Category: Lost Albums (Page 13 of 14)

Lost Albums: ROBERT MARLOW The Peter Pan Effect

7 May 2012 /


Robert Marlow’s ‘The Peter Pan Effect’ is a true lost album.

Recorded between 1982 to 1984, although four singles were released via his best mate Vince Clarke’s imprint Reset Records, parent label RCA declined to release the album.

It did not actually see the light of day until 1999 when Swedish electronic label Energy Rekords, whose roster included VNV NATION, S.P.O.C.K and ELEGANT MACHINERY, picked it up.

Often seen as a Vince Clarke curio recorded in the interim between YAZOO and ERASURE, the songs on ‘The Peter Pan Effect ‘were wholly written by Marlow with Clarke at the producer’s helm along with EC Radcliffe who worked on YAZOO’s ‘Upstairs At Eric’s’ and was the ‘Eric’ of the album’s title. Listening back, the end result is a charming collection of HI-NRG synthpop, almost like FAD GADGET on Prozac!

‘The Face of Dorian Gray’ is the track familiar to most, possessing that early monophonic ultrapop quality which featured so highly on Vince Clarke’s work as part of DEPECHE MODE and YAZOO. ‘Calling All Destroyers’ is another quirkily jaunty single but one track from the sessions that is also worthy of mention is the extended version of ‘No Heart’, the B-side of ‘I Just Want To Dance’ much acclaimed by electronic music enthusiasts around the world, which comes over like a pulsing take on ‘Fade To Grey’.

But who better to discuss ‘The Peter Pan Effect’ than the man himself. ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK caught up with Robert Marlow to chat about his cult classic.


How did you meet Vince Clarke and become involved in the Basildon music scene?

I met him when we were 8 years old at the Boys Brigade, we both shared a good friendship and a common interest in music. He was having violin lessons, I was learning to play the piano and we both picked up the guitar. So that was how we got together doing music.

We diverged later in our teens when he went off to college and I got involved with Alison Moyet who invited me… well she bullied me into playing a gig with her band THE VANDALS in Southend. I got into that for a while and it was from there that the music bug gripped *laughs*

Meanwhile, Vince was doing more mellow acoustic things and we got together in a band later on called THE PLAN. He played guitar and I bought the first synthesizer in Basildon, an old Korg 700 on hire purchase…it made these really beautiful sounds and it was then that Vince got into synths and bought one himself. He went on to form COMPOSITION OF SOUND which as we know is the early incarnation of DEPECHE MODE. For a while, we were in two rival bands, there was COMPOSITION OF SOUND while I had a band called FRENCH LOOK and we both shared the very talented Martin Gore on keyboards!

What were the circumstances leading to you recording with him?

After Vince left DEPECHE MODE and was in the middle of the YAZOO project, I tapped him on the shoulder and said “I’ve got some songs, can you give me a day in the studio?” and he went “No, it’s very expensive… I can’t do it” and I was “Please! Please!” Eventually, we did one day and we recorded ‘The Face Of Dorian Gray’ which actually then went on for about 3 to 4 weeks… after we spent all that time, Vince said “it seems daft just to do a demo, let’s get it released”. I was made up and we found RCA who decided to licence Vince’s own label Reset Records and that was it. What happened was four singles and the recording of ‘The Peter Pan Effect’ album.

What instruments and synths were you using?

I was very excited to use the LinnDrum Mk2 and there was a DX7 which was kind of the birth of digital. We also used the RSF Kobol, Sequential Pro-One, Minimoog and most excitingly, the Fairlight! We didn’t actually use the Fairlight that much because in those days, the samples were appalling… they were very short and you had to EQ them up to the hilt to get a discernable sound. On ‘The Peter Pan Effect’, you can hear it in a couple of songs just as effects more than anything else.

What was the creative dynamic between you and Vince with regards arrangements and production?

I did all of the music and melodies but I was rubbish at programming… Vince was a programming genius. In those days, we were working on a Roland MC4 Micro-composer which you had to programme in step times of 12, 24 and 48s… my maths was appalling but Vince was very quick at it. I used to say “I want it to sound like this…da-dah-dah”, and he would get it very quickly.

