Author: electricityclub (Page 74 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

VALERIE RENAY Christine

9 March 2022 /


Valerie Renay, one-time frontwoman of NOBLESSE OBLIGE has recorded an icy synth laden cover of SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES’ ‘Christine’.

No stranger to drastically reworked covers, with NOBLESSE OBLIGE, Renay recorded a stark funereal cover of THE EAGLES’ ‘Hotel California’ in 2013 on their album ‘Affair Of The Heart’.

Laced with layers of string machine, her downtempo take on ‘Christine’ comes from an upcoming Siouxsie tribute album entitled ‘Icon’; the collection also features the brooding reinterpretation of ‘Rhapsody’ by Jorja Chalmers which was included on her ‘Midnight Train’, one of the best albums of 2021 and Jay-Jay Johanson’s trip-hop flavoured stamp on ‘Tattoo’. Additionally, Berlin-based duos PYSCHE and NNHMN respectively contribute heavy electronic versions of ‘Cities In Dust’ and ‘Happy House’ while Italian Combo HIDDEN PLACE points ‘Dazzle’ in a frantic industrial goth direction to highlight how under-rated the song is within the Banshees catalogue.

To accompany ‘Christine’, Valerie Renay has produced a low budget, lo-fi, DIY video featuring German underground musician and model Steve Morell in a cameo; she spoke to ELECTRICITY CLUB.CO.UK about the Strawberry Girl and the Banana Split Lady…

When you get invited to cover songs on these tribute albums, do you get to choose or are you told what to perform?

I was able to choose, but my first choice, which was ‘Israel’, had already been chosen by someone else. Luckily, ‘Christine’ was still free!

What was the inspiration behind your arrangement of ‘Christine’?

I started by playing the song on the piano and jam with Theo Taylor, who co-produced the track. I wanted to create something slow, moody, dreamy, and sensual to depict this descent into insanity that is the story of the real Christine. I tried to construct a spacious and sonically sparse sphere like a hall of mirrors, where it’s hard to tell reality from fantasy, and you just find yourself drifting aimlessly.


You made the video on a zero budget. What is the story and how did you get it made?

We made the video in my old flat in the middle of the lockdown at the end of 2020, while it was still kind of illegal to gather in the same room unless the windows and doors were open. Theo Taylor also shot and edited the video. I knew he was leaving for New Zealand shortly after, and it was our last chance to make a video together.

The lyrics of the song were inspired by the book ‘The Three Faces of Eve’ which tells the story of Christine Sizemore, a woman who suffers from multiple personality disorder. The names in the songs, Strawberry Girl, Turtle Lady, etc are actual names that Christine’s children gave to the different distinct personalities, of which there were 22 in all.

So, ideally I wanted 22 people to come into my flat and “be me”. In the end, I was happy to get hold of a handful of friends and get them to stand outside in the garden while we were shooting inside, one at a time, trying to respect the corona regulation as much as possible.

It was a very intimate affair. The atmosphere was relaxed, and we managed to have a lot of fun while shooting and drinking wine. I was honoured that Berlin living legend and supermodel Steve Morell was able to join us.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks

‘Christine’ features on the tribute album ‘Icon’ released on 18th April 2022 by Infrastition as a CD, pre-order from
http://www.infrastition.com/en/produit/icon-tribute-to-siouxsie-and-the-banshees/

https://www.facebook.com/valerierenaysolo/

https://twitter.com/FemmeFacade

https://www.instagram.com/val_renay/

https://valerierenay.bandcamp.com/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
9th March 2022

ZACHERY ALLAN STARKEY Solitaire

7 March 2022 /

From his home in New York, Zachery Allan Starkey presented a gritty reality on his 2020 album ‘Fear City’ with observations on the Covid crisis and the rise of the extreme right around the world but in the USA in particular.

It was a product of the times and its title track in collaboration with Bernard Sumner of NEW ORDER captured an appropriate dystopian tension using hooky electronics and club-friendly beats. With an expanded physical edition of ‘Fear City’ on the way, Zachery Allan Starkey has released a new single ‘Solitaire’ to bring the narrative of the album into an equally uncertain 2022.

