“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
Jennifer Touch’s new album ‘Aging at Airports’ was inspired by the time lost between shows hanging about in airports while touring…
“The slowly ticking time at the gate was in complete contrast to what I want to do as an artist: to be in flux, to create things that will last forever…” she said, “I have to accept that I am fading, that my creative power, my face, and my body are fading.”
Born in Dresden and the daughter of DDR flower-power children, the now Berlin-based Jennifer Touch released her first EP in 2014 although didn’t issue her autobiographical debut album ‘Behind The Wall’ until 2020. The Berlin-based artist’s 2023 album ‘Midnight Proposals’ presented a mysterious yet hopeful manifesto to the world although it suffered from being a bit too long.
Photo by Nea Gumprecht
Despite its title, ‘Aging at Airports’ does not attempt to be too serious or gloomy, but there is an immediate playfulness in Touch’s honest expressions and gritty production in amongst the gothic drama.
‘Behaviour’ sets the scene with its squelch and drone EBM while feeding off the same plate, ‘Walls of Patience’ also hints towards a Synth Siouxsie template. The deep and hypnotic ‘Dripping’ takes a leaf out of fellow darkwave exponents like DLINA VOLNY and BOY HARSHER in its intensity for the dancefloor where “You gonna live and live with this irony”.
The haunting ‘Anthem’ sees Jennifer Touch play with the higher end of her vocal range outside her usual contralto snarl in the drone dominant backdrop. But in a claustrophobic cocoon of arpeggios and drones, the ‘Ceiling’ of resignation is hit. Sans beats, ‘Wars & Blood Red Roses’ is less immediate but its keys are strident while as the closer to what is actually a mini-album, ‘Rumble’ does just that in its industrial pop overtones with a goth rock edge.
Bristling with realism in its lyrical gists, ‘Aging at Airports’ is an accessible concoction that while more drone dominant than ‘Midnight Proposals’, sees Jennifer Touch not veering too much away from her sound. So those who love her “Post-Wave-Cold-Pop-Acid-Romance” will be very happy with a work that doesn’t outstay its welcome.
While there had previous been synthesizer hits like ‘Son Of My Father’, ‘Popcorn’ and ‘Autobahn’, they were considered novelty records at the time and it would be fair to say that the true Year Zero in electronic pop music was 1977.
THE SEX PISTOLS and ‘God Save The Queen’ may have been on everyone’s hushed lips in the Queen’s Silver Jubilee year but the most influential song to emerge from that period and that STILL sounds like the future is ‘I Feel Love’ by Donna Summer.
The producer of ‘I Feel Love’ was a German domiciled Italian named Giorgio Moroder. A solo artist in his own right within his adopted homeland, he had already been playing with synthesizer riffs on his first hit song ‘Son Of My Father’; a facsimile cover by Chicory Tip reached No1 in the UK at the start of 1972.
In the case of ‘I Feel Love’, Moroder later harnessed the hypnotic quality of an 8-step analogue sequencer plus a triplet delay to create the pulsing Moog lines to close the Donna Summer concept album ‘I Remember Yesterday’. The preceding tracks had themes of the 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s. ‘I Feel Love’ was designed to represent the sound of the future.
Despite already clocking in at nearly six minutes, it felt like it could go on forever. Again, Moroder had the foresight to extend the track to nearly twenty minutes on a 12 inch version for discos; the extended version was born. Alas, ‘I Feel Love’ was the only electronic track on ‘I Remember Yesterday’ but Moroder would fully exploit the potential of this new technology on the next Donna Summer albums as well as his solo records.
The first British artist to present electronic pop in its modern form at the start of 1977 was David Bowie with ‘Sound & Vision’ featuring an ARP Solina lead line and noise-gated futuristic sounding drums. With this, ‘Oxygène’, ‘Magic Fly’ and ‘I Feel Love’ all hitting the Top 3 in the UK singles chart within months of each other, this was the beginning of synths designing the future.
So here are 20 albums which ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK sees as contributing to the electronic legacy of 1977. While a number of these albums were not purely electronic, their inclusion of electronic based songs or suites proved to be highly influential in their experimental possibilities. They are listed in alphabetical order with a restriction of one album per artist moniker…
ASHRA New Age Of Earth
Guitarist Manuel Göttsching had been a member of ASH RA TEMPEL but looking to explore more progressive voxless territory on ‘New Age Of Earth’, he armed himself with an Eko Rhythm Computer, ARP Odyssey and his signature Farfisa Synthorchestra. An exponent of a more transient soloing style, he used the guitar for texture as much as for melody in this beautiful treasure trove of an album, as on the wonderful 20 minute ‘Nightdust’.
Having been the synth player of GONG on their albums ‘Flying Teapot’, ‘Angel’s Egg’ and ‘You’, Francophile Tim Blake’s first solo long player was ‘Crystal Machine’. A combination of studio and live material, with a EMS Synthi A, Minimoog and Elka Rhapsody at his disposal, it was full of eccentric sci-fi soundscapes and cosmic otherworldliness in the GONG, PINK FLOYD and HAWKWIND vein; Blake would actually join the latter in 1979.
“There’s New Wave, there’s Old Wave, and there’s David Bowie” said the advert for ‘Low’, recorded in Switzerland but mixed at Hansa Studios where the soldiers in the East Berlin watch towers could look into the windows of the building. It featured a whole side of instrumentals, the best two being ‘Warszawa’ and ‘Art Decade’ in collaboration with Brian Eno. Despite the artful experimentation, there was a hit single in ‘Sound & Vision’.
Having first worked together in 1976, Brian Eno met up with Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of CLUSTER on two fruitful recordings, the first of which was a glorious ambient instrumental affair. The front cover photo of a microphone up near the clouds summed up the approach with the album full of angelic atmospheres and gentle melodies. The closer ‘Für Luise’ was a tense cold war drama with stark piano and minimal synth.
A year before TELEX formed, Dan Lacksman released his sixth album under the ELECTRONIC SYSTEM moniker. With the sequencer driven Moog sounds of Giorgio Moroder being the main influence, ‘Flight to Tokyo’, ‘Cosmic Trip’ and ‘Flight To Venus’ was a fine segue of instrumental variations on the throbbing electronic disco theme, the latter of which was sampled in 2002 by THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS for ‘Star Guitar’.
