“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
After two instrumental albums, the new Hilary Woods record ‘Night CRIÚ’ sees her return to songs and singing.
Written and produced by Hilary Woods, ‘Night Criú’ was mixed by Dean Hurley, best known for his work with the late David Lynch and a number of artists on the Italians Do It Better label. It features an international cast too with contributions from The Hangleton brass band and children’s choir from Brighton, violinist Oliver Turvey, Portugese percussionist Gabriel Ferrandini and Slovak flautist Ajo Gonsenica.
As the title suggests, this is an emotive nocturnal work, but while its predecessor ‘Acts of Light’ was drenched in monochrome, ‘Night Criú’ sees bursts of colour emerge from the shadows. While sparse in structure, the 7 songs have a breathy expansive depth of feeling and sonic artistry, the lyrics are themed around what it means to be human in the face of tyranny and oppression. There are also influences from Czech and Italian cinema, the revival of indigenous language and Hilary Woods’ own growing up in Ireland with its history of processions and parades.
The haunting ‘Voce’ combines scratchy cello, solemn drones and funereal beats while the minimal ‘Faults’ is also drone laden with a gentle backbone, Woods sounding fragile yet beautiful with the surprise of a distant brass band punctuating the frozen air.
On the eerie ‘Endgames’, there are hints of sparkles within its foreboding drama. Although initially stripped down to the bone of a deep acoustic guitar, ‘Brightly’ builds its mood as bowed orchestrations tear at the heartstrings, recalling GOLDFRAPP’s ‘Deer Stop’. Circling around a percussive loop of what appears to be pots and pans, ‘Taper’ is the sound of Nancy Sinatra if she had been born in Eastern Europe and when the children’s choir comes in, the moment is simply spine tingling!
A collection of choirs set to a drone, ‘Offerings’ is more an experimental montage acting as an interlude before the closer ‘Shelter’; this is Hilary Woods’ own ‘Mysteries Of Love’ and an exquisite conclusion to ‘Night Criú’.
Hilary Woods said: “Each record is a life buoy, a raft, a snapshot, a marker in the sand, a date that requires me to meet it. Making records is a way of being”. Immersed in artistic integrity, this is a wonderfully grainy filmic record that mourns and reclaims a lost innocence all at the same time. A gentle aural ceremony of light and shade, ‘Night Criú’ is something to savour.
Marrying the pleasure with the pain, A THOUSAND MAD THINGS is the solo synth artist William Barradale who finds solace in untempered expression.
He has already impressed by opening for THE HUMAN LEAGUE earlier this year on Brighton Beach while thanks to a licensing deal, he is also label mates at Nettwerk Music Group with LADYTRON. ‘Cry & Dance’ is the debut EP release from A THOUSAND MAD THINGS and takes listeners on a shadowy journey through adolescent memories, queer love and loneliness.
With his haunted demeanour and navigating young manhood as a tortured outsider, William Barradale’s vocal delivery falls under the spectre of those late doomed romantics Billy MacKenzie of ASSOCIATES and Trevor Herion of THE FALLOUT CLUB.
‘Wide Awake’ at first comes over like the generic darkwave that has afflicted electronic pop over the past few years but victory is snatched from defeat with a soaring chorus to savour. ‘Girl’ focusses on deeper resonances and takes its lead from SUICIDE in its bass line but ‘Local Guys’ is embroiled in tension as Barradale showcases his emotional range as he reflects on the violent turns of former acquaintances.
Rhythmically ‘She’s on the Run’ is shaped by that classic synthpop bounce with piercing string machines while to close ‘Cry & Dance’, ‘My Car’ percussively recalls ‘Fade To Grey’ with hints of OMD in the melancholy stakes.
Possibly the most promising male UK synth act since MIRRORS, it will be interesting to see where A THOUSAND MAD THINGS goes and where William Barradale takes things next following this enjoyable short and sharp debut EP.
