Author: electricityclub (Page 59 of 420)

“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

GEMMA CULLINGFORD Interview

9 August 2022 /

Just 13 months after her debut solo long player ‘Let Me Speak’, Norwich songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Gemma Cullingford will be presenting her second full-length album, ‘Tongue Tied’.

A member of acclaimed post-punk funk duo SINK YA TEETH, Gemma Cullingford’s solo career was accidental consequence of lockdown. ‘Let Me Speak’ was an autobiographical statement, stepping away from the collaborative format which began with indie band KAITO.

Using largely electronic instrumentation, ‘Let Me Speak’ steadily gained momentum by word of mouth with an unexpected snowball effect and its recent shortlisting in Loud Women’s Hercury Prize was the culmination of that acclaim. Now comes ‘Tongue Tied’, a more confident and polished follow-up that Cullingford says is “perhaps the fruits of that voyage of discovery…”, although the endearing emotions conveyed remain anxious and introspective yet joyous and defiant.

Taking a break from assembling the Dinked edition LP and CDs of ‘Tongue Tied’ with their accompanying zines and screen prints, Gemma Cullingford chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the motivations and inspirations behind the making of her new album.

Your debut album ‘Let Me Speak’ has just been shortlisted for the Loud Women Hercury Prize, how does that feel?

I feel very honoured! Cassie et al at Loud Women work so hard and do such a great job at championing female and trans artists and giving us a platform to be heard. There are a lot of great female artists out there and on the shortlist, so to be amongst them is quite something!

You released your first single with KAITO in 1998 while the debut SINK YA TEETH release came out in 2015, but there appears to have been a gap between 2006 to 2015, what was happening with you then?

I got a proper office job for the most of it, I needed some money and routine! Did a couple of bands GGGRITS and KOMIZA, decided I wanted to work in music so got some teaching qualifications and set up my own business offering ukulele lessons to primary school kids (which is still my job), dabbled in floristry and got obsessed with flowers for a couple of years.

Bass, guitar, ukulele, flute and synths is quite a wide ranging instrument portfolio, how would you describe your abilities with each?

Bass guitar will I think always be my main instrument. I feel most connected to that and when I play it on stage, it feels like an extra limb! Flute is from my childhood really. I got quite good at it but dropped it at high school for guitar, which I’m not great at as it has too many strings and frets for me. The flute is the only instrument I ever learned how to play properly with notation and music theory and stuff.

But in general I like to work things out my own way, I don’t like having to stick to rules. So although I consider myself fairly good on bass, I don’t know what the notes are or anything and wouldn’t be able to read music. Same with guitar. And with ukulele I learnt a little bit of tab but only enough to teach kids. I have no desire to progress much further on any instrument to be honest. I like working within a few restrictions. I’ve tried to play the flute live at my first ever gig but no notes would come out! I must have been breathing funny. So I’ve got rather rusty at that!

What encouraged you to take a more electronic dance direction for your solo work?

If you have a laptop with a DAW (I use Logic Pro X), you then have every instrument under the sun at your fingertips, and you don’t have to know how to play each instrument. I’ll sometimes plug my bass and guitar in but the majority of stuff is done on Logic. It can be done in my spare room, I don’t need tons of equipment, session musicians etc so it was perfect for lockdown! Also when writing both albums, I developed Rheumatoid arthritis and couldn’t play bass or guitar for a good few months, hence a lot of bass sounds are programmed. I appear to be over it now though thankfully, at least for the moment so I can play bass live again.

Has this been sort of the music you have always wanted to make, but maybe 25 years ago the technology wasn’t as portable and affordable, you haven’t been able to do it until now?

No, I’ve always made the music I’ve wanted to make regardless of the limitations I’ve had. Where there’s a will there’s a way! Electronic music just opens up so many more opportunities.

It wouldn’t surprise me if I end up going acoustic or more ‘bandy’ in the future but I don’t like to plan, so who knows what I’ll do?! (Hoping to have a bit of a break to be honest!)

You’re a SUPER FURRY ANIMALS fan so did you like Gruff Rhys’ electronic side project NEON NEON?

I must admit I never checked it out! Super Furries were very much an era of my life when I first started discovering cool music and they’ll always have a special place in my heart. But so many more discoveries followed so quickly, actually a lot of electronic music that I like now (perhaps embarrassingly), I only discovered very very recently. I was a post-punk fan followed by dreampop. But I’ve also always created music and when I’m creating, I try not to listen to other music as I don’t want to be too influenced by anything else, so I go through bouts of not listening to other music at all for months or years.

On ‘Let Me Speak’, you included a very original cover version of ‘Ode To Billie Joe’, how did that come into being?

I was making a playlist for my mum’s birthday and my boyfriend suggested ‘Ode to Billie Joe’. I’d never heard it before and was mesmerised by it. I loved the melody, the fact that it was quite a happy sounding song but the lyrics seemed quite dark. Then I read the lyrics and saw just how dark they are, and I kinda jokingly said I’d do a cover of it. And I did really quickly. It just came out! I had no idea that it was such a well-known and loved song and I’m sure to some Bobby Gentry fans think what I’ve done is sacrilegious, but there are plenty of covers of it out there!

‘Queen Bee’ was another highlight from ‘Let Me Speak’ and featured a closing instrumental synth passage that came over a bit like Gary Numan? What was your thinking?