‘Disco Machine’ is still available via The Wack Attack Barrack
As with David Bowie’s ‘Low’ and ‘Heroes’ which Eno had also worked on, ‘Before & After Science’ presented its material as pop and experimental sides. The first side included the quirky ‘Blackwater’ with its fabulous stabs of synth and the metallic romp of ‘Kings Lead Hat’. But the best tracks were on side two were the synth ballads ‘By This River’ assisted by CLUSTER and the sumptuous nautical folk of ‘Spider & I’.
The French were on a roll with their vision for an electronic future with SPACE, DROIDS and Jean-Michel Jarre, but Bernard Favre actually composed and recorded the science fiction-themed ‘Cosmos 2043’ in 1975. While not as immediate as his fellow countrymen, this record was another sampled by THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS with ‘Earth Message’ forming the basis of 1999’s ‘Got Glint?’ for which Favre got a co-writing credit.
‘Cosmos 2043’ is still available via Anthology Records
On a roll from his pioneering work with Donna Summer, the sixth Giorgio Moroder solo album for centred around throbbing electronic disco. Featuring vocodered and conventional voices, the title track was effectively stretched out over one side of the album. Often mistaken for being KRAFTWERK, it actually prompted the Kling Klang quartet to move towards a more computerised sound for their 1978 album ‘The Man Machine’.
Although released in France at the end of 1976, ‘Oxygène’ was not available worldwide until 1977 with ‘Oxygène IV’ becoming a huge hit single. The parent album was a glorious six part work and ‘Oxygène IV’ something of a centrepiece as a perfectly progressive spacey romp with pulsing sequences, Eminent strings, Mellotron choir and AKS waves while ‘Oxygene V’ chanelled Terry Riley’s ‘A Rainbow In Curved Air’.
‘Trans Europe Express’ was the first KRAFTWERK album released in standalone English and German versions. Perhaps the most lyrical of all their imperial phase long players, ‘Europe Endless’ was despite its nostalgic romanticism, aspiring to a continent without borders while the punchy ‘Showroom Dummies’ responded to criticism their static live performance. Then there was the mighty title track and its ‘Metal On Metal’ interlude…
Relocating to build his own Random Studio in Forst, ‘Flammenden Herzen’ was Michael Rother’s first solo album after leaving NEU! Co-produced by Conny Plank with Jaki Liebezeit from CAN providing the percolating percussion, although Rother had utilised synthesizers to great effect before, they took a greater role in his solo work. ‘Karussell’ had a distinctly European flavour with its strong symphonic melodies.
After success of ‘Timewind’ and then ‘Moondawn’ featuring Harald Grosskopf on drums, Klaus Schulze was by now well into what many consider his imperial phase and adding PPG modules to his synth set-up, operated alone on ‘Mirage’. Subtitled “an electronic winter landscape”, the wintery 29 minute ‘Crystal Lake’ planted the seed for New Age while promotion was supported by two lavish concerts at the London Planetarium.
SPACE was the brainchild of Didier Marouani who went under the pseudonym of Ecama and formed the collective with Roland Romanelli and Jannick Top. The space disco of the iconic ‘Magic Fly’ with its catchy melody and lush accessible futurism rode the wave of a new European electronic disco sound. But the album wasn’t just about the title hit as ‘Fasten Seatbelt, ‘Tango In Space’ and ‘Flying Nightmare’ proved.
An album of unsettling futuristic rockabilly, SUICIDE rocked the boat by Martin Rev using a Seeburg Rhythm Prince and Farfisa keyboard instead of drums and guitars while Alan Vega warbled and snarled like the ghost of a demented Elvis Presley. Highlights included ‘Ghost Rider’ and ‘Cheree’ which later soundtracked a Marc Jacobs perfume advert. The duo were to be a big influence on SOFT CELL and SIGUE SIGUE SPUTNIK.
‘Once Upon A Time’ was an ambitious double album consisting of four distinct approaches. An all-electronic three song segued suite entitled ‘Act2’ was headed by ‘Working The Midnight Shift’ which took ‘I Feel Love’ to the next level with Summer’s wispy falsetto now in a grander setting. ‘Now I Need You’ captured a gothic eeriness while ‘Queen For A Day’ was a forerunner of ‘Our Love’ that halfway mutated back into disco pop.
‘Once Upon A Time’ is still available via Casablanca / Universal Records
The final studio album by the classic TANGERINE DREAM line-up of Edgar Froese, Chris Franke and Peter Baumann, after the long compositions of previous releases, ‘Sorcerer’ was characterised by shorter pieces in the band’s first commission for a Hollywood movie. Although this meant tracks like ‘The Mountain Road’ faded before they really got going, ‘Betrayal’ showed what could be done within time restrictions.
‘Sorcerer’ is still available via Esoteric Recordings
Released first in Europe as ‘Space Fantasy’ but retitled ‘Kosmos’ for international consumption in 1978, Isao Tomita acquired a Polymoog to supplement his Moog modular system. The ‘Star Wars: Main Title’ was reimagined with his signature synthetic whistle while a Strauss / Wagner medley provided a ‘Space Fantasy’. But the classic Rodrigo guitar concerto ‘Aranjuez’ was cosmically synthesized in a manner that only Tomita could.
‘Space Fantasy’ is still available as ‘Kosmos’ via RCA
While primarily a fierce art rock album, ‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ was however notable for the inclusion of two opposingly poled synth-dominated songs that pointed to the future direction of ULTRAVOX! The star of ‘The Man Who Dies Everyday’ was Billy Currie’s screaming ARP Odyssey while Warren Cann’s modified Roland TR77 rhythm machine acted as the backbone to the elegiac ‘Hiroshima Mon Amour’ which also featured an Elka Rhapsody.
The ‘Spiral’ album was best known for the beautifully emotive ‘To The Unknown Man’ where Vangelis first fully exploited the possibilities of the Yamaha CS80. He proved he could also do lively electronic pop with ‘Dervish D’ where over a spinning Roland System 100 sequencer, a slice of robotic funk grooved with a brilliantly played jazz-inflected CS80 solo using all the manual control features it had at his disposal.