Despite the toppling of Donald Trump since its release and the availability of vaccines, ‘Fear City’ is still very relevant with Vladmir Putin now wanting to play at being Napoléon in Eastern Europe, partly thanks to the likes of veiled fascists such as the former 45th president of the USA, the Lord Haw-Haw of the 21st Century Nigel Farage, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and various political organisations having turned a blind eye to his dictatorial antics while tub thumping on his behalf in lieu of millions in rubles. All this as his cronies and oligarchs accquired interests in property, football clubs, F1 teams, newspapers, TV stations, tech companies and financial institutions!

But while ‘Fear City’ was observational from a wider perspective, ‘Solitaire’ is much more personal, dealing with the anxiety of isolation and solitude, accompanied by electro house rhythms and swirling symphonic synth. The nocturnal ‘Solitaire’ music video was directed by Steven Celestin and captures segments of Starkey trapped in his own dystopian hell around the Brooklyn community districts of Bushwick and Bedford–Stuyvesant.

Starkey said: “I’ve had a hard life, so I’ve become a very isolated, solitary person, and I wrote ‘Solitaire’ about embracing my feelings of isolation and solitude and being empowered by them, rather than saddened… I view it as a positive song, but I wrote ‘Solitaire’ as a way to deal with my own heavy feelings of isolation and depression, as well as my increasing difficulties with connecting to other people.”

With these deeper feelings, Starkey has taken a new approach to vocals. Having recovered from Covid himself, he experienced a dissociated haze of insomnia and depression, the fallout of which is now reflected visually in surreal images of enforced urban entrapment.

Meanwhile, director Celestin added: “Solitude is nothing and everything: sometimes restorative, sometimes destructive. The visual expression of this piece aims to convey both at the same time. At once one is hopeful and driven, at times one is distant and listless. These relatable emotions coalesce in the dreamlike expression of wander, or dérive.’Solitaire’ to me is an expression of dérive; to drift through the varied ambiance of urban society. The appearance of this is built on the backs of people much smarter than us, but is ultimately an acknowledgement. What is new is old.”

‘Solitaire’ is released by Death Trip NYC via the usual digital platforms including https://zasmusic.bandcamp.com/track/solitaire

The expanded physical edition of ‘Fear City’ is due later in 2022

https://www.zacheryallanstarkey.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ZASmusic/

https://twitter.com/ZacheryAStarkey

https://www.instagram.com/zacheryallanstarkey/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
7th March 2020

Introducing HANNA RUA

5 March 2022 /

From Östersund in Sweden comes Hanna Rua, a dreamy new electronic pop artist based in Brighton who has just signed to Aztec Records whose past and present artists include BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT, NINA and BUNNY X.

With her bright and breezy vocal style, her uplifting debut single ‘Don’t Cut Your Angels’ came out at the end of 2021. Supreme synthetic Scandipop with a driving neo-Motorik beat, the Swedes do seem to be better at this kind of stuff than everyone else; ‘Don’t Cut Your Angels’ is a delicious YOLO anthem that sparkles with optimism like a danceable take on the love theme of ‘St Elmo’s Fire’ with its ringing overtones.

Asking “what happened to your lust for life?”, it reconnects to a child-like innocence when anything could be possible in life. What ‘Don’t Cut Your Angels’ certainly does not lack is a infectious drive. At various points, the electronic bassline even feels like it is about to morph into THE SEX PISTOLS but then again, that is as not as daft as it sounds as they borrowed ABBA’s ‘SOS’ for ‘Pretty Vacant’. And with our young heroine having covered their recent single ‘Don’t Shut Me Down’ and final UK No1 ‘Super Trouper’ on her YouTube channel, the circle is complete.

Hanna Rua’s collaborative partner is producer Sam Martin who served his studio and songwriting apprenticeship with XENOMANIA who worked with PET SHOP BOYS and GIRLS ALOUD. The lady herself said of her co-creation: “I want the song to feel like a sparkling ball of light that is growing and growing, and might eventually explode into a glow that could light up the darkest of corners. But to simplify it – I want it to just be a frickin’ nice tune for you to enjoy”.

Continuing the good work at a more cruising syncopated pace, her new single is ‘Tears On Your Pillow’, a song about unfulfilled dreams and disappointments. With the slight air of Aussie songstress Tina Arena is her collaboration with CLIENT LIAISON, this is the type of melodic synthpopwave that fellow Swedes Max Martin and Oscar Holter have been recently giving THE WEEKND a helping hand with and despite the tone of resignation, it rouses with a message to “get up again”.