I don’t really think when I’m writing! ‘Queen Bee’ was the first song I ever wrote on my own in the style I’ve become known for. I barely ever remember the actual writing process, but I would imagine I found a synth sound and just played whatever my fingers came out with to the drum track. It’s usually about finding a sound I like, one that speaks to me at that moment in time and then just seeing what comes out of me! There’s little to zero planning with me. I’m just not that organised. If I did have a plan, whatever I write would come out completely differently anyway.

Has the positive reception for ‘Let Me Speak’ surprised you as something of an indie music veteran? Do you have a key memory from the making of the album?

The positive reception has surprised (and delighted) me but not as an indie music veteran. The only indie music if you can call it that would her been through being in KAITO, and I still take a lot of influence from those days. Particularly the creative writing process, and approaching sounds in an experimental way. The noise comes from those days, and some of the minimalism in places does too.

I didn’t really set out to make an album, it just kinda evolved as I had a bunch of songs. I do remember it going from “I have enough songs for an album (in fact more)” to “maybe I’ll pop them on Bandcamp under an anonymous moniker?” to “I wonder if Outré would put it out digitally?” to “Outré are gonna release it on vinyl” to “I think I’ll just use my own name actually” to “It’s just a studio album though, not gonna play live” to now I have a second album out and am touring and enjoying playing live!

The new album ‘Tongue Tied’ is out on September 2nd and the title song has this glorious Walking On Thin Ice’ art disco vibe, but what was its actual inspiration, musically and lyrically?

All my songs start with the music. Lyrics aren’t really my thing. Musically I THINK it came from me taking my (B side to ‘Wide Boys’) track ‘104’ and messing around with it until I came up with something completely new. My boyfriend provided the lyrics knowing that I often get tongue tied and mince my words so he knew they’d mean something to me.

I knew I wanted it to be quite poppy so the melody I remember coming up with while singing to myself walking my dog. It’s where a few melodies have happened actually! I do love ‘Walking on Thin Ice’ and was listening to it a lot around then, so I guess it did rub off! Not intentionally though. See that’s why I try not to listen to much music when I’m writing, I soak up inspiration like a sponge but I want everything to be my own when it comes out!

‘Holding Dreams’ features a wonderful blend of icy synths, hypnotic bass and wispy vocals to a good beat, what was the genesis of this idea?

I’ve no idea! It probably just all developed round the live bass line.

Again I wanted something quite catchy so this one has a double chorus which I do remember humming whilst walking my dog again.

‘Accessory’ is a bit like mutant Giorgio Moroder but where did that subtle textural guitar solo come from?

I don’t generally like guitar solos like that, too blokey for me, so I wanted to incorporate one into a song and use it and mould it to suit me and put me at ease with it. My boyfriend suggested his friend Phil Searchfield for a guitar solo, so I sent him the drums and bass and he recorded the guitar solo from his house in Brussels.

It was perfect!! And in fact I didn’t have to chop it up, I just added some delay and reverb as it fitted perfectly and just felt so right. I love it now. Job done! Aim achieved!

Where does the phrase ‘Bass Face’ come from? There appears to be some A CERTAIN RATIO funk motifs too alongside your flute?

Yeah SINK YA TEETH toured quite a lot with ACR so there’s another example of me being influenced a lot! In fact Martin Moscrop gave me some production mentoring for this album! I think ‘Bass Face’ was one of his favourites. I wanted a flute on the album somewhere to connect it with my debut album.

‘Bass Face’ was actually initially gonna be a much more stripped down instrumental on ‘Let Me Speak’, but it didn’t fit in with the rest of the album so I saved it and revisited it for ‘Tongue Tied’. The name ‘Bass Face’ occurred due to the kinda talking synth noise I use on it, which sounds to me like they’re saying “Bass Face” (they’re not. They’re not actually saying anything!), and what with bass being my instrument, I thought I’d go with it. It also conjures up images to me of funny faces bass players sometimes pull, like her from HAIM! Ha ha!

‘New Day’ has quite an unusual structure with some great synth hooks while the vocal veers between BLACK BOX RECORDER and SAINT ETIENNE?

Another one I wrote the music to years ago when I was living back at my parents’ house and wrote it in my old bedroom which we turned into a temporary studio. I couldn’t work out a top line for it for love nor money, but I started to think I wanted something delivered in a similar way to ‘West End Girls’ by PET SHOP BOYS. My boyfriend showed me a poem he’d written, and I read it to the music and it fitted! I did actually approach Neil Tennant to do the vocal on this song but he was “too busy” ha ha! You never know if you don’t try, right?

My vocal style is like that mainly because a) I’m not a strong singer and b) I get really embarrassed recording vocals and singing out loud in case my neighbours or my boyfriend can hear, so a lot of them are very whispery and gentle. If there are songs where I belt it out, then I must have had the house to myself that day!

‘No Fail’ goes fully into some deeper house vibes, which were your own favourite clubs or dance locations?

Ironically I don’t like going to dance clubs etc! I like to go to bed early and I’m a bit sensitive to noise and crowds. But I like to write music that others can dance to. I lived in Brighton for a bit so went to a couple of dance clubs there, but I’m happier with smaller clubs after a few drinks.

Anything I can play air guitar too and jump around to and get home before 1am is good for me. I don’t do much of that though, never really have! Rock ‘n’ roll!

‘Red Room’ is a highlight, there is so much going on, how was do you ensure it did not get too messy?

Thanks. Yeah I call this one my electro-glam SCISSOR SISTERS type of song. No idea how it’s not too messy, some may argue that it IS too messy! It’s another one where I wanted it to be quite ‘pop’. In fact, it started off as a ukulele song I’d written for 5 year olds, ha ha!

