Category: Interviews (Page 80 of 113)

YELLO Interview

17 September 2016 / electricityclub

Boris Blank founded YELLO at the end of the 1970s, together with Carlos Perón.

They were soon joined by singer Dieter Meier, and the Swiss group became one of the most respected and influential electronic acts in the world. Reduced to a duo after Perón left for a solo career in 1983, YELLO’s best-known songs include ‘Oh Yeah’, which featured in ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’, and ‘The Race’, which was a Top 10 hit in the UK.

YELLO recently thrilled fans by announcing live Shows in Berlin in October. Boris Blank took a few minutes to speak with ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the shows and YELLO’s new studio album, ‘Toy’.

The upcoming shows in Berlin are being billed as YELLO’s first live gigs, so how are they different from 1983’s ‘Live at The Roxy’?

The Roxy was more of a twenty minute gig, which was not a full live concert as we are playing now in Berlin – fully 90 minutes. It was very well prepared at the time with the Fairlight sampling machine. A few little things were live – and Dieter’s voice, of course, was live – but the rest was from this media.

This time, in Berlin, the richest track, ‘Tied Up’, will have fourteen people together with me and Dieter on stage. So, there will be some real live musicians on stage, as well – that is the difference between New York and today. People ask, after 38 years – the hardcore fans of YELLO – why don’t you do this for us? So I think it is time to share our music and our visuals with our YELLO fans.

Will you be playing some of the classic material? Will we, for example, get to hear ‘Domingo’ live?

‘Domingo’ is not on the list – no, I am sorry. There will be more famous tracks – ‘Oh Yeah’, of course. There will be other tracks like ‘The Evening’s Young’ and many other tracks from our old list of YELLO music. There will be ‘Tied Up’ – a very wild track. There will be bits of ‘Liquid Lies’. There will be some old tracks, of course, as well as the new YELLO tracks – and hopefully they will also become classic tracks in the next 25 years.

‘Toy’ has the classic YELLO sound, but it also feels more mature and refined. In the studio, did you have a vision of how you wanted the album to sound?

When making the music for YELLO, I never think about a certain aesthetic or a certain kind of concept. It just comes out. When you work every day, like I do in my studio, more as a painter than like a traditional musician, then things come up that I never knew before. I just make music for fun, of course – it should be fun all the time. At the end, that is the result, reflecting more or less my fantasy from the past months and years that I’ve been working on those tracks.

What is interesting and makes me very happy – it is sort of a compliment – is when people say, “You know, Boris, I can say after three bars that this is your music or this is YELLO music”. That is still, I think, the case with this album, as well. You can feel it or hear the characteristics.

You mentioned the Fairlight, and your use of it is famous. Your old machine currently lives in Australia. Is it right that the lucky owner inherited your library of sound files?

The reason is that the hard drive didn’t work anymore, so I sent the whole Fairlight to Australia to have the system fixed. They played out all of my old library, which was immense – it is a huge library – and sent it back to me on two or three hard disks.

It is very nice going back into those sounds. I’m not using them for this album, but the next time that I find some space, I would like to recover or recycle those sounds with the newest technology for sampling and go deeper – like with a microscope, going deeper into the molecules of all those sounds – and make new sounds.

It is a tragedy for me, because there was a lot of heart and sweat in those old samples. I recorded everything at the time. I threw a snowball at the studio wall and worked it into a bass drum in the end – things like this. It is nice to go back and see, in retrospect, how I worked at the time; how my mind and my feeling for sounds today has changed. It is a funny kind of history – a documentary for myself – to dig out all those old sounds and recover or recycle them.

Do you work more these days with computers or do you prefer hardware synthesizers?

I do have, for sentimental reasons, still, the ARP Odyssey and a few other ones, but I hardly work with them because I am not an emotional or sentimental person. I work today with the newest plug-ins which are available.

Of course, it keeps my mind and my brain in a good condition. I think that, if I want to have a really dirty Moog type of sound, I can do this as well using some tricks. So, I am not a traditionalist – I am looking to the future.

We know you are a fan of THE NORMAL’s ‘Warm Leatherette’ / ’TVOD.’ Are you also a fan of FAD GADGET or other early electronic artists?

FAD GADGET, of course! I am also a fan of musique concrète. I am a big fan of Pierre Boulez, of course, György Ligeti, and even some parts from Karlheinz Stockhausen and Raymond Scott. They are real pioneers in using electronic music. They are big influences for my own music, as well. They gave me the original kick to start making electronic music.

At the shows in Berlin, Dieter will be front and centre, but is there a chance that we will get to see some of your collaborators – perhaps Malia and Fifi Rong?

Fifi Rong and Malia will be live there. Fifi will sing two tracks, Malia one track and two tracks in a duet or collaboration with Dieter. We are looking forward to keep them happy, of course!