Catchy, joyous and hitting all manner of scales, Hanna Rua is a potential new star in the making. Her bright demeanour and morning sun are much needed right now to overcome life’s various curveballs.

‘Don’t Cut Your Angels’ and ‘Tears On Your Pillow’ are released by Aztec Records, available as digital singles from https://hannaruamusic.bandcamp.com/

https://www.hannarua.com/

https://www.facebook.com/hannaruamusic

https://twitter.com/Hannaruamusic

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

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCweRtQ9rOvb-xmASWeffs-Q

Text by Chi Ming Lai
5th March 2022

WOLFGANG FLÜR Magazine 1

3 March 2022 /

Wolfgang Flür is best known as one of the two electronic percussionists in the classic line-up of KRAFTWERK that gave the world ‘Radio-Activity, ‘Trans-Europe Express’, ‘The Man Machine’ and ‘Computer World’.

But despite what has been close to a five decade recording career,  Wolfgang Flür releases what is only his second full-length collection under his own name. Flür’s first album on departing Kling Klang was ‘Time Pie’ issued in 1997 under the moniker of YAMO, but ‘Magazine 1’ follows up 2015’s ‘Eloquence’ which collected a range of solo tracks and collaborations recorded since 2002.

‘Magazine 1’ also does this to a lesser extent by featuring ‘Zukunftsmusik’ with U96 which first appeared on the dance combo’s 2018 ‘Reboot’ collection and reappeared in edited form on the collaborative album ‘Transhuman’ in 2020. This is an excellent track but here it is again in its third long playing incarnation. This Teutonic “future music” with Flür’s distinctive vocal remains equal to ‘Activity Of Sound’, his 2014 collaboration with Ireland’s iEUROPEAN.

However, things are not all up to the standard of ‘Zukunftsmusik’; using an array of robotic voice treatments, the opening ‘Magazine’ song featuring Ramón Amezcua is frankly a mess as it moves between its metronomic and shuffling beat sections. Again with U96 and Flür rapping, ‘Best Buy’ distorts its robotics in a KRAFTWERK vein and promises Kling Klang aesthetics, but things are more ‘Tour De France Soundtracks’ than even the best material on ‘Electric Café’ with the middle eight speech dialogue being particularly irritating as the track morphs into another mess.

Released in 2021 by BAND ELECTRONICA, the new electronically focussed project of Midge Ure, ‘Das Beat’ was a glorious slice of robopop in collaboration with Flür with “Beats through wires, beats through walls”. Unfortunately in his own ‘Magazine 1’ version, things that were good about the song like the blisteringly catchy synth hook in the classic KRAFTWERK tradition have been watered down into a mush with a new melody that is nowhere near as appealing. Meanwhile the icy motorik bossa nova inexplicably has incongruous sections of electro beats thrown in.

With cutting Numan-esque synth riffs and the cast involved, the pulsating ‘Birmingham’ featuring Claudia Brücken on lead vocals duetting with Flür’s vocodered presence and Peter Hook on his low-slung bass should have been a highlight, but disappoints due to its lack of structure. Also using similar Numan keyboard stylings, ‘Night Drive’ features Anushka who adds a soulful tone of voice to the strident electro backdrop, recalling the dancefloors of New York like The Danceteria with an enjoyable club friendly excursion although halfway through, it adopts a darker cutting tone.

‘Electric Sheep’ with Carl Cox and U96 possesses a childlike quality that will polarise listeners but ‘Billionaire (Symphony Of Might)’ with Juan Atkins is the sort of generic techno that Flür often plays in his DJ sets which he misleadingly passes off as concerts. Closing the album with ‘Say No!’, the lengthy MAPS collaboration points to where ‘Magazine 1’ could easily have gone, utilising a Flür anti-war monologue with choral and vocoder interventions over an absorbing midtempo electronic soundscape that evolves into a wonderful Germanic crescendo.

A true mixed bag of an album, two of the best tracks have already come out while several of the collaborations do not live up to their potential. But for KRAFTWERK fans seeking new material from members of the classic line-up, ‘Magazine 1’ will be welcomed, providing flashing reminders of a pioneering era that will act as an escape from the disorientations and uncertainties of the present day.