Jerome Froese, the sound architect who fuses electronics, guitar and emotion is back with his fourth solo album ‘Sunsets in Stereo’.
Formally a member of TANGERINE DREAM alongside his father Edgar, he has also made music as LOOM with another former TD member Johannes Schmoelling as well as collaborating with Claudia Brücken with whom he released an album ‘Beginn’ in 2018.
Embellishing his trademark guitartronica sound, Jerome Froese has brought in additional influences from post-rock and dreampop for ‘Sunsets in Stereo’ which sees him explore themes of resilience, reflection, and hope.
Photo by Anja Kathmann
To a sunset strum, ‘Hope’ develops into a burst of guitar layered chill out with female voices to start before ‘Lemonade Clouds’ adds more prominent drums and rocks out in a livelier concoction. But ‘The Clock That Forgot Time’ explores more electronic climes with cascading synths and shimmers over a strident drama for an early album highlight.
The ivory dressed ‘Where We Belong’ is gentler with sparing guitar textures recalling Robin Guthrie’s ambient work initially although these six string interventions get louder alongside the progressive trapped percussion. ‘Flowers and Skywriters’ is a piece that grooves in its rhythmic shuffle and develops into a rock jam with plenty of soloing but with something of an electronic bounce, ‘A Game of Hearts, Played with Fire’ sees the female voice return but in a more cooing fashion which might surprise some, although the kerrang makes its presence felt.
After that, the ‘Sunsets in Stereo’ title track is more laid back before ‘Blow the Fuse, Ignore the Galaxy’ does exactly just that in its explosive tension. ‘Feel Your Ghosts’ does the full metal racket after a sedate start although as if the best is saved until last, ‘Endless Sympathy’ is wonderfully floaty and spacey but as it reaches the middle phase, the space gets rocky but as waves of flute drift into the mood, there’s a canter before the full stop.
“It’s about overcoming the noise – both inside and out – and rediscovering beauty in chaos” says Jerome Froese as he reaffirms his place bridging the past and the future with this cinematic and deeply personal album. ‘Sunsets in Stereo’ provides a combination of noisier guitar-derived textures and brighter electronic soundscapes in a manner that will be appreciated by those who prefer their ambient on the rockier spectrum.
‘Sunsets in Stereo’ is released by Moonpop on 31st October 2025 in CD and digital formats
Seattle’s Tom Shear released his debut album as ASSEMBLAGE 23 in 1999.
Released on the Canadian label Gashed, ‘Contempt’ was a cult hit in Germany as it rode on a wave of dark electronic dance music alongside acts such as VNV NATION, PROJECT PITCHFORK, COVENANT and APOPTYGMA BERZERK that fell under the umbrella of futurepop. Signing to Metropolis Records which has been Shear’s home since 2001, ‘Contempt’ was reissued along with second album ‘Failure’ to build and consolidate ASSEMBLAGE 23’s reputation as one of the leading exponents of a movement dominated by European acts.
With deeply personal and relatable lyrical gists often broaching difficult subjects such as suicide and depression, ASSEMBLAGE 23 became a constant on underground dancefloors and at alternative music festivals. The albums ‘Defiance’, ‘Storm’ and ‘Meta’ maintained the standard while ‘Compass’ in 2009 contained what has now become the fan favourite ‘Spark’. 2012’s ‘Bruise’ saw a move towards a more mature sound but 2016 ‘Endure’ went back to the harder electronic sound following Shear’s 2014 more EBM-centric side project SURVEILLANCE.
The new album ‘Null’ is the tenth by ASSEMBLAGE 23, but the first since the pandemic afflicted ‘Mourn’ in 2020. Ahead of its release, Tom Shear toured the UK with his wife and HELIX partner Mari Kattman in support to preview tracks; he chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the making of ‘Null’ before the London show at The Dome.
It’s been 5 years since ‘Mourn’, how do you look back on the making and reception for that album?
