Author: electricityclub (Page 1 of 422)

“I don’t like country & western, I don’t like rock music… I don’t like rockabilly! I don’t like much really do I? But what I do like, I love passionately!!”: CHRIS LOWE

“Good taste is exclusive”: NICK RHODES

PATRICIA WOLF Hrafnamynd

Ambient artist Patricia Wolf releases the soundtrack to the feature-length documentary ‘Hrafnamynd’ by experimental filmmaker Edward Pack Davee which achieved critical acclaim in its limited showings last year.

Icelandic for “raven film”, it features an unconventional autobiographical narrative where Edward Pack Davee looks back on his childhood living in Iceland. There are recorded conversations with his mother and father who was stationed in Iceland with the US Coast Guard, monitoring movements with “neighbouring” navigation transmitters in the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Newfoundland.

Illustrated by grainy archive home movies, Ektachrome slides and present day digital imaging, the film additionally has a touching subplot about a rescued talking raven named Krummi. With a wider commentary on the islands raven behaviour through fact and folklore, This in turn dictated the landscapes that were newly filmed to avoid the conventional tourist style of documentation and connects thematically to ‘The Secret Lives of Birds’, Wolf’s most recently released body of work.

Having worked with Davee previously in the filming of music videos for her tracks ‘The Culmination Of’ (from her debut album ‘I’ll Look For You In Others’) and ‘Woodland Encounter’ (from the follow-up ‘See-Through’), with her soft impressionistic atmospheres and airy melodies, Patricia Wolf was the natural choice for the soundtrack to ‘Hrafnamynd’. Indeed, her previous work had been used placeholder music as a guide to how he imagined the film to sound.

“This told me that he trusted my work and style and therefore I should just trust my intuition with how to proceed” she said, “I wanted to make sure that everything that I made was a direct reflection of what was happening on screen, a mirror of its emotion and energy so people could really lock into the film psychologically.”

Mixing her aptitude for ambient music and field recording with her experience in documenting bird song, Wolf has been able to further her Avian fascination and give an empathic perspective to accompany film of windswept birds flying in suspension and circling in the skies of Iceland’s picturesque locations. Her beautiful soundtrack complements additional footage of wildlife, pasturing sheep, volcanically formed landscapes, waterfalls, open waters and the Icelandic capital Reykjavík.

Largely created using the UDO Super 6, a 12 voice polyphonic binaural analog-hybrid synthesizer, it enabled Wolf to sound modern while also giving the emotive fuzzy tones that would correspond to the film’s timeline from the early 70s to today. A glassy ambience on ‘The Return To Iceland’ aurally focusses on the nightfall settling in while the gentle ringing calls of ‘Early Memories’ set the album’s scene, musically encapsulating wide open windy spaces as if the late Ryuichi Sakamoto was looking thoughtfully from above.

In its texturing, ‘Subconscious Familiarity’ offers a kind of cerebral awakening while
‘Hrafnaþing’ gets vibey and ‘Echoes Through Time‘ gets glitchy. Naturally, Krummi gets his own reverbed nylon strung ‘Theme’ alongside evocative titles such as ‘Reykjavík By The Sea’, ‘I Thought I Could Fly’ and ‘Surfing On Wind’ which capture the serene yet mysterious beauty of this remote Nordic island.

As with her wonderful work on ‘See-Through’, the electronic sound design, field recordings and occasional acoustic interventions provide a soothing backdrop. Does the music work without the visuals? Indeed it does and even without the film, there is the feeling of fresh breezy escapism throughout the 11 instrumental pieces that really lift the heart and soul.


‘Hrafnamynd’ is released on orange or black vinyl LP and digitally by Balmat, available from https://patriciawolf.bandcamp.com/album/hrafnamynd

https://www.facebook.com/patriciawolfmusic

https://www.instagram.com/patriciawolf_music/

https://linktr.ee/patriciawolfmusic


Text by Chi Ming Lai
11th July 2025

ALL THE YOUNG DROIDS: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985

‘All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985’ is a new compilation that gathers obscure electronic pop from an era when both major and independent record labels were looking for the next Gary Numan.

With the man born Gary Webb taking this new waveform to the top of the UK singles chart in 1979 not just once but twice, the adoption of affordable synths became an entry point to those seeking fame and fortune. While OMD, DEPECHE MODE and THE HUMAN LEAGUE became chart fixtures, many others would not.

