Category: Interviews (Page 83 of 113)

The Associate: An Interview with MICHAEL DEMPSEY

21 May 2016 / electricityclub

Photo by David Corio / Redferns

A former member of THE CURE, bassist Michael Dempsey first became aware of ASSOCIATES when the two bands were label mates at Chris Parry’s Fiction label.

Comprising of the kaleidoscopic vocal presence of Billy MacKenzie and the driven musicality of Alan Rankine, Dempsey soon joined ASSOCIATES as a silent partner and along with drummer John Murphy, both played on the three albums which defined their reputation; ‘The Affectionate Punch’, ‘Fourth Drawer Down’ and ‘Sulk’.

Now reissued as 2CD deluxe editions via BMG alongside ‘The Very Best of ASSOCIATES’ compendium for the more cautious listener, these collections have been supervised and produced by Dempsey. Each package includes previously unreleased tracks and 28 page booklets featuring unseen photos, rare memorabilia and extensive sleeve notes to do justice to the ASSOCIATES legacy.

Michael Dempsey kindly chatted about this new ASSOCIATES reissue campaign and the challenges of the remastering / repackaging process in the 21st century.

What did you think bonded you with Billy and Alan musically?

I often wonder that too because they came from a very different part of the country. People describe your music as belonging to the time when it came out ie the 80s in the case of ASSOCIATES. But I think their music was very much 60s and 70s, much more so than a lot of people who were out there. I think that’s where my impressions came from.

You piece it together over time and when I listen back to a lot of ASSOCIATES stuff, it’s that really exciting 60s music that seeped into their subconscious, in the same way it did for me. When I first met them, I was amazed. I’d never come across anyone that put together music in the way that they did. It wasn’t wildly experimental or anything like that, but it was packed with these reference points that I could relate to.

Photo by Richard Mann

It was enough to make you jump ship from THE CURE. What was your creative dynamic with them like, compared with Robert Smith and Lol Tolhurst?

Billy and Alan were so different and Billy’s personality was so beguiling, the music just drew you in. With THE CURE, we were touring intensely, there wasn’t that same sort of activity going on in ASSOCIATES. THE CURE got their debut album out before ASSOCIATES, so we were slightly rivals on the label I guess.

They were constantly vying for attention from Fiction. THE CURE were a lot easier to get going, we had a band and could tour while Alan and Bill were a duo who didn’t have a band. It would have been easier 10 or 20 years later to understand how to put an act like that out. But at the time, it wasn’t very clear how Fiction would deal with these guys. So ASSOCIATES were always kept hanging on and they were always hanging around the studio. They were really good company so it wasn’t difficult for me.

You are quoted as saying the recording of ‘Sulk’ had the band inventing ways of recording with click tracks and overdubs to make the sound as lush as possible. What were the most unusual things you witnessed or were asked to do?

The notion of us being wildly experimental came from them changing their sound quite often. When they were a duo, they wanted to be a band. When they were a band, they wanted to be electronic. And then came ‘Sulk’, which is hard to categorise. They didn’t do it in the same way as everybody else.

I found on reflection that they were using a lot of old school recording techniques. Half speed was a typical ASSOCIATES thing. To get it tight like a machine, you recorded at half speed, played it back at normal speed and it would sound a bit weird. That was something the kind of engineers and producers we worked with would have been well used to, because it was a typical 70s recording technique.

The experimenting started with their songwriting, the way they put things together was quite traditional in that it was voice and guitar. Also, they weren’t modish, they didn’t want to sound whatever it was in at that moment, they almost perversely wanted to sound unlike that. Bill would often describe the sound he wanted in oblique ways like “make the bassline green”… you’d play it and he’d go “NO! That’s blue! You’ve got to play it more green!” Some of it was just for fun, why not? *laughs*

Let’s just do it wrong! It was a perverse streak, a bit like what we had in THE CURE too. There’s somebody telling you how to do something… when you’re 19-20 years old, you try and do it in exactly the opposite way! Once they got hold of the controls, they would try and subvert the sound to make their music unusual. It often worked, sometimes it didn’t but more often, it worked. We didn’t just keep it bass / drums / guitar, we would bring in any instruments that were knocking around. So if you could lay your hands on Rick Wakeman’s vibraphone before it was picked up, you would!

How did producer Mike Hedges help in the creative process?

Mike’s biggest contribution was indulgence. So he was happy to try anything. Lots of producers will say “C’mon guys, this is really a waste of time!” whereas Mike was quite prepared to try stuff.

When you have that sort of attitude and you don’t have anyone saying “No, look at the time, we really must crack on”, it’s great. He was experimenting as much as we were. So he wasn’t a defacto producer who was calling the shots or overriding flights of fancy, he was open to ideas. THE CURE found him sympathetic too.

What was your approach with regards these reissues, compared with the V2 series in 2000?

I wanted it to be out there and we had various suitors. ASSOCIATES were very clever… unlike everybody else at the time, they actually licenced their material. So that gave us the opportunity every 5-10 years to re-licence it. You normally signed a contract into perpetuity. They were shrewd, but perhaps more by accident than design. With BMG, my expectations weren’t all that high, not because I had my pre-conceptions about them, but just because in the past, people would make a cursory attempt to put it out, but they didn’t try really hard.

But BMG were completely different from day one. They became almost more obsessive than I did. We had in Ian Gilchrist, a very good label manager, he wanted to go that extra mile, every mile. That meant we dug very deep. It was them that suggested putting ‘Sulk’ out on vinyl, I wasn’t expecting that. Then he suggested making everything a double and getting some really good pictures. That’s the one thing about ASSOCIATES, they were pretty chaotic in their existence. The idea that any of us would carry a camera would be unthinkable so pictures are very hard to come by, as are any moving images.

BMG were thorough and it’s taken about a year to bring them out. People generally bark loudly about their product but I’m happy to bark loudly, with an element of surprise, because I didn’t think it would come out as well as it has.

What can you do now that you couldn’t do then?

First of all, you can sample at 92 KHz 48bit, that’s a very respectable sound. Even to my older ears, it makes a difference. It’s like wearing a particularly fine pair of glasses, you can hear more detail at the higher sample rate. The idea of vinyl, ASSOCIATES’ previous attempts were always disastrous because we were experimental. Things wouldn’t be simple and often dense, so it would be hard to cut, moving forwards and backwards to the master for weeks and weeks.

There would be after thoughts of speeding things up or slowing them down as we did the cut. It was very hard at the time to get us sounding good, but we were never pleased how it sounded. It was cut quietly to err on the side of caution. When the digital age came along, it was much more of a flexible process. Back then, you had two controls, which were treble and bass! That wasn’t going to be sufficient for ASSOCIATES! *laughs*

We used to watch all these people fiddle around, but now we’re more informed. What’s great for us is that you can make things sound appropriate to whatever medium somebody wants to listen to the music in. So it’s great having everything.

I don’t know many people who actually listen to vinyl, I’ve listened to it and thought “this is interesting”. But I also quite like listening to something that hasn’t got any surface noise on it too.

Taking all that into account, why does ‘18 Carat Love Affair’ appear to be a different mix to the original 1982 vinyl single version?

It’s interesting; what you have to understand is ASSOCIATES never made a fetish of looking after their master tapes. So when you finished recording something, that was it. You didn’t need the tape, so it stayed in the studio it was recorded in. Maybe they got moved years later and put in a cellar which got damp when it rained! So for example, there isn’t any pure tape that says “Definitive ‘Sulk’ Master”.

Also, typically, we’d go into the mastering room and someone would say “It’s a little bit like it’s dragging, shall we speed it up a bit?” – so you’re speeding up the master tape to make your vinyl… but who’s making a note of what percentage it was sped up at? It’s really hard, but we don’t have the definitive production masters of each record, so you have to piece it together.

Your record player may be running a bit slow or fast. By ’18 Carat Love Affair’, I think we’d moved over to another producer Mark Arthurworrey to finish things off, because Mike Hedges was working with SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES. Listening back, he didn’t actually remix, he more EQ-ed so that might be why you hear more or less of something. Again, that may have been tweaked in the final process to cut the vinyl. All I can offer is my best approximation and I’ve decided I quite like it like that. As an exercise, it still keeps it alive.

Did you have to make any concessions to suit the download / streaming format that some favour today?

Not really, you make available your best possible master and then you hand it over to whoever. I was learning that Apple are quite fussy and use various studios to get their finished product, whereas Amazon are less fussy. Where do you stop? If I was supremely conscientious and fully employed in this, I could take it all the way but there’s a point you have to hand it over, so I surrender at a certain point.

Photo by David Corio / Redferns

How do you look back on the band imploding in the wake of the success of ‘Sulk’? Was there anything in hindsight that could have been done to keep Billy and Alan working together?

We would have had to have waited until we were 52, had wisdom and more understanding. It was stupid, the 80s were excessive and the focus was on style rather than content, ASSOCIATES kind of had both.