‘Spiral’ is still available via Esoteric Recordings
The work of Pierre Salkazanov, the Frenchman had the ARP 2600 and its sequencer, along with the EMS VCS 3 and RMI Harmonic Synthesizer. Comprising of three short pieces and two much longer progressively spacey tracks ‘Plénitude’ and ‘An Zéro’, ‘Moebius 256 301’ had much more of a Berlin School template and echoes of TANGERINE DREAM in particular when compared with his French contemporaries.
Based in Lund, Swedish producer Johan Agebjörn studies psychology but makes music from time to time.
While involved in a variety of arctic ambient, piano, instrumental, dance and remix projects, he is best known for the Italo-inspired duo Sally Shapiro featuring an anonymous singer who has become known as “Sally”. Following the lead of Italo acts such as Valerie Dore and Katy Gray which were actually fronts for producers promoted under the names of fictional solo singers, Sally Shapiro would become worldwide cult favourites with their wispy melancholic synth swathed disco-friendly pop.
The journey began when Agebjörn demoed what would become ‘I’ll Be By Your Side’ and remembered a gathering in 2004 with everyone singing Christmas carols by the piano: “I asked a friend of mine whom I noticed had a sweet singing voice if she wanted to sing on it, and she gave it a shot. After hearing and mixing her recording, I felt ‘this is really something’ and posted it to various Italo disco and electro forums on the web. I quickly got a few offers to release it on 12” single and the Sally Shapiro project was born.”
Despite a publically announced retirement in 2016, Sally Shapiro has released 5 full-length albums with corresponding remix collections since 2006. In parallel, Johan Agebjörn has maintained solo career and worked with Samantha Fox, Ryan Paris, Fred Ventura, Tom Hooker, Lisa Barra and many more, along with fellow enigmatic duos such as ELECTRIC YOUTH and R. MISSING.
In 2025, there has already been a new Sally Shapiro long player ‘Ready To Live A Lie’ which proved to be the duo’s darkest yet, while coming in late September is a new nature-themed downtempo album from Johan Agebjörn called ‘Southern Forest’ which features Dr Atmo, Miranda Magdalena, Mikael Ögren, Cate Brooks and NINA.
Johan Agebjörn presented his personal stories and insights on 20 career highlights selected from his various musical projects over the years by ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK
SALLY SHAPIRO I’ll Be By Your Side (2006)
“I remember writing this track being in an inspirational mood after having listened to Valerie Dore ‘Get Closer’” said Johan Agebjörn of the breakthrough Sally Shapiro track, “The track opened a lot of opportunities for us and maybe more importantly, it made me think that I could maybe actually write pop songs”. It attracted the attention of the Austrian label Diskokaine who would go on to release the debut album ‘Disco Romance’.
Available on the SALLY SHAPIRO album ‘Disco Romance’ via Paper Bag Records
With the cult success of Sally Shapiro came remix commissions from all over the world for Agebjörn including this from a Spanish indie band: “This was one of the first remixes I made” he remembered, “I was amazed that someone would actually pay me money to remix something. I really liked the band and I was happy with the remix, I’ve played it quite often when I DJ-ed. Jaime of SOUVENIR later played the backing guitar on Sally Shapiro’s ‘What Can I Do’”.
Available on the SOUVENIR EP ‘Extras 64’ via Jabalina Música
JOHAN AGEBJÖRN featuring SALLY SHAPIRO Spacer Woman From Mars (2008)
Filled with vocoder, “This is one of the recordings from the ‘Disco Romance’ sessions but we didn’t think the track fitted on the album, leaning more towards spacesynth than Indiepop-Italo” recalled Agebjörn, “Actually, Sally refuses to sing any songs about space, this was the only exception, so we released it under my name as the primary artist. I sent it to Lo Recordings who loved it and included it on their ‘Milky Disco’ compilation”
“One of my favourite tracks from Sally’s second album, ‘My Guilty Pleasure’” said Agebjörn of this starry eyed dance number, “The shuffled arpeggiated bass was inspired by Skatebård’s ‘Vuelo’. My friend and frequent collaborator Roger Gunnarsson wrote the lyrics, they are actually about the memories from his dead grandmother. FM ATTACK later made a really beautiful remix out of it”.
ANORAAK Don’t Be Afraid featuring SALLY SHAPIRO (2010)
“Anoraak invited us to collaborate on a track from his debut album. My role here was to write the melody and the lyrics, I remember sitting at the library of Lund University writing it” said Agebjörn of this collaboration with the DJ from the French Valerie Collective, “Anoraak then re-made the backing track for his album version, but we later released the original version on Sally’s third album ‘Somewhere Else’ – so the version labelled ‘Alternative Version’ is actually the first version”.
JOHAN AGEBJÖRN Swimming Through The Blue Lagoon – Original Casio MT-52 Instrumental (2011)
“I got the idea for this track in a dream back in 2005” said Agebjörn, “The drums and the “electric guitar” are lead sound from a Casio MT-52 keyboard that I borrowed from Sally. To my joy, it was playlisted on some channel on Sirius XM radio and also included in the background of many TV programs around the world. We had also made a short version with some Sally vocals on it, as an opener to Sally’s second album”.
JOHAN AGEBJÖRN & ERCOLA featuring QUEEN OF HEARTS The Last Day Of Summer (2011)
“I asked Ercola to collaborate on a track after hearing his banger ‘Follow Me’ with Annie on vocals” said Agebjorn, “He sent me a loop that we developed into this instrumental. I asked QUEEN OF HEARTS if she wanted to sing on it, and she made a terrific job. Finally Ercola and I finished the mix in in Helsinki. This is one of very few tracks I’ve had playlisted on Swedish national radio P3”; QUEEN OF HEARTS would co-write the 2025 Sally Shapiro song ‘Hard To Love’.
Available on the JOHAN AGEBJÖRN album ’Casablanca Nights’ via Paper Bag Records
A track recorded with the acclaimed Canadian synth duo, “Sally and I asked ELECTRIC YOUTH if they wanted to collaborate on a track, since we think they are pop geniuses” recalled Agebjörn, “We sent them this instrumental and they came back with ‘Starman’. After recording Sally’s vocal, it was selected as one of the singles from Sally’s third album ‘Somewhere Else’. There’s also a cool Miami Nights 1984 remix of it”.