You worked with Malia on another project, ahead of the YELLO album. How did you come together?

It is kind of a long story, because friends of Malia came to me and asked a few times whether I would like to collaborate with her to produce four or five demo tracks that she could use to get a new contract. Finally, we started working between YELLO works, over about two years.

It was not enough doing four tracks – why don’t we do a whole album? On and off, she came to the studio and we worked together for at least two years. She is still a good friend of YELLO, of course, so that is her voice – it fits well on our new album.

In the past, you have worked with Shirley Bassey and Billy Mackenzie, who are two of the great vocalists of the last century. Malia’s voice sounds just as rich.

Yes, she has a special touch in her voice. It is not a colour which you find every day on this planet. She has a really special characteristic to her voice. She is one of the most respected Nina Simone interpreters; so, yes, she has a great voice. She has something alive and emotional in this voice, which is very unusual.

You recently collaborated with Jean-Michel Jarre, what was that experience like?

The experience with Jean-Michel Jarre was, if you compare it to chess players, like if you send a move to your friend in Stockholm or Tokyo. He was in Los Angeles and he sent me the track which he would like to collaborate on with YELLO for his album. As our move, Dieter and I sent him back some voices and a story, which Dieter came up with, and a few rhythmic and sound ideas from myself.

We haven’t met so far, but it was a nice experience and I admire his musical life a lot. I remember ‘Oxygene’. When I was very young, l thought “Wow, this is a whole other world of electronic music” – you know, it had the characteristic that Krautrock, all the German electronics, had at the time.

It was a pleasure and a big honour for us to be on this album, in such great company, with MASSIVE ATTACK and all these great people involved in the project.

YELLO released a music-making app called the Yellofier. Do you think you could see YELLO making a commercial track using that technology?

There are some sounds – some parts, some fragments – on the new album which I had done with the Yellofier. Also, we are developing some more effects or features for the Yellofier quite soon. I would like to get in a collaboration to build some hardware or a sampling machine that has the architecture I wish to work with – an expanded version of the Yellofier – just limited somehow. But that is an idea for the future.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Boris Blank

Special thanks to Duncan Clark at 9PR

‘Toy’ is released via Polydor / Universal Music on 30th September 2016, available as a CD, deluxe CD, double LP and digital download

YELLO appear at Kraftwerk Berlin on 26th, 28th, 29th and 30th October 2016

http://yello.com

https://www.facebook.com/yello.ch/

Text and Interview by Simon Helm
17th September 2016

PAUL HAIG Interview

14 September 2016 / electricityclub

Photo by Sheila Rock

While Paul Haig has a cult following within the post-punk cognoscenti, he has often been overlooked in wider music circles.

But between 1982 to 1985, he produced some of the best electronic pop singles of the period. Haig had been the lead singer of JOSEF K, a guitar band with a frenetic pace who were to influence acts such as THE WEDDING PRESENT and FRANZ FERDINAND.

PROPAGANDA covered JOSEF K’s best known song ‘Sorry For Laughing’ for their acclaimed album ‘A Secret Wish’. Inspired by acts such as NEW ORDER and HEAVEN 17, he headed towards a danceable electronic template and worked with a variety of key figures such as Bernard Sumner, Alan Rankine, Billy MacKenzie, Alex Sadkin and Bernie Worrell.

But in the interim period, free from the shackles of a conventional band format, Haig produced material that ranged from jazz to indie pop to experimental electronica. These early tracks have been gathered on ‘Metamorphosis’, an archive 2CD collection released by Les Disques du Crépuscule.

‘Metamorphosis’ bridges the gap from when Haig left JOSEF K to signing to Island Records as a solo artist and releasing his debut album ‘Rhythm Of Life’. Paul Haig chatted about his varied career.

‘Metamorphosis’ documents an interesting period in your early solo career covering a range of styles, how do you look back on it?

It’s a very long time ago! I’ve always had eclectic tastes in music so I think it was a time when I could experiment freely without the constraints of being in a band for the first time. It was exciting to try out new ideas.

How were the tracks selected for this release, or was it quite obvious which ones were going to be included?

It was James Nice at Crepuscule who selected most of the tracks, then sent me a list. We more or less agreed on most of the tracks he chose.

You made a statement of intent after JOSEF K by using a drum machine on your first solo recordings ’Chance’, ‘Running Away’ and ‘Time’?

I had been interested in beats and drum machines for a while and even used to record simple rhythms of the keyboards in the music shop where I worked for a year. I’d take the cassette tape home and play stuff along with the rhythms onto another cassette recorder. I progressed onto a DR Rhythm type box after that but when the Roland TR-808 machine came out, I had to get one. It was perfect for the way I was working at the time and enabled me for the first time to program more or less exactly the beats I needed.

