A self-confessed purveyor of rock ‘n’ roll, Ian McNabb found fame as the leader of THE ICICLE WORKS who hit UK charts in 1984 with ‘Love Is A Wonderful Colour’, eventually reaching No15.
Emerging from post-punk Liverpool, perhaps unsurprisingly, THE ICICLE WORKS were often compared with THE TEARDROP EXPLODES, sharing psychedelic overtones, frantic rhythms and cosmic string machines.
While it would be fair to say McNabb had a similar vocal timbre to Julian Cope, he was the undoubted master of a belting chorus. Releasing a self-titled debut album in 1984, THE ICICLE WORKS also found success in the US with the magnificent ‘Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)’ becoming a Top 40 hit Stateside. Its recent use in the Episode 7 end credits of ‘Stranger Things 2’ helped revive interest in the band’s back catalogue.
With great songs such as ‘Nirvana’, ‘As The Dragonfly Flies’, ‘Hollow Horse’, ‘When It All Comes Down’, ‘Understanding Jane’ and ‘Who Do You Want For Your Love?’, the original line-up of McNabb, Chris Layhe and Chris Sharrock knocked on the door of the UK Top40 on several occasions during their career but ultimately remained acclaimed cult favourites.
While THE ICICLE WORKS split with Sharrock notably ending up on the drum stool for Robbie Williams, McNabb pursued his love of Americana and went on to work with CRAZY HORSE, releasing the Mercury Prize nominated album ‘Head Like a Rock’ in 1994.
With the work of THE ICICLE WORKS being celebrated on a 35th Anniversary tour featuring a two and a half hour set including solo material, Ian McNabb kindly chatted about string machines, Micro Mellotrons and more…
When THE ICICLE WORKS started out, you were a tight-knit guitar / bass / drums three piece, so when did keyboards enter the frame?
I played keyboards from the very beginning. Keyboards were in the frame from first day’s rehearsal.
You were using a Korg 770 and Logan string machine back then, what drew you to those?
Korg 770; well I couldn’t afford a Moog… the Logan string machine I bought in 1977; it was state of the art for the times!
Those early songs were quite complex and frantic, as exemplified by your first single ‘Nirvana’?
Yes we loved tom toms. We were deliberately complex. We knew we could play better than anyone else around at the time and wanted to prove it. ‘Nirvana’ set the template. Pretty much everything on that first album has tribal drums. We never really did it again after that. We loved The Bunnymen, Banshees, Adam &The Ants, Bow Wow Wow. We wanted to make three people sound huge.
On the self-titled debut album, ‘As The Dragonfly Flies’ was one of the highlights and had an air of THE TEARDROP EXPLODES, how did that come together?
Yes it did. We loved THE TEARDROP EXPLODES. We ripped loads of that stuff off. ‘A Factory In The Desert’ was me trying to rewrite ‘Reward’. The original demo of ‘In the Cauldron Of Love’ is so like ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN, it’s funny. We managed to scale it back a little on the record and sound more like us.
You recorded the debut album with Hugh Jones, how was the studio dynamic between band and producer? Any funny stories you can recall?
We got on well although there were arguments. When you’ve been playing those ten songs for a couple of years and then you try to record them and someone starts changing things, it’s traumatic. I wouldn’t say it was much fun working with Hugh as he was such a taskmaster. He would make us play things over and over for hours. That’s not how I work. If I haven’t got it by take two I move on. We took sleeping bags into the studio as Hugh could spend three days mixing one track and he never stopped until it was finished. Hugh came to see us this year playing the first album in full. We had a lovely time. The debut IW album is the only one I can listen to.
‘Love Is A Wonderful Colour’ was a UK hit in late 1983 and captured a glorious wintery feel which suited its time of release?
It actually got in the Top 20 in January 1984. It was getting a lot of airplay leading up to Christmas but when they stopped playing all the festive sh*te, they really hammered it. It was a long, slow burn. I never thought it was all that good but it sits in people’s memories of their youth now and has a special place in their hearts (and mine). It definitely has a brown leaf flavour.
‘Birds Fly’ is perhaps your best known song and has been exposed to a new audience via its inclusion in ‘Stranger Things’, how did you feel about the song’s longevity?
That song has been very kind to me. It was a sizeable hit in the USA and once you have a smash over there, they never forget it. It didn’t sound like anything else and a lot of songs have ripped it off over the years. Every couple of years I hear another.
I’m very proud of that one. I particularly like the way it has a prologue that is in a different tempo and is not repeated. THE BEATLES used to do this a lot in their early years (‘If I Fell’, ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret?’, ‘Here There & Everywhere’). THE BEACH BOYS did it on ‘California Girls.’
‘Birds Fly’ was a US Top 40 hit but never quite got that recognition in the UK, any thoughts in hindsight as to why it might not have been?
It was No2 in the indie chart for a while, but it never really got any significant airplay whereas ‘LIAWC’ got loads. We re-released it after’ LIAWC’ was a hit, but the fans all had it and the unconverted never really got to hear it. I’m sure a TOTP appearance would have made it huge.
By the time of 1984’s ‘Hollow Horse’, the arrangements had become less complex and more direct while hints of Americana like THE BYRDS were starting to make themselves heard, was that a natural move for you?
We’d gone as far as we could with experimenting, yes we definitely became more of a straight ahead pop / rock band after that. I got fed up of shouting over the Burundi Boys and Chris Sharrock would have had a heart attack if he would have kept on doing that every night. The songs became more simple, lyrically also.
THE ICICLE WORKS will be touring the UK this Autumn, what can people expect who might be thinking about coming along?
Two and a half hours of pop / rock jollity. Plus songs from my solo catalogue. And some good gags.
Are you taking the Logan string machine out with you?
It’s in the cellar but I haven’t turned it on for 20 years. I’ll be using my Micro Mellotron though.
Looking back, which songs from THE ICICLE WORKS catalogue remain your favourites and why?