The ‘Tongue Tied’ album comes over as a much more confident record than ‘Let Me Speak’, do you have any particular favourite songs on the album?

Not really. It changes all the time, but I think today it’s ‘Accessory’ for that guitar part. I also enjoy singing it live as it’s so different from my other songs. It’s a bit more angry.

You are touring the album this Autumn, how are preparations coming along? What is your set up live?

Yeah just a handful of dates. I can’t wait. Headlining the Norwich Arts Centre in my home town is a dream come true. I may have some familiar faces join me on stage for that too (and possibly London) but that’s a surprise! Also having Alice Hubble as joint headline for some gigs is gonna be fun as I love her stuff so watching her is a treat for me. Then later I have Rodney Cromwell joining me for Manchester and Bristol too.

For those who may be considering coming along, what can they expect?

Expect me grinning like a loon on stage, no doubt some bad jokes and some visuals I made.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Gemma Cullingford

The album ‘Tongue Tied’ is released on 2nd September 2022 by Elmo Recordings as a CD and vinyl LP, digital version can be pre-ordered from https://gemmacullingford.bandcamp.com/

Gemma Cullingford 2022 live dates include:

Brighton Residents Records (2nd September), Norwich Arts Centre (8th September)*, Ipswich Smokehouse (9th September)*, London Dalston Shacklewell Arms (10th September)*, Manchester Talleyrand (17th September)+, Bristol Crofter’s Rights (29th October)+
*with Alice Hubble   +with Rodney Cromwell

https://www.gemmacullingford.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/gemcullingford

https://twitter.com/gemcullingford

https://www.instagram.com/gemma_cullingford/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/6WR6hPeb9Qq39fAm88GtcL

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
9th August 2022

YOUNG EMPRESS Interview

6 August 2022 /

Based in Wolverhampton, the unrelated duo of Rebecca Davies and Robin Davies are YOUNG EMPRESS.

Combining synths, guitars, bass and other live instrumentation with modern technology, YOUNG EMPRESS opened their account with the strident single ‘Peacemaker’ in late 2020. Using the art of cinema as a prime influence, their sound found an audience within the Synthwave community.

The haunting arpeggiated ‘Ghosts’ maintained the standard while ‘Christine’ entered darker territory in an ode to the John Carpenter film of the same name.

The summer of 2021 saw YOUNG EMPRESS issue their best single yet in the ‘Dead Poets Society’ inspired dreamwave of ‘Eyes Closed’ as a trailer to their well-received debut long player ‘Lost Time’ on Aztec Records. But prior to the release of their first album, there was a collaboration with Zak Vortex on a moody synth laden cover of FLEETWOOD MAC’s embittered break-up anthem ‘Go Your Own Way’.

During a studio break, YOUNG EMPRESS collectively answered some questions put to them by ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about their musical ethos, the influence of visuals and the making of the ‘Lost Time’ album.

Your motto is “Drink Tab, play Robotron, listen to DURAN DURAN”, but neither of you look old enough to have drunk Tab? 😉

That’s very kind of you. We certainly drink a lot of water so perhaps that’s responsible for our youthful looks. This is a quote from ‘Ready Player One’ by Ernest Cline. We’re big fans. It’s a great read for book worms and a great watch for film lovers too.

Have you come across a real vintage arcade version of Robotron? Do you have any favourite games?

Funnily enough, we shot some scenes for our short, self-titled film ‘Young Empress’ in a local arcade that had a version of Roboton: 2048.

We both love retro games – especially Outrun – which we would love to have in our music studio. We may invest one day. Although we’d probably spend more time driving than writing music if we did.

So why DURAN DURAN over SPANDAU BALLET? 😉

Both are great! One of Bex’s favourite songs is ‘True’ by SPANDAU BALLET but DURAN DURAN has that get up and dance vibe. That would pull us to the dance floor of any family wedding disco in a heartbeat. We wouldn’t say no to either it just depends what mood we’re in.

What are the musical roots of YOUNG EMPRESS’ vocal and instrumentation format?

We gather inspiration from such a wide variety of sources. It’s not just exclusive to the electronic music scene. We are children of the 80s and loved that era of music but the 90s music played a big part in our youth too. It spans the decades for us and I think we would both agree that it was music from the 60s and 70s that encouraged our first musical awakenings. Even now we’re still open to suggestion and we love stumbling across older bands and artists that we have yet explored fully. We’ve been likened to a handful of musicians over the years but hopefully our love of both male and female vocals from the 80s helps us to create elements of a more androgynous vocal sound.

In terms of palette, where are you sourcing your sounds from? Hardware, software, vintage and traditional instruments?

A lot of our synth sounds are VST versions of retro synths, mainly Juno, Jupiter, DX7 and Moogs, but we also include aspects of live drums, sax, guitar and bass too. We are both multi-instrumentalists, so we like to keep an element of live sound in the mix of our tracks. Even when we are looping sounds and programming instruments, we still start with real live instruments and lean on them heavily in the writing and recording process. It’s a combination for sure and finding the right balance throughout.

‘Peacemaker’ has this marvellous anthemic quality which appears to recall the penultimate section of ‘Music’ by John Miles from 1975, what was the song’s genesis?

When we wrote the tracks for ‘Lost Time’, we used movies as our inspiration and often had them running on a TV screen in the background while we chucking new ideas around. ‘Peacemaker’ was written with ‘The Magnificent Seven’ playing silently and on loop. The main synth riff just kind of came out from watching the screen and playing along. It soon developed into the track you hear today and the vocals tell a narrative of the action shown in the movie.