Compiled by Philip King whose day job is as a picture researcher at Uncut magazine, according to NME journalist Nick Kent back in the day, this was a period of “blokes with dodgy haircuts hunched over keyboard-operated machines stuffed with wires and do-it-yourself tone oscillators making sounds like a brood of geese passing gas in a wind tunnel”. But with the eventual backlash against synths and the rise of digital technology that could emulate real instrumentation, the inevitable end came “not with a blood-curdling bang but with a cheap, synthesized, emasculating whimper.”

As the recent well-received reissue of Life Is A Grand’ by Henry Badowski and the release of 1981 demo recordings of B-MOVIE as the ‘Hidden Treasures’ album have proved, there is present day enthusiasm from synth music fans for little known or previously unreleased tracks from the past. This more than highlights the state of modern synth which continues to deceive, with the quality of VSTs and their array of classic sounds masking a wider deficiency in basic songwriting.

Opening proceedings on ‘All The Young Droids’ are Belgian duo DESIGN with ‘Premonition’ from 1983. Mixed by Dan Lacksman of TELEX using a Yamaha CS-15, Roland Juno-6, Roland TR-808 and no sequencers, there is an appealing Walloon detachment with Gallic girly refrains while the sound quality cannot be faulted.

From the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, VISION had Paul Statham from B-MOVIE temporarily join in 1982 at the invitation of vocalist Russell Bonnell in time to appear on ‘Lucifer’s Friend’; while its morose vocal delivery was very much de rigueur of the times, it is rich in bright keyboard melodics. A bouncy machine pop number from 1981, Selwin Image’s ‘The Unknown’ is not short of catchy hooks either but limited to self-release at the time on cassette, it was destined never to be widely heard.

A collaboration between Peta Lily and Michael Process, ‘I Am A Time Bomb’ is a delightfully odd feminist synth pop tune that does sound like one of Pamela Stephenson’s pop skits on ‘Not The Nine O’Clock News’, so it’s shame there is no wide eyed big haired visual accompaniment to this. Meanwhile, if Spizz did ‘Where’s Captain Kirk?’ as a synth track, then Kiwi Alasdair Riddell’s ‘Do You Read Me?’ is what it might have sounded like; its rousing Moog Sonic Six solo is rather magnificent.

Released in 1978, ‘The Ultimate Warlord’ was a favourite on the dancefloor of at The Blitz and it shines with a spiritual quality despite the spacey vocal detachment. This was the time when Daniel Miller launched THE NORMAL and produced by him, ‘Science Fiction’ by Alan Burnham is one of the better known recordings thanks to its recurring inclusion on a number of cult synth compilations; as no-one has ever tracked Mr Burnham, was he actually the Mute Records supremo all along?

Written and produced by Andreas Dorau while he was still at school and featuring various class mates on vocals, the original German language ‘Fred Vom Jupiter’ is a cult jewel of the era that got a UK release on Mute Records in 1982; it however loses in something in its English translation but remains delightful just the same.

With rousing crossover potential, John Howard’s ‘I Tune Into You’ was a 1980 major label release on CBS produced by Nicky Graham who later was the studio brains behind BROS. Meanwhile in another Goss twins connection, management interest came from Tom Watkins who also steered PET SHOP BOYS during their imperial phase but the partnership was not to be.

The eccentric Richard Bone was another cult figure of the era and written to test his then-new TEAC 4-track Portastudio, ‘Alien Girl’ from 1982 was one of several excellent singles made by the Anglophile New Yorker and bizarrely, a No1 in the Hong Kong dance music charts.

One person who was to have mainstream UK hit with ‘Hey Matthew’ in 1987 was Karel Fialka who had appeared on Virgin’s 1980 ‘Machines’ compilation with ‘The Eyes Have It’. From the year before, the self-released ‘Armband (The Mystery Song)’ remains a good example of garage synth based around a MicroMoog. Someone who had already tasted fame was THE GLITTER BAND bassist John Springate who in 1985 issued a slice of mad dystopian prog synth in ‘My Life’; comprising of three very different sections crammed into 4 and a half minutes, in places it sounds like DRAMATIS who were the original Numan band!