It was very time consuming so we did a lot of programming at his house beforehand and go to Eric Radcliffe’s home studio in Dartford. Then we took it into the studio at Blackwing but then Vince and Eric formed their own company within Blackwing and another studio was built in the drum store called Splendid studios and that’s where the rest of the album was finished.

‘The Face Of Dorian Gray’ should have been a hit. Any thoughts in hindsight as to why it wasn’t?

Well, in many respects I do think RCA at the time thought that they were getting Vince Clarke rather than his record company. So they thought merely his name could sell the record itself as he was so successful in DEPECHE MODE, YAZOO and THE ASSEMBLY. So their publicity machine wasn’t really up to full whack. In those days, you had to get three radio plays a day on Radio 1 and sometimes I was getting one or two so it did get some airplay but who knows… maybe it just wasn’t good enough, that’s the thing!

You got on perform in on Channel 4’s Switch. Can you remember much about it?

It was my first TV, it was a live show filmed out in Bushey! I was on the same bill as ANIMAL NIGHTLIFE and Elvis Costello! It was a long, long day and I thought: “this is not glamourous at all!”. We were just sitting around. I remember we had a big backdrop made of the Dorian Gray single cover and some slides made up of me getting older using make-up. Anyway, when I went and did the first rehearsal, it was just me singing to taped backing, this voice from the gallery went: “Is that all he does?”… it was the director! *laughs*

During the performance, I was all over the place doing this weird dancing to look more animated and the slide show went a bit weird. It was all quite exciting because afterwards, we went by fast car to the West End of London to play a gig at a club in Mayfair called The Titanic Club!!! *laughs*

It was a weird club, they had almost early electronic house music in the DJ sets and had someone on stage doing spot welding…it was very performance art!

‘Crying For The Moon’ almost has a SILICON TEENS vibe to it like an electro-‘Great Balls Of Fire’…

It is, that was exactly what I wanted… the riff is almost Eddie Cochran, very SILICON TEENS! I wanted that cod, camp Rock ‘n’ Roll feel to it with synths. It was good.

Do you think ‘Claudette’ musically may have sounded too much like THE ASSEMBLY’s ‘Never Never’?

It did, it has a similar chord construction but it was recorded before ‘Never Never’. I’m certainly no Fergal Sharkey and that’s why when the single came out, we used cellos and made it different. It’s a shame but I don’t know the masters for that are!

How was it working with Eric Radcliffe in the studio?

Lovely, very talented. I was so pleased to be working with him as he was instrumental in the career of FAD GADGET who I worshipped. Eric reminded me a lot of Charlie Drake and had a real “can do” mentality. He did a lot of the drum programming on ‘The Peter Pan Effect’, he was a very accomplished rock musician who played guitar, bass and banjo!

What was the relationship with RCA like because they eventually passed on the album?

I was not particularly involved in dealing with RCA as we had a label manager and she did a lot of negotiation. I think Vince and everyone else involved were trying to keep that from me that they were losing interest. So the first thing I heard about it was when Vince came down to see me and said: “RCA are withdrawing but we’re going to go with Sonet”. Sonet licensed ‘Calling All Destroyers’ and ‘Claudette’ so there wasn’t a big difference but we didn’t have the power of RCA. But we didn’t get the airplay.

It was disappointing that the album didn’t come out. But when you work on a project like that, you can’t see the logic when you think of the cost in studio time and all of that. It wasn’t a big production compared with other artists. Just stick it out… if it sells, it sells; if it doesn’t, it doesn’t! To sit on the shelf, it just didn’t make any sense. Contractual issues stopped us from putting it out ourselves at the time but I wasn’t very good at following things up like that so I accepted it and calmly dropped out of the music scene.

Was there ever any talk of you and Vince working in a more permanent set-up, or even joining what was to become ERASURE?

No, I’ll be honest with you… Vince is my best friend and I love him dearly but he has a particular way of wanting things done and is very, very driven. And it’s different to what I want. So although I’m very proud of ‘The Peter Pan Effect’ and all the music I did with Vince, perhaps if he wasn’t Vince, it would be a different sound. At times, it did get a little fraught, nothing terrible but some frustrations now and then. So I don’t think it was ever on the cards for us to work that way.