What had motivated you to take on a more electronic template? Were there any particular bands that influenced you?

For some reason I was attracted to electronic sound and noise. Possibly seeing KRAFTWERK at a very early and impressionable age on the ‘Tomorrow’s World’ TV show influenced me somewhat. I liked ‘Warm Leatherette’ by THE NORMAL and listened to THROBBING GRISTLE ‘20 Jazz funk Greats’.

The ‘Swing In 82’ material doesn’t seem so unusual now when you consider that your romantic post-punk peers like Martin Fry, Billy MacKenzie, Glenn Gregory and even Ian Curtis all had an interest in the stylings of Sinatra?

I guess not. For me it was an easy choice at the time as I had listened to Sinatra when I was growing up. What influenced me just as much however, was a double album called ‘Starring Fred Astaire’ which had some great songs on it, he was a good singer as well as an excellent dancer.

‘Metamorphosis’ also features your first forays into instrumental experiments and soundtracks, something that you’ve continued in your ‘Cinematique’ series of recordings. What do you get out of this type material that you can’t get with writing pop songs?

I don’t have to sing! Also, I like the freedom of creating instrumentals and not having to adhere to the same old structures of a normal song etc. I get a lot out of using sounds and textures that create atmospheres that can end up going to different places as you work on them.

Which are your favourites tracks on ‘Metamorphosis’ and are there any particular reasons?

I don’t listen to it much, maybe ‘Time’ as it seemed like a new departure for me and I had a new synthesizer on the go. It was a bit like indie synth ABBA.

Some of this material was lost when you signed the licensing agreement with Island Records in 1982. In hindsight, did you anticipate how much control they were likely to impose?

Probably not, but I was prepared to play the game a bit at the time, that is until I didn’t. Mostly it was OK apart from the odd children’s TV show.

You were criticised for having Alex Sadkin to produce your first solo album ‘Rhythm Of Life’, but he was actually considered to be a credible producer at the time you worked with him…

I chose him because I really liked his mix of ‘Pull Up To The Bumper’ by Grace Jones. When we were recording in New York, I quickly realised it might have been better to go down an indie type road and work more with Anton Fier from THE FELLIES and people like that. We also met Arthur Baker and could have worked with him, but it just wasn’t doable. It was my own fault really as I wanted to go for the pop thing when I signed the deal. I think Alex was a bit preoccupied anyway, with producing DURAN DURAN and THOMPSON TWINS and I understood that.

Having the late Bernie Worrell play on your album was quite cool?

That was cool! He used to come into the studio with a small bottle of Jack Daniels in a brown paper bag. It seems mad now, but I used to sit with him in the recording room and he’d say “is this how you want it?” and I’d say “great, can you add this note…”

How do you feel about the ‘Rhythm Of Life’ today?

It’s a thing. It will always be a thing.

Bernard Sumner was involved in the production of ‘The Only Truth’, a track which many consider to be your best single, especially in its full length 12 inch mix? How did that track develop in the studio?

I had everything arranged before going in. I remember being left alone with the engineer to record the whole thing basically; the drum programming, the keyboards and guitars. It was after that, that Bernard and Donald Johnson started adding more to it like extra guitar, bass and percussion. We spent a long time on the sound of the percussion which I still notice if I hear it today.

During your career, you’ve worked with both Alan Rankine and Billy MacKenzie of ASSOCIATES separately. What were each of them like to collaborate with?

Billy was always very inspiring to work with, we used to risk our sanity in the process but it was always exciting. As he didn’t really play an instrument, his ideas would usually be sung at you. Once we were in a studio that didn’t have any drum machine, so we burst a water filled balloon while sampling it and then made it into a bass drum.

When I worked with Alan, it was just as mad but we managed to get the job done somehow. I once sketched him cooking bacon in a London studio and in the sketch the bacon was saying, “please don’t hurt us Alan, please”.

‘Something Good’ was a minor German hit in 1989, what was it like to have some kind of commercial recognition after years of trying?

Don’t know actually as I’ve only heard rumours about that happening in France. I remember going to Germany briefly in 1985 to promote ‘Heaven Help You Now’.

You went on to work with Lil’ Louis and Kurtis Mantronik, what appealed to you about the club oriented music of that period?

I’d been aware of Mantronik/Mantronix for a while and really liked the production and beats. I don’t remember how Lil’ Louis came about really. I do recall they were in kind of competition with each other, always asking how I’d got on with the other one.

You’ve been quite bold in the choices of songs that you’ve covered like JOY DIVISION’s ‘Atmosphere’ and THE WALKER BROTHERS’ ‘The Electrician’?

Yes, it’s a bit cheeky really considering their voices. Don’t know what I was thinking 😉

Has the shake-up in the music industry over the last ten years worked in your favour?