It was considered that ‘Sulk’ was a big sounding record and needed lots of people to recreate it live… it’s quite easy to see now that it was the completely wrong thing to do. Because Billy was an instinctive guy, he knew when something was wrong and would often judge people just from their clothes… that can be frustrating, because some people don’t dress particularly well. BUT, he kind of had a point as well, because you are the pair of shoes you wear very often. So he would size people up amazingly accurately. *laughs*

As the thing ballooned, he felt he was losing control of the situation and the only thing he could do was to say “No, I don’t want to do this!” – he’s the one person that you can’t do without, along with Alan as well. What should we have done? I say they should have gone out as a duo with a drum machine; Billy would have loved that because he loved SUICIDE.

The name ASSOCIATES, he was always keen to tell me time and time again, was that he liked to be associated with people, he didn’t want to carry a John, Paul, George and Ringo around with him. It would have been much better if he and Alan had simply stripped it right back… the idea of stripping things down didn’t come to be mainstream until very much later.

I think Alan on guitar, with a vibraphone player and Billy singing would have been a nice sound. These songs are really good, they don’t depend entirely on production technique which a lot of stuff did at that time. When I first heard their entire repertoire of about 50 songs, they sat down in their bedroom and played the lot, and it was just voice and guitar. So that could have translated very simply to live and I think that would have saved them.

But back then, people didn’t have that sort of grasp or flexibility, it was a lot harder to do things. Things are a lot simpler now. Music is a bit more respectable and there are better people working in it too. If we were in that situation today, I’d know exactly what to do and there would be the possibility of everyone responding to that.

What are your personal favourites from these releases?

I’ve always loved ‘Skipping’ because I helped write it, but it also captures that exuberance and I know Billy liked that a lot as well, he felt that was a really strong track on ‘Sulk’. I also think ‘No’ is a very powerful, dark song which always works for me too.

People will no doubt criticise the extras as being just that and perhaps being a little superfluous, but they illustrate how you get to the hits. They’re stepping stones along the way; they’re not perfect but I find them very intriguing.

Perhaps one of my favourites is the track that I close ‘Sulk’ CD2 with, which is ‘Grecian 2000’. That was the last piece of music that we recorded before the ill-fated tour started up… that was the way it was going. When you listen to that, it’s really tantalising. Billy did start on a vocal, I remember him singing it but it wasn’t recorded. They were moving onto the next phase, yet this great steamroller got in the way… they should have gone back to the studio and just wrote another 10 of these and had another album.

Is there much left in the ASSOCIATES vaults that aren’t on these reissues?

Back in 2000 when I last did it, I thought “that’s it, nothing else is going to come up”… but because the ASSOCIATES vault never seems definitive, this time, much more stuff did surface. The longest, most intense period is trying to trawl through who might possibly have something. The multi-tracks of ‘Club Country’ and ‘Party Fears Two’ were lost a long time ago and miraculously, I don’t know where it came from, we finally found ‘Club Country’. We still don’t have ‘Party Fears Two’, so somebody has got that somewhere or it’s at the bottom of the River Tay. So next time somebody asks me to do this, who knows?

I knew they existed but we only just got the masters for the John Leckie produced tracks; one is ‘Australia’ and the other is an early version of ‘Arrogance Gave Him Up’ called ‘Me, Myself & The Tragic Story’. ‘Australia’ is interesting because it’s a completely different production so had we gone down the John Leckie road, ‘Sulk’ would have sounded very different.

What’s your take on the continual interest in ASSOCIATES?

It doesn’t surprise me. I find it hard, then and now, to describe what they sound like. They were outsiders, and that’s sort of where I came from with THE CURE, we were on the edges of lots of things, but never sounded like anybody.

While other bands managed to get a contemporary sound and prosper, I don’t think ASSOCIATES ever got a contemporary sound, and so didn’t prosper! But long term, that makes it more fascinating for a lot of people. It’s that ultraplicity of references that you hear in the music which draws disparate people in, but it’s not a particular sound. That’s why I think people still find them very intriguing.

You’ve got a great singer, me and Alan were talking about this today and about who around at the time would really have stood up against Billy… some kept it simple and pulled it off, but Billy didn’t keep it simple. He often tried too hard, but he worked it beyond the call of duty sometimes, particularly live.

He could do things no-one else could do with his voice; everybody recognised that at the time and people still recognise that now.It was the combination of him and Alan; as Billy was a brilliant singer, Alan was a brilliant musician who could play anything, and did play anything. Between the two of them, they were great songwriters too, they really loved music. When you’ve got that collision of positives, then you’re going to come up with something different and outstanding.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Michael Dempsey

Additional thanks to Stuart Kirkham at Hall Or Nothing Independent Publicity

‘The Affectionate Punch’, ‘Fourth Drawer Down’, ‘Sulk’ and ‘The Very Best of ASSOCIATES’ are available now as 2CD packages via BMG

https://www.facebook.com/theassociatesofficial/

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
21st May 2016

SECTION 25 Interview

19 May 2016 / electricityclub

Founded by the Cassidy brothers Larry and Vin, SECTION 25 became best known for their seminal electro classic ‘Looking From A Hilltop’ in 1984.

The track was notable for featuring Larry’s wife Jenny on lead vocals and came from the album ‘From the Hip’ co-produced by Bernard Sumner. Its Peter Saville designed artwork continued the colour coded alphabet theme that began on NEW ORDER’s ‘Power, Corruption & Lies

However, the Blackpool combo opened their long player account with the Martin Hannett produced ‘Always Now’, which was released on Factory Records in 1981. The album recently had a boost in profile when rapper Kanye West sampled the song ‘Hit’ from it for his track ‘FML’.

Sadly Larry and Jenny passed away in 2010 and 2004 respectively. But in a fitting gesture, Vin Cassidy recruited his niece Beth, daughter of the departed SECTION 25 couple to join the band full-time as lead singer alongside regular guitarist and programmer Steve Stringer. She had already featured on several SECTION 25 recordings previously.

The new phase of SECTION 25 era was launched in 2011 with the release of the ‘Invicta’ EP. With the addition of Beth’s cousin Jo on backing vocals and keyboards, SECTION 25 steadily transformed themselves into glossy electronic pop act with the album ‘Dark Light’ released on Factory Benelux being the end result.

Retaining its core DNA, the spirit of SECTION 25 lives on and the band remain a cult favourite on the live circuit. Beth Cassidy kindly took time out to chat about her personal and musical journey…

How did you end up in “The best old / new band in Britain”, as The Guardian put it?

Yes, best review ever, haha!

I first worked with SECTION 25 in the recording studio back in 2008; they wanted to introduce female vocals for the ‘Nature + Degree’ album, so as my lovely mum had passed away in 2004, I suppose they thought it was fitting for me to contribute… in hindsight, I think it was also an experiment to see if there was a natural place for me in the band. Over time I started playing live… it was quite a gradual process.

What’s it like to be heading the family business now?

I’ve never really seen myself as heading the band, as everything we do together is wholly collaborative. Writing, recording, decision making, live work, promoting, money, we all do it together, historically that’s the way SECTION 25 has always run as a project. But I feel proud to be able to keep the family legacy alive.

How does being in a family band differ from being in other bands in your experience?

I’ve never been in any other band so I can only assume: There are no inflated egos, because there’s no-one to show off to, we’ve all grown up and older together, so there is no desire to prove anything. We have a lot of shared experiences from the past, and for me, I get to live through very similar experiences that my parents went through, it’s a strange parallel, but it keeps me close to them, which is very cool.

‘Colour, Movement, Sex & Violence’ in 2011 was a good start for the rebooted SECTION 25 and captured that classic Manchester indie dance club vibe…

Yeah, it’s a bright and catchy pop record that was a good entrance the next phase of SXXV… Christ knows what phase we’re up to… No 8 maybe?

The subsequent album ‘Dark Light’ was released on Factory Benelux in late 2012, which from a brand point of view, could be seen as continuing the tradition? The title reflects the contents…

Yes, I suppose if you had to put SECTION 25 in a box, it would either be a dark box with air holes in the lid, or a light box room with some darker dingy corners. It depends which way round you look at it. A lot of sh*t has happened, but I try to view things with a hopeful optimism, and that was my way of thinking whilst writing ‘Dark Light’. Lows and then highs.

‘My Outrage’ has a good blend of electronics and guitars, was that a conscious template to go for with the ‘Dark Light’ album?

It wasn’t a theme as such, but we wanted quite a big sound overall, and the combination of the two worked. It’s got to have a sense of balance though, so it had to feel like SECTION 25 in 2012, but with elements inspired by the past. For me, ‘Love Cuts’, achieves this the most.

What was the inspiration behind ‘My Outrage’?

‘My Outrage’ is about the small pleasures of the everyday and the effects of when they run parallel to / mirror the purely outrageous. Outrage is the Yin to Sunday morning’s Yang. It’s also a reference to my unbalanced, slightly manic personality…

‘Early Exit’ is quite poignant but also, a stompingly optimistic number?

It’s like when you cry with a smile on your face, it’s a powerful thing! I like to try and reach different levels of emotion when I’m writing, and with ‘Early Exit’, I think the words came first and then we built the track around them?

