Author: electricityclub (Page 60 of 422)

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

“Good taste is exclusive”: NICK RHODES

MARTYN WARE Electronically Yours Vol1

1 September 2022 /

Photo by Gered Mankowitz

Martyn Ware is best known as a member of HEAVEN 17 and a co-founder of THE HUMAN LEAGUE but he also found success as a producer, helming hit singles for Tina Turner and Terence Trent Darby as well as SCRITTI POLITTI and ERASURE.

‘Electronically Yours Vol1’ is the autobiography of Martyn Ware that covers up to the end of 1992. Following his formative years pioneering the cause of the synthesizer in pop music, he was experiencing leaner times.

But thanks to a BROTHERS IN RHYTHM remix of ‘Temptation’ that was gaining traction in clubland, interest in HEAVEN 17 was re-energised and plans for what became the 1996 comeback album ‘Bigger Than America’ and their first UK tour fell into place… but that is another story intended for ‘Electronically Yours Vol2’.

Born in 1956, Martyn Ware grew up in a council house in the Socialist Republic Of South Yorkshire. His father was a devout trade unionist, so the availability of libraries, education for all, affordable accommodation, free healthcare via the NHS, loyalty to community and the security of mutual care are values that Ware stands for in the possibilities of making the world a better place for all.

Ware has often been accused of being a “champagne socialist” but why shouldn’t everyone be able to make a good life for themselves and taste the finer things, why should it only be the preserve of the greedy in their robbing pursuit of cash as part of their “divide and rule” power trip? Fair taxes provide opportunity for all, but sadly as Ware states, the “I’m all right Jack” and “Pulling the ladder up” mentality has become the dominant attitude as betrayal in the pursuit of social mobility takes hold.

This treacherous attitude is particularly prevalent in the children of Commonwealth immigrants; members of that second generation such as Priti Patel, Rishi Sunak, Kemi Badenoch, Suella Braverman, Kwasi Kwarteng, Bim Afolami and James Cleverly ignorantly forget to look in the mirror as they push forward the heinous racist policies of the current Conservative government without a hint of irony! As the song says, ‘We Don’t Need This Fascist Groove Thang’!

Photo by Gered Mankowitz

Those who proclaim that music and politics should not mix forget that music IS politics; synthpop pickers may be shocked to learn that songs like ‘Enola Gay’, ‘I Travel’, ‘African & White’, ‘Everything Counts’, ‘Blue Emotion’, ‘White China’, ‘Two Tribes’, ‘Equality’, ‘State Of The Nation’, ‘Suburbia’ and ‘The Circus’ all had political sentiments. Ware despairs at how HEAVEN 17 were seen as heroes of the vile yuppie culture that emerged as the government of Margaret Thatcher were flogging off the family silver.

The suited ponytail image was a send-up while the titles of the first two HEAVEN 17 albums ‘Penthouse & Pavement’ and ‘The Luxury Gap’ were direct statements on the emerging class divide. Meanwhile, the nuclear paranoia of The Cold War and the Wild West mentality of the US president Ronald Reagan who wasted millions on the ‘Star Wars’ project fuelled creativity no end with the stark warnings of ‘Let’s All Make A Bomb’ and ‘Five Minutes To Midnight’ among the resulting masterpieces.

To give context to the period, even BUCKS FIZZ’s seemingly innocent 1982 nursery rhyme No1 ‘The Land Of Make Believe’ was as co-writer Pete Sinfield put it “a virulent anti-Thatcher song” while ‘Mistletoe & Wine’ began life as an ironic socialist protest song from the musical ‘Scraps’ about “the unfeeling middle classes” before being tweed up by Cliff Richard for Christmas 1988. Even THE HUMAN LEAGUE were not free of political sentiment as ‘Dreams Of Leaving’ from 1980’s ‘Travelogue’ discussed the plight of refugees escaping a genocidal regime, a point sadly still in the news 42 years on and illustrated in HEAVEN 17’s live presentation of the song in 2021.

While politics looms within ‘Electronically Yours Vol1’, inspired by Peter Hook’s NEW ORDER memoir ‘Substance’, a quarter of the book is brilliantly devoted to a track-by-track analysis of every released recording that Martyn Ware was involved in by THE HUMAN LEAGUE, HEAVEN 17 and BEF, the production umbrella of Ware’s that helped relaunch the career of Tina Turner. When Ware left THE HUMAN LEAGUE to sign as BEF with Virgin Records, the option was for six albums per year and it seems almost unbelievable now that between Spring 1981 to Spring 1982, Ware together with fellow League refugee Ian Craig Marsh delivered four! In these notes, Ware is enjoyably matter of fact, celebrating his artistry when appropriate but also critical when required, especially about the ‘Pleasure One’ and ‘Teddy Bear, Duke & Psycho’ period between 1986 to 1988 where he took his eye off the ball with regards HEAVEN 17.


“We are THE HUMAN LEAGUE, there are no guitars or drums played on this record!”; with this manifesto, Ware, Marsh and striking front man Philip Oakey set out to conquer the world with their “synthesizers and vocals” ethos. But the route to success was not smooth and partly self-inflicted.

Ware is very candid about Ver League’s bloody mindedness for their art which makes for entertaining reading. So you get acclaim for your independently released debut single ‘Being Boiled’, played on Radio1 by John Peel and signed by Virgin Records, what do you do next? Issue ‘The Dignity Of Labour’, a conceptual electro-industrial instrumental EP inspired by Yuri Gagarin!?! Then for your major label debut 45, you put out a disco number under a pseudonym! Then you get the opportunity to open for TALKING HEADS in support of your first album ‘Reproduction’ but decide to outconceptualise David Byrne & Co by presenting a taped show accompanied by slides while the band will not be on stage but mingling with the audience and signing autographs!?!

This was all too much for TALKING HEADS’ management who threw THE HUMAN LEAGUE off the tour and the final two London dates featured OMD as the opening act! Later in May 1980, the two groups were to debut on the same edition of ‘Top Of The Pops’ and OMD were to steal a march with ‘Messages’ eventually reaching No13 while THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s cover of ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll’ hit a high of No46!

Tensions were running high within THE HUMAN LEAGUE with pressure from Virgin Records to get a hit, an ironic situation as OMD were signed to Dindisc, an independent boutique label that was funded by Virgin, and were to become the biggest sellers of 1980 within Richard Branson’s music empire.

Something had to change and while Martyn Ware’s split with Philip Oakey is now more than well documented, what ‘Electronically Yours Vol1’ reveals is Ware’s conflicts with THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s Visuals Co-ordinator Adrian Wright. Oakey had wanted Wright to become a full-time member and equal partner, something that Ware felt was illogical as Wright made no musical contribution and could perform his role offstage. So when Wright showcased his presentation before the planned 1981 European tour, Ware felt the images had no thematic connection with the music, leaving our hero to conclude Wright was “at least part full of Art Bullsh*t”.

What happened next is pop history and while Ware and Oakey maintained a bitter rivalry that was to last several years, both Sheffield lads did good. Ultimately the gamechanger in his life as “it’s never a bad thing to be a wingman to a better-looking friend”, Ware praises Oakey’s lyrical contribution and credits him as being a factor in pursuing a career in electronic music, thanks to his love of Wendy Carlos, Isao Tomita and Annette Peacock. Today of course, that best mate role is taken by HEAVEN 17 front man Glenn Gregory and that flag is still flying 41 years after ‘Penthouse & Pavement’.