It was a very strange time to be making an album because that was during the pandemic when I started it. On one hand, it was the ideal situation because you are stuck inside and can’t do anything else; the concentration was in a way, a nice thing. But it also made things very difficult when it came time to ship the album and merch. All the shipping supply chains were really screwed up. There were a lot of delays but fortunately the fans were very understanding.
The new album ‘Null’ was much more of a positive experience as far as putting it together because it didn’t have these complicated circumstances surrounding it.
How was the title ‘Null’ chosen and did it set the concept for the record?
I wouldn’t say there’s a unifying concept through all of the songs… whereas a lot of prior ASSEMBLAGE 23 stuff is very internally focussed, this is more “the world has gone crazy” although it is partially internally focussed because how do you navigate that situation? But ‘Null’ is a bit more social commentary than there has been in the past.
The name ‘Null’, I thought it would be funny to call the tenth album “zero” but I also like the fact that the concept of “zero” or “nothing” really depends on the context. If you go to the doctor and the treatment works and there’s no more sign of cancer or something, that’s the best news you can get. But if there’s no money left or whatever, it can have a negative connotation and I like that about language, about how context can completely change the meaning behind it.
You’re touring before the album is out, it’s kinda the wrong way round now, was that intentional?
We started booking these shows before I really knew what the release date was going to be… the album took me a little longer than I’d anticipated. The timing is not ideal but it kinda good to preview these songs in a live environment. People absorb music in a different way when it’s something that they know versus something that they don’t. So far the reactions to new songs have been really positive, so I hope that will hold true for when the album comes out.
‘Tolerate’ is very on point in the current climate?
Things have just become increasingly divided, obviously I’m viewing it from the US perspective but I think this is true in Europe as well. It’s gotten to the point where it’s really fractured relationships, not just from a political level. Some of these views might be seen as so abhorrent that I don’t want anything to do with somebody who believes in something that is so harmful. I think unfortunately it’s a common experience.
Have you ever heard of The Paradox Of Intolerance? If you tolerate intolerance, then tolerance will cease to exist because the intolerance will wipe it out. So the point is, somebody who considers themselves tolerant has a limit… that line, once it’s crossed, I can’t engage with them anymore because their views are not just different from mine, they’re directly harmful to certain populations.
Nothing is really black and white at the end of the day. The unfortunate thing is that your average person out there doesn’t navigate nuance very well, like they want things to be black and white… but at the end of the day, I think that there are other groups that have other interests.
I’d say it’s in the ultra-wealthy’s best interests if we are fighting about something else rather than they are robbing everybody… the poor are getting poorer, the rich are getting richer… we are now seeing obscene wealth, like more money than anyone needs! I feel there are issues to deal with in immigration and racism but at the end of the day, those are tools being used by people who want to keep their way of life… it is greed at the end of the day!
This keeps the people distracted, because there’s a lot more of us… I say that in one of the songs called ‘Overthrow’ and it sounds it’s about overthrowing the government but it’s about overthrowing the system of wealth and equality. That’s why a lot of this stuff happens, it’s happened perpetually throughout history, it’s just the marginalised groups that are targeted changes with time.
It’s the “divide and rule” mentality… so have you yourself hit ‘The Line’?
Oh yes! Absolutely! The song is talking about difference in politics but I’ve had it in other cases where there are people that were friends who I found out were domestic abusers… I knew someone who I found out was screwing minors! So the song is in the interest of not having it be too unfocussed, it focusses on politics but I think there are lots of different times where you have to evaluate whether you want to keep these people in your life or do you really need to let them go…
‘Lunatics’ is self-explanatory… but which lunatics are you referring to, the messengers or the ones believing the message?
‘Lunatics’ is more focussed on the people in power, leadership, the oligarchs who are buying influence and the media who are complicit in spreading those messages, aiding and abetting them in those goals! They are the people who are using other easily influenced people to further their agendas. But I guess the reason why is because those people can do the most damage and the most harm, simply because they have the most resources to do so. Obviously both sides are part of that equation and one doesn’t work without the other.