Available on the SALLY SHAPIRO album ‘Somewhere Else’ via Paper Bag Records
YOUNG GALAXY were a haunting dream pop duo from Montreal comprising who were label mates of Sally Shapiro at Paper Bag Records. Agebjörn reworked ‘In Fire’ from their fourth album ‘Ultramarine’ with a brooding gothic groove. “I met them once in Linköping, the city where I grew up and I DJ-ed before their live show” he recalled, “We made a remix swap with each other and I think this remix became quite dark and cool”.
Available on the YOUNG GALAXY album ‘Ultramarine’ via Paper Bag Records
ANNIE featuring BJARNE MELGAARD Swedish Kiss – Johan Agebjörn Remix Of Russian Kiss (2014)
Norwegian pop artist Annie is known for her Richard X produced hits ‘Chewing Gum’ and ‘Songs Remind Me Of You’ but one day, Agebjörn got an important call: “I’m a big Annie fan so I was really happy when she asked me to remix this pro-HBTQ rights, anti-Putin track. I turned it from what was kind of a monotonous acid house-inspired track produced by the genius Richard X to more of a chord-driven Italo disco track with lots of vocoder work.”
Available on the ANNIE featuring BJARNE MELGAARD single ‘Swedish Kiss’ via Totally
JOHAN AGEBJÖRN & LONEY DEAR The Leftovers – Mikael Ögren Remix (2015)
“Loney Dear is a skilled and likeable Swedish musician, whom I contacted for singing this song from my album ‘Notes’” said Agebjörn, “Paper Bag wanted to make a remix contest around it, and I encouraged everyone to turn in remixes of it. One remix came in under a pseudonym, I loved it and we decided it was the winner out of some 70-80 entries. It then turned out it was made by friend and soon-to-be frequent collaborator Mikael Ögren.”
Available on the JOHAN AGEBJÖRN & LONEY DEAR single ‘The Leftovers’ via Paper Bag Records
JOHAN AGEBJÖRN featuring TOM HOOKER Have You Ever Been In Love? (2018)
“I was asked by Swedish director Kristian Söderström to make some tracks with various legendary Italo disco singers for his movie ‘Videoman’, as one of the characters listened a lot to Italo disco” said Agebjörn of this notable soundtrack commission, “This is one of the results, with vocals by Tom Hooker, the voice behind Den Harrow. It was also included on a CD compilation on the legendary Italo disco label ZYX.”
Another track from ‘Videoman’, Kristian Söderström suggested that Agebjörn ask Samantha Fox or Sabrina to sing on ‘Hot Boy’: “I sent it to Samantha on her official web site and her manager replied that she wanted to sing on it! Samantha recorded the vocals in London and I later met her in Gothenburg when we recorded a music video to it with the ‘Videoman’ team, it was an unforgettable day”; the track recently got its first vinyl release on Keytar Records as 12″ picture disc.
Available on the SAMANTHA FOX single ‘Hot Boy’ via Fox 2000 / Keytar Records
JOHAN AGEBJÖRN featuring RYAN PARIS & SALLY SHAPIRO Forget About You (2020)
Agebjörn had produced a Ryan Paris vs Sally Shapiro duet called ‘Love On Ice’ for ‘Videoman’ and ‘Forget About You’ was its follow-up song: “It was fun to work on Ryan Paris on a few tracks, in return for the vocals on this track, Sally also recorded some backing vocals to Ryan’s track ‘Je Veux T’aimer Encore Une Fois’. Later, we turned ‘Forget About You’ into a Sally Shapiro solo track for the comeback album ‘Sad Cities’”.
JOHAN AGEBJÖRN & MIKAEL ÖGREN A Tribute To Florian Schneider (2020)
“Mikael thought we should make a tribute track, since we are both KRAFTWERK fans” remembered Agebjörn when hearing about the sad passing of Florian Schneider, “Mikael had a basic idea for the groove using the analog Toraiz AS-1 synth. We tried to make the track as close as possible to the KRAFTWERK sound between 1975 and 1981. The vocoder lyrics are about Florian’s sounds continuing to vibrate in the universe”.
PET SHOP BOYS The Man Who Has Everything – Johan Agebjörn & Mikael Ögren Re-edit (2020)
“I’m a huge PET SHOP BOYS fan and this track is one of my favourites from their “underground” album ‘Relentless’ included with the limited edition of ‘Very’” confirmed Agebjörn, “I was so thrilled when I found a copy of it in a record shop in the small city in Sweden where I grew up. I felt this track could benefit from a more modern sound and I asked Mikael if he wanted to join me on this re-edit. It’s an unofficial edit only with all proceeds going to UNHCR.”
“This was the first Sally Shapiro single in 5 years, our comeback after having announced that we ended the project, but then we changed our minds” said Agebjörn on Sally coming out of ‘retirement’, “It was also our first single on Italians Do It Better. Mikael Ögren co-produced the track, his most notable input is the beautiful pads from the Roland JD-800. This was my first attempt to make a ‘proper’ synthwave production, whatever that means.”
Available on the SALLY SHAPIRO album ‘Sad Cities’ via Italians Do It Better
“I really had fun working with Yota for our EP released last year, and this was the last track we recorded for it” said Agebjörn of this collaboration with the Paris-based Swede, “Basically it’s a track that was born because I was playing around with the Korg Polysix for the bass and arpeggio. Yota liked the instrumental and got some nice vocal ideas for it. The intro and ending is Yota originally singing in a lower key, pitched up in some weird 90s Eurodance way!”
“I worked several months on the groove of this track, it took a while but it had this very deep bass and hypnotic loop that I kept returning to” said Agebjörn, “Finally with an Italo disco beat, I felt it was worthy to present to some singer, and I thought it would suit the dark approach of R. MISSING whom I had worked with earlier mixing one of their tracks ‘Verónica Pass’. Sharon Shy really turned it into a great song, I’m really happy about it.”
JOHAN AGEBJÖRN featuring NINA Little Fluffy Clouds (2025)
Agebjörn paid a visit to Berlin to work with the Queen Of Synthwave: “THE ORB’s original has been a companion in my life for over 30 years, it never sounds too old. I was playing around with the harmonies without any serious intention to develop it into a finished track, much less having it be the lead single from my new ambient album. But with NINA‘s spoken word on it, the track became a quite dreamy and organic beatless interpretation of the track.”