Being a multi-generational combo, there must be some amusing musical reference discussions in rehearsals. Are there any examples you can recall?

Not as much discussions, more like random, disjointed jamming episodes, where Vin will start to play the drums from a WIRE song, Steve will come in with some DAVID BOWIE Thin White Duke guitar chords, Jo will play a classic house synth sound melody and I’ll do some James Murphy style rhythmic talking, hahaha! It’s all good fun.

What are your own musical tastes and how do they fit into SECTION 25?

My true love is electronica, techno, minimal, bassy, dirty sounds. I moved to Berlin after I finished my degree partly because of the techno and club scene, I wanted to be totally enveloped in it! It was the best music I’ve ever heard… I also love a lot of music from the 80s and early 90s, Kate Bush, INXS, COCTEAU TWINS, YELLO, TALKING HEADS, then all the Madchester music scene, classic house records from the 90s, SHADES OF RHYTHM, ALISON LIMERICK, ASHA, etc etc.

When I started my degree, all my housemates were listening to ANDY C and SQUAREPUSHER, and I was blasting out ‘Cream Classics’. I do love finding new music too though, GHOST POET, STEVE MASON, PIXX. I think I’m drawn to interesting electronic sounds, and I instantly want to work out how they’ve made the sound, and I also search for really thoughtful lyrics, and interesting lyrical arrangements.

In 2013, you collaborated with FOTONOVELA on the track ‘Clean Slate’, how was that?

I really enjoyed collaborating, it was a bit of a challenge to see if / how I faired going solo without the comfort of the band, and I loved it. It sounds daft, but I proved to myself that I am a proper musician! I used to have a niggling doubt that I was just winging it, because I totally just fell into the band… but the collaboration got rid of the doubt.

Are you planning any further collaborations with anyone else, or have any ambitions as to who you would like collaborate with?

No plans yet, but open to offers!

What was it like to hear that Kanye West had sampled SECTION 25?

Surreal, hilarious, ace. We rehearsed earlier today for a festival in Norwich that we’re playing at in a couple of weeks, and we tried ‘Hit’. It sounds good, it sounds current! I’m really excited to play it.

The new live album ‘Alfresco’ is a timely release that nicely documents this phase of the band…

We’re in a really nice place with everything at the moment, and ‘Alfresco’ summarises the bands continual progression. Andrew Weatherall was in the audience at that gig, right at the front, nodding his head. He’s a bit of a hero of mine, so it was a monumental live session for me, and now we’ve eternalised it.

What is it like to perform a cult classic like ‘Looking From A Hilltop’ with all its history?

Very very good. It’s pretty transcendental to be honest, I definitely go to another place when we play it live. It’s so loaded with meaning, it makes me feel stronger. Now it does, anyway.

I used to get tears in my eyes and have to turn my back on the audience.

Which other songs do you particularly enjoy playing live? ‘Desert’ in my opinion is a real highlight…

Yeah that’s a dreamy one to play live. I also love to play ‘Dirty Disco’ as it’s got the groove, and lots of spirit. There’s a lot of connective energy between Jo and I when we play songs like ‘Memento’ and ‘Pitch Black Box’, so that’s fun. And ‘Wretch’… I reach inside and pull out my inner ‘Larry’…!

What’s next for SECTION 25? Any new material on the horizon?

Yes! We’re in the jamming stages of writing a new album, so we’ve got about 4 and a half skeletons of songs, and we’re planning to continue pick the writing back up in autumn… Watch this space.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Beth Cassidy

Additional thanks to James Nice at Factory Benelux

SECTION 25 play the ‘Down By The River’ Indie All Dayer at The Waterfront in Norwich on Sunday 29th May 2016

‘Alfresco’, ‘Dark Light’, ‘Always Now’ and ‘From The Hip’ are available from Factory Benelux at http://factorybenelux.com/section25.html

http://www.section25.com

https://www.facebook.com/section25

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
19th May 2016

A Short Conversation with NEAR FUTURE

17 May 2016 / electricityclub

Neil Arthur and Jez Bernholz are NEAR FUTURE, a new project featuring the BLANCMANGE front man and the Brighton based musician, sculptor, film-maker and co-founder of the Anti Ghost Moon Ray art collective that also spawned GAZELLE TWIN.

With plans for a full-length album to be released in 2017, the first single is the delightfully sombre ‘Ideal Home’. Beginning with futuristic ship klaxons, it’s a fractured number which takes a detached dual vocal and attaches it to a steadfast rhythmic backdrop, with hints of Eno-era TALKING HEADS in its ethnically influenced textures.

Meanwhile, the sub-three minute flip ‘Overwhelmed’ has shrill strings cocooned in an aural cavern with a claustrophobic Neil Arthur lead vocal that while recognisable, is quite different from anything by BLANCMANGE. Setting the scene as an introduction to the project, Jez Bernholz kindly chatted about the genesis of NEAR FUTURE.

You opened for BLANCMANGE at the Red Gallery shows in 2015, but what led you to making music together?

Neil and I had a really positive connection when we met in London for those shows. I’d already said how much I loved ‘Irene & Mavis’ which, if I’m honest, was my first real introduction to the band when reissued through Minimal Wave.

Neil had said some very encouraging things about the experimental aspects of my music. As a result, I was invited to join them on a full UK tour as support this year and it was suggested that we could exchange some loose ideas, work on each other’s tracks separately and see what the results were.

It was all initially just a loose but interesting way to promote the tour, but it was also a nice way of seeing how our individual approaches to music-making worked together, flex our compositional muscles in a way. It’s worked out better than we hoped and we’re introducing each other to a wide variety of things outside our own comfort zones I’d like to think.

‘Ideal Home’ has an experimental air of BRIAN ENO about it?

Experimental, certainly, but Eno for me wasn’t a conscious inspiration though I love his work and studio ideas. Vocally, it’s certainly possible that ‘Another Green World’ or ‘Before and After Science’, had some kind of subconscious influence, but then, only as much as his work with JON HASSELL or DAVID BYRNE.

In the back of my mind, the vocals are always inspired in some way by Bowie so there is the ‘Low’ connection there, but it wasn’t intentional and I don’t think I ever considered it a formative part of the music. However, Neil may see things differently of course. His initial idea and field recordings laid the groundwork for the austere, detached quality, but they were rooted in other electronic histories.

How does a younger generation artist such as yourself come to discover and be influenced the original innovators?

I’m a music-obsessive. I’ve had a staple collective of artists that I’ve loved since growing up and becoming a musician.

And if you’re a nerd like me, those artists tend to have a rhizomatic effect. KATE BUSH, PRINCE, DAVID BOWIE, KRAFTWERK, the usual suspects.

I’m drawn to the certain kind of electronic sounds pioneered from the 60s, wobbling, bending and very detached, almost lonely sounds that the post-punk and New Pop artists all seem to use, culminating in some kind of golden age of experimental pop. It seemed to dispel of certain hierarchies which exists a lot in certain places now, where often you find either a kind of classist or an inverted snobbery; I like music which bridges those gaps between experimentalism and populism.

I’ve worked with some very inspiring people in other bands over the years who’ve drawn me into unusual music by ‘innovators’, those who may not be household names but are important artists. I also found that really good music journalism, those who wrote profoundly about the effect music had on them, would draw my attention to artists that someone who grew up with Britpop as their soundtrack might have otherwise neglected; ‘This is Uncool’ by Garry Mulholland, ‘Rip It Up and Start Again’ by Simon Reynolds.

‘Overwhelmed’ sees Neil taking the lead vocal. How do you produce a work that has his distinctive style without it necessarily coming over like BLANCMANGE?

Neil is an inspired artist and a uniquely gifted lyricist. His approach to the piece of music I wrote really reflected the contemplative sounds.

The vocal melded with the music as if it had been there all along and when I heard it I was floored.

That’s his gift and he can apply it just about anywhere.

The way that I compose comes from a very different place, and having the music composed before the vocal gave it a space to move somewhere of its own. Even though Neil and I share similar interests, our frame of reference is not the same.

What do you think you provide to the partnership that Neil hasn’t had before, and what does Neil add to your artistic ethos?

I’m not sure about what he hasn’t had before, necessarily, that would be implying a lot on my behalf. I certainly think that I’ve taken it partly down the road of early, naive experimenting, the ‘hitting pots and pans’ and reversing cassettes at slowed-down speed approach. My production tends to be quite ambient at times; I’m inspired by artists such as TIM HECKER, ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER and ROLY PORTER. That’s potentially something that will have been liberating for Neil, to make music away from the expectations of a band with BLANCMANGE’s legacy.

Working with Neil has given me a real impetus to be a bit freer, encouraged me to think more considerately but at the same time be less precious with ideas, and that’s helped the project to avoid the potential stagnation you can get as a solo producer when you spend too long overworking ideas. Neil is very inspired, works quickly, executes great judgement and as I said before, is lyrically intuitive and sensitive. It’s been a long time since I’ve written collaboratively with someone, but it feels like we are on to a very good thing.