How did the arrangement with Energy Rekords in Sweden come about to finally release the album in 1999?

Vince and I’s publisher was a real Rock ‘N’ Roll character named Rob Buckle who ran Sonet Records who were based in Sweden. It was a subsidiary of a blues label for people like Muddy Waters. He got in touch with me and said “I’ve been to a music fair and there’s this small label who want to put the album out” and I was made up. But our relationship with Energy didn’t really kick off, I think there were some language differences so we didn’t do anything more. But it was great to have the album remastered at Polar Studios where ABBA had worked and going over there to play the Helsingborg Festival and a small tour of Scandinavia later that year. I still go over to Sweden two or three times a year, I was there last week in Malmo.

How was the reaction to the album?

I was amazed because the album has never sold massive amounts but having the played that festival gig on the eve of the album coming out in Helsingborg, there was about 500 people there and they knew all the words! Not just the singles but the album tracks as well. I don’t know how, maybe it had been going backwards and forwards as a bootleg on cassette or something…but these kids weren’t born when the album was recorded so I was really, really gobsmacked to have such a reaction. It’s been like that since… every time I get p*ssed off and I think “I’m a 50 year old bloke, what am I doing this for?”, there’s a gig like last week in Malmo or Berlin or Budapest. You’re making people happy and that’s the thing.

What are you up to now musically?

For the past 10 years, I’ve been in a partnership with my friend Gary Durant in a project called MARLOW. Unfortunately, pressures of work and musical differences have led to us to part ways which is a shame as we have an album’s worth of material ready to go. We may actually release it at some point, probably on Electro-Shock records but we want a rest from it. We’ll see where the land lies and possibly it may see release next year.

You recorded the album between 1982 and 1984. Listening back to the album, what were your favourite tracks at the time and which do you think truly stand up today?

I’ve always liked ‘That Dangerous Age’, the sound on it is good and ‘The Kiss’ because it was quite dramatic and intense…that was my best vocal performance. Yes, it’s an album recorded in 1982-83 and it will sound like early ERASURE, YAZOO, DEPECHE MODE because it’s the same synths being used. But it is definitely my album, I wrote all of the music and Vince added his bits so it would be ungenerous to say he didn’t add his musical bent to it. He put the sounds on it and made it was it is. I’m very proud of it and I think it’s great.

What’s the funniest story you can tell us involving you and Vince?

There’s one that doesn’t particularly involve me but one that happened during the time I worked with Vince but he was still working with Alison Moyet in YAZOO… they was driving backwards and forwards from the studio back to Basildon. His and Alison’s relationship was going its course and on the way back from London, they were in the Dartford tunnel and he ran out of petrol which she was not best pleased about!! *laughs*

So he had to walk through the Dartford tunnel to get petrol! Bearing in mind he’s been on Top Of The Pops two nights before, I was saying to him “surely you had money to get enough petrol?” That always amused me, the idea of him struggling through the Dartford Tunnel leaving Alison fuming in the car! *laughs*

And on the 12 inch version of ‘The Face Of Dorian Gray’, there’s a bit where we decided to physically whistle the tune. So that involved me and Vince in studio, and Eric running from the control room to join us at the mike after he hit record. We lined it all up to go as everything had to be done in one take. But we unplugged his headphones, so when Eric came in and started whistling, he couldn’t hear a thing and we cracked up… you can hear us laughing on the record!

ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to Robert Marlow

‘The Peter Pan Effect’ was released by Energy Rekords as a CD

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marlow/108723069219508

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Robert+Marlow

Text and Interview by Chi Ming Lai
7th May 2012

Lost Albums: THE BLUE NILE Hats

20 March 2012 /

Whenever the legend of THE BLUE NILE is mentioned, it’s their 1983 album ‘A Walk Across The Rooftops’ and the single ‘Tinseltown In The Rain’ that are always discussed in breathless awe. But actually, it’s the follow-up ‘Hats’ that is the trio’s crowning glory.

Both ‘A Walk Across The Rooftops’ and ‘Hats’ were licenced to Virgin Records through an innovative deal with Linn, the Glasgow based high quality Hi-Fi manufacturer.