Meanwhile Ian Craig Marsh, often the forgotten man of the period is singled out by Ware as a key conceptualist, master of bespoke synthetic rhythms and creator of weird alien noises. Ware believes Marsh’s disappearance from the public eye in 2006 had its roots in HEAVEN 17’s eventual mainstream success and that he became more and more withdrawn due to depression, something that was not apparent or talked about back in those heady days… his presence is still much missed.

As far as musician autobiographies go, ‘Electronically Yours Vol1’ is a straightforward book to consume. Using intelligent but accessible language, Martyn Ware gives an enjoyable insight onto the creative process without being too technical. Passionate and honest, if you want to gain an insight into the background of some of the greatest works from that innovative ‘Synth Britannia’ era, then look no further…

‘Electronically Yours Vol 1’ by Martyn Ware is published by Little Brown as a hardback book, e-book and audio book, available from the usual bookshops and online retailers

https://martynwareofficial.co.uk

https://www.heaven17.com/

http://www.illustriouscompany.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/Electronically-Yours-with-Martyn-Ware-101964588519314

https://twitter.com/martynware

https://www.instagram.com/waremartyn/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
1st September 2022, updated 20th November 2022

GEMMA CULLINGFORD Tongue Tied

30 August 2022 /

Norwich-based Gemma Cullingford made her full-length debut as a solo artist with ‘Let Me Speak’, an album that gained unexpected acclaim and was subsequently shortlisted for Loud Women’s Hercury Prize.

Beginning her musical career as a member of KAITO, Gemma Cullingford has more recently been part of post-punk funk duo SINK YA TEETH. The form that her solo work takes is slightly different, relying more on electronic instrumentation as a consequence of lockdown, although assorted live embellishments appear in the shape of bass, flute and guitar.

‘Tongue Tied’ is the rather swift follow-up to ‘Let Me Speak’ and it is easy to see that Cullingford has been a something of a creative roll with it being a much more assured affair despite its title. Opening proceedings, the propulsive mutant Moroder of ‘Accessory’ provides a cutting chorus and cerebral textural guitar from Phil Searchfield for a slice of paranoia, although the message to cut ties from toxic people is positive and defiant.

Shyness is nice but the ‘Tongue Tied’ title track exudes a glorious Walking On Thin Ice’ art disco vibe and a playful allure. Just as good is the PET SHOP BOYS influenced ‘New Day’ which utilises an unusual structure with spoken vocal verses and a synthy instrumental chorus, the vocals wonderfully veering between Sarahs Nixey and Cracknell. Speaking of the latter, ‘Holding Dreams’ blends icy synths, hypnotic live bass and wispy vocals in a wonderfully catchy number that SAINT ETIENNE would be proud of.

With a few baggy vibes, ‘Bass Face’ exploits some ACR funk motifs alongside Cullingford’s flute in an aesthetic connection to ‘Let Me Speak’ but at a much steadier pace, ‘Mechanical’ offers a detached, almost robotic diversion but the minimal approach is made unexpectedly seductive by a hushed vocal. Moody and hypnotic, ‘Red Room’ moves between contralto and higher semi-spoken tones while the backing is busy but uncluttered in an electro-glam SCISSOR SISTERS homage.

The enjoyable ‘No Fail’ goes fully into deeper house vibes but cut from a similar cloth, the more experimental expletive laden ‘Chronicle of Sound’ is less essential despite its array of boisterous electronics, choppy six string and rolling percussion.

Standing apart from the rest of the album, ‘Daisy’ provides short glitchy 6/8 art piece cover of the music hall standard to close.

Overall, ‘Tongue Tied’ is an album that exudes comfort and confidence to provide a delightful and danceable listening experience despite its anxious introspection. Gemma Cullingford brings her experience, versatility and musicality into a fine home-made electronic pop record to reinforce her capabilities as a solo artist.

‘Tongue Tied’ is released by Elmo Recordings on 2nd September 2022 as a CD and vinyl LP, available from https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/gemma-cullingford/tongue-tied

Download is available direct from https://gemmacullingford.bandcamp.com/album/tongue-tied

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 by Chi Ming Lai
30th August 2022

AUW Interview

27 August 2022 /

Originating as the electronic musical vehicle of Dom Cresswell, AUW has now arrived fully synthwave enabled.

The first instrumental album ‘Across the Plains’ embraced that setting with uplifting melodies and lush reflective moods accompanied by crisp electronic rhythms honed through Cresswell’s past experience in techno, breakbeat and synthpop whilst also displaying cyberpunk elements.

The recently issued second album ‘Twilight Drives’ developed on that tradition with ‘Yellow & Confidence’ being a highlight.

Live, the DAWLess AUW has been augmented by the outlandish but welcoming persona of Seb Durkin and seeing an opportunity to stimulate business at eateries and venues following the pandemic, came up with Duskwaves, a family friendly daytime music event series that has taken place in Kent and London.

Dom Cresswell and Seb Durkin of AUW chatted about their abandoned uranium workings and thoughts on a number of eclectic topics.

ABANDONED URANIUM WORKINGS has been making music for over 20 years embracing techno, breakbeat, production and now synthwave, what prompted you to align yourselves to the movement so vividly?

Dom: Well, I am after all, an 80s child (the clue is in the hairline) so I’ve always felt very comfortable engaging the combination of modern and retro, in both music and gaming scenes. The first bits of synthwave I heard were courtesy of Seb sending me a link to NewRetroWave on YouTube around 2013/14 (he must have known me well). I didn’t really think of working in the genre at the time – if anything, I was on a break from writing music.

It was a few years later I had put some of the more chill synth stuff onto an Arcade cabinet of mine and thought “it would be nice to have something of mine on there” – next thing I knew, I was experimenting with elements of the sound, but all it did was give me the freedom to use a bunch of actual 80s synth sounds akin to Roger Limb in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop which would have been a bit out of place if I’d still been writing tech-house.

Seb: I’m not sure I would necessarily say I align in the strongest sense of the word. My background fundamentally is in “DIY / noise / sludge / doom” but predominantly I love music and I feel like if that’s the case, then anything’s on the table. I think I had a connection with the music Dom was making and the melodies struck me pretty immediately. All this said, there is a part of me certainly that warmed texturally to the genre. It’s given me an opportunity to sing too and whilst I still consider myself somewhat of a charlatan in that field, the endeavour I believe is good for me.

Dom, you produced the 2009 album ‘Navigation’ by ARTHUR & MARTHA, what was it like to work with your brother Adam on that? Is bitter sibling rivalry in music just legend or is it for real?

Dom: Seems like an age ago now… in hindsight, it’s nice to have had that experience together – although it wasn’t our first ever musical collaboration – we tried our hand at a few tracks together back in the 90s, I was sequencing on my Amiga, and he was recording to 4-track tape! If you’d asked me at the time, I’d have probably said it was quite a challenge, but certainly no rivalry, not then or now.

I do recall many time-consuming small mix changes that I’m not convinced anyone would hear anyway. I think we’re both quite detail orientated in our music writing so that probably wasn’t the most productive combination. I’d have to check which track it was that Adam and Alice asked for the end organ to have “the sound of a distant fairground” or something… I do remember they were happy with the result but it certainly felt like one of those Martin Hannett moments.