I like the way you can put something out when you want to. If you don’t have a label, you can do it far more easily now. I also love the music making technology for production. With regard to the music industry, I feel removed from it. “Music” and “Industry”… there’s two words that don’t sound good together.

What’s next for you as far as musical projects are concerned? Are you working on a follow-up to ‘Kube’ yet?

I have been working on a new album for some time now. There are so many choices and amazing ways you can produce music now that sometimes it makes the whole process slower. I seem to have a different way of working now which is more time consuming, but well worth it in terms of sounds and production quality. So, the new album is a further attempt at finding the right balance between the synthetic / electronic and the organic / natural.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Paul Haig

Special thanks to James Nice at Les Disques du Crépuscule

‘Metamorphosis’ is released as a 2CD set by Les Disques du Crépuscule

http://www.paulhaig.com/

https://www.twitter.com/paulhaig

http://www.lesdisquesducrepuscule.com/metamorphosis_twi096cd.html

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
14th September 2016

IS THAT THE 12” REMIX?

10 September 2016 / electricityclub

First published in 2011, ‘Is That The 12” Mix?’ was author and music aficionado Rob Grillo’s personal but well-informed history of the 12” single.

In keeping with its story tracing the emergence of the extended remix as an artform in its own right, Grillo has now remade and remodelled his book in a new 2016 version. Retitled ‘Is That The 12″ Remix?’, the new edition features contributions from the likes of Neil Tennant and Rusty Egan as well as more photos and an extra 20,000 words.

Among those words, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK are interviewed in a chapter entitled ‘Providing a Service – The Fan(atic)s part one’ which discusses the rise of the independent music blog. Meanwhile, the site’s 25 Favourite Classic 12 inch Versions listing also makes an appearance in the ‘Chartfile’ appendix. Rob Grillo chatted about why more can mean more…

What was the motivation behind a second edition of ‘Is That The 12” Mix?’?

Since the first edition came out, I’ve build up many more contacts and relationships in the music industry, so I was able to use some of them, and additional information to build a new edition. Plus there were one or two bits that needed updating or correcting.

I’d just helped Demon Music with a few Hi-NRG related album reissues, one of those being from MIQUEL BROWN. It bugged me that I hadn’t used an image of her in the first edition, so it inspired me to get some more permissions and start that new edition. I always felt that the first edition could have been promoted a little better, part of that being my own fault. It seemed right to change the title of the book from ‘12” MIX’ to ’12’’ REMIX’, reflecting the whole concept of what the book is about.

So the original book has enabled you to get involved in the ‘Disco Discharge’ reissues?

Yes. Sort of. When I discovered that the team were planning to put out Ian Levine related issues on the ‘Disco Recharge’ side project, my suggestions were probably taken more seriously because I’d done the book and written about Levine himself.

Then I got involved in sourcing of and identification of certain mixes, not easy when the US mix has tiny differences from the UK mix and that very few people have actually realised. It did help that I have an almost complete set of Record Shack 12” vinyl, that’s the label with which Levine enjoyed his 80s resurgence before starting his own labels.

Any good remix has edits and sections left out. Have you done anything to the book on that front?

Yes, every chapter has had a remix, so to speak. Many have been expanded, although I felt that odd bits needed shortening or leaving out entirely. Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards reworked their own production of SISTER SLEDGE ‘Lost in Music’ to great effect in 1984, it’s been a bit like that with the book, remixing and reworking it myself rather than calling up Ben Liebrand or Shep Pettibone to do the honours 🙂

What did you specifically want to include now, that you couldn’t do back in 2009?

Updated and corrected information in particular, and, as mentioned above a few more rights to use images – particularly from Ian Levine. Luckily Simon White, who I helped out with the ‘Disco Recharge’ releases was able to assist in that matter.

I wanted to do on a feature on ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK in particular as your site started just as the first edition came out, and one of the other featured sites changed its name completely, so that needed updating too.

Since the first edition was published, there’s been a resurgence in vinyl. Is it something you’re still into today?

Yes, absolutely. There’s not much I regret in life, but one thing I really can’t get my head around is why I got rid of loads of vinyl about 20 years ago.

I’ll never fathom out why I did that.

A couple of months ago, I had a rummage around an absolutely cracking second hand vinyl record shop in nearby Huddersfield and arrived back home with no less than 23 12” inch singles from the 1980s.

I went back last month and bought 29 more. I had no idea the shop existed this time last year.

There’s still a load of old vinyl I need for my collection, much of which I prefer to stumble across in stores or car boots rather than hunt down more easily online on sites such as Discogs. I haven’t bought much new vinyl, although I should do really.

What you do feel about the phenomenon of youngsters buying vinyl, but not actually playing it and listening to the download instead?