‘Magazine 1’ is released by Cherry Red Records on 4th March 2022 in CD + vinyl LP formats

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/artist/wolfgang-flur/

https://www.facebook.com/musiksoldat

https://twitter.com/iwasarobot

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Markus Luigs
3rd March 2022

RODNEY CROMWELL Memory Box

1 March 2022 /

Intended as a soundtrack to a sadly post truth world, Rodney Cromwell returns with his second album ‘Memory Box’.

Behind the persona of Rodney Cromwell is Adam Cresswell who said: “For most of my career I’ve been writing about our dystopian future, and then when it finally arrived, I really didn’t want to write about it. So rather than looking outward, on what was going on around us in the landscape of the pandemic, I looked inward; drawing on experiences and relationships from my past in order to look to the future. I essentially dug deep into my own creative memory box.”

A very different album to the melancholic but upbeat synthpop sensibility of 2015’s ‘Age Of Anxiety’, ‘Memory Box’ is a much hazier record presented with cerebral impressionistic qualities. It all begins with the motorik buzz ‘n’ bleep fest of ‘Intercom’ with vocoders that sound like ‘Trans’ era Neil Young if he had a more indie bent.

Then after years of imitating Peter Hook musically, ‘Opus Three’ sees Cresswell do his best Bernard Sumner impression in his very own ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’ if ever there was one, although with its charming Stylophone solo, the homage is perhaps isn’t quite as blatant as NATION OF LANGUAGE’s ‘On Division Street’!

Meanwhile, the ‘Memory Box’ title song is an appealing metronomic number that reflects frustration and resignation about how truth and honesty are of so little worth in modern society, especially with the likes of Boris Johnson exploiting their posh boy privilege with blatant lies and being applauded for it!

Taking its lead from STEREOLAB, the grim moods of ‘Fluctuations’ are made more haunting by spacey keyboard swirls while the neo-acoustic ‘Waiting Room’ takes its lead from in ‘Kasparov’, one of Cresswell’s past musical adventures in ARTHUR & MARTHA.

The interlude ‘Butterflies In The Filing Cabinet’ utilises Mellotron-derived sounds for some uneasy psychedelic overtures but imagining ‘Tanzmusik’ from ‘KRAFTWERK’s ‘Ralf & Florian’ album meeting THE BEATLES ‘Flying’, the wonderful ‘Cloud Catalogue’ provides a catchy cosmic instrumental journey. Swung in 6/8 with catchy keyboard arpeggios, ‘The Department Of Public Tranquility’ also references ARTHUR & MARTHA with Theremin tones and sombre vocals encapsulating an aura of hopelessness.

Despite its electro-glam backbeat, ‘Wristwatch Television’ still fits with the tribulations of the ‘Memory Box’ concept, highlighting the wider public tunnel vision of not accepting the bigger picture when acquiring news from Martin on Facebook who has suddenly become an expert on vaccines and an authority on synthpop despite dissing THE HUMAN LEAGUE only four years before!

More stringy Mellotron-derived sounds come with the wordless ‘Calculations, but ‘The Winter Palace’ is a wonderful icy closer that is classic Rodders embracing motorik mechanisation within a hypnotic electronic backdrop and providing a glorious synth solo for a hopeful uplift to savour.

With the past two years seeing the circuit schematics of a Boss guitar pedal being viralled by anti-vax conspiracy theorists as the 5G chip sitting within the Covid vaccine and accepted as fact, where Devotees still think DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Speak & Spell was released on 5th October 1981 despite archive sales evidence to the contrary, where surreal distortion is starting to become reality, ‘Memory Box’ is a fine Kafkaesque concept album for exhausted souls to dance to as an imploding disaster awaits…

But what’s that No-Vacs Djokovic, you’re happy to forgo a few more Grand Slam titles at the height of your tennis career in order to maintain your stubborn stance? Don’t look up!

‘Memory Box’ is released as a yellow vinyl EP by Happy Robots Records on 18th March 2022, available from https://rodneycromwell.bandcamp.com/album/memory-box-2

RODNEY CROMWELL, SPRAY and CIRCUIT3 play The Cavendish Arms, 128 Hartington Rd, London SW8 2HJ on Saturday 19th March 2022 – tickets available in advance from https://www.happyrobots.co.uk/tickets

https://www.happyrobots.co.uk/rodney-cromwell

https://www.facebook.com/rodneycromwellartist/

https://twitter.com/robot_rocker

https://www.instagram.com/robot_rocker/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Alison Ahern
1st March 2022

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