Where did that marvellous synth solo on ‘Eyes Closed’ come from? Were there any particular influences at play?

Any of the synth solos in the tracks are played and written by Bex. Sometimes they stem from us humming ideas at each other until something sticks, but mainly it comes from her ability to write a catchy little hook. We wanted something that ran a scale and jumped between octaves. We’ve always thought that it has old school ‘Doctor Who’ vibes to it. We love the sound we chose for that one so we’re happy it’s a catchy section.

‘Ghosts’ has many different aesthetic layers and a strong lyrical message and with the sax coming in, it almost turns into QUARTERFLASH?

That’s a great reference. We haven’t heard that one before. We love a good sax solo. Bex wrote and played the sax solo for this, then we layered up everything with a session musician playing over the top. It’s one of our favourite tracks. It’s the second song we ever wrote for YOUNG EMPRESS before we even thought about making an album. It’s based on the film ‘The Sixth Sense’ which gave us a great selection of dialogue to play around – especially the tag line “we see ghosts all the time”. We had really good fun writing this one. When we could see it gaining popularity, it made us really proud. It will always be a special track for us.

Aside from the collaborations, the ‘Lost Time’ album is self-produced. As independent musicians, what do you think is in your extra 10% that has made it stand up next to the deluge of bedroom electronic-based acts that are now ten-a-penny these days?

We have always written and produced our own material. We think it’s really important to have a handle on your own sound, how it develops, how it sounds live and how you can get that across in your mix. Robin will spend hours trying to find the right sounds, FX and levels for YOUNG EMPRESS, with Bex waiting the wings, listening in the dark, co-producing from the side lines.

We also work with an amazing guy called Ryan Pinson from RML studios in Wolverhampton. He takes our mixes to the next level with production and mastering. He has honestly been the 3rd member of YOUNG EMPRESS at times, and he brings an outside ear to our tracks that we wouldn’t hear when we’re locked away on our own for days writing. You can become deaf to your own mixes when you hear them day in and day out. So we draft in trusted talent to listen and guide us forwards. That’s a really important part of the writing process for us.

How was it to work on tracks with Sunglasses Kid and Maxx Parker while aiming to maintain the continuity of ‘Lost Time’ as a body of work?

Both artists are amazing, and we feel really privileged to have worked with them on the tracks that made it to our album. We are all on the same label with Aztec Records and we reached out to Sunglasses Kid who had written a short idea for a track which he posted on Instagram. It instantly grabbed our attention so we asked if we could put vocals over the top for him. Luckily, he liked what we wrote so he agreed to let us lay guitars over the top and add it to our album tracks. He’s a great guy and a real talent on the scene, and we really admire what he’s creating.

Maxx Parker has fast become a good friend of ours and he’s an incredibly talented chap. He asked us to collaborate with him on a track called ‘Last Dance’ which appeared on his debut album ‘Outsider’, then we returned the favour and drafted him in to craft a track for ‘Lost Time’. He came back with the fundamentals of ‘It’s Always Dark’ and we instantly loved it. He understood the brief and absolutely nailed this track for us. It’s another firm favourite of ours and it’s really fun to play live too.

Your music has an impressionistic visual quality about it and you produced a short film featuring ‘Peacemaker’, ‘Ghosts’, ‘Christine’ and ‘Home’, how did the story board and track selection come about?

We always wanted to make a short film and have our music be the soundtrack. We wrote the songs before we wrote the story itself. It was a collaborative project with filmmaker Anthony Davies of 12:42 Studios and Kayleigh Watson, who created a fantastic screenplay for us without the need for dialogue. A tricky task but we think she nailed it! ‘Peacemaker’, ‘Ghosts’ and ‘Christine’ were written ahead of filming and helped sculpt the narrative for what we shot but ‘Home’ was written specifically for the project. All of our other tracks are inspired by movies so naturally we took our experiences of what we were filming, the actors we were working with and the story that was coming to life in front of us to bring this final song to its completion.

We took inspiration from films we loved from our childhood and mirrored scenes to give the project a nostalgic feel. The character of Death was probably the most time consuming to create. Manifesting an entity that was a physical embodiment of grief, fear and depression took a long time. We spent many hours discussing our own fears and films we were scared by as kids. All of it came together to create the final cut. It’s something that we really enjoyed doing and we will be venturing outside of the realms of song writing again in the near future so keep your eyes peeled for updates.

YOUNG EMPRESS have released an instrumental version of ‘Lost Time’, did you feel any particular pressure to do this as there’s to be this oddball elitist line that’s been drawn between vocal and instrumental synthwave. Just taking off a vocal from a song does not necessarily make it a good instrumental track, while a number of intended synthwave instrumentals sound like someone has forgotten to sing because those tracks lack hooks and themes…

I think the way we tend to look at it is our audience is quite diverse and everyone has different opinions about what they like musically, especially on the synthwave scene. There are certain gatekeepers who believe an artist’s sound should complete a tick box of dos and don’ts to meet the criteria of the genre. We aren’t necessarily out to please anyone but ourselves so when we write, so long as we enjoy what we’re creating then that’s all that matters.

We are fans of vocal driven tracks just as much as we are instrumentals, and although it should be more than just removing lyrics from a song, sometimes it takes elements of silence within a track to isolate what’s really happening in the background. You can’t always appreciate the work that goes on behind a track once vocals are over the top. It tends to become more about the lyrical hook sometimes but when you strip it back to the music beneath it can be just as enjoyable.