The ones that are fun to play live; ‘When It All Comes Down’, ‘Hollow Horse’, ‘Up Here In The North Of England’…I enjoy them all or I wouldn’t play them. ‘Birds Fly’ will always be my favourite.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its grateful thanks to Ian McNabb
Special thanks to Helen Robinson at Mersey Beast PR
‘The Icicle Works’ is still available as a 2CD deluxe set via Beggars Banquet Records
THE ICICLE WORKS National Tour 2019 includes:
Newcastle O2 Academy 2 (27th September), Sheffield Plug (28th September), Clitheroe The Grand (4th October), Farncombe St John’s Church (5th October 2019), Cardiff Globe (11th October), Southampton The Engine Rooms Sat (12th October), Cottingham Civic Hall (18th October), Norwich Arts Centre (19th October), Derby Flowerpot (25th October), Douglas Isle Of Man Villa Marina (26th October 2019), Bristol Thekla (1st November), Birmingham O2 Academy 2 (9th November), Leeds Brudenell Social Club (15th November)
Today, Canada is a hotbed of electronic pop talent like PURITY RING, GRIMES, TR/ST, AUSTRA, FM ATTACK, PARALLELS and ELECTRIC YOUTH, but it might not have happened without the trailblazing mission of RATIONAL YOUTH.
Comprising of Tracy Howe, Bill Vorn and Kevin Komoda, their debut album ‘Cold War Night Life’ captured the fraught tensions of two opposing ideologies and living under the spectre of Mutually Assured Destruction. A tense vision of how young Poles might have spent their down time in underground clubs under martial law was captured in the single ‘Saturdays In Silesia’, while RATIONAL YOUTH also observed “Checkpoint Charlie’s social climb” and the possibility of ‘Dancing On The Berlin Wall’.
When The Berlin Wall came down at the end of 1989, RATIONAL YOUTH’s work was kind of done, but with the threat of new “walls” being built again on both sides of the Atlantic and scary face-offs along the 38th Parallel, ‘Cold War Night Life’ is more than relevant again and an apt document for future generations to reference.
With ‘Cold War Night Life’ being given the lavish reissue treatment by Universal Music and RATIONAL YOUTH touring Germany with fellow Canadians PSYCHE, Tracy Howe kindly took time out to chat about his landmark debut.
When you released ‘Cold War Night Life’ in 1982, it must have been incomprehensible that 37 years later, one of the world’s biggest entertainment corporations would be putting money behind an expanded reissue in clear vinyl?
Absolutely unimaginable, and especially considering how Universal came to be the owners of the master YUL Records, who had released the original album in 1982. They then sold it to Capitol-EMI Records in 1985 and EMI subsequently buried it. They weren’t the slightest bit interested in it, and didn’t understand the record at all, but didn’t want anybody else to have it. It was never released by them until 1998, when EMI Canada released a CD version of it.
Years later, EMI are bought by Universal Music, and Universal Canada have a Vice-President of Catalogue Marketing, Ivar Hamilton, who always loved the album and used to play it on the air when he was in radio. So here we are.
How much involvement were you able to have in the package?
All the way through, every step. They sent everything to me, graphic elements, remastering, text for the advertising copy and press releases to me for approval. Anything I didn’t like, they changed it. Honestly, they were just wonderful to work with, and they treated this release like something special that they really want to be proud of too. It’s really almost the polar opposite of my previous experience with a major label.
Despite being the album opener, ‘Close To Nature’ is almost the forgotten RATIONAL YOUTH song but it is glorious, with its many layers and subtle nuances?
There were a couple of songs on the album that I felt sort of channelled through Bill Vorn and me, and wrote themselves, and that was one of them (the other was ‘Just A Sound In The Night’). That doesn’t happen to me anymore. Nowadays I have to sweat out every crotchet and semi-quaver, so to speak. It was written when the Doomsday Clock was at five to midnight, and it expressed desperation and utter frustration that the fundamental energy of the universe was in the hands of sociopaths. We have always opened our shows with ‘Close To Nature’, all the way back to 1981.
‘Les Meillleur Des Mondes’ was a chilling dystopian instrumental and the French title of ‘Brave New World’, had it been inspired by the book?
Yes indeed. Bill Vorn had just read it and we had both bought the ‘Computer World’ LP in the same week, and that’s what you hear there.
Two key tools in the production of ‘Cold War Night Life’ were the Roland MC4 Microcomposer and Roland TR808 Rhythm Composer, how did you come to discover these and did they break the bank seeing as you were a new act?
Well I got a bit of a free ride there, as expensive they indeed were, but Bill had a massive Roland System 700 rig, and he sold all of it except one complete modular synthesizer, and that paid for the TR-808 and the MC4. We even got the memory expansion for the MC-4, which brought it up to a whopping 24kb!
We knew about the MC8, but we’d never seen one. When the MC4 came out, it was the perfect picture for us because we still had Bill’s remaining System 700, and three System 100s, and as the MC4 could sequence 4 monophonic synths simultaneously, it was phenomenal, and there was no-one anywhere near us who were doing that sort of thing.
As for the 808, we’d been using a CR-78 up until then, and when I first heard the 808, it blew my face off, it sounded so great, and so tight, although we used the MC4 as the master clock, but it was the same thing really, super tight pre-MIDI wonderfulness.
What was the creative chemistry like within RATIONAL YOUTH? Did you see yourself as synth punks?
That would be a good way to describe it. Of course as soon as we formed, we felt like we were breathing different air from everyone else. But I think we were honestly part of something seriously disruptive, in the sense that we were aware that we part of a movement to democratise the making and distribution of music, which started with punk, and we were part of the vanguard of the technological revolution within that movement. There have been good and bad aspects of that whole upheaval in the music business, but at the end of the day I am actually very happy that people are able to make really good records in their bedrooms.
The marvellous ‘Ring The Bells’ gave RATIONAL YOUTH a chance to explore their moodier side, what can you remember about making it?
Well the image I had in mind was an old black and white photo showing the first Berlin Wall being constructed and the people on the East side of it looking down out of their windows watching as they were being walled in, and I thought of the line “a million faces stare out of the windows of the past”, and also I think I must have been thinking about ULTRAVOX’s ‘Vienna’, in terms of mood.