Your most recent album ‘Twilight Drives’ features an AUW remix of ‘Miscalculations’ from Adam’s current project Rodney Cromwell, how has technology moved on in your process over the 12+ years since ‘Navigation’?

Dom: I stopped using Cubase long ago in favour of Ableton shortly after that album, and I would have only used software samplers back then, never synths – now I’ll use anything. I still like to use the hardware where I can – particularly for layering, but the fact I can do a huge chunk of production and mixing sat on the sofa makes the whole process a lot more accessible, and far speedier, especially whilst not being a full-time musician.

I never really had a problem with software FX, but now there are so many more available, and some are so much smarter, Trackspacer for example is just genius. But also now, I have a small number of softsynths, but I try not to be one of those people hoarding 1000 plugins that I’ll never use. You can’t really refine ‘your sound’ if you don’t put some self-imposed limits in place.

The synthwave production aesthetics shine bright on a number of instrumentals from ‘Twilight Drives’ such as ‘Europa Dawn’, ‘Europa Dusk’ and ‘Yellow & Confidence’, how were these inspired?

Dom: Ah that’s cool to hear, because sometimes I don’t really feel like my sound fits too well into what some people call synthwave anyway. ‘Yellow & Confidence’ and ‘Europa Dawn’ both started as ideas during an incredibly productive spell in 2020; nothing more than writing some chord progressions and letting the ideas naturally grow around a sound I was enjoying, which was very much focused on having a positive, chill sound, rather than moody dystopian sounds.

‘Europa Dusk’ was a little different because it started the same, but as I realised it had an incredibly similar chord progression to ‘Europa Dawn’, I started to borrow elements from that to make it a real evolution. It was the last one to make it onto the album, and in parts that shows, but it also has elements that call back to my first release as well.

The synthwave community is known for some of its gatekeeping as to what it is, so did you have to validate your credentials?

Dom: I really don’t know if I’ve validated my synthwave credentials at all! I think there are also so many sub and micro genres now that I think even the scene ties itself in knots trying to make sense of its own self – sometimes it depends on which social media echo chamber you’re in – even between Twitter, Facebook or Discord there seems to be quite a variation.

I think most scenes, particularly where you see a sudden rise in popularity or appearance in mainstream culture, tend to suffer the gatekeeping problem. In this case, it is largely those who seem to equate synthwave with a very narrow band of the scene (and hopefully they are in the minority) but to me that is just ludicrous, and actually detrimental to letting the scene grow, because all you end up with is a bunch of stale clones, and the more creative artists themselves move onto other things, or look to dissociate themselves from it.

I hope I’ve just let the music speak for itself. I think the modern elements and the occasional use of audible tropes act as a short-hand for some to associate use with synthwave, but actually I spend enough time watching 80s episodes of ‘Top of the Pops’ and enjoying NEW ORDER, ERASURE, PET SHOP BOYS, THE CURE or listening to 80s soundtracks and letting all of that soak into the sound anyway, and because I channel everything into synth sounds, surely that’s synthwave right?

But it gets a bit heated, surely it’s all just music using synths?

Seb: You know I think it’s the same with all genres. There’s a tribalism that occurs and if I’m honest I think it’s destructive. What’s the fear? That we’re a square-wave Trojan-horse hell bent on destroying something from the inside out? Or maybe people just feel like you have to earn your stripes before you’re allowed in. Either way, it’s preposterously hyper-masculine.

How can fresh blood offer anything other than variety and fresh perspective. Personally though, all the people (within synthwave at large) I’ve encountered so far, have been nothing short of cherishable. Maybe that suggests the only real gatekeeping is undertaken by hypothetical wardens of the digital realm. It’s certainly easier to be protective at distance. Right now, I’m just super excited to meet more people and play more songs.

The trouble is, “synthwave” has become this generalised term for music that doesn’t sound like it’s from the 21st century, whether it’s rock, indie, dance, synthpop or soundtrack in the same way “Italo” has now become any midtempo disco number with an octave shift “oompah” bassline… discuss!

Dom: Well this is a tricky one! It feels like it means something quite specific to a certain set of people for sure as I said earlier, but elsewhere there seem to be those with a more open mind. I define synthwave myself as nothing more than an umbrella term for synth heavy / electronic music that doesn’t fit into the usual EDM styles – although of course, there is always that retro element on top of it, but the extent of the retro, the chill, the dark sounds; they are what determine any sub-genre. I’ve actually started coining the term ‘retroclash’ when asked what one AUW falls into. I’ll leave you to fathom the semantics of that one!

Seb: Yes, this too can be confusing. For sure it feels like there’s a puritanical sect of “I was here first” synthwave fans screaming “This isn’t synthwave!” from the back of the room but pigeon-holing is just a shortcut to me finding what I want. And if I find something that I wasn’t sure I wanted, but that actually I love along the way, then who cares? Maybe we should just have done with it and describe ourselves as “oscillator pop”.

You’ve taken AUW out live, are you set to become Kent’s answer to FM-84?

Dom: Well I’d take their listener count for sure! I’m not sure Seb will appreciate being called a man of Kent though! *laughs*

I’d rather AUW stood on its own merit as something different. I’d say we’re creeping closer to NEW ORDER territory with some of the more recent live tracks, but there’s certainly a difference between what we play out, and what’s currently available on Bandcamp, Spotify and the rest. I blame Seb for that because he’s never happy with the studio recordings!

Seb: I think I’ve a burgeoning affection for the people and the county of Kent so I’ve an answer to anything then I’m happy to do it there! *laughs*

It’s trite but I think we just want to be AUW and right now me singing on some of these tracks just feels like a really good fit. It’s giving us the opportunity to perform and that’s wholly positive.

You’ve prided AUW in being DAWless live, but for those music enthusiasts who may not be technical, what does that actually mean?

Dom: In short, it means there’s no laptop on stage – ie no sequencer playing and everything comes from synth(s) / drum-machine. I didn’t really want AUW’s live performance to end up being a two man KRAFTWERK performance, otherwise I’d have just stuck to DJing.

I have no problem with those who do use DAWs live, but you’ve got to remember I was inspired for live playing by watching THE PRODIGY with Liam and his synths on stage in my formative years. Of course, I don’t really want to be lugging a bunch of synths around either at my ages, and the two little Rolands – the MC-101 and TR-6S have become the backbone of the live set.

Seb: What Dom said…

Dom: I can hear the cries of “Neeerrrdd!” from the back of the room *laughs*

Is there a hardware synth you still covet? What is your current set up?

Dom: How long have you got?? I’ve mentioned the MC-101 as a live tool, but it’s also a great machine to sit and try basic ideas out without firing up a laptop. I use it a lot as a sound module.

I still stick to my original Access Virus for a lot of sound layering, since it has such a rich sound. The Waldorf Streichfett will crop up a bit more in the next album too – one of my favourite new synths for pure sound – it reminds me of the work of Ken Freeman in the 80s.

The Novation BassStation and Korg Prophecy tend to feature more as ‘guest’ synths these days. I’d love to say I get the TB-303 in there too, but it certainly didn’t fit the sound of the last album… that’s not to say it won’t turn up again though. One of the biggest changes to my setup in the last few years was the removal of MIDI cables in favour of wireless MIDI – it was surprisingly freeing to remove a whole set of cables.