‘Gone’ has got this fabulous chill, is the song personal or more a narrative?
I am turning 54 years old and as you age, one of the unfortunate things about that is the list of people who you know and who die grows… I have, especially in the last couple of years, had a lot of people gone before their time. So the song is about that, looking at the loss of people in your life that just increases the older you get… the experience of losing someone and then almost forgetting about it, but you see something that reminds you of them… you relive the moment but there’s the grief because they are not there anymore. You think enough time has passed for your brain to make peace, but that’s the line about how “you’re gone and I can’t reach you and I wish that I knew why…”
For this ‘Null’ campaign, you have become more active on social media, is that all Mari’s doing?
Yeah, she was a big influence with that because I thought she did a spectacular job with her own social media promotion for her album ‘Year Of The Katt’. I really wanted to dial back from social media because I think it’s a net harmful influence in just about every way. But it IS the de facto method of promotion these days, so you have to play along and make us of it. Mari was definitely influential in that, I watched what she was doing and saw she did such a good job, it got a really great response so that was the model I followed.
How are you maintaining your enthusiasm for playing live as ASSEMBLAGE 23 after nearly 30 years?
Our first show was 1996! Obviously, the shows increased with frequency after that… the role of live performance has changed a lot, as the music industry has changed, to where it is the primary area that you’re going to make money unless you are lucky enough to get a song licensed to a movie or video game. Some individuals do very well with streaming despite the fact that it pays very poorly. But I think the experience of the average musician is that doesn’t form a significant portion of their income. In that sense, playing live becomes more important but it’s not just about selling T-shirts, this is your main chance to have some income from what you’re doing.
How are you doing on vinyl because when ASSEMBLAGE 23 started releasing albums, they would have been on CD, unlike say DEPECHE MODE?
It’s been doing great, I’ve had pre-orders for ‘Null’ open for a couple of months now… we’ve done vinyls in the past and they’ve always done well but I feel like this time, it’s doing even better than it has before.
I’m not a vinyl person myself but I get it… the crackles and stuff just adds a bit of aesthetic to it, it’s pretty unique. Also, I think we’re about to see a shift in things where people seem to be getting back to physical media because they’re exhausted from all these different streaming services and you don’t own it! If you don’t pay your subscription fee, it’s gone. People are starting to realise after some time that they like more of the permanence that physical media provides.
What about CD sales these days?
Previous tours, we would go out with hundreds of CDs and we would have to restock halfway through and come home with just a handful of them. But the last full US tour we did in 2016, we had a lot of CDs left over… it probably took a year to finally sell those. There are people who still like this format to consume their music but in a weird way, I think CDs have become autograph receptacles… you can’t sign a stream or an MP3! So for a lot of people, especially when you are playing live, the CD is almost a souvenir, you can’t count on somebody to go home and search you on Bandcamp, so you might lose sales by not having something right there that can immediately be picked up and bought as a keepsake.
Imagine if you ever had the energy and willing to do a Tom Shear event with ASSEMBLAGE 23, SURVEILLANCE, HELIX and Mari Kattman all in the line-up, who would you like as your special guest in this fantasy festival?
Gary Numan, that would be a great choice. The reason is he’s really responsible for me getting into electronic music. When I was 10 years old, I was at my cousin’s house and there was a Top40 countdown show and it was the week ‘Cars’ came out and charted in the US. It stopped me in my tracks because I’d never heard anything that sounded like that before! I didn’t know how to distinguish musical instruments, what was making the sounds, but I knew whatever it was, I wanted to be a part of it. It’s so interesting to me how a single moment can totally change the course of your life. I’ve made a living from this for decades now and it was that one moment that pushed me in that direction.
If you were to pick five tracks as an introduction to your career either as ASSEMBLAGE 23, SURVEILLANCE, HELIX or remixes to draw in newcomers, what would they be and why?
‘Disappoint’ from ‘Failure’ is an obvious choice, I feel like that was the track that really moved us up to another level.