Available on the JOHAN AGEBJÖRN album ‘Southern Forest’ via Constellation Tatsu
Through circumstance and by choice, Ulrika Mild is perhaps one of the best kept secrets in Swedish electronic pop…
Under her alias of COMPUTE, Ulrika Mild says “I’m just a girl standing in front of a machine asking it to go ‘bleep bloop’…” with her first EP of DIY synth ‘Dance With Me’ released in 2004. In parallel, she was part of indiepop trio LIECHTENSTEIN while longer form releases ‘This’ and ‘The Distance’ beamed forth in 2009 and 2012 respectively.
2012 also saw the release of ‘Friends Of Electronically Yours Present The Seventies Revisited’, a charity synth covers collection on which COMPUTE contributed a sprightly version of ‘Goodbye’, a song written by Paul McCartney for Mary Hopkin while in 2014, there was punk themed follow-up ‘Anarchy In The EY – Electronically Up Yours’ which included a COMPUTE cover of ‘Hong Kong Garden’.
But COMPUTE went into hiatus with Mild only emerging in 2016 as part of THE VOLT on a one-off single with Eddie Bengtsson of PAGE and SISTA MANNEN PÅ JORDEN fame. Then there were a few other collaborations including (mostly) electronic supergoupAMUSI with 2022’s dark and trippy ‘EP-A’. But in 2023 came ‘the proper dimensions of a load bearing structure’, the first COMPUTE album for 11 years.
Photo by Allan Bank
Back with her most ambitious body of work yet, COMPUTE issues ‘NKI’ with lyrics in Swedish steadily pointing downward in its social criticism and honesty. It’s a summer protest record expressing her dismay at the world around her. ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK chatted to Ulrika Mild about her music over the years and much more…
Your new EP ‘NKI’ follows 2023’s ‘the proper dimensions of a load bearing structure’ which was your first COMPUTE release since the album ‘The Distance’ in 2012, although there were collaborations with Eddie Bengtsson as THE VOLT in 2016 and Deadbeat in 2017, why has there been such a long gap in releases?
Well… sometimes life takes unexpected and cruel turns. My husband got sick when our kid turned one, and for some years all I had time and energy for was work to keep us afloat, searching for, contacting, and keeping track of all different kinds of medical treatments that we hoped would help, and taking care of our daughter. I guess that sums up the title ‘the proper dimensions of a load bearing structure’. Like, how much can you carry and still be functional? Happy? Ok to be around? After some years I started finding time now and then during the night to make music. My studio was gone by then, but you can do quite a lot with only your phone and laptop it turns out!
How do you look back now on ‘The Distance’, your debut album ‘This’ and those early EPs ‘Dance With Me’ and ‘Computopia’?
Some of it holds up, some of it I can’t listen to without feeling like when you read your teenage diaries and feel amazed you ever had any friends!
What inspired ‘the proper dimensions of a load bearing structure’ (‘tpdoalbs’) and in what ways had you changed creatively?
Those are a collection of songs made over quite a few years. I said during one of my live shows a while ago that one could create a timelime and pinpoint the exact year I stopped writing about love and started writing about death… and I guess that album is that point. It’s about uncertainty, fear, how your reality remains the same, but you no longer feel like a part of it. And so on. A proper bundle of joy!
Musically it’s different as well. On ‘The Distance’ I put a lot of focus on vocal layering, but on ‘tpdoalbs’ I wanted to push myself into more restraint than before. To dare and let the music go on for longer without vocals, skip the typical chorus, or let it wait for almost two thirds of the song before introducing it… stuff like that. And more pads!
‘On My Own’ has this lovely lilting KRAFTWERK quality about it, were they an inspiration in your music? Who else were you inspired by?
Of course, if you want to listen to restraint that still manages to convey emotions and groove, you can’t ignore KRAFTWERK. However, it was actually Robyn that was my major influence for that particular song. But I draw inspiration from so many places. Just snippets of ideas that I want to try and ”computify”. Like – ‘Bulletproof’ by LA ROUX – where does the energy come from? It’s not the drums driving it forward, there’s something else. Or ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ by Kylie, how can she go on in the same layered backing vocals all throughout, but still convey emotions? Or ‘Edamame’ by bbno$ and Rich Brian – exchanging the bass drum for a hard driving bass, how can I do that without losing to much of the beat? And so on.
Of course the music landscape has changed considerably now with streaming, how have you adapted and are platforms like Spotify and Bandcamp making things much easier than before?
Let’s just be clear. I suck at PR. I sucked before streaming and Bandcamp and all that, and I still suck. I’ve come to terms with it. I should get help. But I suck at that too. That being said – it’s of course a lot easier to make your music available to more people now. But it’s still hard for me to motivate anyone to listen to my stuff.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to draw a bigger audience, but the Swedish concept of ”jante” runs deep in me. There is so much music out there, so much talent, so many voices. That anyone finds me in all of that, gives my music their time – and actually likes it? Mindblowing. It fills me with so much joy whenever I get a shoutout. Maybe that is the beauty of the ever expanding buzz of new music, every true interaction is worth so much more, since you’re up against the world, competing for everyone’s time and interest?
How do you find using social media, you don’t appear totally at ease with it? 😉
Haha, no-one should be. No, I’m actually fine with it. I’ve met a lot of great people through it that I would never have met otherwise, been given opportunities to collaborate, like with Eddie in THE VOLT, or the guys in AMUSI. At the same time, it can be a totally rotten place, bringing out the absolute worst in people and amplifying it to extremes. I try to create my own space. I follow pages about art, moss, manhole covers, old bridges, Star Trek and archaeology. It makes for a soothing background while I keep up with people I actually want to keep up with.
‘NKI’ is sung in Swedish… had it become too much work to continue writing lyrics in English? Does performing in Swedish feel more natural to you?
I kind of found it harder to write in Swedish… I think that it being my own language made me more thoughtful of how I actually use it. It hits harder for me. But I think this is a one-off, I already have an English album almost done. But we’ll see. I definitely enjoyed doing it!
There appears to be a darker if still melodic presence on ‘NKI’ like on the opening song ‘Närmare’, how do feel about the state of the world right now?