With our instrumental album, we just wanted to give our listeners the option to hear it with and without vocals. Beyond that, we’ve remixed our own tracks, reworked and re-envisioned them, as well as asking our peers to recreate them for us with their own spin on it. It’s all just about experimentation for us. How far can we push ourselves, how far outside of this box can we step and how can our tracks continue to evolve. The science of synthwave! We love to flex it a little. That’s the real fun.

Which are you own favourite tracks on ‘Lost Time’? How do you feel the album has been received?

We are so pleased with what we’ve created and how well it’s done in such a short space of time.

We are thrilled with the number of streams we have on the tracks, and we couldn’t ever have imagined that so many people would stumble across our music and keep us spinning but more than that, what makes all the difference to us is the feedback we get, the people who come up and chat to us at gigs, the messages they send us online. That’s really heart-warming and we appreciate everyone who gets in touch to talk to us about our music.

Its early days for us but we’re currently at 150k streams on the album and that still blows our minds! It’s all those streams that build an audience for us and a fanbase who take an interest in what we are doing. It gives us a platform to write more and progress as musicians towards whatever comes next, and we are really grateful for that opportunity.

When we perform live, Robin enjoys ‘Lost Time’ and ‘Christine’ because they are a lot of fun to play on guitar but this changes regularly. Bex likes ‘It’s Always Dark’, which was one of the last tracks we wrote for the album. It’s based on ‘The Never Ending Story’ – one of her favourite films from her childhood, and with one of the main characters being the inspiration for the band’s name (The Childlike Empress) it will always be special to both of us. We are just so happy that people are listening to our music and coming to our gigs. It’s been a really wild ride so far but we are enjoying every minute.

Which character from either ‘The Breakfast Club’ or ‘St Elmo’s Fire’ would you be and why?

We love ‘The Breakfast Club’! It was our inspiration for the track ‘Saturday’. Robin would probably associate himself with Emilio Estevez’s character Andrew. Growing up as a sensitive, sporty kid who had a lot of pressure to succeed but never really ‘belonged’ in the social circle – that seems very familiar.

Bex would like to think she’s a hybrid of more than one character. A bit nerdy like Brian, a bit of a rebel like John Bender and a bit of a weirdo like Ally Sheedy. Definitely not sporty like Andrew or a beauty queen like Claire. It’s a great film for highlighting all the awkward parts of teenage life I’m sure many of us can relate to.

If we can be anyone from ‘St Elmo’s Fire’ then we’re opting for Rob Lowe. Who wouldn’t love that beautiful face!

There was this drummer who so depressed about his timing, he threw himself behind a train… what is your favourite drummer joke? 😁

How can you tell a drummer is at your door? The knocking speeds up.

What’s next for YOUNG EMPRESS?

We have another tour coming up at the end of the year and we will be announcing dates soon. We loved hitting the road to perform this summer so why stop now! For the next run of dates we are ramping up our live performance and we have a few ideas in the making to pump everyone up. Album Two is in the making – don’t you worry! Studio time is just the best. We can’t rest – we love to write. Our sound is developing, and the ideas are rolling in already. The synths are out in full force, and we are really excited to see how this one evolves.

There will be more videos, more content across our social media platforms, more laughing and joking too and a few more surprises to announce along the way. We hope to end the year on a high and start 2023 with a bang. Watch this space!

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to YOUNG EMPRESS

Special thanks to John Feltham at Aztec Records

‘Lost Time’ is released by Aztec Records, available now as a digipak CD or in digital variants including deluxe with bonus remixes and an instrumental versions https://youngempressmusic.bandcamp.com/music

http://www.youngempressofficial.com/

https://www.facebook.com/yngempress

https://twitter.com/yngempress

https://www.instagram.com/yngempress/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/1WtZtRgf50wZv8Msqy5h8a

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
6th August 2022

DEKAD Nowhere Lines

3 August 2022 /


‘Nowhere Lines’ is the fifth album by DEKAD, the musical vehicle of enigmatic French producer JB, his first after a seven year hiatus.

Originally a trio from Tours that recorded two albums ‘Sin_Lab’ and ‘Confidential Tears’, the third DEKAD album ‘Monophonic’ in 2011 was effectively a JB solo album and led to a fruitful association with fellow Gallic electronic duo FORETASTE.

JB became their live keyboardist and their Creature XY co-produced 2015’s ‘A Perfect Picture’; the inscrutable musician returns to co-produce ‘Nowhere Lines’.

With a stark concept highlighting a future environmental catastrophe intended as “both as a thriller and a dark audio road movie to nowhere”, ‘Nowhere Lines’ points to “exactly the place where humanity is currently heading to”

Despite the inclusion of ‘Love Is Like Fever’, ‘Nowhere Lines’ takes a while to get going with its exploration of generic midtempo darkwave climes dominating the start. But from the third song, things kick into action with ‘I Know’ providing a throbbing gothic mantra and icy hooks in equal measures.

More steadfast with distorted rhythmic loops but bubbling with tension, ‘Watching You’ recalls the moodier resonances of COVENANT’s ‘Bullet’. The spikey doom of ‘Your World’ grooves with a haunted mystery and a punchy rhythm construction, while sans tambour, ‘Artificial Love’ provides a melodic brightness to counterpoint the solemn vocal delivery.

‘Last Chance’ provides an absorbing instrumental as a kind of entr’acte musique into the brooding ‘Stay’ and the strident lead single ‘A Deadly Show’ which provides commentary of “a tragic addiction”. The boisterous ‘Never Sleep Again’ reflects some of the doomier inclinations of later period CAMOUFLAGE before ‘Promises’ closes proceedings.