As for any I still covet… of course – there’s still loads out there I’d be happy to own and use! The question is really whether I need them. The Virus TI2 would be great to have – I understand it’s a step up from my original which would make it a beast. Roland have an annoying habit of bringing out more and more appealing compact synths – digital sure, but I know I’d enjoy the JD-08 and JX-08 and of course the Aira J6 (Roland’s answer to the Korg Volca) looks a lot of fun.

Seb: I think synthesis is fast becoming the most exciting field of musical instrument creation. I’ll stop short of quoting Alice Deejay but I think strung instruments understand their limitations. They’re design classics but synths still have so much more to give us. The explosion of the modular synth market a few years ago was a real signifier that synthesis was approaching a new age of appreciation and the endeavours people are making now are just stunning. If we’re talking coveting though, Moog’s Subharmonicon is pretty high up the list along with pretty much anything “mutable instruments” have ever made.

How did the brainwave for Duskwaves happen?

Dom: Honestly – Seb and I just wanted to play some gigs.

Seb: Yeah, exactly that. We knew that we enjoyed the fruits of our labour and we knew that if we could be excited by it, then maybe others could be too. That’s what leads you to want to play things live. I think sadly, playing shows for promoters you know nothing about is both a necessary evil and a roll of the dice all at the same time. It just sort of makes sense that we can create something for ourselves. A sort of plain where we get to set some of the parameters. Is it more work? Definitely! But it’s also comes with a lot of reward. We’re trying to provide a platform and in doing so, people are returning the favour. That’s actually so wonderful.

Dom: We’d not long come out of the 2021 lockdown and there wasn’t a lot of options available, and of course, one thing I’d seen working with Adam was that the whole synth scene looked a bit broken to me. It was London-centric, didn’t cater anything close to synthwave and seemed to be full of artists who appeared like they either didn’t want to be there or thought too much of themselves. The grass-roots style approach really appealed to me, giving relative unknowns a chance to put themselves forward, and then the idea of making it a daytime event kind of fell into place off the back of that, leading to the name!

Afternoon gigs really are the future, it appears to be working as a concept…

Dom: I hope so. I really enjoy it, and it’s a much more accommodating atmosphere for everyone, and let’s be honest a large portion of fans of this kind of music have families now and probably don’t want to be out till 3am and damaging their ears even more. The great thing about this, is you’ll only have a terrible hangover if you really want it, and you still get the evening to unwind too!

Seb: Definitely the future. As Dom mentioned, we’re kind of in a time of our lives now when spending an hour taking in the N207 night bus home has sort of lost its shine (if indeed there was any shine to begin with). We’re just happier now knowing that we can be accommodating and still leave people with their evenings to focus on other stuff. That’s not to say we don’t want to do shows after dark. Of course we do but it’s nice to give people options.

Is the plan eventually to do a ticketed evening event?

Dom: For Duskwaves, I’d prefer not to, but never say never. I’d rather just do events in more interesting places. It’s nice that on a couple of occasions we’ve now found other ways of paying artists and rewarding them for being involved, thanks to some Arts Council backing, and rewarding those who are involved is the only incentive I would have for a ticketed event. If we were do something more evening based, I’d like to think we’d do something new with it, or instead hopefully just get involved with some of the others doing this kind of thing like Electric Escape.

Seb: Potentially but that doesn’t seem to be what people require of us at the moment. One of the first things we were asked when we made the announcement to our peers that we’d play live was “can I bring the kids?”, now happily we can say “yes”. I think that’s important.

Do you have a dream line-up for Duskwaves?

Dom: Emil Rottmayer because I’m a massive fanboy, plus someone else who we’ve never heard of yet, AUW of course and all of our regulars just to show them how much we appreciate them!

Seb: Truthfully I really appreciate that anyone wants to play. It’s all been pretty dreamy to date.

So ‘Drive’ is an overrated film with an overrated soundtrack? Discuss! 😉

Dom: Maybe that’s taking it a bit far! I’ll admit I only recently watched it, and I guess it’s a bit artistic with good cinematography, but I don’t really understand the association with the synth scene. Maybe there’s more on a soundtrack CD or something, but I only counted about 4 or 5 tracks? And there’s no laser grids or stripy sunsets to be seen at all! I think it really needed a Steve McQueen in the main role. I can see why some fans enjoy it though, and I will say that the fact it starts as a brooding arty movie with hardly any dialogue that isn’t mumbled, and yet still has wider popularity is something I find quite reassuring… it’s a far cry from the likes of ‘Fast & Furious’!

Seb: More a ‘Crash’ (Cronenberg) man than a ‘Drive’ guy!

Dom: That’s totally YOU Seb *laughs*

Speaking of driving, the tug of love in F1 between Alpine and McLaren for Oscar Piastri, what a mess! So is this a bit like trying to negotiate to get an act to play an event while a rival is circulating, and then the act decides to play that other event?

Dom: Wow – that has to be one of the most forced topical-metaphor questions I’ve ever had! What is this, ‘Have I Got News for You?’ *laughs*

Synth event rivals? That never happens right? What was the question again??

Seb: Synth promoter love-rival montage, soundtracked by AUW? I’m here for it!

Did THE WEEKND steal that arpeggio from MAKE UP & VANITY SET on ‘Take My Breath’? Can you copyright what is actually a technologically driven function?

Dom: Yes. Maybe – next question please!

Seb: Steal my arpeggio just don’t steal my taleggio *laughs*

What is next for Duskwaves and AUW?

Dom: Let’s start with Duskwaves – we have more artists on the books, and more promoters helping out, so that’s great to see, and we are grateful to them for wanting to be involved; we must be doing something right. I’ve always said I’d be happy to support anyone looking to organise a Duskwaves event wherever they like, and the idea was always to try and help artists and venues make those connections within the scene – maybe there will be more in that direction in the future. We are looking at a little bit of a break before lining up some Winter events – I’ll hold off on saying where until they are properly firmed up, but it’ll be all over the socials as usual.

For AUW there’s always more in the pipeline. I’m not quite done with ‘Twilight Drives’ just yet, and I’m looking at a live stream performance for it in the near future. After that, Seb and I need to get some recording done so that all those songs we keep playing out live can make their way out as releases. There’s a slightly moody reflective album to come out of that – currently titled as ‘Windowed View’ which has at least 5 of our live tracks on it. Then for other new tracks, I kind of have an idea what’s next with a couple of instrumental EPs and another vocal-centric album full of collabs. This could keep us busy for quite a while yet….

Seb: We’ll see what the future hold but just want to keep playing and writing more songs. Music will always be my first and most probably last love, so I have to honour that by giving what I can back. There’s already so much to be getting on with and I’m really excited about it.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to AUW

‘Twilight Drives’ is released by RetroSynth Records / Synthetix, available as a download from https://abandoneduraniumworkings.bandcamp.com/

https://www.auwmusic.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/auwmusic

https://twitter.com/auwmusic

https://www.instagram.com/neoncentipede/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/32pxdEG7cNA03psePU5e5c

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
27th August 2022

Vintage Synth Trumps with SPRAY

23 August 2022 /

Sibling duo SPRAY continue their adventures in the subversion of pop with their new ‘Untitled Covers Project’.