Playing to the robotic clichés of Futurism often associated with synth, THE MICROBES’ excellent ‘Computer’ is all staccato semi-spoken vocals to emulate John Foxx while THE GOO-Q’s messy ‘I’m A Computer’ utilises a vocoder that has been mixed far too loud! From 1982, ‘Famous Names’ by INCANDESCENT LUMINAIRE actually could have been autobiographical as DEPECHE MODE attended one of their gigs in their hometown of Stoke but while a good effort, it lacks the proficiency and clarity of the Basildon boys.

Using the Roland TB-303 Bass Line and TR-06 Drumatix combination, 1984’s ‘No Motion’ by DISCO VOLANTE is rhythmically tight but as with much of today’s electronic pop, it lacked a solid tune. However, it is a fascinating technical time piece before the 303 was used and abused in acid house. Dee Jay Bert and Eagle’s ‘I Am Your Master’ though is something of a novelty and what a Dutch Vincent Price impersonator doing a drone soundtrack for a Dracula movie would sound like.

And proving that those who work in the music press are just frustrated musicians, DREAM UNIT is revealed to be Graham ‘Mick’ Meikleham, now Production Editor at Uncut Magazine; while ‘Drop In The Ocean’ has some absorbing synth lines, he probably made the right career choice.

Other tracks such as Ian North’s ‘We’re Not Lonely’, the lo-fi synth instrumental ‘It’s Not What You Are But How’ by SOLE SISTER or the eponymous arty tone poem ‘Gerry & The Holograms’ are less immediate, but no less appealing if one prefers less melody. But the point of this collection is that the majority of these acts were writing and producing pop songs with wider ambitions, even if was to just become big fishes in their own esoteric ponds.

If you liked Cherry Red’s ‘Electrical Language – Independent British Synth Pop 78-84’ boxed set, Bob Stanley & Pete Wiggs’ ‘The Tears Of Technology’ or ASPRA’s ‘Play For Tomorrow Vol.1’ but wished there were fewer established acts, then ‘All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978 -1985’ is for you. Painting a picture of beautiful failure, someone’s junk can easily be another’s treasure and there are plenty included here.


‘All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978 -1985’ is released 11th July 2025 on as a transparent pink or black double vinyl LP and double CD by Night School / School Daze Records, available from https://night-school.bandcamp.com/album/all-the-young-droids-junkshop-synth-pop-1978-1985

https://nightschoolrecords.com


Text by Chi Ming Lai
7th July 2025

CLAUDIA BRÜCKEN Night Mirror

“The songs seemed to come to me in the middle of the night, and when I listened to them, there I was. Between two worlds, looking for answers in the shadows.”

Following her last album ‘The Heart Is Strange’ with Susanne Freytag and Stephen Lipson as xPROPAGANDA in 2022, Claudia Brücken is back with what is perhaps surprisingly only her fourth solo album ‘Night Mirror’. But the German chanteuse has always been something of a collaborator, working with notable personnel such as Trevor Horn, David Sylvian, Glenn Gregory, Midge Ure, Thomas Leer, Pascal Gabriel, Steve Nye, Andrew Poppy, Paul Humphreys, Martin Gore, Andy Bell, Stephen Hague, Jerome Froese, Wolfgang Flür and Michel Moers.

‘Night Mirror’ is no different and sees her back working with John Williams who produced her third solo album ‘Where Else…’; that record saw Claudia embrace the acoustic guitar. Written and recorded in London between 2023-2025, while ‘Night Mirror’ can be considered as having a traditional songwriting ethos with organic instrumentation, it is simultaneously electronic in unexpected ways so that the end result is neither wholly either. It is therefore the Claudia you know, and one that you don’t yet know.

Photo by Ray Moody

With virtual orchestrations, the opening number ‘My Life Started Today’ delightfully drops hints of Lou Reed’s ‘Satellite of Love’. ‘Rosebud’ offers classic driver friendly pop rich in Mellotron strings, stabs of Hammond and subtle sequencer while the spacious soundscapes and snappy rhythms of ‘All That We Ever Have’ provide a cocktail of electronic and organic textures, with piano motifs sitting alongside sequencers.

The full sequencer treatment comes with ‘Sound & The Fury’ but then out pop crunchy guitars and nods towards THE STOOGES. Spritely acoustic six strings, bass harmonics, sax and pizzicato sit with drum machines on ‘The Only Ones’ for a pretty pop number. A surprise comes with ‘Funny The Things’, an offbeat countrified number that even includes with banjo and flute but then twists courtesy of various synth arpeggios in the second half. Also showing another side to Claudia is ‘Sincerely’ which brings in a flamenco flavour and more flauty tones for a breezy hippy effect that is unique with its machine rhythm beats.