I guess it’s a bit of a novelty among the younger generation. It’s nice that they have the physical product, because you tend to cherish it a bit more compared with a download that you can’t see, or hold, or smell, and can delete when you’ve got bored of it. It’s all about immediate gratification these days, so when you’re bored of a download you just delete. They won’t throw away their records the same way.

Hopefully they will appreciate the artwork and the physical product the way our own generation does, but I don’t really think we’re going to see another generation of ‘record collectors’.

An interesting paradox of the popularity of the multiple twelve inch remix phenomenon pioneered by labels like ZTT, is that deluxe CD reissues are now often packed to the brim…

Is that a paradox? It’s great that lots of mixes that have been hard to find have been put together to complement a remastered album or compilation.

It’s a bugger when the labels don’t get it right though as there are so many instances of wrong mixes and poor remastering on many CD reissues. Take ALTERED IMAGES ‘Don’t Talk To Me About Love’ – the 12” mix has never appeared on CD, only some slightly butchered version that was used on an ALTERED IMAGES compilation several years ago. Every subsequent compilation using that song has used the same, incorrect master. That’s just lazy.

I liked the SWING OUT SISTER ‘It’s Better To Travel’ deluxe set because the band listened to the fans and changed the tracklisting, and the mixes they used, when it was pointed out that the set could be improved.

What was your favourite chapter to write and why?

I don’t really have a favourite chapter. Some are about the music scene in the 1980s, while others are about my own childhood – the long gone Greenhead Youth Club (Keighley’s very own Blitz club) for instance, so each chapter was something I enjoyed putting together (and in this case, remixing).

Your top 10 five favourite 12” remixes and why?

‘Two Tribes (annihilation)’ by FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD, which is among most people’s favourite mixes.

‘It’s My Life (Steve Thompson’s US remix)’ by TALK TALK… how to remix a song properly; Thompson had a knack of making a great song sound even better in remixed form.

I adore his mix of A-HA’s ‘The Sun Always Shines on TV’ too, although I notice you prefer the original 12” to his mix.

NEW ORDER’s ‘The Perfect Kiss’ is pretty perfect, although that’s really a full-length mix rather than an extended version.

‘Indestructible (Phil Harding & Ian Curnow mix)’ by THE FOUR TOPS, one of the best mixes to come out of the PWL studios. Not everyone’s cup of tea I know. The rest you’ll read about in the book 🙂

And the remix that on paper should have been brilliant, but turned out to be rubbish?

FICTION FACTORY ‘Feels Like Heaven’. A straight extended version would have been great, but in the pre-digital age, new mixes were often created instead.

It worked for DURAN DURAN, but the 12” mix that the label commissioned for ‘Feels Like Heaven’ seemed to lack all the vibrancy of the original 7” mix. Also, have you heard the alternative 12” remix of ‘Indestructible’ that Arista put out in the UK, the ‘Infinity dance mix’? It’s the worst remix ever in the history of the world.

Even worse than any of those awful 90s techno remixes that sounded nothing like the original mixes. Someone should have been shot for approving it for release.

Like writing and photography, has the easy accessibility of technology made the remix less of an artform these days, with a lower quality acceptability threshold than in the past?

Yes. It was always nice to have an extended version, and often an extended remix.

ZTT did the multiple remix thing really well in the 80s, but I haven’t time for the multiple remixes that you might get on PET SHOP BOYS or NEW ORDER CD singles these days. They are iconic bands, with iconic 12” mixes, but their new output, as good as it is, is just remixed to death.

Saying that, the latter’s ‘Complete Music’ set does contain some great straight extended versions of the tracks from ‘Music Complete’.

What style of remix do you enjoy these days?

As I’ve alluded to earlier, a straight extended version, or remix that keeps most of the original.

With regards electronic music, there seems to be a lot of books on the dance scene but few on say, synthpop. Does synthpop still have a general credibility issue in your view?

Synthpop seems to have more credibility now than it did in the 1980s. Today’s acts are not afraid to talk about their 80s influences. Credibility seems to have been more forthcoming since LA ROUX’s brief surge to the top of the tree a few years back…

How do you see music blogging these days? What is the difference between a site that gets it right, and a site that gets it wrong?

Let’s just say that sites that get it wrong don’t tend to last very long or attract many readers.

What new acts do you rate today as being as good as those heritage acts we loved back in the day?

I don’t pay enough attention to today’s bands. MARSHEAUX are still making great music, although I still prefer to buy new music from old bands… ABC, DURAN DURAN, OMD, NEW ORDER… their output is every bit as good as much of their output back in the day. Saying that, I daren’t tell you which acts I’ve seen live recently. I would lose all credibility….

What’s next for you?