Your debut BERNHOLZ album ‘How Things Are Made’ was well received, how will you juggle Near Future with recording your own second long player?

Well, juggling both these projects with my own little biological project (a baby due any day now!) will be very interesting. I’ve been working on my half of the NEAR FUTURE album and my own record ‘The Innermost Surfaces In Eggshells’ in tandem, and I really enjoy it.

Sometimes I’ll be inspired to work on one as it will fit with my thought pattern at the time. They are very different in terms of mood and execution.

My own solo album is a complete departure from my debut, more like an art soundpiece rather than songs, whereas the NEAR FUTURE tracks, even though they retain that experimentation, are a lot more focussed on collaborative songwriting. It’s hard to rein in all the ideas I have floating around sometimes, I release other music as part of an ongoing ‘Consequences’ project too. I’m quite lucky that I can put my eternal distractions and procrastination to good use.

Parts of ‘How Things Are Made’ were reminiscent of DALEK I LOVE YOU; as they were heavily inspired by Eno too, this is maybe not entirely surprising. What was your reaction to hearing DALEK I LOVE YOU for the first time?

I remember ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK have drawn those comparisons before, but honestly, they’d never been on my radar before! I look forward to delving into the catalogue more, but recollecting hearing them the first time, I remember thinking, “Great!”

Are you and Neil likely to perform live together in the NEAR FUTURE?

We certainly hope so. We are discussing a few shows potentially at the moment, we just have to work out the logistics (and a set list), but we have a new song, albeit a cover, due imminently.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Jez Bernholz

With thanks to Steve Malins at Random Music Management

‘Ideal Home’ b/w ‘Overwhelmed’ is released by Blanc Check Records and available as a download single via the usual digital outlets

Pre-order the NEAR FUTURE album ‘Ideal Home’ at https://nearfuture.tmstor.es

https://www.facebook.com/bernholzmusic

http://www.blancmange.co.uk

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
17th May 2015, updated 14th March 2018

ALAN RANKINE Interview

28 April 2016 / electricityclub

Photo by Paul Cox

Like their contemporaries JAPAN, Scotland’s ASSOCIATES are a band that burned briefly but brightly.

Fronted by the mercurial Billy MacKenzie and driven musically by multi-instrumentalist Alan Rankine, the group’s entire back catalogue has been remastered, accompanied by a new compilation. The MacKenzie / Rankine era albums ’The Affectionate Punch’, ‘Fourth Drawer Down’ and ‘Sulk’ have been supervised by silent partner and bassist Michael Dempsey. These 2CD deluxe editions include previously unreleased tracks and 28 page booklets featuring unseen photos, rare memorabilia and extensive sleeve notes to do justice to the ASSOCIATES legacy.

The young Alan Rankine grew up in Linlithgow, a town that was stuck between Glasgow and Edinburgh in more than just the geographical sense. The way he and MacKenzie came together seemed almost predestined, with the pair forming a live covers band to keep themselves afloat as a sustainable entity, while demoing their own material.

Courted by a number of labels, they decided to take control of the situation and independently released a cover of ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ only weeks after the Bowie original came out. As if by magic, Fiction Records offered a deal and their first album ‘The Affectionate Punch’ came out in 1980.

However, they were unhappy with their time on a conventional label and opted thereafter to licence their material, first with Situation 2 for their second album ‘Fourth Drawer Down’ and WEA for their commercial breakthrough ‘Sulk’. During their run of three chart hits in 1982, it would be fair to say ASSOCIATES gave SIMPLE MINDS a run for their money in the art rock stakes.

But stardom was not really something that suited ASSOCIATES, particularly MacKenzie. Sadly after the cancellation of a world tour, the pair parted ways, leaving SIMPLE MINDS to head for the stadiums while A-HA took up the mantle left vacant for melancholic cinematic multi-octave synthpop.

With the upcoming reissues soon to be released, Alan Rankine kindly spoke about his time with ASSOCIATES and the legend of Billy MacKenzie.

You and Billy played in a covers band which seems miles away from the usual route to the way bands at the time. Is the cover ‘Eloise’ on the ‘Very Best of ASSOCIATES’ indicative of the material were you playing?

Bill and I had a real affection for these kinda big sounding singles from the ‘67-‘68, we’re talking about things like ‘Rainbow Valley’ by LOVE AFFAIR, horns and strings and stuff. So we ended up doing a punk version of ‘Eloise’ by Barry & Paul Ryan, it was at breakneck speed!

As his catalogue has shown, Billy was very comfortable with doing covers?

We were both very keen on doing the occasional cover version. When we were in the studio or even at soundchecks, we would start playing ‘Brown Sugar’ or ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’ by THE ROLLING STONES, or a Bowie or Roxy song. And then we would go onto ‘The Look Of Love’ by Dusty Springfield.

You and Billy bonded over a shared love of ROXY MUSIC, SPARKS and Bowie. Was it a gradual process coming up with that Venn diagram which became your sound?

I know exactly what you mean… it’s a Venn diagram with a few circles crossing over, but central to a lot of it was Bowie, a bit of Roxy, a bit art of art rock a la THE TUBES maybe and a bit of zaniness like THE REZILLOS. There was always an element of cheekiness in there. Anyone that was into music at that time just could not help be influenced by Bowie, but I think we had a more cinematic approach.

We loved our film themes, how they could hug your emotions and pull you this way and that way, just with a change of a chord here and the introduction of a different instrument there.

The cover of ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ forced Fiction’s hand and led to the recording of ’The Affectionate Punch’. You seemed to almost immediately find your own sound.

We did the recording of ’The Affectionate Punch’ very quickly in about three and a half weeks including mixing and mastering. Then we went into rehearsals and only played three songs from the ten track album which didn’t please the record company very much. But we just said “F*** YOU”, we just played what we felt was good. ’The Affectionate Punch’ has a lot of keyboards on it and we wanted to go out as just guitar / bass / drums / vocals. We played ‘Gloomy Sunday’ as well, which didn’t surface on record until 1982, so it was a bit of a mish-mash.

How did you get back into using synths again?

When you’re out there playing live to 600-700 people, it’s really fun to have a post-punk aesthetic but when you start recording again, it’s a luxury and you’ve got to have this sound. So we had five keyboards all lined-up ready to go, five different guitars and five different amps. We would work at breakneck speed, not because there was a time pressure, but because we had so many ideas coming into our heads at the same time. We wanted sumptuousness and for it to be dripping with silk and satin, we didn’t want cotton! *laughs*

Which keyboards where you using?

Digital-wise, we used the Synclavier. These geeky guys used deliver this thing which we hired by the day and it had floppy discs. It was fairly primitive, but it worked. Apart from that, we used Oberheims, Solinas, Yamaha CS80s, that sort of thing… there was another one starting with a ‘P’ but I can’t remember what it was! *laughs*

We liked to try and do different things; very seldom did we just use a preset sound and not put an effect on it in some way. Sometimes, we would just play a sound and hold down the notes of a chord and changed positions as the chord progression changed, and the sound would open up as the snare drum would hit. So it was like a Wah-Wah effect which was in time with the snare. The snare drum triggered off the sound, so it would open up and immediately shut.

‘White Car In Germany’ was an obvious nod to KRAFTWERK and LA DÜSSELDORF, but I seem to remember Billy saying he was really into THE HUMAN LEAGUE?

Yes, I can remember when we were in Ashley Newton of RSO Records’ BMW and he was playing THE HUMAN LEAGUE when he drove us to the studio. We thought it was great; I wouldn’t call Phil Oakey a vocalist, I would call him a vocaliser and there was brilliant songwriting from Jo Callis who was in THE REZILLOS. He wrote ‘Don’t You Want Me?’ so yeah, it was just the sheer pop of it. To us, it was really no difference between that and ‘Dancing Queen’ by ABBA, that’s bloody genius!

You and Billy popped down to The Blitz Club occasionally and you documented your experiences on ‘Club Country’…

We were definitely there fairly early on when it was in Great Queen Street. Yes, it was a bit exotic and yes, it was a bit pretentious but it was a young animal finding its feet; sometimes it did feel a little bit elitist and I think that was the nature of the beast, it was what it was. I don’t think we really fitted in; I think SPANDAU BALLET fitted in there but I think we fell between two points. We were not New Romantics, we were not post-punk… were we new wave? I don’t know! The closest I can think of, if there was a category called Barking Mad, that’s where we would lie! *laughs*

What was the approach to recording Billy? Do you remember any particular quirks you can remember?

Recording Bill was such a luxury. After I went on to produce other people, I thought everyone was like that, I thought they all got it in one or two takes! God, how wrong I was! I found myself thinking “this is sh*t” and they’re on like their 40th take in the studio and it’s still not right! So you’re having to make up composites of five different takes! On ‘White Car In Germany’ and ‘Kitchen Person’, Bill did sing through greaseproof paper and a comb. And into the bargain, on ‘Kitchen Person’ he was singing down the hose of a vacuum cleaner before it got to the mic.