The world is… well, where do I even start. We have these huge huge problems that threaten our whole existence, and we just continue trying to bury our heads in the sand, voting for those who present us with the easiest solution even though everyone by now surely must see that it’ll only get us into more trouble? But that’s the legacy we leave for our kids to deal with. Blame the poor, build higher walls, change nothing. Pathetic!
‘Ett lock, en grop, en vägg, ett slut’ is what I would call “classic” COMPUTE in that it is almost like a development of ‘Dawning Days’ from ‘The Distance’?
Yeah, well that’s an older song, actually the song that triggered me to make ‘NKI’. I’ve had it up on Soundcloud for many years, and had somewhere along the line lost the original recording. But I know it’s a fan favourite, so I’ve done it live a couple of times. And then this guy commented on it on Soundcloud, saying he needed it on Spotify so he could add it to a playlist. And instead of just releasing that one song, knowing the amount of work it would take to get a releasable file, the original being lost and all, I thought that I should make it into an EP. So to answer your question, it’s not at all surprising that you find similarities, it has a lot of the vocal layering from ‘The distance’, and at the same time it resembles some of the use of pads from ”tpdoalbs”, so maybe it’s the missing piece between those two records?
‘Sten & Glashus’ has this fantastic melancholic drive about it, what is it about and what tools do you like to work with to construct your productions?
‘Sten & Glashus’ is a song I originally sang with a band called KONTRABAND, so it’s really sort of a cover; it’s written by their frontman Peter Hageus, so I can only tell you my interpretation of it, but it’s this beautifully told story of just keeping your head down, pushing through, not having it in you to take on anything more than what’s already on your plate.
Making it through life when life really doesn’t deliver on what was promised. Everything except the vocals on that one is made with FL Studio Mobile. This is why I’ll never be proper ”synth” I guess. I care very little about what tools I use, I only want to make my songs, as true to my vision as possible. But then again, Dave Gahan said the same thing in an interview once, so maybe there’s hope for me yet?
There’s the surprise of guitar on ‘Faller vi’ that is quite countrified, how did this happen?
Again, I just want to make my songs, giving them the best presentation I can muster. Sometimes that means doing it all on my phone, in this case it required slide guitar from before mentioned Peter Hageus. I just wanted to add a new element of like emptiness… it’s a song that takes place during Fall, in the smell of damp dead leaves. I wanted something organic that felt like faint bursts of wind in those dead leaves. And he really delivered on that request!
You’ve shown yourself to be adept at cover versions, with songs as different as ‘Förlåt’ by PAGE, ‘Hong Kong Garden’ by Siouxsie and ‘Goodbye’ by Mary Hopkin, how do you choose what ones you will interpret?
I typically try to avoid doing covers close to my own genre, ‘Förlåt’ being the exception. Both ‘Goodbye’ and ‘Hong Kong Garden’ were picked for me, which made them even more challenging to find my own take on, but ‘Goodbye’ in particular I fell quite in love with. I listen to a lot of music from all kinds of genres, so when it comes to my own choices, I just pick the ones that I love and believe I can do something different with.
So far I’ve done songs by artists like Björk, VIOLENT FEMMES, THE CURE and Miley Cyrus along with Swedish heroes of mine like BRAINPOOL, WANNADIES, POPSICLE, KENT and others. I mostly do them as treats for my live shows, but with those you’ve mentioned, they’ve found their way to compilations as well. I often aim to try to keep the structure close to the original, but once that is built, I stop listening to the original until I’m finished. By then I often realise I’ve forgotten certain parts, or thrown the lyrics around, but I think that shows how my brain interpreted the song, so all mistakes stay.
Photo by Anders Nord
THE VOLT was a project with Eddie Bengtsson to do nuclear Armageddon themed covers that just lasted one single; ‘Thirteen Men’ was originally a bluesy tune ‘Thirteen Women & One Man’ written and performed by Dickie Thompson, so how did you both approach a synthesized version from a female perspective?
We actually have more music hidden in our safe… we’ll see if we pick up that thread again. I really enjoyed this project, it gave me an opportunity to sing in a different way than normally, adding that Cold War swag to it, and again, trying to make the rigidness that can be electronic music go full on organic. Plus it was a collaboration where Eddie made the music when I sang, and I made the music when he sang. It was wild producing, we both have strong opinions and are used to being in total control of our craft so to speak. But the result was really something!
Eddie Bengtsson hates the term “synthpop” and coined “indietronica” for DIY pop music using synths, how would you like your music to be described to help with algorithms and getting your work heard?
I don’t want to help the algorithms… but yeah, I think Eddie’s right on this one, I very much make indietronica. I come from the indie scene, I like the grittier, not so polished sound, I don’t care much for perfection, I just crave the intended feeling to be conveyed. I tried to describe it like this: “shoes full of indie, a capful of synthpop, a mitten full of annoyance and a heart rate that never goes below 120 BPM. I burn the bad and the good as best I can, boil it down to sugar syrup and mix it in a drink together with blip-blops and melancholy and call that drink COMPUTE”; but my guess is the algorithms lose focus somewhere around ”mittens” and move on to someone mentioning seeing their microwave just hit 2:42!
For those who are new to COMPUTE, what 3 songs would you select as starters for them to check out?
I would probably go with ’Dawning Days’, ‘On My Own’ and ‘Närmare’. Maybe starting with ‘On My Own’. I think those three songs paint a pretty good picture of what I do, and I actually really like all of them. And they all lack that proper pop-song construction, so if you make it through those, you know what not to expect. Then I would maybe play ‘All Walk By’ and finish up with ‘Dance With Me’, just to prove I actually know what a chorus is!
What is next for you, either as COMPUTE or in collaboration?
Like I mentioned, I actually have an album ready, waiting for mastering right now. I decided to bring in some help and outside views in the mixing process this time, we’ll see when we feel ready for that reveal. But it’s back to English, with a theme of failure and loss. So fun for everyone!
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Ulrika Mild
Paul Statham is undoubtedly the silent success story of the ‘Some Bizzare Album’.
The guitarist of B-MOVIE who also comprised Steve Hovington (vocals + bass), Rick Holliday (keyboards) and Graham Boffey (drums), their track ‘Moles’ was included alongside DEPECHE MODE, SOFT CELL, BLANCMANGE and THE THE on the iconic futurist showcase compiled by DJ Stevo Pearce that was released in early 1981.