‘Damaged’ off ‘Meta’ is another one that I think people relate to…
From ‘Storm’, I would say ‘30 Thousand Feet’ as well because a lot of people who hear it for the first time go “oh sh*t!”; the last US tour that we did, we ended the set with that and as people recognised the track, people went “oh-oh!” *laughs*
I would have to have some HELIX tracks in there, ’Hurt Like Me’ is one of my favourite ones to play live and I also love ‘The Beautiful Unseen’, I think it’s a really beautiful song.
You used to end shows, with a cover of INXS ‘Don’t Change’, but have you ever noticed how the synth leadline was virtually identical to ‘Bunker Soldiers’ by OMD?
I didn’t, I’ll have to listen again! *laughs*
I remember when I first saw you do ‘Don’t Change’ at Islington Academy in 2011, I thought you were covering OMD and it then morphed into this INXS song…
Who knows if it’s intentional or not, there’s only 12 notes to choose from so it’s inevitable there will be things that come out the same. At the end of the day, we like to romanticise it, but creating musically is being a clever thief, taking and choosing the parts that appeal to you. It might not be a direct one-to one copy but you might hear something and go “oh, that gives me the chills, I want to do something like that so I’ll take that”; you create this Frankenstein’s Monster of all your favourite things and put them together. But I would be curious as to the origin of ‘Don’t Change’ and whether INXS were OMD fans…
There’s always a debate as to whether ‘Die Hard’ is a Christmas film, so is ‘December’ from ‘Endure’ a Christmas song?
Hahaha! Obviously that wasn’t my motivation when I wrote it but I do have a memory of when I was a child, it’s such an awful story… it was Christmas morning and we had a dog who had been suffering from heartworms. We came downstairs and the dog had died under the Christmas tree! So you can imagine how traumatic that is and it was probably worse for my younger sister! Yeah, maybe there’s a subconscious link there! *laughs*
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Tom Shear
SOFT CELL instrumentalist Dave Ball sadly passed away in his sleep on 22nd October 2025, he was 66.
While he had not been in good health for a number of years, he had completed work on a new SOFT CELL album ‘Danceteria’ to be released in 2026 and performed with band mate Marc Almond at the Rewind Festival in Henley-on-Thames back in August.
Ball began his adventure in music with a Fender Telecaster guitar, twin stylus Stylophone and second hand Akai reel-to-reel tape recorder but when he purchased a MiniKorg 800DV duophonic synthesizer, he never looked back. Enrolling on a Fine Art degree at Leeds Polytechnic, on his first day he asked for directions from a second year student wearing a leopard skin printed shirt and gold lame jeans; that student was Marc Almond and the pair were to make history as SOFT CELL…
The rise of SOFT CELL to have the second biggest UK selling single of 1981 in their cover of the Northern Soul favourite ‘Tainted Love’ is more than well documented and led to an imperial phase where the duo scored no less than five Top4 UK hit singles with ‘Bedsitter’, ‘Say Hello Wave Goodbye’, ‘Torch’ and ‘What’ following on in little more than 12 months.
The debut SOFT CELL album ‘Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret’ produced by Mike Thorne was a triumph, but while it was the state-of-the-art NED Synclavier that dominated the aural template with the Roland TR808 providing the rhythmic backbone, it was Ball’s much more basic Roland Synthe-Bass SB100 which provided the record with a very distinct sound.
But Ball and Almond were art school boys and expressed their discomfort with being pop starts and tabloid fodder. Inevitably, the next two albums ‘The Art Of Falling Apart’ and ‘This Last Night In Sodom’ captured that implosion. Although SOFT CELL disbanded in 1984 with Almond going solo and Ball eventually finding solace in the burgeoning house scene, side projects had been part of SOFT CELL’s agenda from the start.