With its narrative on a road to nowhere, the future is bleak but as cultural history has often proved, adversity can stimulate the creation of some very good music, of which ‘Nowhere Lines’ contains.

‘Nowhere Lines’ is released by BOREDOMproduct as a CD and download, available from https://boredomproduct.bandcamp.com/album/nowhere-lines-album

http://www.dekad.online.fr/

https://www.facebook.com/dekadmusic

Text by Chi Ming Lai
4th August 2022

KARL BARTOS The Sound Of The Machine

31 July 2022 /

Originally published in 2017, ‘Der Klang Der Maschine’ was the detailed autobiography of electronic pioneer Karl Bartos. 

Best known for his role in the classic line-up of KRAFTWERK with Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider and Wolfgang Flür, ‘The Sound Of The Machine’ is the English translation written in collaboration with Katy Derbyshire. It includes extra material not included in the German edition, adding up to a hefty total of 634 pages.

Born in 1952, Bartos was a happy child and his optimistic disposition is a key aspect of this book. While the bitterness that was apparent in Peter Hook’s NEW ORDER book ‘Substance’ is largely absent, ‘The Sound Of The Machine’ is also not the laugh aloud read that Stephen Morris’ two memoirs or the “sex und synths und schlagzeug” romp of Wolfgang Flür’s ‘I Was A Robot’ were.

What ‘The Sound Of The Machine’ has is informative breakdowns of how iconic pieces of music were constructed, commentary on the frenetic pace of technological development and confessionals on band dynamics. It also documents a very human group of men enjoying football, champagne, dancing, cycling and even taking time out to see THE EAGLES. The book is weighty and contains discussions about music theory, philosophy and German history, so those who just want the gossip may find some sections heavy reading.

Despite having co-written many of their best known works such as ‘The Model’, ‘The Robots’, ‘Neon Lights’, ‘Spacelab’, Computer Love’, ‘Pocket Calculator’, ‘Computer World’, ‘Tour De France’ and ‘Numbers’, the KRAFTWERK brand has become so strong that Bartos’ significant role remains widely under appreciated, apart from within the electronic music cognoscenti.

Recruited in 1974 to augment the live shows following the international success of ‘Autobahn’, Bartos was studying to be a symphony orchestra percussionist at the time and had to occasionally commute across the Atlantic to complete his exams while on tour in the US. But Bartos began his youth as a fan of British beat music, particularly THE BEATLES who were introduced to him via the album ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ by his future brother-in-law Peter Hornshaw, then a Lance-Corporal serving with the British Army based in Düsseldorf.

The experience inspired him to take up the drums. Despite securing a telecoms engineering apprenticeship, he saw his future in music. Luckily, his firm wanted to assemble a band of apprentices who could play cover versions at corporate events; Bartos signed up and he was even released from workshop duties to rehearse.

A now-iconic appearance on ‘Tomorrow’s World’ in 1975 showcased the future of music when KRAFTWERK demonstrated their customised instrumentation while dressed smartly in suits and adorning short hair. Performing ‘Autobahn’, Bartos and Flür punctuated the pioneering technologically enhanced sound with a distinct uncluttered percussive snap on their electronic drum pads.

Embracing science and rail transport, KRAFTWERK made major artistic leaps with the ‘Radio-Activity’ and ‘Trans-Europe Express’ albums. By 1978, Bartos had risen to the ranks of co-writer having pointed out to Hütter that his electronic vibraphone solo on ‘The Hall Of Mirrors’ from ‘Trans-Europe Express’ amounted to a more significant contribution than that of a hired hand. So from ‘The Man-Machine’ onwards, his input would involve all parts of the musical content including drums, bass, sequencer, chords, melody, voice and lyrics.

But KRAFTWERK’s Generalleutnant was already displaying his control freak tendencies that would eventually drive all three members of the classic line-up out; Hütter bagged 50% of the publishing for the lyrics of ‘Spacelab’ and ‘Metropolis’ despite the tracks only containing one word, thus reducing Bartos’ musical share. Meanwhile on a German TV appearance performance of ‘The Robots’, Hütter insisted on co-miming the lead vocal despite the fact that it had been provided solely by Schneider via his vocoder on the record.

1981’s ‘Computer World’ saw a new piece of equipment enter Kling Klang in the shape of the Triggersumme. Built by the makers of the Synthanorma sequencer that had been crucial to the sound of ‘Europe Endless’ and ‘The Robots’, the Triggersumme was effectively a drum machine with five rows of 16 switches controlling electronically generated beats that could be manipulated by hand while running in a precise loop.

It was with the Triggersumme that Bartos came up with the iconic rhythmic mantra of ‘Numbers’. Perhaps unexpectedly, it had been inspired by the four bar drum intro of ‘Do You Wanna Dance?’ by Cliff Richard but as it was a subconscious interpretation rather than a copy, something much funkier prevailed! However, on reflection, Bartos concludes in his book that “the advent of sampling has made us largely forget exactly this kind of process”.

‘Computer World’ was KRAFTWERK’s masterpiece that predicted the future; it was a conceptual work that looked at police surveillance, portable office technology, online dating and home entertainment. Meanwhile, as the UK was catching up with RFWK, ‘The Model’ from ‘The Man-Machine’ belatedly became a UK No1 in 1982. Later, Bartos’ own contributions were interpolated by Afrika Baambaata with Arthur Baker for ‘Planet Rock’ and more recently, COLDPLAY for ‘Talk’.