THE BLUE NILE’s crisply produced albums were used by dealers to demonstrate the sonic range of Linn’s flagship Sondek LP12 turntable. Then acknowledged to be the best record player at its price, in 1989 it was a whopping £585.35 without the tonearm. The tonearms would then start at £150.00 with a suitable budget cartridge such as the Linn K9 costing an additional £59.00!

From day one, THE BLUE NILE symbolised the tastes and aspirations of the discerning music enthusiast. Six years in the making, a lifetime in a period when bands who took a two year gap risked losing momentum, like its predecessor, 1989’s ‘Hats’ featured seven lengthy exquisitely crafted tracks.

AppleMark

But the differences with ‘A Walk Across The Rooftops’ lay in the songwriting and musical construction. THE BLUE NILE’s enigmatic leader Paul Buchanan took sole credit for composition while production was a joint effort with Robert Bell and Paul Joseph Moore having an equal say and each of the band having no fixed roles in the studio. Instrumentally, more synthesizers and drum machines were in evidence after the comparatively conventional sound of ‘A Walk Across The Rooftops’.

Buchanan said “All of our songs are love songs”. With their hushed sparse grandeur, he added “The songs deal rather well with that 4 am sort of feeling”. ‘Hats’ starts with ‘Over The Hillside’, a steadily canter that builds to the closing neo-industrial clanking and sombre, detuned synthetic strings that recall ‘Architecture & Morality’ era OMD. It is mechanised experimentation delivered with hopeless romanticism where the girl never comes back. “What’s the point in trying it all again!” despairs Buchanan.

‘The Downtown Lights’ is monumentally windswept with a tension that increases as the pace becomes more frenetic and leads to a crescendo where Buchanan breaks down: “The neons and the cigarettes, the rented rooms, the rented cars, the crowded streets, the empty bars” he yells, “the chimney-tops, the trumpets, the golden lights, the loving prayers, the coloured shoes, the empty trees, I’m tired of crying on the stairs. . .”; the resigned sub-TOM WAITS tone crossed with the smokiness of Sinatra resonated among many. Although not a hit single, the song was later covered by ROD STEWART and ANNIE LENNOX.

‘Let’s Go Out Tonight’ is glum but ethereal with a haunting, slow burning melody. The soundtrack of shimmering electronic textures and lonely ivory tinkling capture that empty feeling. The glorious centrepiece of ‘Hats’ is ‘Headlights On The Parade’. It’s a rainy cinematic drama in just over six minutes with haunting piano, swaths of synths and a collage of modulated sequences aurally photographing the dazzling glare of street lighting and rush hour traffic.

‘From A Late Night Train’ captures the come down of a train journey home after the rejection. Almost Sylvian-esque, the lonely sampled trumpet gives a solemn jazzy feel along with the piano accompaniment.

Off-beat and off-kilter, the pitch bent fuzzed bass and the pulsing drum machine of ‘Seven AM’ is counterpointed by the minimal but tense rhythm guitar. It’s not really a song either, more fragments of sound gathered together with synthetic finger clicks and atonal stabs symbolising the strain of having to face another new day. “Where is the love?” Buchanan asks.

‘Saturday Night’ tries to end with an optimistic tone, with Buchanan stating that “An ordinary girl will make the world all right, she’ll love me all the way… Saturday night”. The rich synthetic strings pull the heart in this emotional ballad. Buchanan’s voice is fragile and anxious but hopeful. It all ends with a chime of harmonic guitar.

Photo by Sheila Rock

Although it received positive reviews and reached No12 in the UK chart, ‘Hats’ was never as highly regarded as THE BLUE NILE’s debut despite it being something of a masterpiece.

It would be another six years before THE BLUE NILE returned with the lacklustre ‘Peace At Last’ in a major deal with Warners. By that time, Buchanan briefly experienced being tabloid fodder after dating Hollywood actress Rosanna Arquette and rediscovered his acoustic guitar. Things were never really the same after that…

‘Hats’ is still available on Virgin Records

http://www.thebluenile.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/TheBlueNileOfficial/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
20th March 2012

Lost Albums: LA DÜSSELDORF Individuellos

29 February 2012 /

‘Individuellos’ was the third and final official album from the project fronted by the late Klaus Dinger of NEU!