At the time I was obviously aware that I was deliberately writing songs about the Cold War, and about the sense that we were all on the edge of annihilation, but I think I kind of romanticised the whole thing, and it actually seems more frightening now. Looking back, I sometimes wonder what I was doing trying to make something poignant and beautiful out of the whole thing, but then what’s art about?
Looking back, with Canada being stuck between the USA and the Soviet Union, do you think you that was one of the reasons you manage to capture a tension in the music that West Europeans in particular could relate to?
Yes I do. We always had that pull between those two poles, and still do.
Another aspect of that is while I love a lot of American music, especially African-American music, when we started RATIONAL YOUTH, we decided on certain boundaries that we would not cross stylistically, and one was that there would be no “blue notes”, which obviously drives you in the direction of European music.
I think it is great to be eclectic, if that is what you are about, and you can pull it off in a way that is convincing, but whenever I try it I get into trouble, ie produce rubbish. I need to say to myself “I do synthpop. RATIONAL YOUTH sounds a certain way and has certain stylistic hallmarks”. I then try to stick with the programme, and I think that’s a more European outlook.
Had you visited Berlin before writing ‘Dancing On The Berlin Wall’ and where did dropping in ‘Ode To Joy’ come from? Was it ‘A Clockwork Orange’?
No, I didn’t visit Berlin the first time until the 90s after reunification. The ‘Ode To Joy’ bit comes from it being the anthem of the European Union, and being a particularly idealistic piece, especially Schiller’s lyrics… lyrics… hmmm, that makes Schiller sound like Max Martin. Well, you know what I mean!
Another geographical Cold War reference came with ‘Saturdays In Silesia’, composed while Poland was under martial law?
Yes. The funny thing about that is the line “Got the number 8 bus. Took it to the Navy docks”. Of course there are no Navy docks in Silesia, which is landlocked. I had conflated two events from the Solidarity period in Poland: the Gdansk shipyard strike and the Silesian miners’ strike into one story! Of course I get constantly reminded of this, especially from Poles!
With this being an expanded reissue, as well as RATIONAL YOUTH’s debut non-album single ‘I Want To See The Light’ and B-sides like ‘Coboloid Race’, there has been the opportunity to give a rare recording like ‘Citi Phosphore’ a chance to be heard more widely again? How do you look back on these recordings?
We were excited to be making records and had no realistic expectations of success. Also, the engineers we’d come up against in the studios we first recorded in had no idea what we were trying to do. Wonderful, magical times nevertheless.
What are your own personal favourite tracks or memories in the making of ‘Cold War Night Life’?
What I loved the most about making the record was our producer Pat Deserio. In contrast to my answer to your previous question: while Pat, who came from an Italian disco background, didn’t really understand how we did what we did, he didn’t care because he could hear the songs and he truly loved them, and he had so many old school record-making tricks up his sleeve, that it was always fun, and always a learning experience. If I had to pick favourite tracks, I guess I’d pick the two I mentioned before, ‘Close To Nature’ and ‘Just A Sound In The Night’.
With the current socio-political climate, it might seem obvious but why do you think ‘Cold War Night Life’ still resonates with electronic music enthusiasts worldwide after nearly four decades?
I think it resonates still, especially with synth fans, because it is pure in its intent and in its execution.
It’s one of the first pop albums, made entirely with analogue synthesizers and human voices, from the era of ‘Reproduction’ and ‘Computer World’, certainly the first from Canada, probably North America.
Yes, it does seem relevant again, in terms of the current state of the world, but honestly on a musical level, I can’t be objective enough to evaluate whether musically it sounds dated or not, but here it is still, 37 years later, and with new life. In any case, I haven’t got sick of it yet.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Tracy Howe
‘Cold War Night Life’ is reissued by Universal Music worldwide on 30th August 2019 in double clear vinyl LP and expanded CD formats, as well as being available on digital platforms
RATIONAL YOUTH 2019 German live dates with PSYCHE include: Oberhausen Kulttempel (25th August), Greifswald Juz Klex Veranstaltungen (30th August), Berlin Urban Spree (30th August)
Shawn Ward is the DJ and producer behind FM ATTACK. The Vancouver native grew up enjoying New Wave synthpop with ‘Space Age Love Song’ by A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS being a particular favourite.
He released his first EP ‘In The City’ under his own name on Tiga’s Turbo Recordings in 2001 before, after over a dozen solo releases, creating FM ATTACK in 2009 to fashion much more dreamier electronic disco vibes.
With a dance style not too dissimilar to regular Tiga associate Jori Hulkkonen, the debut FM ATTACK album ‘Dreamatic’ got a profile boost in 2011 when ‘Drive’ actor Ryan Gosling mentioned the directing team were fans of the record during interviews promoting the now-influential cult movie.
2013’s ‘Déjà Vu’ moved into more song-based movie soundtrack and Italo territory, but the third FM ATTACK album ‘Stellar’ in 2017 featured Texan combo MNYNMS and saw Ward’s love of new-wave and post-punk truly entering the fore, alongside the neon aesthetic that was now known as Synthwave.
With a new album just released appropriately titled ‘New World’ featuring the likes of MECHA MAIKO and VANDAL MOON on vocals alongside the more understated tones of Ward, he kindly spoke about his career to date as FM ATTACK and his upcoming live appearances in the British Isles this Autumn which include a London date with FUTURECOP!
What attracted you to produce music that had more of an atmospheric filmic vibe, rather than say full-on EDM?
My parents brought me up watching all the great 70s and 80s films and albums so that was definitely a big influence. My mom was more into new wave and my dad was a rocker.
What are the tools of your trade? Have your views on the hardware / software debate changed as you’ve progressed in your career?
I’m a vintage synth nerd, there is something very unique about programming your own sounds, the ones I use often are the Roland Jupiter 8, Jupiter 4 and the Emu Emax, I think software based synths can be great too, I’ve heard some great songs that are totally software based. Analog gear seems even more popular than ever now as people realize that you can really get “that” sound using the old gear and also they are a lot of fun!