But with her characteristic ice maiden cool, the brilliant ‘Shadow Dancer’ turns the album on its head with an uptempo electronically driven number with minimal rhythm guitar and piano sparring off the synthetic stabs and metronomic rhythms. Here Claudia’s assuring poetry is supreme in this divine slice of avant pop.

The lengthy ‘To Be Loved’ is a sparse piano ballad than sees fretless bass come into play but maybe outstays its welcome. But closing with a variation on ‘Shadow Dancer’, the trancier ’Dancing Shadow’ sparkles with synth pulses and even throws jazz guitar into an incessant claptrap backbone for a spritely dub excursion.

Enjoyably unusual in its hybrid musical approach, ‘Night Mirror’ is another fine Claudia Brücken collection of nocturnal mysteries, reflections, struggles and obsessive observations. Despite not being a full electronic pop album, there are plenty of synthetic embellishments for those Claudia fans from the ZTT and ONETWO school to savour.


‘Night Mirror’ is released on 4th July 2025 by Demon Music Group in a variety of formats including vinyl LP, vinyl LP + 12” EP, CD, CD+EP and Dolby Atmos Blu-Ray, pre-order from https://claudiabrucken.lnk.to/nightmirror

https://www.claudiabrucken.co.uk/

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https://www.instagram.com/claudiabrucken/


Text by Chi Ming Lai
2nd July 2025

MAREUX Nonstop Romance

With major label backing from Warners, Spotify statistics say MAREUX has just under 4 million monthly listeners.

As MAREUX, Los Angeles musician Aryan Ashtiani’s 2023 debut album ‘Lovers From The Past’ wowed synth receptive goth kids worldwide as he rode on a North American wave of darker post-punk flavoured acts like TR/ST, KORINE, DRAB MAJESTY, ACTORS, VANDAL MOON, DIE SEXUAL and GLASS SPELLS. His new long player ‘Nonstop Romance’ is another concept album of sorts about love, celebrating the highs and lows of that most natural of emotions, much like THE CURE and THE MISSION did.

This second MAREUX record is being sold as a work that is rough and unmannered like the lo-fi aesthetics of THE SOFT MOON. The opener ‘Blackmail’ signals this album’s intent; a moody synth instrumental swathed in this modern trend for distortion beyond recognition to give the impression of darkness on the edge and that would have been all very well if there was a hook. ‘Radio Club’ is of a similar demeanour but adds distorted vocals and more metallic textures.

The ‘Nonstop Romance’ title track is much better, more upbeat and melodic but spoilt by the production. But much less harsher and featuring a melodramatic guest vocal from Riki, ‘Ébène Fumé’ does sound like a synthwave reinterpretation of ‘Running Up That Hill’ in places and despite being something of an outlier, is easily the album’s best song.

‘Wild at Heart’ adds guitar and a nonchalant baritone to offer something more gothic but if FM ATTACK had gone full fat goth, ‘Prodigy’ is what the end result would have been. ‘Blue’ tries to mimic THE CURE blueprint that is the template of darkwave, something exemplified by the quite generic ‘Laugh Now Cry Later’. The ordeal ends with another instrumental ‘Snake Eyes’ which despite its melodic promise is again ruined by all the distortion.

Photo By Jason Renaud

‘Nonstop Romance’ tries too hard to be grimy and simply ends up hurting the ears…. just because something sounds like it is recorded down a drainpipe doesn’t mean spiders will crawl up it. One thing often forgotten about the imperial phase of THE CURE is how melodic, romantic AND well produced they were despite their inherent despair. In the present day, MOLCHAT DOMA have proved with their most recent album ‘Belaya Polosa’ that their music is so much better when it doesn’t sound like it has been recorded on a Tascam Porta One Ministudio with dirty tape heads and flat batteries.

It is interesting how synth-based music has evolved in some quarters and maybe ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK is missing the point and too old to get it, but any potential this record has is mushed to the point of illegibility in a manner that is far too contrived. Aural clarity is ok once in a while on gloomier material and even JOY DIVISION had that, as well as past Warmer signings THE SISTERS OF MERCY.

Having said that, from those millions of monthly listeners, those goth kids who wear reissued T-shirts of ‘The Lost Boys’ having watched their parents’ ripped DVD will more than likely love ‘Nonstop Romance’.