Good question… well the novel ‘Picture This’ has had some amazing reviews, although we could do with a lot more sales if there’s going to be a sequel to that. I get a lot of requests and offers from book companies to do sports books, which is where I started out, but I have no interest in pursuing that any more. Let’s just see how well the new edition of ‘Is That The 12” (Re)Mix’ does.

I have a great idea for some 12” CD compilations (of which there are very many these days) that offers something a bit different… and there is a possible new music book in the pipeline, but that depends on a lot of complicated copyright issues….watch this space on that one…

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Rob Grillo

‘Is That The 12″ Remix?’ is available from Amazon UK, priced at £9.99

Extracts from the original book can be read at https://www.electricityclub.co.uk/is-that-the-12-mix/

http://www.robgrillo.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/Is-That-the-12-Remix-601399720039018/

https://twitter.com/robgrillo

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
10th September 2016

A Short Conversation with WRANGLER

6 September 2016 / electricityclub

WRANGLER are Stephen Mallinder AKA Mal (ex-CABARET VOLTAIRE), Benge (JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS) and Phil Winter (TUNNG).

Since talking to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK back in April 2014, the trio have followed their debut release ‘LA Spark’ with a modular synth remix album ‘Sparked’, a live show at The Royal Albert Hall and a follow-up album in the shape of ‘White Glue’.

With a new single ‘Stupid’ recently unleashed as a trailer for the new long player, Mal, Benge and Phil kindly spoke about developments within the band and the forthcoming collaboration with US singer / songwriter John Grant.

‘White Glue’ is an intriguing title, is there a specific meaning behind it?

Mal: Well, I think I’ll let Phil go into the detail as it came from his idea, which was based on the exoticness of the Spanish translation of “White Glue”. Unfortunately we’d got that completely wrong, we actually meant the Italian translation “Colla Bianca” which as you can see started to sound a bit like a sh*t cocktail so went with the original, always a good idea, as we loved that anyway!

Phil: ‘White Glue’ is used to repair damaged record sleeves, of which I have many, the bottle I found had the mentioned translations which we played with and then discarded!

How do you see the new album differing from your debut ‘LA Spark’?

Mal: Well for me it expands on some of the sounds we used to make ‘LA Spark’ so has the connection, but seems to take those rhythms and sounds to another level.

We use and misuse technology, that’s what WRANGLER are about, so each release is another chapter in the story, just as ‘Sparked’ was. Everything should be a progression but also have some relationship, to build on the past.

For me personally there are themes that come out of ‘LA Spark’, which was a rather bleak and cautionary narrative in relation to human impact on the world. In turn ‘White Glue’ is a response to the corruption, exploitation and mindless materialism that engulfs us. It’s hard not to respond to a world that is dominated by elites, plutocracies and chumocracies.

Benge: To me, the difference this time round was we had quite a lot of the tracks written and in a playable state a long time before we finally recorded and mixed them in the studio, and we were playing them in our live set for ages which really helped flesh the music and arrangements out. It’s kind of the first time I’ve worked that way and it really changes the dynamic of a song when you play it and refine it in front of an audience before committing to tape. Having said that, the rest of the album was done in the studio in intense late night modular synth jams that none of us were in control of. That combination of refined arrangements and live studio experiments is where we ended up.

Phil: The time frame of the recordings definitely had an impact on the eventual sound of the record.

With ‘LA Spark’ we would generally work on a track until it was done, but with ‘White Glue’ we would start a track and then not work on it for ages, as other ideas/tracks had sprung up that we got diverted by.

But having that space in the working process really worked, as it meant we could live with them ie DJ them out or play them live before committing to the album.

The ‘Sparked’ modular remix album concept was an interesting one. Were you surprised by some of the mixes you were given?

Mal: Well you could say yes, as they were all wonderful in their own way and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. so surprised that way. But in another way, not surprised at all as we had such respect and admiration for those artists. We directly approached them to work with us and I’m eternally grateful for them agreeing and contributing… everyone’s a Maserati, as the old saying goes (including the one we did).

WRANGLER recently played The Royal Albert Hall as support for JOHN GRANT, how did that come about?

Mal: Well we first met John a couple of years ago when we played ‘Sensoria’ with CHRIS & COSEY, and realised what an aficionado he was of electronic music. We stayed in touch and all became good friends; he’d asked us to do a mix of ‘Voodoo Doll’ from his latest album and then the Albert Hall gig came up and we were invited, I guess having seen us play and knowing our music, JG thought it was a good fit. A very generous and clever man.

How did you approach playing such a prestigious venue? Were there any nerves beforehand?

Mal: I don’t really get nervous. I think having played for so many years, you realise if you start to think about all things that can potentially f*** up, you’d be a quivering wreck. So “excited” is a better word and if things really screw up, I’ve been known to tell jokes – the last thing Benge says to me every time I’m about to go onstage is “no jokes!!” so I tend to be pretty minimal now when we play. To be fair it’s not very cool and they’re sh*t jokes so he is right.