How do you look back on your development from the first FM ATTACK album ‘Dreamatic’ in 2009 to 2017’s ‘Stellar’ which featured the vocals of MNYNMS on two tracks?
‘Dreamatic’ is more on the disco side of things and even touches on some French house vibes. ‘Stellar’ I think is more of a listening album and journeys into some more indie / post-punk vibes.
‘Magic’ from 2013’s ‘Déjà vu’ is considered to be your most popular track and is sung by Kristine, what was it inspired by and how did that come together in the studio?
I reached out to Kristine after I had done a remix for FLAMINGO DRIVE (SATIN JACKETS) with her on vocals. I originally sang on that song but thought her vocals would suit it much better, so I sent it to her with the lyrics. She sent me back her takes within a day and nailed it!
‘Ultraviolet’ from your most recent album ‘New World’ reflected a modern day take on Giorgio Moroder, is he a key influence?
I’m a big fan of Italo Disco so it came about pretty naturally. I’ve always been a Giorgio fan and also love Gino Soccio who did a lot of groundbreaking electronic disco tunes.
The subtle vocoder aesthetic which permeates through a number of FM ATTACK tracks is an interesting style, how do you decide when a track remains instrumental or needs a vocal whether natural or treated?
The vocoder gets used quite a bit of use in my studio. I like to use it for harmony vox to get dreamy textures or sometimes for funky main vocal lines.
Speaking of natural vocals, you collaborated with MECHA MAIKO on ‘Stranger’, what was she like to work with?
Hayley is a very talented artist. She knew exactly what to sing and came up with an amazing chorus when I sent her ‘Stranger’. Everything just clicked on that song.
The ‘New World’ title track has an interesting twist with more of a gothic vibe, plus it features VANDAL MOON on vocals… it sounds like THE SISTERS OF MERCY gone synthwave! Please discuss *laughs*
Yes! Blake (Vandal) has an amazing voice and adds a huge vibe to this song. We recorded his vocals on the fly in my studio – The guy is brilliant.
And ‘Believe’ sounds like THE CURE gone Synthwave??
Again I can’t say enough about Blake’s talent. He has so much passion and vibe in his vocal delivery and he encapsulates so many epic darkwave influences. He also wrote the lyrics instantly and we recorded the takes right away.
You remixed ‘Lifetime’, a great track by KOISHII & HUSH voiced by Gillian Gilbert in 2016, how was it to work on a track featuring one of NEW ORDER?
This was a very exciting and fun remix and I just love Gillian’s voice and always thought she sang amazing with THE OTHER TWO. It was pretty surreal when they announced the remix on New Order’s webpage too!
Canada appears to be a hotbed of electronic talent in its various sub-genres and at all levels, what might be in the water at the moment in your opinion?
Haha. Yes it seems like a lot of great synth wave / synthpop artists are coming out of here nowadays. It’s funny I think the same thing was said back in the 80s maybe? 🙂
There is a not entirely unfair criticism about Synthwave in a live context, so how do you undertake the challenge of presenting your music engagingly to an audience in a club or concert hall?
It’s never easy to perform live and deliver your show to an audience. Try to just let the music speak as I’m not a big stage performer and have very little stage presence.
You’ll be coming to play in London and Dublin this October, how are you looking forward to your first gigs in The British Isles?
London and Dublin are epic cities so I feel very lucky to play shows in both! The people are quite passionate about the music there so I am quite excited!
What’s next for you as FM ATTACK?
I am finishing off a remix for this great band from Vancouver called ACTORS. There is a new BETAMAXX album due for release in the Fall that I am working on also!
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Shawn Ward
It often takes an album for an act to more fully realise their sound.
This has certainly been the case for SOFTWAVE with their debut ‘Game On’. With the influence of big voiced singers such as Celine Dion, Tina Turner, Madonna, Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne, the Danish couple add a twist to sub-ERASURE flavoured synthpop.
Laced in Nordic melancholy, SOFTWAVE have delivered a fine debut album with off-the-wall narratives contained within a classic melodic framework.
Since their debut EP ‘Together Alone’ in 2016, Danish duo SOFTWAVE have been gaining momentum with well-received live performances and notable endorsements from former members of THE HUMAN LEAGUE Jo Callis and Ian Burden, as well as one-time Numan sideman Chris Payne.
From their studio in Herlev, Catrine Christensen and Jerry Olsen kindly talked about ‘Game On’ and what is turning out to be their busiest year to date…
How has the reception to ‘Game On’ been for you?
Catrine & Jerry: It was a great success. We sold way more vinyls that we thought we would. We were warned by so many Danes about producing vinyls, but we did it anyway because it was our personal wish to have our debut album on that format. We received good feedback from several reviewers.
Looking back, how was making ‘Game On’ compared with your first EP ‘Together Alone’?
Catrine & Jerry: It was more professional and serious with a strict deadline and a lot of collaborators. We constantly gain experience, so we completed tracks faster and the workflow was much better. When making the EP everything was new to us; the whole music scene, how you interact with people involved, is all something we are more familiar with today.
‘No Need To Hide’ has been cited by a number of people as one of the highlights from the album, what was that inspired by?
Catrine: This was the second song we worked on for the album. Lyrics wise, the song is inspired by my past time with a critically ill dad and how much I experienced from group therapy sessions. For me, it wasn’t a taboo and I wasn’t afraid to expose my feelings with others. Therefore I named the song ‘No Need To Hide’.
Jerry: Music wise, I wasn’t inspired by anything in particular; it was just a creative idea. If I were to name the title, as the shy guy I am, it would have been ‘I Need To Hide’ … *laughs*
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK understands ‘Something Is Missing’ is about your dog Nero?
Catrine: Haha… yes it is. I haven’t said that directly in the lyrics, because it was important for other people without a dog-relationship to relate to it as well. But basically this song is dedicated to everybody who lost something or someone valuable in their lives.
“As a child all my dreams came true” – The life before my dad got ill, I was spoiled. Apart from games, movies and toys, I always wanted a dog so badly, so he gave one to me. After 15 years with a lovely time with my dog Nero, he passed away. Therefore I named the song ‘Something Is Missing’.