As with the first two albums ‘La Düsseldorf’ and ‘Viva’, the self-produced ‘Individuellos’ released on TELDEC developed on the proto-punk first showcased on the second side of ‘Neu! 75’. But for this 1980 release, there was a greater presence of keyboards from Dinger under his pseudonym of Nikolaus Van Rhein and as usual, he contributed his trademark gibberish that passed for vocals.

Variations on a theme have long been a staple of German Kosmichemusik so the first half of ‘Individuellos’ was dominated by ‘Menschen’, a grand statement with layers of synths that were simultaneously melodic, mad and magnificent. Those who liked their Motorik beats were not disappointed as percussionists Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe effectively played the telephone directory with their Apache drums.

This first movement was segued into the title track which was a close cousin with its shifting bass octaves and pounding keys before returning to ‘Menschen2’. An interlude ensued with ‘Sentimental’, an abstract tape collage that sounded like a church service in reverse before hitting with ‘Lieber Honig 1981’, effectively a live version of ‘Menschen’ that basically forms the blueprint for Phil Lynott’s ‘Yellow Pearl’… Attack! Attack! Attack! Attack!

The second half opened with the neo Volksmusik of ‘Dampfriemen’ and its pretty anthemic synth motif before the Dinger brothers joined in sounding like they’ve had a few too many Tizers at Oktoberfest, with of all things, a kazoo section kicking in!

‘Tintarella Di’ followed with an opening section similar to the keyboard intro of SIMPLE MINDS’ ‘Life In A Day’. With the canter of horses hooves helping to continue the Volks theme, this pair of tracks may have confused those who loved their proto punk but it was obvious Dinger and Co were having a lot of fun with their reinterpretations of traditional German culture. In another aural sculpture, ‘Flashback’ featured a boat rowing in an echoing cavern before the church organ from ‘Sentimental’ made a reappearance.

The beautiful piano laden ‘Das Yvönnchen’ was the closer; played by guest musician Andreas Schell (who sadly passed away during the album recording), it was melodically more in line with Michael Rother, Dinger’s former partner in NEU! It underlined the ethereal qualities Dinger was capable of when he put his space cadet mind to it.

Thus ‘Individuellos’ was an album of two distinct halves like many great albums of the period such as Bowie’s ‘Low’ and ‘Heroes’,  Eno’s ‘Before & After Science’, and JOY DIVISION’s ‘Closer’. It was 1983 before the final LA DÜSSELDORF release, a maxi-single featuring ‘Ich Liebe Dich’ and ‘Köksnödel’.  The former possessed a brooding gothic drama like ‘Organisation’-era OMD while the latter was the most crisply electronic track LA DÜSSELDORF ever recorded. The Japanese reissue CD of ‘Individuellos’ on Captain Trip from 1997 featured these two songs as bonuses, while the recent German reissue on Warners omitted them.

However, the  LA DÜSSELDORF story quite didn’t end there as a fourth album was recorded but due to legal reasons, it was released in 1985 as ‘Néondain’ by KLAUS DINGER & RHEINITA BELLA DÜSSELDORF with the subtitle of ‘La Düsseldorf 4’. Given a limited reissue in 2006 as LA DÜSSELDORF.DE ‘Mon Amour’, this included both tracks from the 1983 maxi-single as extras and although patchy, the collection also featured worthy highlights such as the tremendous ‘Mon Amour’ title track and the abridged Linn Drum assisted reworking of ‘Cha Cha 2000’.

There was a NEU! reunion in 1986 during which tensions between Dinger and Rother came to a head. The recordings remained unreleased until 1997 when Dinger issued the album as ‘Neu! 4’ on Captain Trip without Rother’s consent. This strained relations further and although a further reconciliation with Rother was attempted in 2000 as part of the NEU! CD reissue campaign on Grönland Records, this came to nought.

Klaus Dinger continued recording and touring as LA! NEU? particularly in Japan where he had a huge cult following but sadly passed away in 2008. As a final tribute to the madman known as ‘KD’, that final NEU! album was reworked by Rother and finally officially released as ‘Neu! 86’ in 2010. He leaves a charming and simultaneously erratic musical legacy.