Signing to Phonogram via Some Bizzare, despite an imperial trio of singles ‘Remembrance Day’, ‘Marilyn Dreams’ and ‘Nowhere Girl’, the quartet were unable to get their deserved mainstream chart breakthrough and as the band fragmented, the B-MOVIE story became just that. Although a belated album ‘Forever Running’ would emerge in 1985, the remaining founding duo of Hovington and Statham disbanded B-MOVIE not long after.
Photo by Peter Ashworth
In 1988, Statham found solace in Peter Murphy who had recently gone solo after 4 studio albums fronting goth trailblazers BAUHAUS. Becoming Murphy’s main songwriting partner over 4 successive albums, during the making of the 1995 album ‘Cascade’, Statham met producer Pascal Gabriel who proposed working together on a more dance oriented “ABBA meets THE KLF” type of project; starting out as NEURONIC and with the addition of dance and vocalist Lisa Lamb, they would become the electropop trio PEACH whose song ‘On My Own’ was featured during a key scene in the Gwyneth Paltrow movie ‘Sliding Doors’.
PEACH would become a springboard for Statham to find considerable success as a songwriter and producer, working with artists as diverse as Kylie Minogue, Rachel Stevens, Dot Allison, Dido, Sarah Nixey, Lisa Scott-Lee, Tina Arena, Shelly Poole, and Gabriella Cilmi as well THE SATURDAYS, BANANARAMA, RIGHT SAID FRED and SIMPLE MINDS.
Photo by Adrian Green
In parallel to his songwriting and production career, the original line-up of B-MOVIE reformed in 2004 while in 2009, Statham started his dark country project THE DARK FLOWERS. There has also been a series of solo experimental electronic albums in parallel to launching his own label Loki Records.
Despite releasing two new albums ‘The Age of Illusion’ (2013) and ‘Climate of Fear’ (2016) since their reformation, talk always returned to B-MOVIE’s Some Bizzare period with demand for their imperial trilogy of singles to be made available in the digital era. Those three singles plus 7 previously unreleased recordings from between 1981-1982 were digitised and restored to create the debut “that never was”. Titled ‘Hidden Treasures’, it presented documentary evidence as to why back in the day, the major record labels were clamouring for B-MOVIE’s signature.
Thanks to the positive reception for ‘Hidden Treasures’, another compilation album is planned focussing on ‘The Age of Illusion’, ‘Climate of Fear’ and latter era of B-MOVIE which Statham says will feature “more of the time and songs when I co-wrote a lot more with Steve and produced the tracks”.
After the recent B-MOVIE show in London, Paul Statham sat down to offer some insightful commentary on 20 career highlights selected by ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK from his long and varied music career.
B-MOVIE Moles (1981)
“We were always amazed at how fast Rick could play solos!” said Statham of B-MOVIE’s ‘Some Bizzare Album’ breakthrough, “Recorded at Studio Playground Wragby, we felt like a proper band in this 8 track studios with a live room. The fact we travelled there from Mansfield unified us. In Andy Dransfield, we had a sympathetic producer/engineer who more to the point would buy us a round of drinks in the village pub. All good bands bond in the pub!”
Originally from the ‘Some Bizzare Album’ (V/A), now available on the B-MOVIE expanded CD + digital album ‘Hidden Treasures’ via Wanderlust Records
“Terrible press shot in a fake desert setting that became the back cover” remembered Statham of the standalone single ‘A Letter from Afar’ which was based around his sequencer programming on a Roland JX3P and a ghostly SIMPLE MINDS-type pad on the intro; “During the London recording, producer Jellybean Benitez invited me to New York to finish adding parts. We worked out of Sigma Studios, I got an insight into how professional musicians can add to the song”.
Available on the B-MOVIE album ‘The Platinum Collection’ via Warner Music
“I loved writing music for Peter” said Statham of his partnership with the BAUHAUS front man, “He is highly individualistic, it was always great waiting to hear how he shaped tracks I’d give to him”. Sometimes just a few chords and sometimes fully formed backing tracks”. The guitars on the verse chord progression of ‘Roll Call – Reprise’ paid homage to Iggy Pop while there was a sombre synth brass close; “Peter later said the ‘With Your Red Shirt’ lyric was about me going out clubbing!”
Available on the PETER MURPHY album ‘Deep’ via Beggars Banquet Records
“Things went south a little with Peter’s management on ‘Cascade’” recalled Statham, “so Pascal Gabriel offered me a way out to start a Europop band with him, big bright and bold and he would go play it to Daniel Miller at Mute and get us a deal… hard to believe but that was exactly what happened. Daniel gave us a deal on the spot, with just 2 backing tracks and no singer”. The vocals on ‘Heaven’ came from session singer Anna Ross, now touring with DURAN DURAN.
‘Heaven’ was originally released as a NEURONIC single via Interpop / Mute Records, currently unavailable
“NEURONIC quickly morphed into PEACH with the addition of the lovely Lisa Lamb… Lisa Cougar would be a better fit, she would laugh at that, believe me! We changed direction, producing electronic symphonies and kitchen sink dramas that led to the first single ‘On My Own’ going into the film ‘Sliding Doors’ and giving us a bona fide US Billboard hit single peaking at #11 on the pop airplay charts” Statham said but “We promptly split up after supporting ERASURE.”
Available on the PEACH album ‘Audiopeach’ via Mute Records
“I bought the ONE DOVE album that Dot Allison sang on and she looked so elegantly cool on the cover… I wondered how on earth do I meet singers like that to work with!” pondered Statham, “Then here she was! Mike Sault, our respective publisher set up a co-write with Pascal and me. I really found a niche here, writing tracks with strings, synths and electric guitars with Pascal providing big beats! Dot is a great writer, anything with the word ‘Satellite’ in is always a good lyric!”
Available on the DOT ALLISON album ‘Afterglow’ via Heavenly Records
Inspired by Brian Eno’s ‘Apollo’ album, this was a life changer for Statham: “Dido was an occasional backing vocalist in her brother Rollo’s band FAITHLESS. The Dot Allison single had laid the groundwork and ‘Here With Me’ was a sophisticated cousin to ‘Close Your Eyes’. Dido has a beautiful voice, fully formed, everything she sang sounded cool!. It became the opening theme to the US TV series ‘Roswell’. Having a big hit like this was without a doubt a very nice feeling.”