Was the dancefloor friendly ‘Human Beings’ an observation of modern society?
Catrine: Yes. In today’s society, my experience is that only a few people have the time to study and analyze important subjects.
Some people only have the time to be superficial and then they forget about each other. That is a sad development when it doesn’t demand much more from you than to give “one smile one hug, empathise and having fun – in giving we receive, we are human beings”.
‘Galaxy Of Stars’ was quite an appropriate song to release in 2019, the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing, did you watch any of the many fascinating documentaries about it? Would you like to travel in space?
Catrine: We haven’t seen any recent documentaries about it. In fact we didn’t realise it was the 50th anniversary when we wrote the song, so we can label it as a happy accident.
Jerry: I love science fiction, so travelling in the great unknown would indeed be exiting. I wouldn’t rely on a metal tube with fire in the bottom to travel to other galaxies, but if some friendly ETs came by and offered me a ride in their shiny UFO, I would definitely go for it.
If Celine Dion fronted ERASURE, it would probably sound like SOFTWAVE, please discuss… 😉
Catrine: I would love someone to introduce us like that someday. As the humble person I am, I wouldn’t say that I have a voice like Celine Dion. But Jerry definitely has the talent of a young Vince Clarke 😉
Jerry: An interesting theory. Maybe someone should propose the two of them to collaborate. Then we can discuss if it sounds SOFTWAVE-ish.
Speaking of ERASURE, you covered ‘Siren Song’ live with a choir as part of the promotion for ‘Game On’, how was the experience and why did you choose that song in particular?
Catrine & Jerry: The song wasn’t really chosen by us, but by ELEKTROKOR (Electrochoir). For a long time, we had a request from a huge fan for us to make an ERASURE cover song. After discovering ELEKTROKOR by a coincidence via Facebook, we saw an opportunity to meet our fan’s request.
ELEKTROKOR has a huge talent and passion covering songs by DEPECHE MODE, YAZOO and ERASURE, which was a perfect match. It’s not often you get an opportunity like that in little Denmark. There was no doubt that we should collaborate. The idea was for guest them at their concert in a church. Afterwards we thought it was a perfect fit for them to join our release concert, which was welcomed by most of the audiences and the reviewer Teddy Bjørklund. Next time we do an ERASURE cover, we will choose the song ourselves.
Which tracks have been your own favourites from ‘Game On’ and why?
Jerry: My personal favourites are: ‘Something is Missing’ because I felt it had something to it from the very beginning and it’s quite catchy as well. Also ‘Galaxy of Stars’ because it’s very ERASURE like in its sound and ‘I Need Love’ is upbeat and in my own opinion, I think it has a YAZOO feeling to it.
Catrine: ‘Galaxy of Stars’ was my first challenge singing in a downbeat tempo and maintain the joy in my voice while singing. It was a lovely song to work with. I actually loved everything about it. It was written without struggling at all, the lyrics came easily to me. I really dreamed myself into the ‘Galaxy of Stars’. Even the vocal recordings were lovely. Normally I prefer to sing live, because singing in a box feels unnatural to me. I had the same experience with ‘Guardian Angel’. Music wise and in general, I like how much ‘Human Beings’ and ‘Curiosity’ differ from the other tracks. My favourite live performance track would be ’No Need To Hide’.
Remixes can be a bit hit and miss but Jerry’s Alternate Version of ‘On & On & On’ was an improvement on the original, have you any more planned for release?
Catrine & Jerry: Thank you, we feel so too 🙂
We are planning a new remix release of ‘Game On’ (release date TBA soon). As something new, there has been a surprisingly great interest from talented producers this time. So we don’t feel the need to do a remix by ourselves and besides, we’re busy producing new original SOFTWAVE tracks.
One of the producers we’re very proud to have on the compilation is ex-HUMAN LEAGUE member Ian Burden who we were lucky to meet last year in addition to our tour in London, thanks to a good friend who invited us to Ian’s solo album release in Soho.
An extended version of ‘Something is Missing’ will be released by the well known German label ZYX Music on ‘New Generation 15’ released September 6th and ‘I Need Love’ by Conzoom Records on ‘Electropop.15’ released September 13th.
You are performing at the ‘Pop+Synth Festival’ in Copenhagen in November, along with JOHAN BAECKSTRÖM, TRAIN TO SPAIN and OCTOLAB… this might actually be the first event of its kind in Denmark if ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK is not mistaken?
Catrine: Well. In Denmark the synthpop scene isn’t that big, actually non-existent. But in Sweden, the scene is bigger and therefore I decided to increase the attention to the genre by inviting a bunch of Swedish synthpop bands to my debut synth event ‘Pop+ Synth Festival’ along with other international bands.
I have also succeeded with some great collaborations and tickets are already selling fast. Some wrote “This might be the synth-event of the year” and “Great initiative!”. My concept is to support the artists, because as an artist, I know how much work we put into gigs etc. No one deserves to perform for free. And when I experience a lot of Swedish bands (whom I have never heard of) contacting me to get a spot on my line up – it touches me deeply. I feel I’m doing a good thing here. “Something is Missing” in Denmark – and I hope I can make a difference. Even though the scene isn’t big, I know there’s a synthpop and Italo audience out there.
Classical composer Maurice Ravel said: “Whatever sauce you put around the melody is a matter of taste. What is important is the melodic line”, any thoughts?
Jerry: I totally agree. Without it there’s nothing.
Catrine: The melody relates to so many feelings and can be part of a memory from your life. Even though I’m not a producer, I guess it’s easier to produce a great beat than a great melody. Therefore SOFTWAVE tries to combine melodies from both vocals and music.
So how will SOFTWAVE’s synthpop heart will go on?
Catrine: Always by striving for improvement, never to give up and to reach new listeners with our music.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to SOFTWAVE
SOFTWAVE play the ‘Pop+Synth Festival’ at Krudttønden in Copenhagen on Saturday 2nd November 2019, also performing are JOHAN BAECKSTRÖM, TRAIN TO SPAIN + OCTOLAB with more acts to be announced, tickets available from https://billetto.dk/e/pop-synth-festival-billetter-365508
Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey were two lads from The Wirral who creatively realised their passion for European electronic music following the purchase of a Korg M500 Micro-Preset synthesizer.