‘Party Fears Two’ hit the top 10 in early 1982. The instrumental version included on CD2 of ‘Sulk’ brought a tear to my eye for a number of reasons. It revealed a lot of layers and each instrument has its own voice, but ultimately, Billy is missing…

You’re exactly right there; it’s like a great big hole. Yes, the instrumental sounds good and you can hear things more clearly in a more defined way. But yes, the lyrics, the vocal expression and the colour of the human voice, Bill had it all.

Looking back, you weren’t ones for following the usual script. With the subsequent success of ‘Sulk’, it set you on the path that led to implosion of the band.

We recorded ‘The Affectionate Punch’ in the Spring of 1980 but promptly ditched most of the album and did new songs, some of which would appear on later albums and played in Scotland.

I’ve looked up our gigography and we were up there for about two and a half months, playing maybe thirteen or fourteen gigs. So there was no tour laid out in front of us, it was more “oh, have we got a gig this week?”

Then we moved down to London and it was slightly more structured there. We’d play a month of Sundays at The Marquee etc but still, not like a world tour. But having your life mapped out for the next fifteen months, where you’re going to be, who’s going to meet you, how many radio stations you’re doing, how many press interviews you’re doing, that to Bill was just an anathema… that would freak anyone out, but it freaked Bill out because he was being boxed in. All we really wanted to do was be creative. Or if he was going to do a concert or two or three, that would be enough… ten days into the future was enough for Bill to take.

’18 Carat Love Affair’ is often considered the anomaly in the ASSOCIATES’ cannon and has been described as “quasi Neil Sedaka”… how do you look back on it? In retrospect, it was quite subversive to have a perfect pop song about a secret gay relationship in the charts in 1982.

Yeah, that’s another one. With ‘Party Fears Two’, the piano motif was written by us in 1977… we stared at each other hungover one Sunday morning and said “this is good but we can’t use this right now”. And indeed, we didn’t until five years later, the market just wasn’t there for it. Similarly with ’18 Carat Love Affair’, to me it’s like 60s pop song, the melody, the feel of it. I like the fact it’s got an agony aunt in the lyrics, Evelyn Home who was in ‘Woman’ magazine and it was about a secret gay affair.

Is there anything you could have done differently in retrospect to keep the partnership together with Billy?

I really don’t think so, because Bill needed to stretch his legs creatively and work with other people… I get that now. At the time, yes I was mad as hell and all the rest of it, but that’s what he needed to do. He needed to work with YELLO and write the lyrics and melody to ‘The Rhythm Divine’; he needed to not be with me. I don’t think there was anything we could have done about that.

You continued to record with other artists like Paul Haig and Winston Tong. Would the recordings you did with them be an indicator of how ASSOCIATES might have sounded if you’d continued to work with Billy?

They’re different in that Paul’s a great vocalist, but he’s not Billy; he’s not got a four octave range and Paul really can’t sing unless it’s through microphones, he needs his voice to be electrified for him to feel comfortable.

Winston? Not the greatest singer! You had a forty-five minute window to try and get a performance out of him before he fell over, he was taking a little too much heroin although I’m glad to say he’s clean now. But he was having a real bad time when he was recording the ‘Theoretically Chinese’ album with me.

Again, with Paul and Winston and with whoever else, everything was done very quickly and it was always a great laugh and good fun.

After several solo records on Les Disques du Crépuscule and Virgin, you got back together with Billy in 1993 but he didn’t follow it through with the pressure for live shows. Was there no-one willing to take ASSOCIATES on as a studio-only band?

No, all the record companies were interested, but they were saying “PROVE IT!”… that was like a red rag to a bull for Bill, he just said “I’m not f***ing proving myself to anyone! Get real!”

Would the environment of today with self-releasing been better for him?

It probably would have suited Bill right down to the ground.

Are you surprised by people’s continual fascination with the band?

I think there’s a great deal of good will with regards the memory of ASSOCIATES and the memory of Bill, plus a certain amount of frustration because a lot of people that heard us in ‘81 and ‘82 hadn’t seen us play live in 1980-81, so you never know… *laughs*

What are your personal favourites from these releases?

On ‘The Very Best Of ASSOCIATES’, it’s got to be ‘International Loner’ and ‘Edge Of The World’. These were both done in the 1993 sessions; I see and hear them as a much more mature sound. I suppose ‘Skipping’ is probably my all-time favourite, although really, it’s ‘Party Fears Two’ because it gets played a lot.

But also, if you go back to the cover versions, ‘Long Hangover’ because I can remember being in Moulin Rouge Studios and Bill did that in two takes. There’s something about doing a cover version because you’re not in any way insular or self-conscious. Just watching and listening to Bill in full flight without a care in the world, there’s something very special about that.

What does the future hold for yourself?

I’ve done everything from perfume adverts to wet your panties teen pop. I just write and write whatever comes into my mind.

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Alan Rankine

Additional thanks to Stuart Kirkham at Hall Or Nothing Independent Publicity

The expanded 2CD deluxe edition reissues of ‘The Affectionate Punch’, ‘Fourth Drawer Down’ and ‘Sulk’ are released by BMG on 13th May 2016

The 2CD anthology ‘The Very Best Of ASSOCIATES’ is available now via Union Square through the usual retailers

https://www.facebook.com/theassociatesofficial/

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
Additional Questions by Ian Ferguson
28th April 2016

A Beginner’s Guide To MARK REEDER

26 March 2016 / electricityclub

Mark Reeder has carved out an impressive reputation for his catalogue of fine remixes.

When Mark Reeder spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK in 2011 about his remixing style, he said: “I’m old school. I like to still be able to hear the song, but give it my own signature and atmosphere, while at the same time use as many of the original elements as possible”.

He had moved to West-Berlin from Manchester in 1978, having become fascinated by the artistic diversity of the city and was Factory Records representative in Germany between 1978 to 1982. He is credited with introducing Bernard Sumner to the world of electronically propelled dance music, thus being instrumental in the development of NEW ORDER’s influential hybrid sound.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Reeder had great success with his electronic dance music record label Masterminded For Success (MFS). For the last few years, Reeder has been heavily involved in a documentary film about his adopted home city:

“’B-Movie (Lust & Sound in West-Berlin)’ is about the forgotten city of West-Berlin during the 80s. When the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, not only did communist East Germany cease to exist, but the walled-in island of West-Berlin did too. Most people have forgotten, or have no idea how the city was back then. In ‘B-Movie’, I guide the viewer through this decade, but as the film is also about my life in this city too, I show you some of the things I saw and experienced during the 1980s, while participating in what has now become, the legendary subkultur of West Berlin.”

In a break from his hectic worldwide schedule promoting ‘B-Movie (Lust & Sound in West-Berlin)’, Mark Reeder kindly gave an insightful commentary into the tracks that shaped his own musical career.

DIE UNBEKANNTEN Radio War (1981)

Reeder formed DIE UNBEKANNTEN with Alistair Gray when he settled in West-Berlin.

We were actually given the name DIE UNBEKANNTEN by a journalist, who saw our feeble first gig at the SO36. That gig was supposed to have been just a one-off, but he was surprisingly impressed and thought we were very avant-garde and apparently enjoyed our miserable performance.

In his magazine review of the event, he just called us two unknown Englishmen and from then on, people just called us DIE UNBEKANNTEN (“The Unknown”). A few weeks later, we played at the Genial Dilletanten Festival and were inadvertently presented as ‘Necropolis’, which was actually the title of our intro track.

A while later, after Elisabeth Recker of Monogam Records witnessed what was probably our most chaotic performance – we were on acid – she believed we would fit perfectly with the abstract style of the rest of the artists on her record label.

Our Swiss friend Thomas Wydler became our drummer and we recorded a three track EP featuring ‘Radio War’, ‘Poseidon’ and ‘Casualties’. The record not only sounded nothing like any of Monogam’s previous releases, but it also caused a lot of controversy because of my design for its front cover image (a photo depicting three East German border guards) and the striking Germanic style of type face which I had chosen.

Our second, and final DIE UNBEKANNTEN record, was much more electronic. By this time, Thomas had left us and joined DIE HAUT and we had gone back to using a drum machine and had also acquired some more electronic instruments. Our friend, Adrian Wright from THE HUMAN LEAGUE gave us a brand new drum computer to test for him.

He had actually been asked to try out a very early prototype Roland TR606, but couldn’t be bothered and so he gave it to us to trial for him, so along with the Transcendent 2000 (the very same one which Bernard Sumner had played in JOY DIVISION with) and a Moog that Klaus Schulze had also given us, we immediately went into the studio and recorded ‘Don’t Tell Me Stories’ for our ‘Dangerous Moonlight’ EP. This became the first record to feature a Roland TR606.

Available on the album ‘B-Music: Der Soundtrack zum Film B-Movie’ (V/A) via DEF Media

https://www.facebook.com/lustandsoundinwestberlin/

MALARIA! Geld (1982)

One of the bands who grabbed Reeder’s attention in West-Berlin were the uncompromising all-female combo MALARIA!