Benge: Our thinking was if we can’t have a huge screen behind us on that massive stage then we would go the opposite way and just use 3 small TV monitors, one in front of each of us and go minimal. Actually on the night, JOHN GRANT and his stage team were really generous and gave us the full light show as well, which we didn’t expect as the guest act. That was really cool of them.

Phil: It’s such an awesome space, but everyone involved was so helpful and welcoming that it was very enjoyable.

This show has led onto a forthcoming live collaboration with John Grant at The Barbican celebrating 40 years of the Rough Trade label, what can we expect from that?

Mal: Hopefully it will shift a few perceptions from both sides, but maybe less for us as we’ve all been writing and have quite a few tunes already sketched out. John has been busy touring so we started the process a month or so ago sending roughs over, but I caught up with him and he’s done some really cool sketches and rough mixes – we seem to be on the same flightpath – and we have a week or so together writing in the studio. It should be fun, we can take a break from our other roles and enjoy the process. Am hoping it will blow a few minds!

Benge: I’m really looking forward to spending time in the new studio working on this. It is such an unpredictable situation working with loads of wonky machines and so many wonky minds, anything could happen.

Phil: Expect the unexpected!

Because of the practicalities of taking the MemeTune studio equipment on the road, how do WRANGLER go about performing their music live?

Mal: Well it’s a bit of a mix and match process, so we capture and loop some of the key parts from the delicate studio gear then take the more robust equipment out with us on tour. It makes it very live and flexible, but we can build in the other parts to maintain the WRANGLER sound.

Phil: It’s a constant balancing act between the practical and the wished for!

The synth world is currently going a mad for synth hardware (modular and otherwise), would you have any advice to give to people wishing to invest in such gear?

Benge: My view is that you should try and create your own unique voice in the world if you are a creative artist. What you use is not as important as how you use it. Having said that, I love the fact that there is now so much more opportunity to use analogue hardware gear than ever before. You don’t need to scour the depths of eBay in remote far away countries to find exotic gear any more. Making music has never been more exciting than now.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK was present at the really entertaining lecture ‘Growing Up A Little Bit German’ which you gave as part of the ‘Boing Boom Tschak’ event during the Brighton Fringe Festival. How important still is the musical DNA of KRAFTWERK to the sound of WRANGLER?

Mal: Oh I think KRAFTWERK remain the benchmark for electronic music and I can’t see that ever changing. Not just the sounds themselve which still cut through for their purity, clarity and richness, but also the process. KRAFTWERK taught us all that less is more. I still listen to the albums and appreciate the sophistication of the mixes – always the correct delay, always the complimentary frequencies, the right timbre, everything in the right place and to the correct degree.

They still work because of the simplicity and symmetry which is the basis of beauty. WRANGLER understand that, although I think sometimes it’s nice to mess it up. If KRAFTWERK are sophisticated beauty, WRANGLER are the rebel twin occasionally getting tarted up for a mucky night out.

What are your future aspirations for WRANGLER?

Mal: To write some great music, maybe try and position what we do in different contexts and allow more people to appreciate it. But really, just to continue enjoying it and ruffling a few feathers on the way.

Benge: We have only ever done our music to please ourselves. We think the perfect sound doesn’t exist yet and if we can keep trying to find that sound we will be doing something incredibly worthwhile.

Phil: More of the same please, but maybe turn the clap up a bit!

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its grateful thanks to WRANGLER

Additional thanks to Steve Malins at Random Management

‘Stupid’ is released as a download single on 9th September 2016

The new album ‘White Glue’ is released by Memetune in CD, vinyl and digital formats on 23rd September 2016

WRANGLER perform a collaborative set with JOHN GRANT at The Barbican in London on Saturday 22nd October 2016 as part of Rough Trade 40

https://www.facebook.com/mallinderbengewinter/

https://twitter.com/wearewrangler

Text and Interview by Paul Boddy
6th September 2016

LIEBE Interview

27 August 2016 / electricityclub

LIEBE are the Greek electropop duo comprising of George Begas and Dim Zachariadis.

Hailing from the Hellenic art capital of Thessaloniki, LIEBE released their debut album ‘Club Royal’ in 2010. Their second album ‘Somewhere in Time’ came out on Undo Records back in 2012 and really did as the title suggested, harking back to a period when Giorgio Moroder and Bobby Orlando were models of dancefloor cool. Sitting on that difficult bridge between pastiche and post-modern, LIEBE’s love of synthpop and Italo disco continued on their third album ‘Airport’.