Having formed a more conventional outfit called THE ID, they grew frustrated with the band format and felt they could better pursue their more experimental leanings inspired by their love of KRAFTWERK, NEU! and LA DÜSSELDORF as a duo.
Backed by a TEAC tape recorder named Winston owned by Paul Collister who became their first producer and manager, Humphreys and McCluskey played their first gig as ORCHESTRAL MANOEUVRES IN THE DARK at Liverpool’s Eric’s in Autumn 1978. Roger Eagle who ran the club liked what he heard, leading to more gigs and visits to other cities.
Eventually the single ‘Electricity’ b/w ‘Almost’ was released in June 1979 on Manchester’s Factory Records, housed in a black-on-black thermographed sleeve designed by Peter Saville illustrating the two songs as avant garde music notation. Gary Numan heard the single at his label Beggars Banquet and the rest as they say is history…
With OMD currently on a huge world tour to celebrate their 40th Anniversary, Paul Humphreys took time out to speak from California about their past, present and future…
Who’d have thought when you were recording ‘Electricity’ in Paul Collister’s garage, you’d still be doing it after 40 years!?
I still find it utterly amazing and rather fantastic that after 40 years, OMD is still alive and well, selling out big tours and making what even our harshest critics consider to be relevant new records. We’ve said this many times but we really only planned to do one concert at Eric’s club in Liverpool in 1978, as kind of a dare to each other.
So it was the series of chance meetings of important people that followed that led to an incredible series of doors opening for us that led the way to our success, probably the most important of which was Tony Wilson at Factory Records. We considered ourselves an art project, Tony saw us as pop music. Time then proved that we could actually end up being both. I remember a confused executive at Virgin Records once saying, “What exactly are you trying to be, Stockhausen or ABBA?” We said, “Can’t we be both?”
When was the moment you thought OMD might have legs, was it the Gary Numan tour, signing to Dindisc or was it much further in?
It took us a long while before we realised that OMD could actually have a future. We tried not to believe some of our friends on the Wirral who thought we were a bit crap and thought we made weird and mostly unnaccessible music, and in the back of our minds we always thought “hmmm… perhaps they are right…” to the point where after we signed a 7 album record deal, we still budgeted for failure by spending nearly all of our signing on advance money, building a modern studio in the centre of Liverpool. The deal we signed with them, gave them the right to terminate at any time, yet we couldn’t, so our rational was to at least have a recording studio as a viable business, if and when Dindisc / Virgin ripped up the contract.
I think it was when we stood on the stage at Top of the Pops for the first time, playing ‘Messages’, that we had a little inkling that maybe, just maybe, we are doing something good… but yes you mentioned Gary Numan. We love Gary and he did give us a massive opportunity to play on big stages, frighteningly big stages for 2 kids who weren’t even 20 years old!
At that time we couldn’t have dreamed that only a few years later, we would be playing the very same stages but this time as the headline act selling them out. I saw Gary only recently when he played a fantastic concert at the Royal Albert Hall, and after we had a little reminisce about what a fantastic tour that was, don’t forget that for Gary, that was his first major tour too, which went on to define him as a fantastic live artist.
It’s not like OMD has stood still. After a tentative recorded return, ‘English Electric’ in 2013 was perhaps stylistically the album that many had been waiting for since 1984, how do you look back on it all now?
It was a scary thing making a new OMD album after so much time had passed. We hit a point where we had had several years of touring since we all got back together. The touring was very successful, and it was wonderful to be touring with Andy, Martin and Mal again (and now of course with Stuart) and we really enjoyed taking picks from our career catalogue, and playing the whole of ‘Architecture & Morality’ live was so much fun.
But, after several years of this, we thought, is this it? Do we really want to just be considered a retro band just trading on our former glories? Don’t get me wrong, for some bands that’s absolutely fine and in no way am I criticising them for doing it because songs are like little time capsules and when you play them people are transported back to the time they were released and remember the people they were at that time and they people they were with, and associated feelings, events and emotions of the time. That is essentially the power of music, and we recognise this, and we really really love playing and picking songs from our big catalogue.
So why not just give new songs a try, after all moving forward and looking to the future was the band’s original remit? So, without announcement we went back into the studio to just see if we still had something relevant to say, in the voice of OMD. ‘History Of Modern’ was the album that we look back on as getting the OMD engine running again, and I think it has some really great tracks on it. It certainly was very well received by fans and critics alike.
For me, despite the fact that I think it’s a great first offering after many years, it doesn’t quite have the sonic and stylistic cohesion that ‘English Electric’ or ‘‘The Punishment of Luxury’ has, I think largely to do with the fact that the songs were selected from the ideas we’d both had collected over several years independently and we worked them up together. We did try being very modern sending ideas to each other via the internet and working independently as I live in London and Andy lives on the Wirral.
But you had a bit of a re-think?
When we realised that it really didn’t work to our satisfaction, we changed the way we worked for the following 2 albums, kind of going back to how we used to write and create in the very beginning, being in the same room at the same time throwing ideas into it and seeing what happened…
There is no replacement for that, it sounds bloody obvious really as its most creative way to interact, so now we mainly write up in Andy’s house and finish, overdub and mix in my studio in London.
‘The Punishment Of Luxury’ album maintained the standard, audiences didn’t think you could get any more electronic but you did!
Yes, ‘The Punishment Of Luxury’ was a definite return to our original roots. In deciding to play some of ‘Dazzle Ships’ at the Museum of Liverpool and the whole of ‘Dazzle Ships’ at the Royal Albert Hall, we found the preparation for them utterly fascinating.