Ricardo Autobahn and Jenny McLaren first terrorised the mainstream as members of THE CUBAN BOYS who topped John Peel’s Festive 50 with ‘Cognoscenti vs. Intelligentsia’ aka ‘The Hamster Dance’ and took on Cliff Richard’s ‘The Millennium Prayer’ in the race to be the 1999 Christmas No1, only to lose…

However, their main project was SPRAY, set up to ride on an anticipated resurgence in synthpop with two albums ‘Living In Neon’ and ‘Children Of A Laser God’ issued respectively in 2002 and 2007. Finding a home at US label Ninthwave Records, just about the only record company in the world at the time interested in anything synthy that even HEAVEN 17 signed to them for the release of ‘Before/After’ in 2005, as it turned out, no-one was interested in either SPRAY or HEAVEN 17. It was left to LA ROUX to cash-in on the synthpop revival with a No1 single in ‘Bulletproof’ in 2009 and a Grammy for ‘Best Dance Recording’.

SPRAY would not return until 2016’s ‘Enforced Fun’ and since then, they have been regularly releasing albums with the most recent being 2021’s ‘Ambiguous Poems About Death’. Since the start of 2022, the sister / brother pairing have been releasing a cover version per month to build a new collection of work. So far, there have been reinterpretations of THE DETROIT SPINNERS, BLINK182 and KISS as well as ‘Diamond Lights’, the surprise 1987 hit by England footballers Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle!

Over a game of Vintage Synth Trumps, Ricardo Autobahn and Jenny McLaren chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about dragging seemingly incongruous songs from yesteryear kicking and screaming into the SPRAY Universe and how electronic acts covering DEPECHE MODE is not a particularly good idea…

The first card is a Korg MS20, as used by BLANCMANGE on ‘Feel Me’…

Ricardo: I’ve always liked BLANCMANGE without ever being a big fan of them, they’re one of those bands, a bit like CHINA CRISIS. You can’t imagine them being someone’s favourite band. I always thought they had a great sense of rhythm and got World music into synthpop in a more authentic way than most people. I like Neil Arthur’s solo songs as well, I love ‘I Love I Hate’ which is fantastic.

LADYTRON used MS20s too and started around the same time as SPRAY back in 2000, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has always credited them as being the first of the newer wave of synthesizer bands, as opposed to electronic dance acts…

Ricardo: Of all the modern synth acts that aren’t EDM, LADYTRON seemed to be the most melodic and threw in the most over-the-top production gimmicks and things, people at the time seemed to think themselves too cool to use certain sounds whereas LADYTRON were happy to do what sounded great, that’s what I always liked about them. But what I always hated about them, which was something I hated about all synth acts of the 21st Century is that when THE CUBAN BOYS were kicking around, we tried to get people interested in SPRAY; we said to people that there was going to be this big synth revival but nobody listened to us or took us seriously… I was irate that other synth acts made it big in the mid-noughties other than SPRAY, one of them was LA ROUX! *laughs*

Jenny: Oh yes… *laughs*

Ricardo: I said to THE CUBAN BOYS’ manager that there was going to be this big synth revival coming but he poo-pooed it and laughed at me… he went on to manage LA ROUX, leaving us in his wake!

One of the things that struck me most about LADYTRON was girls were singing lead vocals on synthy stuff and it wasn’t a blokey thing anymore…

Jenny: Definitely, yeah, I think female voices always sound better generally on pop and electronic music, I enjoy a lot of rock music, men on that is fine, but the more women, the better as far as I’m concerned!

Yes, male voices just don’t grab me that much anymore on synth based music because it was done to death back in the day…

Ricardo: There a few things here; they all tried to sound like Dave Gahan, there was that synthpop voice which was sort of deep and nasal, and everybody wanted to be like DEPECHE MODE. But there is this thing about frequency response, if you’ve got your kick drum and bass drum in the low frequencies, you’ve got your doomy industrial DM synths in the mid-range, if you have a mid-range voice, then everything’s concentrated to those frequencies. BUT if you bring a female voice in on top of that, you’ll spread the spectrum.

Yes, in the old Synth Britannia days, you’ll have done that with a higher end synth melody which is WHY that era of music worked… like let’s swing it the other way, what about blokeys who sing falsetto? That to me is old hat now!

Ricardo: We are big SPARKS fans so we’ve got used to the falsetto but Russell Mael always realised it was a gimmick and his tonal quality changes left, right and centre from low to high. There was a period in late 80s pop when singing in falsetto was a by-word for “soul”, the worst offenders being BIG FUN in that ridiculous way! *laughs*

Jenny: It was just showing off… but one of my favourites with falsetto is Morten Harket from A-HA, he showed his range very much like Russell Mael; Morten and Russell know how to place certain types of singing in the music, how certain types of voices suit certain types of songs.

That’s a good point Jenny, Morten Harket, Russell Mael, Jimmy Somerville, Andy Bell, they knew how to do it, there was a degree of restraint, they knew where to place it, whereas others do that overblown thing…

Ricardo: This is WHY those singers you have mentioned were successful. Morten Harket knows which songs to sing high and which songs to sing low on, so you’ve covered the frequency range.

If you sing in the same frequency range in ALL your songs, regardless of what your music is doing, people will get sick of it very easily.

A good example is A-HA ‘Summer Moved On’, Morten Harket does a 21 second falsetto note in it, but it’s not the centrepiece on the bridge that it’s in, it’s there but it’s not pushed in your face, it’s not the dominant part…

Jenny: Yes, it just happens and then you go “OH MY WORD, THAT’S INCREDIBLE” but mixed in with the rest of the music, it’s perfect. It’s an example of it being done well.

Another card and it is a MemoryMoog…

Ricardo: I’ve never had a Moog, but I have been tinkering with VIEON’s Moog Grandmother recently. It was very atonal, I was noodling and he was tinkering away and I felt like I was in Karl Bartos’ book *laughs*

It was a beautiful moment of things melding together in a ray of light, this is the sort of thing that makes music great, analogue synths that sound robotic but there’s humans playing them and it was great fun, I must get one! But the synth wasn’t THAT special to be honest, it’s good synth but I didn’t think I was playing a Stradivarius, it was good but they’re all the same!

Has the iconography of Moog meant anything to you as synthpop purveyors?

Ricardo: It IS a cool name, if I was to buy one, it would be to look cool on stage. I bought one of those reissued Korg ARP Odysseys just because that Helvetica font looks really good on stage. We wrote the song ‘Félicette (Space Cat)’ on that.

Jenny: Yes, Moogs are the cool one…

This highlights how iconic these synth facias with “Moog” and “ARP” are from ‘Top Of The Pops’ because you have “Fairlight” on your live keyboard controller…

Ricardo: I tried to borrow a Fairlight from someone but they wouldn’t let me take it down from their loft, so next best thing, I customised my keyboard to look like a Fairlight… now who had done it before me???

Yes, it was Martin Gore who put “Fairlite” on a Casiotone MT-30…

Ricardo: I didn’t know that! I think it was inspired by Ron Mael from SPARKS who put “Ronald” instead of Roland on his keyboard… the thing about that is it gets across SPARKS’ sense of humour very easily. That’s why I loved SPARKS so much and why they are such an influence on SPRAY. They have a sense of humour that is sadly lacking in pop music these days, I don’t mean novelty acts or comedy bands but artists who include jokes and light hearted asides in their songs…

Jenny: …and write songs that aren’t necessarily about girls and boys and love and that, they talk about other interesting things that happen in the world.

Ricardo: Having Ronald in Roland font on his keyboard was a very good indicator that they were not just any old band.

Just out of interest, where do you stand on people wearing T-shirts of synths they don’t own, who are often those who complain about girls who wear T-shirts of bands they don’t listen to?