I already knew Bettina Koester and Gudrun Gut from their first band MANIA-D. Musically, their approach was so different from anything I had ever heard before, as the conventional rules of male dominated rock and roll didn’t apply to the way these girls made music at all and that was what made them so exciting.

They were no virtuosos, but that didn’t matter one bit, because it was exactly that ingredient which made their music so interesting. After Beate Bartel left MANIA-D to form LIAISONS DANGEREUSES, Gudrun and Bettina formed MALARIA! a five piece all-girl band and quite an international one too, being a mixture of German, American and Dutch.

Their striking, on-stage image, all dressed in black with bright red lips, is considered a Goth image nowadays; but back in the 80s, MALARIA! did it first, and after their debut appearance in London with THE BIRTHDAY PARTY, this image was obviously hi-jacked from them for the Robert Palmer video ‘Addicted To Love’, even to the point of making the emphasis that the girls in his video also couldn’t play their instruments.

At some point very early on, I became their manager. At that time, I was the only man allowed into their sphere, and because I knew what the band wanted to sound like live, I also became their sound engineer too and naturally, as I also had my own band, DIE UNBEKANNTEN, we became their support band. The girls trusted me, they knew I understood their ideology and I liked their music and most importantly, I didn’t interfere.

Available on the album ‘B-Music: Der Soundtrack zum Film B-Movie’ (V/A) via DEF Media

http://www.m-enterprise.de/malaria.html

SHARK VEGAS Love Habit (1986)

Reeder’s own musical journey has to an extent, mirrored that of Bernard Sumner’s. DIE UNBEKANNTEN morphed into SHARK VEGAS to become a more electronic and disco friendly proposition.

After performing for nearly four years as DIE UNBEKANNTEN, we were asked by NEW ORDER if we would like to accompany them on their European tour after the success of ‘Blue Monday’.

We decided this would be a good moment to change our name and musical style, especially after adding two new members to our band. Besides, after our first disastrous London performance in the Barracuda Club, I thought DIE UNBEKANNTEN was much too difficult to pronounce outside of Germany, as people thought we were called DIE UNBEKANNTEN as in “Death Unbekannten” and so we urgently needed a new name and image.

Me and my partner-in-crime, Alistair Gray just threw a few ideas together one night and SHARK VEGAS became our name. I wanted something obscure sounding that didn’t actually mean anything apart from it being our band name.

Al and I were huge fans of pulsating electronic dance music – most probably since ‘I Feel Love’ – and the small Berlin underground gay-disco scene, which ran parallel to the abstract avant-garde scene, was the place to go and always a great way to spend a late Friday and Saturday night, before finally crashing and burning in the Risiko club.

Besides, musically, DIE UNBEKANNTEN had already been moving away from being depressive and miserable and had become much more electronic high energy disco too, so this tour proposal presented itself as a welcome opportunity to literally, regroup.

During a short break in the NEW ORDER tour, we went into Conny Plank’s studio with Bernard Sumner and recorded our first single ‘You Hurt Me’, but the session was a bit of a disaster, as the studio engineer had a slipped disc and was in terrible pain. He had to lie on a camp bed in front of the mixing desk and shout instructions up to us, while Conny Plank spent all his time playing table tennis in the yard outside. That single became FAC111.

‘Love Habit’ was one of the tracks we initially recorded during the session for the FacUS ‘Young, Popular & Sexy’ compilation. We were asked to perform ‘Love Habit’ for a video, for a special Berlin edition of ‘Music Box’, Britain’s first cable TV music show and using my US Army AFN contacts, I managed to get permission to make our video on the divided Glienickebrücke (the so-called ‘Bridge of Spies’). In the video, we appear as beaten up and tortured spies in raincoats, as if we had just been let out of an East German prison.

Unfortunately, the US army forgot to inform the Soviet Army that we were making a video on the bridge and so, on the East side there was a right flap on. They sent out East German patrol boats to find out what we were doing on the bridge. I guess they thought we were trying to provoke World War III. ‘Love Habit’ was intended to be an album track, but it became one of the last songs we recorded as SHARK VEGAS and it was never released, at least not until we included it on the recent ‘B-Movie’ soundtrack.

Available on the album ‘B-Music: Der Soundtrack zum Film B-Movie’ (V/A) via DEF Media

https://www.facebook.com/markreedermusic/

DIE VISION Love By Wire (1990)

Released on East German state label AMIGA, DIE VISION’s ‘Torture’ was the last album to be recorded in communist East Berlin in 1989 and featured Reeder as producer.

I was invited by the band to be the producer for their debut album. At first it seemed incredible that they had actually managed to get the AMIGA to agree, as no-one from the West had ever been allowed in their state-run recording studio.

It transpired that because the band were allowed officially to sing in English(ese), they agreed to let them have an English-speaking producer too. In reality, I later discovered, the STASI wanted to know what kind of subversive activity I was involved in, especially after helping to arrange two illegal and meanwhile legendary secret gigs with West German punk band DIE TOTEN HOSEN in East Berlin. So I guess this was their brilliant plan to keep a close watch on me.

DIE VISION’s singer Uwe, was studying English at the Humbolt University – to be able to do that, you had to speak fluent Russian too – and he was so very insistent that I come over and produce their album. So I did. What an opportunity. Now, forming a band in communist East Germany was very, very difficult. It was nothing like forming a band in the West.

You couldn’t just go into a shop and buy a guitar, bass and drums and bash away. Everything was controlled by the Communist state, especially music. Before you could play to the public, your ability was first considered, then your song lyrics scrutinised to see if there were any subversive hidden anti-state messages and even getting electric instruments was difficult, you needed permits to first buy and then one to play, an electric guitar in public.

Then as a band, you performed before a group of people, who would assess your proficiency. This determined if, when, or where you might be able to play, eg youth clubs and how much you would get paid. DIE VISION had quite a sudden rise in popularity in the East and rather than ban them, the Authorities decided to sign them, that way everything would be under control. That is, until I came along…

As we were making this album, the GDR was literally falling apart. It was very difficult making this album with a feeling of imminent doom hanging over the studio and with constant power fluctuations, people fleeing to the West and general grumbling unrest. I called the album ‘Torture’ because it was exactly that to make!

Available on the DIE VISION album ‘Torture’ via AMIGA / Zong & Vulture Records

https://www.discogs.com/artist/114367-Die-Vision

PAUL VAN DYK Words – Original Version radio edit by Paul van Dyk, Wolfgang Ragwitz + Mark Reeder (1996)

In 1990, Reeder established MFS and discovered Trance DJ Paul van Dyk…

One of my first artists on MFS, COSMIC BABY made some great records, but DJs kept complaining that they couldn’t play them because he always had DJ-unfriendly intros. I suggested he find a DJ who could help him to construct DJ friendly intros to his tracks.

One night, Cosmic was performing live in the Turbine club. One of the warm up DJs was a young lad called Paul van Dyk. The two hit it off almost immediately and I suggested that Paul come to the office the following Monday to discuss working with Cosmic. Paul told me he was from Hamburg, but it later turned out he was originally from Eisenhuettenstadt in deepest East Germany, but had moved to East Berlin before applying to leave East Germany for Hamburg shortly before the wall came down.

I was actually very happy to hear he was from East Germany, because that was my initial intention with MFS to create a platform for young Eastie kids; he was my first.

One night, he came to me while I was working in my bar and begged me to help him to become a professional DJ.

He was working as an apprentice carpenter at that time and absolutely hated it. I told him, if he would promise me that he would work hard to be the best DJ in the world, then I would help him to achieve his goal. I told him there were no prizes for second best.

I put him in the studio with Cosmic and they recorded two amazing singles together as THE VISIONS OF SHIVA.

Then I let him remix HUMATES’s track ‘Love Stimulation’ and that remix attracted a lot of attention. I knew from the start that he could do it simply because he was ambitious enough. He didn’t know it at that time of course, because his talent had to be coaxed out of him. By giving him a platform and motivation and the help of Johnny Klimek’s studio, he was able to discover his own music making talent.

Of course, I believed absolutely in Paul and invested everything, love, creativity, all my time and effort and all I had in propelling him onto an international stage. I guided and advised him, compiled and mastered his records, designed his covers and basically created the legend of Paul Van Dyk.

I used my contacts and credibility to get him high profile remixes, such as ‘Spooky’ by NEW ORDER and even answered his interviews, anything which would enhance his credibility, profile and status. Sadly, once he had reached the brink of DJ superstardom, he decided he no longer needed me and ditched me without a word of thanks.

Available on the PAUL VAN DYK single ‘Words – Part 2’ via MFS

http://www.paulvandyk.com/

SAM TAYLOR-WOOD & PET SHOP BOYS I’m In Love With A German Filmstar – Stuck In The 80s remix (2008)

The ‘Fifty Shades Of Grey’ film director recorded a number of covers with her favourite pop duo like ‘J T’aime… Moi Non Plus’, ‘Love To Love You Baby’ and this new wave classic…

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe asked me to do this remix after hearing the mix I had made of ‘Miracle Cure’ featuring Bernard Sumner for BLANK & JONES. It was quite thrilling being asked to do this song, as I’ve always loved the original.