‘Individuellos’ is available as part of the LA DÜSSELDORF 3CD boxed set ‘The Triple Album Collection’ released by Warner Music

http://www.la-duesseldorf.de

https://www.facebook.com/La-Düsseldorf-42715353276

http://www.dingerland.de

Text by Chi Ming Lai
29th February 2012, updated 5th July 2020

Lost Albums: KLEERUP Kleerup

15 August 2011 /


How can an album boasting an international No1 hit single become lost despite coming into the marketplace only three years ago?

In 2007, Andreas Kleerup, producer and one-time drummer for THE MEAT BOYS undertook his first mainstream collaboration with fellow Swede, songstress Robyn.

The resultant ‘With Every Heartbeat’ became a massive worldwide smash, effectively relaunching Robyn as an electropop chanteuse, away from the R’n’B nightmare that her previous label BMG had pushed her towards.

Her own self-titled album also featured a collaboration with THE KNIFE called ‘Who’s That Girl?’ and eventually led to her recording ‘The Girl & The Robot’ with ROYKSOPP on their ‘Junior’ album. Today, Robyn is highly regarded as a fine example of today’s independent female artist, as exemplified by her own Konichiwa Records imprint and recent ‘Body Talk’  trilogy.

Meanwhile, the success of ‘With Every Heartbeat’ led to Kleerup teaming up with Cyndi Lauper on the song ‘Lay Me Down’ from her excellent comeback ‘Bring Ya To The Brink’ plus the opportunity to record his own solo album. Released initially as a 12 track album only in Sweden during 2008, the eponymous long player was then re-issued by EMI as a revised 14 track international edition in mid-2009.

Despite a significant number of guest vocalists, ‘Kleerup’ the album is an amazingly coherent piece of work with worldwide influences ranging from Italo, New York disco, Krautrock, Synth Britannia and Nordic folk. It successfully captures the essence of glorious synthpop melancholy but places it within a modern setting.

‘Hero’ is the perfect start and how OMD would sound if they formed in the 21st Century. An instrumental with a solid bassline and strong choral timbres, this easily could have come off ‘Architecture & Morality’. With the kooky Lykke Li on board, ‘Until We Bleed’ is a terrifically sparse production with distorted drum machine and gorgeous strings complimenting her nonchalant resignation.

‘Thank You For Nothing’ is actually the neo-wordless take of Kleerup’s track with Cyndi Lauper while ‘With Every Heartbeat’ needs no introduction; it is perfectly emotive electronic pop music, both lyrically and musically.

‘Tower Of Trellick’ and ‘Ain’t No Stopping’ are two more beautiful synthesizer instrumentals, think DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Nothing To Fear’ or in a modern dance context, SYSTEM F’s ‘Insolation’. Those listeners who miss what was a very important facet of albums and B-sides in the classic synthpop era will simply love this aspect of ‘Kleerup’.

But ‘Longing For Lullabies’ featuring Neneh Cherry’s half-sister Titiyo is a tearful, heartfelt ballad despite being driven with raw mechanical beats. The song’s vocal melody is simple, almost keyboard-like going up and down the ivory scale in the best tradition of classic synthpop and yes, OMD. You could even say that the way it ranges, it’s a bit Agnetha and Annifrid too!

Kleerup exposes some of his rock roots with ‘On My Own Again’ on which he sings and while not unpleasant, one can see why like Moby, female vocalists are his preferred vehicle for lyrical expression. ‘Iris’ could be Kleerup doing ‘Crockett’s Theme’, but it’s far better than that and is minus the cheese factor.

This musical interlude leads to one of the album’s highlights, the superb pulsing Italo disco of ‘3am’. Marit Bergman provides the voice here to deliver what could have been the outcome if had ABBA worked with Giorgio Moroder. Richly melodic in both vocal and synth departments, this is a truly lost jewel. Marit Bergman issued it as a B-side, but it really should have been flipped over.

‘History’ with Linda Sundblad continues this disco tradition but at a more easy going tempo while ‘Misery’ is the superior of the two Kleerup vocal offerings with its strong NEU! and LA DÜSSELDORF influences.

The excellent album ends with two brilliant instrumentals to develop the Germanic template further. ‘The End’ is more guitar driven in a Motorik fashion that would make Michael Rother proud while ‘I Just Want To Make That Sad Boy Smile’ is beautifully and minimally ambient like CLUSTER or Klaus Schulze; a perfect closer.