Ricardo: Oh it’s fine, it’s aspirational isn’t it! It’s like wearing a T-shirt with a Ferrari logo on it or British Leyland! *laughs*

Again, it’s like Ronald and Roland, it’s showing your personality, what you’re interested in, what you care about and what you maybe don’t care about. I’ve worn T-shirts with “Muzak” written on them, I don’t like Muzak a great deal but I love the concept of Muzak and I like the word and the font they use as well.

I bought an Akai T-shirt to wear ironically cos I have no Akai equipment, it just looked good…

Ricardo: We bought two Akai S5000s in 1999 with THE CUBAN BOYS and we made our entire album on them…

Jenny: Oh yes!

Ricardo: They were very basic, they didn’t have any external memory, we just used the floppy drive to load the samples and it was a massive thing. It cost about two and a half grand back then, I remember saying it was more expensive than the car I was driving at the time! We were using the Soundblaster 16 card in a PC to do the demos which was how the John Peel stuff was done, so to move to the Akai was mindblowing. But again to reference Karl Bartos, when you have a limitless horizon, your creativity suffers and that was a problem too because we didn’t have any boundaries to work with.

A point I’d like to bring in about the whole sampling issue in reference to Karl Bartos was he says in his book that ‘Numbers’ was inspired by the intro beat to ‘Do Ya Wanna Dance?’ by Cliff Richard, only he programmed his interpretation into his machine, got it slightly wrong and out came as ‘Numbers’. But today, you would actually sample the beat of inspiration wholesale, and that defeats the object of any actual artistic creativity, there’s no individual variation or happy accidents now… that’s why I struggled with the ethos of sampling, I find it difficult to have an emotional attachment although I can appreciate the technical innovation…

Ricardo: The thing about KRAFTWERK in the 70s was it sounded robotic but was done by humans but after ‘The Mix’, it sounded like computer demos more than anything. So yeah, the pre-digital era is clearly the best era. With things like THE ART OF NOISE in 1985, sampling was very exciting from a technical perspective, there was ‘19’ by Paul Hardcastle as well. I’m not sure anyone has actually had an emotional response to ‘Close (To The Edit)’ despite it being fantastic. But that 1985 sampling sound got tired very quickly and it became “that thing” as a loop on a record rather building a record out of bits.

SPRAY are songwriters at heart, but when you heard KRAFTWERK for the first time, what did you actually think?

Jenny: I liked ‘The Model’ and ‘Computer Love’, but I didn’t relate to it enough because it wasn’t vocally exciting cos I enjoy a singalong. I do love them but my formative music was more vocal-led.

This is the point I’m trying to get at, my sister and my cousin thought KRAFTWERK went on a bit and just kept repeating the same words, so I understand why girls aren’t into KRAFTWERK…

Jenny: It’s not because I’m a girl, I think people might find it boring… *laughs*

Ricardo: But then you’re not a fan of the 12 inch mix either generally…

Jenny: It’s very rare that I will listen to a song that’s more than four and a half minutes… I was shocked to learn that the tracks on more than half of FAITH NO MORE’s ‘The Real Thing’ are five minutes and over, I don’t think I’ve got the capacity for that! I like a nice snappy pop song, Eurovision style, three minutes, on-off-done!

Ricardo: When we were doing THE CUBAN BOYS, we had very little interest in the project, we were more interested in getting SPRAY away. While we were having great success in the charts and EMI were happy, we were more about the pop songs that SPRAY were doing.

Weirdly, I’m in that zone, I find the whole 12 inch mix thing tedious, yes I’ve got a lot of 12 inch singles but only for the bonus B-sides… so back on the subject of songs, what inspired you to do a covers album?

Jenny: What was it that kicked it off?

Ricardo: We had these cover versions we’d recorded over the years but never released, mainly because we can’t be bothered to do all that licensing business! So it’s always just easier to put out original stuff on platforms. But then we did a Halloween cover for a radio show last year, ‘Come Back Haunted’ by NINE INCH NAILS for our friend Terri MacDonald’s ‘Cabinets Of Curiosities’ podcast… it was so easy to do so we thought, why not do a few more and this gimmicky idea of one per month was partly to keep our focus through the year and partly because it’s a good way to get stuff out without overloading people. There’s no real need for a new SPRAY album just yet *laughs*

Jenny: It’s keeps us posting stuff, especially for our ‘SPRAY Social Mondays’ doing little things to keep us in the public eye… public yeah, the three people who follow us… *laughs*

…and who come to ALL your shows! *laughs*

Ricardo: God love ‘em! *laughs*

Jenny: It gives them something to look forward to each month and other people then get into the idea…

Ricardo: It’s the classic situation, as much as PET SHOP BOYS put out an album and four singles over a year, that’s just not like that anymore, it’s all about content and driving the algorithm or what have you. So we thought this was a fun idea to make sure nobody forgets us! *laughs*

So how does one choose a suitable song to arrange in an electronic pop aesthetic, one that is not a bloody DEPECHE MODE cover? *laughs*

Ricardo: It’s all very accidental apart from when we did THE OFFSPRING ‘Self-Esteem’ for the SPRAY live show, this was a few years ago. We did it because the chords are real Europop major chords, it sounds absolutely fantastic as a HI-NRG record.

Jenny: We deliberately don’t try and find electronic records to cover, we try and find things that we think might sound good as an electronic poppy record, would you agree?

Ricardo: I would agree but also we are arrogant enough to believe we can make anything sound good, so sometimes we will find something that is bloody atrocious because if we can’t make it worse, we’ve got to make it better! *laughs*

Having listened to the cover versions so far, what has been particularly interesting about the majority of the choices is they have a degree of familiarity but at the same time, they sound new, which is quite a difficult thing to pull off… a good example would be ‘The Rubberband Man’?

Jenny: It was in ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’, I didn’t know it and you suggested it… so it’s one of those that’s in people’s consciousness but not overly, so it’s something we can remind people of very gently.

Ricardo: It’s 70s funk which we’re not into at all but it’s got those really pronounced dramatic chords in the chorus which are really poppy, which you can always tell will work in a synthy style.

So when you are recording a cover or any song for that matter, do you do the quality control yourselves or do you have some trusted confidantes who you will run things by?

Ricardo: NO! We never have trusted confidantes, if you do that, you’ll never release anything! We care, it’s all that matters, if anybody else likes it, then that’s a bonus as they used to say in the NME in 1991! *laughs*

I’ll do a basic arrangement of a track, then Jenny will record a vocal and then I’ll build something around it. So we get away from the original straight away, we try to forget what the original sounded like if we can…

Is there a danger in forgetting the original that you could leave out what was good about it in the first place? For example, this British independent electronic artist did a cover of ‘Blue Monday’ recently, so mistake No1, he picked an electronic song. Then he tried to change the familiar elements of it, so the rhythm structure lost its funk as it become a straight four. Thing is, despite it being mechanical, NEW ORDER’s ‘Blue Monday’ has a weird groove because of the way Bernard Sumner sequenced those off-notes that just sat there. So this cover now has no groove and because he did away with the familiar hooks, he made up his own, which were frankly not very good!

Jenny: Yes, you want to put your own spin on a cover version, you have to give it a different feel, otherwise there is no point at all. With FAITH NO MORE’s ‘We Care A Lot’, it features a rap so it has no tune whatsoever so I did try to give it a more melodic slant. It was trying to change it a little but not change it, just add to it. You can change little bits and add little quirks, like I sing with an English accent so a lot of the American things we do, there’s a different thing straight away.