The PET SHOP BOYS / Sam Taylor-Wood version was more minimalistic and techno sounding though, so I thought I would make mine more retro-modern-disco sounding. I thought, as its going to be released on Kompakt, they are probably going to have banging techno remixes done anyway.

I know they were completely surprized at the label to hear it, because they really expected me to make some sort of cheesy trance mix. It is such an iconic and mystical song though, and I was worried I would be able to do it justice as a dance track. I made three different versions, a long mix and two shorter mixes and all in 5.1 surround sound, which I put on ‘Five Point One’.

I was very pleased when Sam said she thought it was “wicked” and totally relieved that the Boys also liked it too. But when THE PASSIONS contacted me themselves, to tell me that they really loved it, well, that was like a stone being lifted from my heart.

Available on the MARK REEDER remix album ‘Five Point One’ via Kennan Limited

http://petshopboys.co.uk/

BLANK & JONES, MARK REEDER Manifesto – Save Yourself Mix (2009)

Reeder collaborated with popular German dance duo BLANK & JONES on a restyling project entitled ‘ReOrdered’ which featured Bernard Sumner, Robert Smith and Claudia Brücken. But one of the album’s highlights was ‘Manifesto’ featuring Vanessa Daou.

‘Manifesto’ was actually the third track of Vanessa’s that I reworked for ‘ReOrdered’. The first was ‘Consequences’.

I really liked her voice and her lyrics though and I asked BLANK & JONES if I could rework another track, that was ‘Heart Of Wax’. After that, the idea for ‘ReOrdered’ was born and I would go on to rework all BLANK & JONES’ vocal-dance tracks into songs, it was a bit like back engineering a remix. The first two tracks were quite soft, so I wanted ‘Manifesto’ to be a little tougher and sound more like a nu-beat track with trippy elements.

Available on the BLANK & JONES, MARK REEDER album ‘ReOrdered’ via Soundcolours

http://www.blankandjones.com/

BAD LIEUTENANT Sink Or Swim – Rettungstring Radio remix (2010)

Prior to the recent return of NEW ORDER sans Hooky, Bernard Sumner had an interim, guitar led project BAD LIEUTENANT. However, many followers of NEW ORDER missed the sound Sumner had become synonymous for.

After Hooky decided to leave NEW ORDER, I think Bernard needed some distance and formed BAD LIEUTENANT, together with Jake Evans and the remaining members of NEW ORDER.

Jake is such a talented person and a brilliant guitarist – he’s definitely one to watch in the future. I really liked the parent album ‘Never Cry Another Tear’, it’s a wonderful summer album and I think it is very underrated. I was given the opportunity to do some remixes for them and decided to rework their guitar tracks into electronic dance versions.

‘Sink Or Swim’ was the first and I think I made about six different versions of this track, Bernard took the piss out of me for the amount of mixes we made. The song had been performed live and so the tempo varied within the song from the start to finish, which made it a bloody nightmare to mix into a 4/4 dance track.

To make it sound organic, we had to take all the instruments and slice them up and then carefully put them back together again by hand. It was a mammoth task and at the time, I thought “I never want to have to do that again”.

After ‘Sink Or Swim’, we mixed ‘Twist Of Fate’, which I also made about four or so mixes. The same time consuming slice and move ritual applied as with ‘Sink Or Swim’. As the remixes were only released digitally, I decided to include some of them on my ‘Five Point One’ album, and later, ‘Collaborator’.

Available on the MARK REEDER remix album ‘Collaborator’ via Factory Benelux

https://www.facebook.com/badlieutenantmusic/

JOHN FOXX Underpass – Sinister Subway remix (2010)

Reeder’s reworking of John Foxx’s calling card was mighty and he relished the challenge.

John Foxx was putting together the ‘Metatronic’ compilation album and I was in contact with his manager about something different entirely. During our conversation, he told me about the compilation and I said jokingly that I could do a remix perhaps, as a bonus track.

Well, after they had listened to a few of my remixes, he called and asked me if I would like to remix ‘Underpass’. My studio partner Micha Adam and I couldn’t believe it. It was a dream come true. No-one had ever been allowed to remix this legendary song before and so it was such an honour. Then the reality set in. If I balls this up, the fans will lynch me.

Being a huge fan of the song myself, I decided I could only do it as I would want it to sound myself. Yet I didn’t want to drive too far away from the original though either and wanted to keep as many elements in there as possible.

I was sent the parts, eight tracks in all… but that iconic massive synth riff was missing. All I had been given was the riff, played by a small tinny sounding synth. Well, that was it. I realised, the huge reverb sound was added live, during the mix-down and so we had to reconstruct it.

I recalled what kind of instrumentation and effects they might have used back then and dug out my old Space Echo. Once we had reconstructed the original version, we made a 5.1 mix of it (it is a hidden Easter Egg on ‘Five Point One’). Then, I remixed it. I made three versions, a short radio mix in stereo and 5.1 plus a longer Sinister Subway mix for the ‘Metatronic’ compilation album.

Available on the JOHN FOXX album ‘Metatronic’ via Metamatic Records

http://www.metamatic.com/

ANNE CLARK If… – Seemingly forever remix (2011)

Cult goth icon ANNE CLARK is an English poet, who sets her poems to music and is probably more well-known outside of the UK.

Anne is truly a great artist. I first met her when she played in Berlin after recording ‘Sleeper In Metropolis’ with David Harrow, who lived in Berlin at that time. This timeless track is one of my all-time favourite 80s songs and it became almost like an anthem to the divided city, especially so to the kids in the East.

She was (and still is) absolutely adored in the East, mainly because her dark and descriptive poetry set to music, clearly struck a chord with them and it was something they all could identify with. Side two of her first album was recorded with Vini Reilly of THE DURUTTI COLUMN. She kept with the electronic side and made her second album with JOHN FOXX. Over the years, she has cultivated her poetry with a wide variety of musical sounds from Synthetic to Rock to Classical.

After a chance meeting a few years ago, when she performed in the Russian embassy in Berlin, I reworked the track ‘The Hardest Heart’ she had made for BLANK & JONES for our ‘ReOrdered’ album and then I remixed two of her tracks ‘Full Moon’ and ‘If…’ in 5.1 surround sound for my ‘Five Point One’ album,

Available on the MARK REEDER remix album ‘Five Point One’ via Kennan Limited

http://anneclarkofficial.com/

DEPECHE MODE Sweetest Perfection – Sweetest Conception remix (2011)

Reeder was given the opportunity to rework a track from the ‘Violator’ album by Daniel Miller.

Like ‘Underpass’, this was almost reverential territory. Depeche were putting together the ‘Remixes 2 81-11’ compilation and Daniel asked me if I would like to do a remix for it. By the time I had received the list of possible tracks to remix, all the most popular songs had been taken and so I was left with songs no-one dared to touch.

‘Sweetest Perfection’ was always one of my favourite tracks though and I thought it would be a real challenge to remix. Not only in terms of actually attempting to remix it, but with the thought that as a fan, how would I want it to sound and if I f*cked up, I would probably have to leave the planet.

We already had a really short deadline to finish the remix on and only three days into the mix, I got a call from my mother telling me that my dad had been rushed to hospital with a broken hip after being pushed over. The situation looked very serious, he was a very old man and the doctors didn’t give him much chance of survival. I had to down tools and fly over and consequently, I missed the deadline for submitting my remix for the DM album.

Photo by Anton Corbijn

Fortunately, I was in the process of putting ‘Five Point One’ together and decided to finish the remix anyway and asked Daniel if I could license it for my album. He spoke with the band and they said I could (I was told it was the first time a previously unreleased DM song had ever appeared on another album) and as we were looking for images to accompany the 5.1 mixes, Anton Corbijn kindly gave me one of his old, unseen photos of the band for me to use.

I wanted my remix to retain as many of the original elements as possible, but I added extra strings, more swirling synths and a real bass guitar, as well as my own little riff with a broken piano which I hoped would make it sound a bit more Eastern European.

Available on the MARK REEDER remix album ‘Five Point One’ via Kennan Limited

http://www.depechemode.com/

ELECTROBELLE Falling – In Your Heart remix (2011)

Reeder took a liking to stop / start Midlands duo ELECTROBELLE and delivered an edgier reimagining of ‘Falling’ before they belatedly released it themselves in 2012!

I heard ‘Mirrorball’ by ELECTROBELLE on the 2009 ‘Electronically Yours’ compilation released by Undo Records. I really liked Charlotte’s vocal style and so I asked them if they would like to contribute a track to my ‘Five Point One’ album.

They sent me the parts of a demo track they had made and this became ‘Falling’. The idea for the ‘Five Point One’ album was to include remixes I had made for famous artists, coupled with lesser known ones and mix them all in 5.1 Dolby surround sound.