The lead single ‘I Believe In You’ imagined PULP’s Jarvis Cocker joining PET SHOP BOYS circa 1987 and was accompanied by an alluring promo video which gained traction on MTV Europe. Their most recent album ‘Revolution Of Love’ developed on the sunny, holiday vibe of ‘Airport’ and has won the duo some new fans.

Ultimately an optimistic experience shaded in melancholy, ‘Revolution Of Love’ is a wonderfully escapist pop record. LIEBE vocalist George Begas kindly chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the duo’s career so far.

LIEBE’s music has a very retrospective visual element to it, as well as being danceable?

We think that our music is not dance music, some songs have a high tempo but the core and melody gives more of a radio pop friendly character.

‘Flamingo Nights’ does take you back to love boats and cruises…

‘Flamingo Nights’ is a different side of the music we like. We try to sometimes sound a bit different from our main electropop sound. It is a song written in an easy listening mood with us thinking of Burt Bacharach and Stan Getz.

Who are LIEBE’s main musical influences?

Main musical influences? Hmmm… from disco to easy listening and electro 80s music to indie pop and new wave, both of us like similar bands and sounds.

Is the musical vibe of LIEBE almost inevitable when you are living somewhere that is sunny?

In Greece, the sun is shining a lot and gives us a feeling of a free spirit. With a more easy going style of everyday life, the music we make could lead to bossa nova and easy listening summer grooves. But unfortunately our music is full of dark and melancholic areas with slow drums and chaotic synths… it’s not the sunniest music you can hear.

Is the Jarvis Cocker afflicted droll in the vocals accidental, like on ‘Meet The Stars’?

We both like PULP and sometimes we pay a bit of a tribute to the voice and maybe some lyrics. That had more of a preaching style, but there is some Jarvo into it.

What makes Italo disco so maligned by some, but loved by others?

Italians do it better I suppose, this 70s piano music that makes the people dance is back in a fresh new edition. A flashback to music is always welcome, especially with such super sounds.

‘I Believe In You’ is possibly one of your best songs and a good introduction to LIEBE. How was the song conceived?

It’s just another song we have written for our third album, I can say that it has all the elements and sounds that LIEBE is fond of. Thank you for the compliment, but it’s hard for us to rate and to put in a favourite scale to our songs, but it is definitely one of our favourites.

The video for ‘I Believe In You’ proved to be very popular on MTV Europe. Where did the concept come from?

We asked a dance school to make a choreography for the song; the idea was to make something different from our other video clips and to avoid our own main role on the screen. The girls did a fantastic job and gave a nice view to our music.

SARAH P. who was in KEEP SHELLY IN ATHENS says there is not much of an electronic music scene in Greece, what do you think and how has that helped or hindered you?

Music in Greece or the music industry in Greece is pure Greek lyrics and R‘n’B, hip-hop and traditional bands. There is a music scene in Greece playing pop, indie, new wave and electro but the audience is limited. Radio, TV and magazines give a poor recommendation to bands like that. However, we have an international view for our music.

Your most recent album, ‘Revolution Of Love’ perhaps has an indirect political message too? Has the economic mood in Greece had any effect on the music you make?

Things in Greece over the last few years are not the same as they used to be. The bad economy gives a really hard time to the society and us. The idea was to make a revolution made by love and for love, let’s make a revolution for a good reason, pure and crystal love with a will not for a need, but peace and togetherness. The problems in our country had no effect to our way of writing songs and to the feelings behind them.

LIEBE have explored some new directions like on ‘The Box’ which sounds a little like JEAN-MICHEL JARRE?

‘The Box’ has these synths and pianos of Jarre, but the chorus goes a bit NEW ORDER in their ‘Regret’ era. With dark and big synths, it’s one of our good ones in our live set.

‘Sound Of The Moments’ explores a more house based club direction?

It’s our dancey song on the album, a bit of PSB kind of singing, like telling a story about flirting in a bar under this music. The end has a more classic summer feeling with the trumpet leading the way to the end.

You both undertake a variety of projects outside of LIEBE?

Dim is writing songs for his personal project, in a dancey, slow disco, funky style with some Italo moments. I make some pop songs, indie stuff and a bit of easy listening guitar music.

What’s next for LIEBE?

At the moment, we are rehearsing with a drummer, guitarist and trumpet player to make a full live band for our forthcoming live shows. I hope one day we will play in UK, but until then, all the best…

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its grateful thanks to LIEBE

Special thanks to Thanos Avratoglou

‘Revolution Of Love’ is released by Emerald & Doreen Recordings and available from the usual digital retailers

http://www.liebe.gr

https://www.facebook.com/pages/LIEBE-official-page/257440579094

http://emerald-and-doreen.com/2016/03/20/what-we-need-revolution-of-love/

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by K Kechagioglou and John Brightside Simitopoulos
27th August 2016

Category: Interviews (Page 80 of 113)

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