Available on the DIDO album ‘No Angel’ via Arista / BMG
“Writing with Kylie was undoubtably a high point” said Statham, “Back then, it wasn’t file sharing and a day with the artist, we had a full week of writing together. Just sitting with her and writing lyrics was a little ‘pinch yourself’ moment, especially when she dropped me at the pub in front of friends! She is extremely hardworking and yet unfailingly polite. In hindsight we should have gone more electronic, especially as we had an early listen to ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’.”
Available on the KYLIE MINOGUE album ‘Fever’ via EMI Music
“It seems that writing with very attractive women became almost normal!” Statham said on the call to provide a song for the now-solo SCLUB7 starlet’s second album, “But I never met Rachel Stevens. The track was predominantly written with Pascal and Hannah Robinson, a great writer too. I love the electro pulse and the dry drum sound in this track, her vocal delivery has a sort of strange indifference that suits the sombre lyric about a dead friend.”
Available on the RACHEL STEVENS album ‘Come & Get It’ via Polydor Records
“Sarah Nixey was a joy to work with, she was indie-influenced and great fun too” said Statham of the former vocalist of BLACK BOX RECORDER who liked to project a stern persona, “There was no real remit here, we wrote 3 songs together over a period and I found her lyrics to be intelligent and offbeat at the same time. My original version wasn’t as programmed as the final mix and had a more organic leaning which I feel better suited the song”.
Available on the SARAH NIXEY album ‘Sing, Memory’ via ServiceAV
Statham was invited to work with THE SATURDAYS on their debut album: “Having only a small, converted bedroom as a studio was a challenge with all 5 girls and my friend / co-writer Hannah Robinson, a challenge I was happy to accept! They were enthusiastic and hardworking, Una and Vanessa were great singers too. The song had a Motown feel with a great melodic arc through leading to a strong chorus, it was mixed with a more electronic feel to the demo.”
Available on THE SATURDAYS album ‘Chasing Lights’ via Polydor Records
Having reformed in 2004, a new B-MOVIE long player emerged in 2013: “A favourite of mine from an overlooked album, written by Steve and produced by myself, it has a dark quality that goes against the more uptempo feel of the album. Here, working predominantly in a sparsely produced electronic vein, we got it right. I played most of the keyboards as well on this album as Rick had begun to get disillusioned… the opposite to the title and Rick liked to swim upstream!”
THE DARK FLOWERS Radioland featuring JIM KERR (2013)
Conceived whilst Statham was reading Sam Shepard’s ‘Motel Chronicles’ and listening to an instrumental album ‘The Hired Hand’ by Bruce Langhorne featuring old instruments left out to weather in the same US deserts, he said of THE DARK FLOWERS: “It involved me mixing Eno sequences electronics with piano / banjo and found sound. Jim nailed this perfectly, a slightly Bowie vocal for the dark tale of a man who inhabits an imaginary ‘Radioland’.”
Available on THE DARK FLOWERS album ‘Radioland’ via Lojinx
“As huge SIMPLE MINDS fans, Steve Hovington and I saw them numerous times” said Statham, “my younger self would find it hard to believe Jim would become a good friend and I would write tracks with him! Based around the bassline that echoes Gina X ‘No GDM’, I tried to evoke the early feel of SIMPLE MINDS. An instrumental demo was passed on to Jim in a chain link of 4 different friends of friends and he called me straight away on hearing it and was in my studio a week later!”
Available on SIMPLE MINDS album ‘Big Music’ via Demon Music Group
Statham’s more experimental work came after meeting art curator Victor De Circasia in their daughters’ school playground: “I became involved in the world of painters and sculptors, where I would be commissioned to write music to accompany an exhibition or as part of the installation” he said, “‘Asylum’ was music that was based initially from these interactions acting as an almost palimpsest that I overlaid and sculpted, so the original idea was covered multiple times”.
Available on PAUL STATHAM album ‘Asylum’ via Loki Records
“A real gem and one that we should go back to!” said Statham of the best B-MOVIE song of their reunion era, “this was also a very creative time and we released a lot of one-off songs that were great to produce and write and that went down well with fans and live too. I put it in the same feel as ‘A Letter From Afar’ in that it is sequencer-driven, lyrics musing on the folly of war with a slight Eastern feel in some of the melodic instrumental passages.”
Available on B-MOVIE EP ‘Repetition’ via Loki Records
“To be updated!” confirmed Statham on AFTER THE RAIN, “I wanted to release my own project that had some vocal element and at that time not wanting to use my own voice, this went down the route of Moby’s ‘Play’ album, using old vocals lifted from Blues and Gospel. It was never fully released on streaming platforms, but I remain committed in 2025 to releasing these tracks, mixed properly and continuing in an 80s electro feel with my own vocals and guests.”
THE DARK FLOWERS Dead & Lovely featuring THE ANCHORESS (2021)
From an interim Murder Ballad covers EP, the highlight was this Tom Waits song: “I asked long-time collaborator Catherine Anne Davies aka THE ANCHORESS to do this version” Statham said, ”Catherine always sings so well but I feel my production was not quite right on this. It’s way too happy and synthetic in places. The main problem is that it’s a very long song and the narrative arc is necessary to tell the tale, but I did almost edit it down!”
The songwriting module leader at Solent University, Statham became friends with experimental music module colleague Dan Pennie: “He is a fabulous guitarist with his own outfit NOISE IN YOUR EYE. I had conceived these tracks as a follow-up to ‘Asylum’ but once I sent one to Dan, and he added guitar loops to run through the track, it made sense for the album to go down this avenue, making it less predictable with some unexpected rhythm and textures from his guitar playing”
Coming back to the here and now, Statham was working with SIMPLE MINDS again: “My writing with Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill for me is one of the highlights of my career in music. Jim has an iconic voice and Charlie is one the three inspirational guitarists to me, the others being John McGeoch and Robin Simon. Predominantly keyboard led with a KRAFTWERK-style pulse and a dark meditation on fame, that they chose it as a standalone single made my year”.
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