My funny FAITH NO MORE story, well it may not be funny to you, is when I first heard ‘Midlife Crisis’, I thought the verse was in German! I was confused, for years I thought they were from Germany! *laughs*

Jenny: If you can’t place immediately where a band is from, I think that can only be a good thing! *laughs*

How did ‘That’s What I Want’ by Lil Nas X come to be selected?

Ricardo: I love it when I hear something I like on Radio1 because it means I’m not old yet, Ava Max is also great, it’s refreshing and I sometimes think SPRAY can still have a hit if we sound like Ava Max these days but we haven’t quite managed that yet!

Jenny: She’s fab!

Ricardo: Covering Lil Nas X proves that we still listen to pop radio…

Jenny: It’s R ‘n’ B but quite poppy, he’s quite genre busting, that ‘Old Town Road’ when he sampled Miley Cyrus’ dad, I didn’t really like it so I didn’t really appreciate him until he was doing the pop stuff. His videos are incredible, he’s very risqué shall we say…

So here’s another card, a Korg 900PS, do you use Korg?

Ricardo: I bought a Korg Wavestate just before lockdown, it’s like a John Shuttleworth keyboard but made by NASA! You can do your one-fingered accompaniment, drums on one key, bassline on another. The idea was that we’d be able to do a whole show on this one synthesizer with no backing tracks. It would be the closest thing to SPRAY Unplugged, but with just one plug! If you open it up, there’s nothing more than a raspberry pie in there *laughs*

You have covered some more familiar tunes for the project, one of which is KISS ‘I Was Made For Loving You’…

Jenny: What a song!

Ricardo: Anybody that says they don’t like rock music, listen to that! That’s my kind of rock, DISCO ROCK!

It’s not really a typical KISS track though is it? But perfect for an electronic pop cover! I first knew the song from German band QUEEN OF JAPAN’s electroclash version which appeared on a TOO MANY DJS mix CD…

Ricardo: I wish KISS had done more songs like that, I always think this of bands who have a hit with an unrepresentative song, why not write a load more songs in that style? They could have a hit factory! KISS never really had hits in Britain until the late 80s…

Yeah, they had a hit with ‘God Gave Rock & Roll To You’, which funnily enough was a cover…

Ricardo: ARGENT wasn’t it, it was bloody terrible! *laughs*

Jenny: That was the one from ‘Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey’…

You’ve done a sparse reinterpretation of BLINK 182 ‘All The Small Things’…

Ricardo: This is one of Jenny’s favourites from yesteryear with her being the rock fan…

Jenny: I do like a lot of rock and as I mentioned earlier, it’s more difficult to do an electronic pop cover of electronic pop songs and make then your own. ‘All The Small Things’ is pop punk and its fast, so to slow it down like that, you have be careful not to do that twee girl with ukulele thing like a John Lewis ad, but you can do that and do it well, so that you can hear the song itself rather than all the fireworks.

Ricardo: We first recorded ‘All The Small Things’ about 20 years ago as a demo or the first SPRAY album and forgot about it. One day it turned up on the hard drive, we took the vocal acapella and experimented around it to see what we could come up with, but in the end, we had to re-record the vocal due to the earphone bleed! Using the vocal first and then shaping the music second was why it’s such an unusual cover.

Jenny: I think it came out really well, it’s one of my favourites so far.

Bringing Karl Bartos back into the conversation, he did a rather radical speeded up vocodered electronic cover of Eddy Grant’s ‘Baby Come Back’ as ELEKTRIC MUSIC…

Ricardo: I remember at the time being very excited at this because ‘The Mix’ was in 1991 and Karl Bartos had left by then, but then in 1992, the NME charity cover compilation ‘Ruby Trax’ came out and ‘Baby Come Back’ was Herr Bartos’ comeback on that. However, it was pretty awful… c’mon Karl, spend more than an hour on it please! It clears up why KRAFTWERK were so unproductive, they couldn’t be bothered really, they were too picky! They spent a week writing ‘Electric Café’ and 5 years mixing it! *laughs*

‘Gentle On My Mind’, as made famous by your late friend Glen Campbell, what did you think of Gil Trythall’s radical Moog modular version for ‘Switch On Nashville’ from 1972?

Ricardo: That reminds me of what I said earlier that of that roboticness but with a human feel, I do like 16ths and stuff as heard on ‘No1 Song In Heaven’, I think it’s marvellous, you can hear humans playing but it’s still technical.

Now Glen Campbell did quite a few Jimmy Webb songs, you have covered ‘The Highwayman’ before…

Jenny: Yes, we’ve done it live and it’s gone down incredibly well…

Ricardo: Originally in 2003-2004, we were going to record it as SPRAY featuring Glen Campbell. But it never came to pass because I don’t think he quite understood what we wanted him to do, which was record vocal and send it to us. My previous recording session with him to do ‘Rhinestine Cowboy’, I flew over to his house and I think he assumed that was what I was going to do this time! *laughs*

So will ‘The Highwayman’ come out on this cover project?

Ricardo: It’s on the Bandcamp download version of ‘Children Of A Laser God’.

What else is on the cards with these covers?

Jenny: There’s five more to come… one is ‘Love Rears Its Ugly Head’ by LIVING COLOUR, it’s very funky and jazzy, we have yet to get it finished but about a month ago, it came on in the car and I was like “oh my God, we need to do this…”

Ricardo: This should be a successful one cos I hate the original! I always say that about earnest American rock. So after Jenny sends her vocal back and I get my hands on it, it should be a little bit more interesting to get away from the original.

Jenny: I think the vocal will sound very different…

What about the other ones?

Ricardo: We’ll probably put out that NINE INCH NAILS one, ‘Come Back Haunted’ to tie in with Halloween but ‘Born To Be Alive’, the old Patrick Hernandez disco record is in the running. We started it a few years ago but never finished it, but I did get a guitarist to play the riff for me so as it’s on file, we may as well use it.

Did you know who programmed the Roland System 100 sequence on ‘Born To Be Alive’? To give you a clue, an electronic music fan, you’ll probably guess the band he was because they were connected to SPARKS!

Ricardo: It’s not TELEX is it?

Yeah, Dan Lacksman from TELEX!

Ricardo: I had no idea! Right, we’re definitely doing that then! Now, I want to do a cover of my favourite Italo disco song which is ‘The Different Story’ by Peter Schilling, It was produced by Michael Cretu aka ENIGMA. But we can’t do it because every time we try, it sounds either exactly the same as the original or to my ears, slightly worse!

I think Italo disco covers wouldn’t work as SPRAY are spiritually not that far removed from the form, it would be like you doing PET SHOP BOYS covers although Jenny singing would give it a twist…

Jenny: That would be the only thing though wouldn’t it? But we’d like to do ‘No1 Song In Heaven’ live, but that would be something we wouldn’t want to replicate unless we could do it properly.

Ricardo: So my three favourite songs are ‘The Different Story’, ‘No1 Song In Heaven’ and ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’, over the years I’ve tried to cover all of those but it just doesn’t work…

Jenny: There’s no point! *laughs*

Another card, and it’s an EMS Polysynthi, described by Vince Clarke as the worst sounding synth ever made…

Ricardo: Didn’t Jean-Michel Jarre use an EMS? I like the colours on it…

Yeah, it’s the best thing about it, tried one at college, no matter what knob you twiddle, it still sounded rubbish!