We needed access to, and to be able to deconstruct our original recordings to retrieve all the mad radio samples and FX that were so randomly generated at the time as they couldn’t possibly be recreated, and, in listening to these old recordings in their multi-track form, we realised just how simple and how very electronic they were. It was a real ‘eye opener’ to be honest, and therefor made the remit for ‘POL’, to try to go back to a “less is more” philosophy, the discipline to be as simple and as electronic as we could make it yet also trying to sound ‘modern’…
You made good use of the Omnisphere VST on ‘Isotype’, what are your preferred creative tools these days?
We made almost the entire last 2 albums completely in the box so to speak, inside the computer with Protools using a lot of modelled analogue synths from the early days such as the Jupiter 8, Prophet 5, Virus, ARP etc, but also using new synths that have never previously existed in the physical world that provided colours and sounds that we found new and inspirational, namely the Omnisphere (great for melody sounds such as the one in ‘Isotype’) and also Waves have a great synth / sequencer called Element which we used extensively.
The problem these days is that there are so many sound possibilities that unless you’re really careful, you can get so completely lost in your choices and exhaust yourself exploring all those possibilities, you can forget the initial goal which is to write a good song! We call this ‘the tyranny of choice’. These days we find it important to reduce the choices by deciding on a sound palate, in the same way a painter decides his colour palate for a particular painting.
For ‘POL’ for instance, we decided that we should only use small electronic sounding drums and percussion, and only drew from that palate… between us Andy and I literally have a library of thousands of kick drums and thousands of snare drums, unless you reduce that into small categories, you’re completely lost.
The live set-up has changed from Roland Fantoms X8s to Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S88s, how have those been to use on tour?
Yeah, when we first got back together in 2006, Roland had a great synth / sampler out called a Fantom X8, so I sampled all of our sounds into that machine for myself and Martin to play, it took me months and months, I had to sample Mellotrons, Fairlights, organs, and sounds from all of our analogue synths we used to use.
Some of those early synths we had to find a re-buy from Ebay as we’d either lost them or they were broken beyond repair. There was a night when Andy and I were both bidding against each other on Ebay for the same synth, a Korg Micro Preset. Idiots! We could have got it for so much cheaper if we’d spoken on the phone first… DOH!
Anyway, the Fantoms got old, they started to develop problems, and Roland stopped making new ones. One day Roland called to say they had a new version of Fantom called a G8 about to come out and asked if we wanted to try it out, I said great, can you talk me through how to export all my sounds into the new machine from the old? To which they replied, oh you can’t do that, you’ll have to resample everything… yeah sure, another 3 months’ work… NOOO!
Not an option, so we kept buying Fantom X8s on Ebay to replace broken ones until THEY started to fail and finally decided to switch to a system that has built-in redundancy, the world of laptops and Native Instruments Kontakt running in MainStage. It still meant that we had to spend months importing all the sounds them into the new system, but for the last time!!! I have to confess something, we employed a tech geek to do it for us, I couldn’t face doing it again myself!! *laughs*
Have you any thoughts on these hardware synth reissues like the Korg ARP Odyssey and Korg MS20 Mini, the new Prophets or those Behringer clones? Are they something that would interest you?
I think it’s great that they are made available again, but they are not all exactly the same as the originals, most of the core engines and oscillators are different and are digitally controlled. I’m actually more interested in new hardware synths that I’ve never used. I’m gonna buy an Arturia MatrixBrute when the tour is over, it has a fascinating and versatile modulation matrix with a brilliant sequencer. I have a friend who owns one and is total love with it.
I also want to buy a Moog, the Moog One Poly looks amazing but it’s like £6k I think… ouch! Amazingly, we’ve never owned a Moog. Not sure why really, we were more drawn to Roland, Korg and Sequential Circuits synths as they seemed more suited to our needs.
While there were classic styled OMD songs on ‘The Punishment Of Luxury’ like the title track, ‘One More Time’ and ‘What Have We Done?’, there were more harder rigid numbers like ‘Robot Man’ and ‘Art Eats Art’?
As with all our albums, we like to remove ourselves from our comfort zone and explore new ways of writing songs, experimentation is our remit, and stylistic repetition can become boring, it’s very easy to fall into “Verse, Bridge, Chorus, repeat, then Middle 8, then Chorus to fade” arrangements of songs… sometimes that works fine, but I think we fell into that trap a little too much in the mid-80s. ‘Art Eats Art’, is basically a list of our favourite artists, designers etc. played over a tough electro track that’s bonkers and follows no standard arrangement format, as many of the songs on ‘‘The Punishment of Luxury’ and ‘English Electric’ do.
The 40th Anniversary ‘Souvenir’ tour is coming up, have you got a large pool of songs ready to perform depending on which territory OMD visits?
Yeah, there will be some surprises on the tour, it’s hard with so much to choose from, but we’re also limited by the amount of available time for all of us to programme and rehearse things that we’ve hardly ever or even never played before. There will be a few lovely surprises though! Can’t say anything else ?
And yes we do play a different show in other territories and that makes things a little more complicated for us. America didn’t properly accept OMD until ‘Junk Culture’ times and songs like ‘If You Leave’, ‘Dreaming’, ‘So in Love’, ‘Secret’ are really huge in the USA and there would be a riot if we didn’t play any of these, not so in Europe though.
The 2017 tour saw you bring in a pre-show online poll for fans to decide one song to perform out of a shortlisted three? How practical was that to implement as a band and will the system return?
We have no plans to do that on the next tour, it was kinda fun though and kept us on our toes every night, the crew didn’t like it much though as all the computers for stage and screen images, had to all be reordered at the very last minute!!
You personally got involved in the Abbey Road remasters of the first four OMD albums released in 2018, how did you find that experience? Did it prompt any interesting memories for you?
It was an amazing experience to work in Abbey Road doing the mastering, and it did bring back a lot of memories. It was a bit stressful though, as there have been so many different versions / mixes and edits of all the songs, choosing the right ones wasn’t an easy exercise!
What was more interesting to me was for the ‘Souvenir’ box set extras, I found 22 unreleased songs / ideas which I mixed and compiled into one album. It started by me going to the EMI archive near Heathrow, it’s a temperature controlled vault, with a giant foot thick steel door with an enormous wheel that you spin to open it, like you see in movies. All THE BEATLES tapes are in there, Bowie, Stones etc. It’s absolutely massive!