Available on the MARK REEDER remix album ‘Five Point One’ via Kennan Limited

https://www.facebook.com/electrobelle/

MARSHEAUX So Close – So Close remix (2011)

While busy remixing legends in synthesized pop, Reeder also kept an eye on newer acts that were emerging from Europe…

I had been a fan of Undo records, FOTONOVELA and MARSHEAUX for a while and after ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK posted a link to one of their tracks, I asked Chi if he could hook us up, as I thought that ‘So Close’ would fit in well on my ‘Five Point One’ album and asked them if I could remix it.

‘So Close’ had a melancholic element, but I wanted to give the song a more filmic feeling and make it even more melancholic, with sweeping strings and added bass guitar. Filmmaker Paul Morgens heard the track and immediately loved it. He made a great video for it made up of old footage he had found in his aunties archive.

Available on the MARSHEAUX deluxe album ‘Inhale’ via Undo Records

http://www.marsheaux.com/

DIE TOTEN HOSEN Disco – Lange Hosen remix (2011)

Düsseldorf punk veterans DIE TOTEN HOSEN have maintained a long standing kinship with Mark Reeder.

I first met Campino in Bochum. MALARIA! were playing a gig there and he was allocated as my driver. He told me about his new band DIE TOTEN HOSEN and about their hideous, but hilarious high-waisted flared trousers, which they bought by the kilo.

A couple of months later, I became their live sound engineer, and together with my rebelliously minded Eastie friends, I managed to help organise a very secret gig with them in an East-Berlin Church. It was disguised as a religious church service, a so-called Blues Mass. Although heavily monitored, the East German clergy was seen as a passive resistance movement against the communist government and although not officially acknowledged, they were tolerated and thus had a certain amount of flexibility within the system. That way we could arrange our secret gig there using this loophole.

DIE UNBEKANNTEN went on tour with DIE TOTEN HOSEN and one of the highlights was performing in the Kogasz club, in the Karl-Marx-University in Budapest. It was supposed to have been a top secret gig in the Young Artists club to a few music lovers, organised by photographer Janos Veto, but so many people eventually wanted to see the gig, that it was moved to the University.

During this tour we had many problems with our car. DIE TOTEN HOSEN were so sceptical our car would even survive the trip, they bet us a crate of beer, that we wouldn’t make it to Budapest.

We did, but had such a horror trip just trying to get there, as our car kept breaking down. Upon our arrival in the University, Janos told us we couldn’t play! The authorities had decided the gig was illegal and it had officially been pulled, but we thought we have come all this way so f*ck them and we did the gig anyway.

After we had performed, someone stole our drum computer. We were paid in beer vouchers (Hungarian Forints) and had so much of it, we invited everyone in the YAC for drinks, as we couldn’t take the cash out of the country… I don’t remember much about that night after that.

‘Disco’ was a track off the DIE TOTEN HOSEN album ‘In Alle Stille’ and I thought it would be fun to make an Italo disco sounding mix of this track. The original is a fast paced, rock song and when we received the parts, we discovered there were about 40 guitar tracks. We had to apply the same procedure as with BAD LIEUTENANT in slicing and moving all the elements so that they would fit into the new tempo and yet still sound organic.

Available on the MARK REEDER remix album ‘Five Point One’ via Kennan Limited

http://www.dietotenhosen.de/

KOISHII & HUSH featuring JOHN TAYLOR C’est Tout Est Noir – Black Night Remix (2013)

‘C’est Tout Est Noir’ was the DURAN DURAN bassist’s best lead vocal since his solo single ‘I Do What I Do’ in 1986.

KOISHII & HUSH had made a remix for BAD LIEUTENANT’s ‘Twist of Fate’ and after telling me how much they liked my version, they asked me if I would like to remix their track ‘C’est Tout Est Noir’ which they had made together with DURAN DURAN bassist John Taylor.

At first, I thought he would be playing bass guitar on the track, but then to my surprise he was the vocalist. He has a great voice and I really liked the track. The original is quite trancey, so I wanted to make it more cinematic and add some guitar and extra bass. John loved it and immediately used my rough demo as his soundtrack to a vlog he’d made flying from Austria to LA.

Available on the MARK REEDER remix album ‘Collaborator’ via Factory Benelux

http://www.koishiiandhush.com/

QUEEN OF HEARTS United (2013)

A stomping electro disco number produced by Reeder, Elizabeth Morphew’s cooing Bush-like howls and breathy euphoria were a total delight to the ears while the mighty cavernous sound provided the heat!

I saw an ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK piece posted about QUEEN OF HEARTS and I was immediately curious. I really liked Elizabeth’s voice from the moment I heard the first couple of tracks.

Chi thought we might make a nice collaboration and so I got in touch with her to compliment her and she asked me to remix ‘Neon’ which eventually ended up on ‘Collaborator’. We then made a cover version together of Chris Isaak’s ‘Wicked Game’. I then wrote two songs ‘Suicide’ and ‘United’ for her debut album ‘Cocoon’.

Available on the QUEEN OF HEARTS deluxe album ‘Cocoon’ via Night Moves

KENNEN · 3. Mark Reeder With Queen Of Hearts – United (Cocoon Version)

http://iamqueenofhearts.com/

WESTBAM featuring BERNARD SUMNER She Wants – Old School remix (2013)

Techno legend WESTBAM made his return with the impressive ‘Götterstrasse’ which featured Iggy Pop, Hugh Cornwell, Brian Molko and Lil Wayne. Naturally, Reeder reworked an excellent track featuring the vocals of Bernard Sumner.

My relationship with WESTBAM goes back to the early days when he was trying to establish himself as a DJ in Berlin. He played in the Metropol disco and towards the end of the 80s in the UFO club.

His involvement in the evolution of the Berlin Techno scene is reluctantly accepted, but arguably without his engagement, many things probably wouldn’t have happened. He was a vital participant in parties and events and was the first Berlin DJ to play in the Soviet Union.

While we were putting ideas for songs for ‘B-Movie’ together, he gave us a demo of ‘You Need The Drugs’ featuring Richard Butler of THE PSYCHEDLIC FURS. It was a great track and we all immediately loved it.

He said he was making a songs album and would love to make a track with Bernard Sumner on vocals. He sent Bernard the demo and he really liked the track and agreed to do it. As thanks, I was given the opportunity to remix it which was perfect timing, as I was in the process of putting together my ‘Collaborator’ compilation for Factory Benelux and we could therefore give it a physical release on CD.

Available on the MARK REEDER remix album ‘Collaborator’ via Factory Benelux

http://westbam.com/

MODERN FAMILY UNIT Mmh Mmh Aahh – Eyy & Aarrgghh remix (2015)

Reeder went back to Manchester to rework the local electro wave duo MFU and added some Berlin Burlesque groove.

Dave Haslam told me about MFU and that they would like a remix. They sent me ‘Mmh Mmh Aahh’ and I loved it. I don’t know why, but it reminded me somehow of early ROXY MUSIC. I wanted to make it a bit dancier, but retain its overall atmosphere and add a little bit of Berlin mystique with the zither.

Available on the single ‘Mmh Mmh Aahh’ via GaS Records

http://www.modernfamilyunit.co.uk/

MARK REEDER Mauerstadt (2015)

From the soundtrack to Our Man In Berlin’s film ‘B-Movie’, it enabled him to musically illustrate his memories of the divided city with a 21st century outlook.

During the ‘B-Movie’ editing process, we wanted to use the DAF track ‘Kebab Träume’ for the burning of the Berlin Wall birthday sequence, but after long and rather unproductive negotiations, they wouldn’t let us have it.

So I decided I would write a track myself, using only a couple of analogue sequencers and synths to accompany this great piece of footage by the incredible Knut Hoffmeister.

Available on the album ‘B-Music: Der Soundtrack zum Film B-Movie’ (V/A) via DEF Media

http://www.b-movie-der-film.de/

NEW ORDER Singularity – Duality Remix (2016)

When NEW ORDER made their recorded return with ‘Music Complete’, Reeder was given the opportunity to rework some tracks and indirectly became part of their new live show after B-Movie’ was released.

I was asked if I would like to remix a track from the latest NEW ORDER album so I chose one of my favourite songs ‘Academic’, as it seemed like it was up for the challenge, being mainly a traditional style guitar track.

But while I was in Bucharest with ‘B-Movie’ and hanging out with CROWD CONTROL, I got an urgent call asking if I would be able to make a quick remix of ‘Singularity’. I raced back home and immediately started work on it.

It’s a great track and I really enjoyed remixing it. Which is fitting, Bernard was also so impressed with my ‘B-Movie’, that he asked me if NEW ORDER could use some footage for their backdrop video in their live shows.

This was so well received, that it then became the promo video clip for the ‘Singularity’ single. The even faster-cut images and theme of the song work really well together with the music. When NEW ORDER performed recently in Berlin, I was very pleased to have the honour of introducing the band.

Available on the single ‘Singularity’ via Mute Artists

http://www.neworder.com/

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its grateful thanks to Mark Reeder

The film ‘B-Movie (Lust & Sound in West-Berlin)’ is available now on DVD, Bluray and download

http://www.5point1.org/info.html

https://twitter.com/markreedermfs

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
26th March 2016

Category: Interviews (Page 83 of 113)

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