Of the three tracks that were on the Swedish release that didn’t make the International edition, the one that should have been included is the Neneh Cherry sung ‘Forever’. Very pretty and almost nursery rhyme like, the children’s choir works well with Cherry’s soulful application while the backing track is effectively a beefed up pop version of ‘I Just Want To Make That Sad Boy Smile’. ‘Chords’ is an instrumental that does pale in comparison with the others in the main act while ‘Waiting For Girl’ featuring Lisa Milberg is just odd, the darkest of all the recordings from the sessions and probably better positioned now as a digital bonus curio.

In terms of production, this is the perfect CV for Kleerup although his knack for tunes and melody is what makes this album stand out.

And that’s the key word; album – this is not some random collection of songs as most modern pop albums now seem to be. On paper, a musician gathering a bunch of different vocalists is something that does not usually result in a cohesive artistic statement and is probably why this album has not had the investigation and recognition it deserves.

But Kleerup’s debut is a well paced, seasoned body of work and a fine example of quality pop music, electronic or otherwise. In a 2009 which saw a synthpop renaissance, it’s a shame this magnificent album was largely overlooked.

‘Kleerup’ is still available via EMI Records

https://www.facebook.com/kleerupcongty

https://twitter.com/kleerup

Text by Chi Ming Lai
15th August 2011, updated 13th September 2017

Lost Albums: SIMPLE MINDS Sons & Fascination + Sister Feelings Call

11 July 2011 /

Mere mention of SIMPLE MINDS always recalls horrible memories of plodding stadium rock with Jim Kerr’s tiresome shouts of “LET ME SEE YOUR HANDS” accompanied by overblown ten minute arrangements, swathed in pomposity.

Indeed, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK’s first truly awful concert was SIMPLE MINDS at Hammersmith Odeon in 1984 when the band played just twelve songs in two hours… you do the maths! Meanwhile The Tube’s broadcast of their tedious 1985 concert at The Ahoy with the 11 minute version of ‘Waterfront’ was most people’s cue to get out.

But there was a time when SIMPLE MINDS were one of the most promising young bands in Britain. And in 1981, they delivered what has now become their most forgotten body of work; ‘Sons & Fascination’ / ‘Sister Feelings Call’. Even a great 2009 article about ‘The Rise and Fall of SIMPLE MINDS’ on Popmatters largely overlooked this great double album.

Despite a shaky start with ‘Life In A Day’, the Glaswegians started experimenting with more electronics on ‘Real To Real Cacophony’ and ‘Empires & Dance’ with the latter being cited by writer Chris Bohn as “the record DAVID BOWIE could have made with ‘Lodger’, if he’d been alittle bit more honest to himself”. This monochromatic European travelogue with its claustrophobic demeanour, courtesy of future RADIOHEAD and MUSE producer John Leckie, had been a critical if not commercial success.

After an unhappy sojourn with Arista Records which led to them being dropped following the failure of ‘I Travel’ as a single, SIMPLE MINDS signed to Virgin Records who were at this point gambling their future on synthesizer based acts such as THE HUMAN LEAGUE, JAPAN and through its Dindisc subsidiary, OMD.

To exploit their KRAFTWERK, NEU! and LA DÜSSELDORF influences to the full, SIMPLE MINDS were teamed up with producer Steve Hillage. A hippy musician formally of the band GONG, Hillage was also a big fan of the German experimental scene which by now was shaping the intelligent pop landscape along with home grown heroes such as Bowie and Roxy. He gave SIMPLE MINDS a more accessible brightness that had been noticeably absent in the band’s Arista work. Bursting with ideas, the band not only recorded an album, they sort of did two!

The main feature was entitled ‘Sons and Fascination’ and contained eight songs that captured the motorik energy that was always apparent with the flanged bass powerhouse of Derek Forbes steering proceedings alongside solidly dependable drummer Brian McGee. With Forbes constructing rhythmical but articulate basslines not unlike Mick Karn from JAPAN, the works were then coloured by Mick MacNeil who came armed with his Roland Jupiter 4, Roland RS09 and Korg 770 alongside the guitars of Charlie Burchill which were often so layered in effects that when harmonised together with MacNeil’s synths, they were almost as one.