Everything OMD ever recorded is in there and I pulled out all the tapes I could find that I didn’t recognise the title for. It was difficult though as many times, we used working titles for songs that we’ve used that were changed at the last minute. I spent several days there taking tapes out and sending pictures of tape boxes to Andy for ideas and to jog each other’s memories. I ended up taking out tapes from around 1980 to 1990 period.
The problem I also had is that tapes from that era degenerate and actually you can’t actually play them now. The glue they used to put the oxide on the tapes starts to lose its stick so you have to bake the tapes in a special kiln oven to re-glue the oxide back on to the plastic tape, sounds completely mad I know, but it works!
So, I found 22 tracks, some of which are full songs and some are just experiments that were never developed, but I had great fun mixing them. I mixed them only using FX and E’s that we would have used at the period, spring reverbs, crappy delays and Eventide Harmonisers. I had so much fun doing them and there are a couple of absolute gems in there! The big take away for me in this whole exercise was to see how we used to work, pre-computers.
We basically used to lay down 5 minutes of one idea, then when we wanted a change of chord, we’d drop in the new section on different tracks, so on the desk we’d have to hand mute the first idea so they wouldn’t play together.
But of course I can’t remember where to mute things now as I barely even remember the songs themselves, never mind what our vision was at the time, so I was left with a giant puzzle working out what tracks have to be on or off at certain points of the song… it was great fun, I hope you enjoy it…
In 2015, OMD did series of gigs featuring ‘Dazzle Ships’ and ‘Architecture & Moraility’. As 2020 is the actual 40th Anniversary of the ‘Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark’ and ‘Organisation’ albums, are there any plans to do a similar type of special showcase?
I’m not so sure if we’ll play those albums in their entirely again, but we do have some future ‘specials’ planned and one is actually booked… That’s all I can say at this stage…
Would you consider trying to write a new song around the limited functions of the Korg Micro-Preset as a kind of “four decades on” experiment?
That would be an interesting experiment. Although the Micro-Preset was a totally limited synth and actually sounded pretty shit until you put the original signal through a long chain of FX processors, then it became an interesting synth. I think we may have already exhausted every possible sound that synth can ever make though!
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Paul Humphreys
The ‘Souvenir’ 5CD + 2DVD deluxe boxed set is released on 4th October 2019 by Universal Music
OMD Souvenir 40th Anniversary 2019 – 2020 European + UK Tour, dates include:
Lisbon Aula Magna (15th October), Porto Casa da Musica (16th October), Madrid Riviera (19th October), Barcelona Apolo (21st October), Belfast Ulster Hall (23rd October), Dublin Olympia (24th October), Nottingham Royal Concert Hall (26th October), York Barbican (27th October), Hull Arena (28th October), Gateshead Sage (30th October), Glasgow Royal Concert Hall (31st October), Manchester Apollo (1st November), Sheffield City Hall (3rd November), Liverpool Empire (4th November), Birmingham Symphony Hall (5th November), Leicester De Montford Hall (7th November), Bath Pavilion (8th November), Oxford New Theatre (9th November), Guildford G Live (11th November), Portsmouth Guildhall (12th November), Watford Colosseum (13th November), Cambridge Corn Exchange (15th November), Ipswich Regent (16th November), Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion (17th November), Bournemouth Pavilion (19th November), London Hammersmith Apollo (20th November), Rostock Stadthalle (25th November), Dresden Kulturpalast (26th November), Leipzig Haus Auensee (28th November), Berlin Tempodrom (29th November), Hamburg Grosse Freiheit 36 (30th November), Berlin Tempodrom (2nd December), Stuttgart Leiderhalle (3rd December), Düsseldorf Mitsubishi Electric-Halle (5th December), Frankfurt Jahrhunderthalle (6th December), Krakow Studio (3rd February), Warsaw Progresja (4th February), Oslo Rockefeller Musichall (7th February), Stockholm Berns (9th February), Malmo KB (10th February), Copenhagen Vega (12th February), Brussels Ancienne Belgique (14th February), Utrecht Tivoli (15th February), Paris La Cigale (16th February)
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being given the lavish reissue treatment by Universal Music and 
under his own name on Tiga’s Turbo Recordings in 2001 before, after over a dozen solo releases, creating FM ATTACK in 2009 to fashion much more dreamier electronic disco vibes.
got a profile boost in 2011 when 
actor Ryan Gosling mentioned the directing team were fans of the record during interviews promoting the now-influential cult movie.
moved into more song-based movie soundtrack and Italo territory, but the third FM ATTACK album 
in 2017 featured Texan combo MNYNMS and saw Ward’s love of new-wave and post-punk truly entering the fore, alongside the neon aesthetic that was now known as Synthwave.
featuring the likes of 
. With the influence of big voiced singers such as Celine Dion, Tina Turner, Madonna, Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne, the Danish couple add a twist to sub-ERASURE flavoured synthpop.
in 2016, Danish duo SOFTWAVE have been gaining momentum with well-received live performances and notable endorsements from former members of THE HUMAN LEAGUE 
live was so much fun.
was the album that we look back on as getting the OMD engine running again, and I think it has some really great tracks on it. It certainly was very well received by fans and critics alike.
or ‘
has, I think largely to do with the fact that the songs were selected from the ideas we’d both had collected over several years independently and we worked them up together. We did try being very modern sending ideas to each other via the internet and working independently as I live in London and Andy lives on the Wirral.
at the Royal Albert Hall, we found the preparation for them utterly fascinating.
times and songs like ‘If You Leave’, ‘Dreaming’, ‘So in Love’, ‘Secret’ are really huge in the USA and there would be a riot if we didn’t play any of these, not so in Europe though.
box set extras, I found 22 unreleased songs / ideas which I mixed and compiled into one album. It started by me going to the EMI archive near Heathrow, it’s a temperature controlled vault, with a giant foot thick steel door with an enormous wheel that you spin to open it, like you see in movies. All THE BEATLES tapes are in there, Bowie, Stones etc. It’s absolutely massive!
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