. It’s a thrilling, slightly scary leap into new territory, but I really want these songs to come across with the vocal and performance at full power, and I don’t want to do that from behind a synth.

Anyway, I couldn’t be more excited about the next tour, and incredibly grateful to be here doing this.


ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its grateful thanks to Tara Busch

‘War’ is available in various formats from https://ispeakmachine.bandcamp.com/

I SPEAK MACHINE will be opening for Gary Numan in May and June 2022 – for further information, please visit https://www.ispeakmachine.com

https://www.facebook.com/ispeakmachine

https://twitter.com/ISpeakMachine

https://www.instagram.com/ispeakmachine/


Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Maf Lewis
23rd May 2022

I SPEAK MACHINE War

Adopting the dishevelled persona of a satanic Libertas, the new I SPEAK MACHINE long player ‘War’ captures the zeitgeist. Despite this, it is actually a more personal album dealing with the themes of addiction and mental illness.

I SPEAK MACHINE is the audio visual project of Tara Busch and Maf Lewis; their album ‘Zombies 1985’ produced by John Foxx collaborator Benge was a soundtrack to a short horror sci-fi film about a Zombie Apocalypse. One of the best albums of 2017, it was notable for Busch’s own restylings of singers as diverse as Doris Day, Alison Goldfrapp and Grace Jones.

Constructed remotely between Los Angeles and Sheffield over a three year period, ‘War’ has been co-produced by Dean Honer of I MONSTER, THE ECCENTRONIC RESEARCH COUNCIL and INTERNATIONAL TEACHERS OF POP fame. He has done a particularly good job with the jagged sound design. Meanwhile Busch has processed her voice as a central instrument, bending it through effects, vocoders and a Korg MS-20 as Will Gregory did with Alison Goldfrapp on the ‘Felt Mountain’ album.

Short and sweet with reminiscences of Gary Numan’s ‘Metal’, the screeching title song opener sets the scene and declares the album’s intentions with a rumbling backdrop. Embroiled in menace and some eerie flute, ‘Left For Dead’ cuts and bleeds and frightens while the progressive avant-funk of ‘Beat Down By Heaven’ is aided by sharper objects such as guitar, sub-bass and distorted claptraps.

Featuring backing vocals from Kendra Frost of KITE BASE and shaped by a dysfunctional analogue sequence, the wonderful Sci-Fi goth of ‘Santa Monica’ acts as an ironic love letter to Los Angeles, making use of Busch’s impressive vocal range from high soprano to deep contralto.

With a salvo of industrial Schaffel to shape a cover of American alt rockers CONCRETE BLONDE’s ‘Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)’, this is how GOLDFRAPP might sound if contributing to a Wes Craven movie. Sparser than the other tracks, ‘Dirty Soul’ weirdly echoes David Essex’s ‘Rock On’ while crossing paths with Patti Page on Venus. Then with a sense of foreboding in line with Gary Numan’s more recent work, ‘Ruined Me’ sees Busch point the finger at her dependency and how it has contaminated her aura.

Acting as a beautiful harp interlude, the soothing ‘I See You’ is counterpointed by a foreboding presence. But ramping up the pressure, as its title suggests, ‘The Metal of My Hell’ is a fierce aural assault of frantic heavy metal with synths and an aggressive rage as Busch decides to “burn the witch” and “burn the bitch” because “you had it coming for a long time!”.

A co-write with Kendra Frost, the ghostly ‘Push The Grease’ presents a stuttering percussive tension and another processed otherworldly vocal. Feisty and frantic, ‘Rats Rise’ is the final battle as the dirty rodents leave the sinking ship but with shades of ‘Clowns’ by GOLDFRAPP, the angelic ‘Until I Kill The Beast’ offers peace and tranquillity although the discordant metallic embellishments confirm that work is still to be done as “the devil sits with me until I kill the beast”.

There is cathartic joy in the discomforting exorcism that is the ‘War’ album; I SPEAK MACHINE’s bizarre mix of timbres and styles provide a severe but rather appealing and cerebral listening experience. If you are going to see Gary Numan on his European tour in May and June, arrive early because guess who is opening?


‘War’ is available as a double red vinyl LP and CD from https://ispeakmachine.bandcamp.com/

I SPEAK MACHINE will be opening for Gary Numan in May and June 2022 – for further information, please visit https://www.ispeakmachine.com

https://www.facebook.com/ispeakmachine

https://twitter.com/ISpeakMachine

https://www.instagram.com/ispeakmachine/

https://open.spotify.com/album/2Dk8489XblJsoNBqXEOVIX


Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photo by Maf Lewis
22nd April 2022

I SPEAK MACHINE The Metal of My Hell

With the Western Powers is a rather tense and scary stand-off with Russia over Ukraine as if The Cold War had never ended, I SPEAK MACHINE’s ‘The Metal of My Hell’ from the upcoming album ‘War’ is rather on point.

A fierce aural assault of frantic heavy metal machine music using synths, Busch declares in a raging if tongue-in-cheek manner: “burn the witch / burn the bitch… you had it coming for a long time!”.

I SPEAK MACHINE is the audio visual project of Tara Busch and Maf Lewis; their album ‘Zombies 1985’ was ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s favourite album of 2017. While that collection made use of Busch’s impressive vocal range from high soprano to deep contralto and a previous 2011 single ‘Rocket Woman’ came over like Doris Day in outer space, her voice takes on an aggressive devilish tone for ‘The Metal of My Hell’.

Angry and claustrophobic with screeching horror flick strings, ‘The Metal of My Hell’ is appropriately complimented by the Maf Lewis directed video filmed in the dusty, sweltering fire roads of Griffith Park in Los Angeles. Using an iPhone 13 Pro Max in 4K with Filmic Pro, it captures Busch adopting some dishevelled symbolism like Libertas gone goth…

While Tara Busch has previously worked with the likes of Benge, John Foxx and John Fryer, as well toured with Gary Numan and Hannah Peel, ‘War’ has been co-produced by Dean Honer of I MONSTER, THE ECCENTRONIC RESEARCH COUNCIL and INTERNATIONAL TEACHERS OF POP fame; the album was constructed remotely between LA and Sheffield over a three year period.

While ‘Zombies 1985’ was the soundtrack to a short horror sci-fi film about a self-obsessed man who fails to notice the Zombie Apocalypse happening around him, ‘War’ is a much more personal album dealing with themes of addiction and mental illness.

As I SPEAK MACHINE prepares to go out on tour soon supporting Gary Numan on his US ‘Intruder’ dates beginning on 23rd February at The Fonda Theater in Los Angeles, war is coming…


‘The Metal of My Hell’ is from the new album ‘War’ out on 22nd April 2022 in double red vinyl LP, CD and digital formats, pre-order via https://singinglight.link/ispeakmachine-war

https://www.ispeakmachine.com

https://www.facebook.com/ispeakmachine

https://twitter.com/ISpeakMachine

https://www.instagram.com/ispeakmachine/

https://ispeakmachine.bandcamp.com/


Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photoby Maf Lewis
13th February 2022

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