While Almond would have MARC & THE MAMBAS, Ball would produce VICIOUS PINK PHENOMENA and release a solo album ‘In Strict Tempo’ featuring guest vocalists Genesis P-Orridge of THROBBING GRISTLE and Gavin Friday of VIRGIN PRUNES, as well as providing keyboards and “Rhythm Assistance” on CABARET VOLTAIRE’s 1983 album ‘The Crackdown’.
The association with VIRGIN PRUNES would continue with production on 1986’s ‘The Moon Looked Down & Laughed’ but in 1988, he formed THE GRID with Richard Norris after the pair had worked with Genesis P-Orridge’s PSYCHIC TV on the ‘Jack the Tab – Acid Tablets Volume One’ album; THE GRID’s first album ‘Electric Head’ in 1989 featured the chill-out classic ‘Floatation’ and the more disco-oriented ‘A Beat Called Love’ which both in their remixed single forms entered the lower reaches of the charts.
During this time, there was also a reunion with Almond on his 1991 album ‘Tenement Symphony’ to co-write three of the album’s best songs ‘Meet Me In My Dreams’, ‘I’ve Never Seen Your Face’ and ‘My Hand Over My Heart’, planting seeds for an eventual first reunion.
Ball and Norris became in-demand remixes and collaborators with remixes for PET SHOP BOYS, ERASURE and SPARKS as well as productions for Vic Reeves, Kylie Minogue and Billie Ray Martin, the latter’s No6 hit ‘In Your Loving Arms’ being one which Ball later told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK was one of the 5 tracks he felt the most satisfaction from, along with ‘Baby Doll’, ‘Floatation’, ‘My Hand Over My Heart’ and ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’.
Further remixes would be commissioned for David Bowie, David Sylvian & Robert Fripp, Brian Eno, Neil Arthur, Boy George Sophie B. Hawkins while THE GRID themselves would have their day in the UK Top3 with the cowpunk techno of ‘Swamp Thing’ in 1994.
SOFT CELL officially got back together for the start of the 21st Century and two brand new songs for 2002’s ‘Very Best of’ collection along with the ‘Cruelty Without Beauty’ album were duly delivered. But despite successfully playing festivals in Europe, an American tour did not go so well. There had been plans to do more shows and another record, but Almond had a motorcycle accident in 2004 which left him with very serious injuries. “That was it almost” said Ball to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK in 2018, “we sort of lost touch and didn’t speak for about 15 years…”
While Ball did form a new band NITEWRECKAGE and was among the last people to work with producer Martin Rushent on their 2011 album ‘Take Your Money And Run’, the legacy of SOFT CELL kept looming and a reunion could not be resisted; a show at London’s O2 Arena took place in 2018.
While it was billed as being “One Night, One Final Time”, the chemistry between Ball and Almond was rekindled, tentatively at first with a single ‘Northern Lights’, a ‘Non- Stop Erotic Cabaret’ 40th anniversary tour in 2021 and then an album ‘*Happiness Not Included’ the year after; one of the highlights was ‘Nighthawks’, a track that began life as a Dave Ball instrumental issued as a single with the boxed set of his autobiography ‘Electronic Boy’ and would feature his deep growly voice alongside that of Almond.
But Ball’s health began to take its toll and he was unable to perform at SOFT CELL shows from 2022 until he returned in Summer 2023 for a show at Hampton Court Palace Festival, performing in a motorised wheelchair; he had joked to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “Once I’m on stage and I’m locked in, so long as I don’t start wheeling backwards, I’ll be fine!”
As well as SOFT CELL, Ball had been working on new tracks for THE GRID with Richard Norris while ‘Ecce Homo’, an album he produced for Gavin Friday had been released in 2024. ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK had the pleasure of meeting Dave Ball on several occasions over the years and interviewed him three times … he will be missed.
Marc Almond said in his tribute on the SOFT CELL website: “Thank you Dave for being an immense part of my life and for the music you gave me. I wouldn’t be where I am without you” and it wouldn’t be unfair to say that without Dave Ball, PET SHOP BOYS probably wouldn’t be here either…
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