Despite the machinery, KRAFTWERK demonstrated ‘It’s More Fun To Compute’; on ‘Pocket Calculator’; Hütter, Schneider and Bartos had jammed together respectfully on hand-held devices such as the Mattel Bee Gees Rhythm Machine, Texas Instruments calculator and a Stylophone to create a lively polyphony. But this approach with a distinct sense of humanity and looking into each other’s eyes became sidetracked as KRAFTWERK purchased an Emulator and Yamaha DX7 for their next album ‘Techno Pop’.

With KRAFTWERK about to capitalise on the recognition they had been accorded by the success of synthpop throughout the world, Hütter had a near fatal cycling accident. The single ‘Tour De France’ has already been issued but the release of ‘Technopop’ was postponed and the tracks were slowly reworked using state-of-the-art digital and sampling technology before being released as the disappointing ‘Electric Café’ album in 1986.

In a sign of his own future, Bartos took the lead vocal on ‘The Telephone Call’ but Hütter refused to let him lip-sync on the video, although ironically, it was Flür who got to mime a single phrase while cast in shadow. It was to be the last time that the classic KRAFTWERK line-up were seen publicly together.

KRAFTWERK had clearly lost their way and Flür was the first to leave in 1987. Bartos soldiered on and worked with Hütter, Schneider and new recruit Fritz Hilbert on a remix album entitled ‘The Mix’. But as Bartos highlights, Schneider was now specialising in speech synthesis rather than music. Meanwhile Hütter seemed more focussed on cycling but had purchased a rather expensive Synclavier. It led to getting sidetracked by technical rather than musical possibilities to keep up with the production standards of others; “The dancefloor led the way” Bartos lamented, “We became music designers manufacturing consumer music oriented only towards ‘winning’ against other contestants”.

Frustrated by the drought of new material following ‘Electric Café’, Bartos played his last concert with the band in 1990 and handed back his keys to Kling Klang not long after. But despite having already put several years into the project, his name was missing in the credits… the finished produkt itself sounded dated by the time it hit the stores in 1991 and lacked the magic that had made KRAFTWERK great. The prolonged digitisation for Bartos meant “The songs lost their aura, their poetry, they lost precisely what can’t be captured in words…”

Wasting no time, Bartos formed ELEKTRIC MUSIC with Lothar Manteuffel from RHEINGOLD and released the album ‘Esperanto’ in 1993 which was enthusiastically welcomed by fans desperate for the void in new KRAFTWERK material to be filled. After so many years in Kling Klang, he also needed to find out what “Karl Bartos actually sounds like”. However, he was not quite yet ready to take on a front man role as Manteuffel took the lead vocals on the singles ‘Crosstalk’, ‘TV’ and ‘Lifestyle’.

Freed from the shackles of Kling Klang where Hütter had imposed a ban on work outside of KRAFTWERK, Bartos was open to collaboration and the first was with longtime KRAFTWERK fan Andy McCluskey from OMD who sang on the brilliant ‘Kissing The Machine’. Quite possibly the best song that both parties were involved at the time of its release, ‘Kissing The Machine’ was so good that it merited an updated version reconfigured by Paul Humphreys, included 20 years later on the OMD album ‘English Electric’.

With the anti-synth backlash that came with Grunge and Britpop, the guitar dominated environment of the era led to rather strange happenings with Bartos and McCluskey. In McCluskey’s case, it was forming ATOMIC KITTEN with Bartos suggesting that a girl group would be the ideal vehicle for the OMD front man’s future songs! The thought of Kerry Katona being part of Kling Klang’s lineage is quite amusing in hindsight!

Meanwhile at the instigation of Mark Reeder, Bartos went to Manchester to work with Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr on ELECTRONIC’s ‘Raise The Pressure’ album. Eventually released in 1995, it was reported at the time that Bartos had become disillusioned with music technology; the more guitar based collaborations ‘Forbidden City’ and ‘For You’ were among the results. While ‘If You’ve Got Love’ and ‘How Long’ from the album were the more typical of the KRAFTWERK influenced tracks that fans were expecting and the B-side ‘Imitation Of Life’ later morphed into the 2013 solo track ‘Musica Ex Machina’, Bartos effectively returned to Germany with a Rickenbacker strapped to his back!

The resultant 1998 album was ‘Electric Music’, a first solo record of sorts which Bartos himself described as “guitar pop out of the computer”. Although a song originally written for KRAFTWERK entitled ‘The Young Urban Professional’ was the first single, the album was not particularly well received by fans! As Bartos himself confesses, “I was evidently too unknown as a person for anyone to take an interest in the depths of my sound biography. My guitar experiment was doomed to fail. Mea Culpa”.

Following a request for a re-recording of ‘Tour De France’ in 1998, Bartos made tentative steps to revisit the electronic past he was known for.  Dipping his toe in with the single ’15 Minutes Of Fame’ in 2000, he made a triumphant comeback with his first proper solo album ‘Communication’ issued in 2003. The opening track ‘The Camera’ was a successful updating the of ‘The Robots’ for the new Millennium while ‘Life’ lamented about his time with KRAFTWERK in a NEW ORDER styled guitar number reimagined with electronics and ‘I’m The Message’ presented Bartos “In Bild und Ton”…

But just as ‘Communication’ hit the shelves, an elephant entered the room in the shape of his former band; with Hütter and Schneider finally delivering neu Kling Klang Produkt in the shape of ‘Tour De France Soundtracks’, fans and press predictably focused their attention on KRAFTWERK.