‘Nonstop Romance’ is released by Revolution Records / Warner Records, further infomation at https://mareux.lnk.to/nonstopromance

https://www.mareux.com/

https://www.facebook.com/mareux

https://www.instagram.com/__mareux__/


Text by Chi Ming Lai
27th June 2025

SPARKS Live In London

SPARKS know how to put on a good show but most importantly know their audience and how to challenge them, to their delight.

While OMD’s live set becomes increasingly cabaret with the tediously insipid ‘So In Love’, ‘Dreaming’ and ‘Locomotion’ now the mainstays leading up to the set climax, SPARKS are happy to revisit their past but not in obvious ways.

Continuing to ‘Do Things My Own Way’ at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, Russell and Ron Mael unleash surprises early on with the return of ‘Reinforcements’ from ‘Propaganda’ and the totally unexpected inclusion of ‘Academy Award Performance’ off the seminal ‘No1 In Heaven’ album. This section gets capped off with the glorious Cossack rock out of ‘Goofing Off’ from 1977’s often forgotten ‘Introducing’ album.

But proceedings fittingly open with ‘So May We Start’ from the musical ‘Annette’ and the SPARKS backing band comprising of new drummer Darren Weiss, his brother Evan on guitar, Eli Pearl (guitar) and Max Whipple (bass) are totally unfazed by the range that is expected of them, playing to sequencers, adapting to changes of tempo and memorising oddball arrangements.

Meanwhile that trio of fan surprises is followed by another Moroder-era stomper from heaven in ‘Beat The Clock’ before the profound plea of ‘Please Don’t F*ck Up My World’ from 2020’s ‘A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip’ reflected the current head scratching state of the world. Ron got his turn centre stage for the first time in the evening with his dry spoken rendition of ‘Suburban Homeboy’ before Russell joined him for the closing theatrical refrains.

‘All You Ever Think About Is Sex’ provided another fan favourite surprise but getting back up-to-date with the new ‘MAD!’ album, that a break-up song like ‘JanSport Backpack’ can be inspired by a bag popular with Japanese girls is idiosyncratic genius to prove that SPARKS have not let up in their eccentric artistic willing.

The HI-NRG romp of ‘Music That You Can Dance To’ prepared everyone for three with a bullet with the first chorus singalong of the evening for ‘When Do I Get to Sing My Way?’, a thrilling ‘The Number One Song in Heaven’ where the 79 years young Ron did his customary tap dance in the instrumental drum fuelled middle eight and ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us’ had Russell punching the air with the vigour like he did on that iconic ‘Top Of The Pops’ performance back in 1974 when he was 25 and hitting them high notes too!

Going right back to 1972 and the second SPARKS album ‘A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing’, ‘Whippings and Apologies’ pointed to the almost-metallic climes of when SPARKS first came into being while with the air of a 1975 lost Eurovision entry, ‘Lord Have Mercy’ from ‘MAD!’ provided a wonderfully anthemic end to the main set. The encore included ‘The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte’ but was ‘All That’ from ‘A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip’ that concluded a glorious evening.

Taking the rapturous applause from a very appreciative audience 54 years after they debuted as recording artists, SPARKS still manage to surprise and satisfy. With a career that long, something was bound to be left out and while songs like ‘Amateur Hour’ and ‘When I’m With You’ were notably absent, they were almost not missed in the obvious enjoyment of all present. It was indeed an ‘Academy Award Performance’ and you really don’t want miss to it…


ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Holly Turton at Republic Media

‘MAD!’ is released by Transgressive Records as a CD, cassette, black vinyl LP and lenticular gatefold sleeve with blue vinyl LP

SPARKS 2025 live dates include:

Manchester O2 Apollo (21st + 22nd June), Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (24th June), Haarlem PHIL (26th June), Brussels Cirque Royal (28th June), Paris La Salle Pleyel (30th June), Cologne Gloria-Theater (1st July), Copenhagen Koncerthuset (3rd July), Stockholm Grona Lund Tivoli (4th July), Berlin Uber Eats (6th July), Milan Teatro Degli Arcimboldi (8th July), Bilbao BBK Live (12th July), Dublin National Stadium (15th + 16th July), Edinburgh Playhouse Theatre (18th July), Wolverhampton Halls (19th July)

http://allsparks.com/

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https://www.threads.com/@sparks_official


Text and Photos by Chi Ming Lai
19th June 2025

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