Ricardo: It’s cool, it would look good on stage and that’s why I’d get one! *laughs*

So why have you covered Chas & Dave’s ‘Ain’t No Pleasing You?’

Ricardo: Someone suggested it as a joke but we did it anyway…

Jenny: I think it was Terri MacDonald…

Ricardo: On her ‘Cabinets Of Curiosities’ podcast, she had a SPRAY Song of the Week, these little internet radio shows that spring up out of nowhere, some are quite good so we associate ourselves with them like Terri’s.

Jenny: I miss her show, it was very good.

Ricardo: So she suggested Chas & Dave, we changed the rhythm to 4/4 and it worked out ok.

Football songs, so why ‘Diamond Lights’ and not ‘Ole Ola’ or ‘World In Motion’ or ‘Top Of The World’ which was utter rubbish despite being co-written by Johnny Marr? *laughs*

Ricardo: All football songs are terrible, including ‘World In Motion’ , yes it’s the best football song but it’s the worst NEW ORDER record, the lyrics are appalling !

Jenny: But ‘Diamond Lights’ is fabulous…

Ricardo: It’s such a strange record to have been made in the first place, that why I’ve always liked it, it was released on Radio Shack!

So it was connected to Ian Levine?

Ricardo: He wasn’t involved but it’s a late 80s gay disco record by two footballers, there was only the most oblique reference to football in the lyrics, what a strange thing to be a success. They were called Glenn & Chris, but Hoddle & Waddle would have made a better moniker…

This isn’t really a football record as such as it’s not about winning or beating someone, this is more Ant & Dec as opposed to PJ & Duncan; it was never as good when PJ was with Harvey cos the stuff was really gloomy and miserable…

Ricardo: I used to have a really big collection of Ant & Dec and PJ & Duncan CD singles, they used to sell them dead cheap for 99p! I sold them as a job lot on eBay and some bloke came round in a Range Rover and took them off my hands, good times! Back to ‘Diamond Lights’, we did it totally straight, there’s no irony involved, we covered it as a fantastic pop song.

Jenny: Oooh, I’ve only just seen it but Glenn Hoddle and Chris Waddle have commented on Twitter about it.

Ricardo: Them both commenting leads me to believe that they have been talking about it behind the scenes.

Jenny: But I think you sent it to them it to them *laughs*

So your process? When you decide to do say ‘Diamond Lights’, are you sourcing sheet music or working it out by ear?

Ricardo: I play by ear, I use my hands, but I play by ear! You work out the chords, programme them into FruityLoops and then forget about the original and start tinkering like you are writing an original song.

What advice would you give to electronic acts that are looking to do cover versions as an extra string to their bow or for publicity or whatever?

Ricardo: Well, nobody wants our advice, after 20 years, I couldn’t really offer any… but if I was to, gimmickry is not a dirty word. Do something that is not in your usual style but turn it into your usual style.

Jenny: I think that’s pretty much what I would say, but also, don’t listen to us because we don’t know what we’re doing! *laughs*

Final card, the Oberheim Matrix 12…

Ricardo: What a great name, if there wasn’t already a synth called the Oberheim Expander, I would name an album that, it’s such a glorious collection of syllables. I’ve a plug-in called OPX which is a knock-off of the Oberheim OBX and got all the VAN HALEN presets, it’s got RUSH and the ‘Tom Sawyer’ bass, and the ‘Love Beat’ organ which was used by THE SPACE BROTHERS in the dance hit ‘Shine’.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to SPRAY

Updated at monthly intervals, ‘Untitled Covers Project’ is available as a free download from all good newsagents and directly from
https://spray.bandcamp.com/album/untitled-covers-project

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Vintage Synth Trumps is a card game by GForce that features 52 classic synthesizers

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Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
23rd August 2022

VANDAL MOON Queen Of The Night

18 August 2022 /

Already veterans of five albums, California-based duo VANDAL MOON opened their account with the self-released ‘Dreamless’ in 2013.

Purveyors of a modern form of electronic goth rock fusing THE SISTERS OF MERCY with DEPECHE MODE, Blake Voss and Jeremy Einsiedler presented their most synth-based long player ‘Black Kiss’ in 2020.

From it, ‘Robot Lover’ reimagined ‘Enjoy The Silence’ covered by THE MISSION while ‘Suicidal City Girl’ took its lead from THE DANSE SOCIETY in its enthralling electronic post-punk disco.

For their new album ‘Queen Of The Night’, VANDAL MOON don’t tamper too much with the template of ‘Black Kiss’, but they add ambition in a concept record about a young woman navigating a world that is falling apart. Written during the worldwide lockdown, Blake Voss attempts to articulate the claustrophobia and insanity of those coming of age limited to communicating with the outside world via social media only, unable to mature in real life situations. All this while facing an uncertain future like being trapped inside a JG Ballard novel.

Each song focusses on the ‘Queen Of The Night’ character, “singing for the youth of our world”. Both featuring additional synthesizers from FM ATTACK’s Shawn Ward, ‘Young. Deadly. Beautiful.’ is an opener that signals business as usual using pitched up voice samples for its main hook in a sister song to ‘Robot Lover’ from ‘Black Kiss’, while the ‘Queen Of The Night’ title track delivers as it suggests in its brooding gothwave.

With crashing drums borrowed from THE SISTERS OF MERCY’s ‘Dominion’, ‘Sweet Disaster’ is an entertaining vampiric set piece with menacing keyboard motifs. But ‘Chemical Love’ moves towards more classic gothic moods straight out of the ‘Disintegration’ songbook with only Blake Voss’ baritone indicating this is not THE CURE. Meanwhile, ‘Sunlight’ heads straight into Motorik goth rock with live bass guitar from Kate Hummel.

Clowns can polarise and are often seen as sinister so ‘Laughing Like A Clown’ provides an eerie anthem to suit. However ‘Easy To Dream’, a duet with Masha Zinevitch from Belarusian band DLINA VOLNY doesn’t quite hit the spot although much better is ‘Too High To Cry’ with Johnny Dynamite which has more of a hook.

‘War’ is a moodier ballad structured around an offbeat with some great keyboard work by Jeremy Einsiedler, while with gated synths and a funkier bassline moving off a straight four structure, ‘Kiss Me Goodbye’ provides the first real musical development on the album; but it fades after just over two minutes thus sounding incomplete. That’s a shame because it has greater potential as the highlight of the album.

Back to a more traditional approach and not a cover of the Prince song, ‘Diamonds & Pearls’ featuring Vangie Lee adds sax and tinkled ivories to good effect before the album closes with ‘The Way You Cry’, a mighty alternative rock anthem that wouldn’t have gone amiss on an earlier album by THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS with a thematic string machine helping to rouse the chorus along as the guitars stridently power up.

VANDAL MOON have not gone rockabilly or anything and ‘Queen Of The Night’ will keep fans satisfied with its stronger storyline variation on the ‘Black Kiss’ theme. Despite the poetic angst, there is hope and there are any number of tracks here that can be playlisted for a good darkwave disco party. So rise, reverberate and keep the body electric…

‘Queen Of The Night’ is released by Starfield Music on 19th August 2022, available as a crimson vinyl LP, cassette or download from https://vandalmoon.bandcamp.com/

https://www.vandalmoon.com/

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Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Nicole Fraser-Herron
18th August 2022

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