This was a shame as ‘Communication’ was a far more vibrant and melodic work than KRAFTWERK’s offering which for an album about cycling was strangely pedestrian. Bartos’ own solo live show mixed new material with updated versions of his classic KRAFTWERK co-writes in a striking but intimate audio / visual extravaganza. Sadly though, average ticket sales for the UK tour were disappointing and the European tour was cancelled.

Bartos became a visiting Professor at the Berlin University of the Arts having founded its Master of Arts course in ‘Sound Studies – Acoustic Communication’ while digitising his musical archive of rhythmical and melodic sketches made since he was in KRAFTWERK. Within a 21st Century setting, twelve developed and recontextualised tracks became his second solo album ‘Off The Record’ in 2013.

Just as the ‘Off The Record’ tour was about to begin in Cologne on 26th January 2014, that red and black elephant re-entered the room. KRAFTWERK were to be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award on the same night at The Grammys in Los Angeles. As German TV descended on the Live Music Hall to speak to Bartos prior to the show, all they wanted to know about was his period in Kling Klang. Bartos’ own reflections on never escaping KRAFTWERK’s shadow came in an ‘Off The Record’ song entitled ‘Without A Trace Of Emotion’. Poignantly in a vocodered voice, his robot Herr Karl wryly declares: “Every single day I am here to let you know, Whatever happens to you – I won’t let go, I won’t let go…”

In 2013, Herr Bartos said to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “Sometimes we all love nostalgia because it’s safe. One interesting point; the process of listening to music incorporates what we have learned before, all our lives, what we know. If you listen to a track in a club, or at home, or a concert, it doesn’t matter where, always what our brain does is we remember what we have learned about music, then we have this very second, this very moment, and our expectations about how the music will evolve in the future. Listening to music incorporates all three times.”

Karl Bartos has generally been seen as a beacon of hope for KRAFTWERK enthusiasts, what with ‘Der Katalog 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8’ 3D shows and the like offering no new material.

What fascinated him about the possibilities of electronic music was the creation of a closed system, to be able to disregard tradition, to offer different forms of expression on the basis of unique characteristics, to be able to compose and record while alone and to bring all manners of culture into pop.

With words of wisdom towards the end of his autobiography, Bartos surmises: “A society’s history is absolutely necessary for its orientation. After all, we can only tell who we are if we know where we come from. And that’s why the past should always be present at least in our minds”.

Dress code: red shirt, black tie, you’re history…

‘The Sound Of The Machine’ is published by Ominbus Press

http://www.karlbartos.com/

https://www.facebook.com/OriginalBartos

https://open.spotify.com/artist/5tJ5CFnO4JQmLXaarEyHKt

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photo by Markus Wustmann
31st July 2022

HANNA RUA Light Up Your Dark EP

29 July 2022 /


‘Light Up Your Dark’ is the debut EP from Swedish songstress Hanna Rua. Released on Aztec Records, the one-time home of BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT and NINA, is the native from Östersund the next artist from the roster set for bigger things?

Certainly Hanna Rua has a dreamy immediate electronic pop sound with the emphasis on the pop, but this EP also demonstrates her scope and capability using darker aesthetics. Currently based in the creative South Coast seaside hub of Brighton, she launched with the deliciously uplifting debut single ‘Don’t Cut Your Angels’ in Autumn 2021.

Included on ‘Light Up Your Dark’, the infectious optimism of ‘Don’t Cut Your Angels’ provided a YOLO anthem with shades of ABBA and yes, THE SEX PISTOLS! The warbling electronic bassline at points recalled the punk trailblazers but then ‘Pretty Vacant’ did actually borrow from ‘SOS’!

Continuing the supreme Scandipop template with a call to “get up again”, her next single ‘Tears On Your Pillow’ continued the good work at a more cruising pace. It was the sort of classic melodic synthpop that fellow Swedes Max Martin and Oscar Holter had producing with THE WEEKND. Acting as Hanna Rua’s own Max Martin is near namesake Sam Martin, a producer who served his studio and songwriting apprenticeship with XENOMANIA who worked with PET SHOP BOYS and GIRLS ALOUD.

Of the three new tracks on the EP, the ‘Light Up Your Dark’ title song is the best; with a wonderfully gritty austere, it plays with gothier influences, coming over like a Nordic NINA in her more recent work but remaining melodic. The brooding presence recalls unga moderna veterans LUSTANS LAKEJER and their 1999 single ‘Cynisk’ in particular and grows in stature with each play. It’s a battle against the demons where our heroine declares that she “Danced to your darkness, there in your arms, I told you, I told you, I’ll light up your dark”.

With its exotic piping moods, the breezy and serene ‘Hold The Light’ offers more encouraging messages to grow as souls and to experience love, while ‘Hear Me Now’ is airy angelic pop that allows Hanna Rua’s bright scaling vocal style to shine.

Overcoming life’s curveballs, Hanna Rua is a beaming new talent out to encourage the light within us all with her catchy tunes and positive personality. A fine debut, ‘Light Up Your Dark’ is a perfect pop collection for the summer.

‘Light Up Your Dark’ is released as a digital EP by Aztec Records, available now from https://hannaruamusic.bandcamp.com/releases

https://www.hannarua.com/

https://www.facebook.com/hannaruamusic

https://twitter.com/Hannaruamusic

https://www.instagram.com/hannaruamusic/

https://open.spotify.com/album/3ZcifuP5TRKg3YRPec3fwz

Text by Chi Ming Lai
29th July 2022

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