Opening with the tremendous ‘In Trance As Mission’, the solid bass over a slight offbeat is progressively built up with keyboards as Jim Kerr rambles almost unintelligibly about the “courage of dreams” – dreaming and ambition were always part of SIMPLE MINDS’ manifesto. The lost single ‘Sweat In Bullet’ is the more frantic older brother of ‘Someone Somewhere (In Summertime)’, driven by scratchy guitar while what follows is a sound that has never been repeated.

On the mighty ’70 Cities As Love Brings The Fall’, the distorted bass is counterpointed by the horrifying noise of a dentist’s drill! Almost industrial, the aural discomfort is something that will shock anyone that has only ever heard the abomination of ‘Belfast Child’! The raw edge continues on the thundering ‘Boys From Brazil’ where Kerr attacks the rise of the extreme right wing.

‘Love Song’ is the hit single that at the time, never actually was. Pulsed by sequencers and driven by that distinctive syncopated bassline, Hillage’s production is a “coat of many colours” although the song’s inherent repetition means that it perhaps outstays its welcome by about 45 seconds; this incidentally was later fixed on Gregg Jackman’s subtle ’92 single remix.

Whatever, ‘Love Song’ is still a classic despite Kerr’s abstract observations being almost gibberish. After the release of all that pent up energy, a lone chattering rhythm box announces the arrival of the beautiful ballad ‘This Earth That You Walk Upon’.

The drum machine remains for ‘Sons and Fascination’ which sounds positively Roman, clattering away like a synthetic tattoo for the chariot race in ‘Ben Hur’. And to finish, a repeated synthesizer motif and elastic slap leads the atmospheric palette of ‘Seeing Out The Angel’.

Of course, this wasn’t actually the end as initial copies of the album came with a seven track Siamese Twin called ‘Sister Feelings Call’. In the context of the modern day bonus disc containing half a dozen pointless remixes, ‘Sister Feelings Call’ has to be one of the greatest freebies ever. It starts with the amazing ‘Theme For Great Cities’.

Fusing CAN with TANGERINE DREAM, MacNeil’s haunting vox humana and the rhythm section covered in dub echo bridge into possibly one of the greatest instrumental signatures ever! This is then followed by ‘The American’, imperial in its Apache-like approach, pounding to the heart of the dance without the need for hi-hats, just triggered electronics and funky hypnotic bass.

Inspired by the bright colours of Jackson Pollock’s modern art, Kerr’s varied cosmic intonation of the word “American” in the chorus is delightfully bizarre and memorable. The rich Roland organ lines of ’20th Century Promised Land’ confirm what an inspired period this must have been for Kerr and Co although the collection’s remaining tracks ‘Careful In Career’ and ‘Wonderful In Young Life’ don’t quite soar to such great heights while ‘League Of Nations’ does possess a stark charm with its beat box led tribal TALKING HEADS feel.

One thing that is noticeable about this era of SIMPLE MINDS is how the compositions are more fragments of music with multiple riffs modulating over a minimal chord structure. This may sound like a recipe for poor songwriting but the end results were perhaps more musically inventive and interesting than the traditional rock approach.

The fine perfect balance between art and pop was finally achieved with the massively successful and outstanding ‘New Gold Dream’ album in 1982. But then it went horribly wrong with ‘Sparkle In The Rain’ when the production helm was given to the vastly over rated Steve Lillywhite who did what he normally did and made the band sound like they’d been recorded down a drainpipe! Released in 1984, it was quite obvious that the lure of the Yankee dollar in light of U2’s success just couldn’t be resisted.

Judging by the original ‘Sparkle In The Rain’ demos, a technologically sophisticated album had been planned with ‘Speed Your Love To Me’ in particular sounding more like VISAGE’s ‘Fade To Grey’ than its eventual BIG COUNTRY pastiche. But it was rock music tailored for American ears that the band opted to aim for. It was this embracement that later made the band’s name quite ironic.

But to be fair, dumbing down the sound for the synthphobic USA was starting to be common place among British bands. However, it’s also ironic that around this time, having been influenced by ‘New Gold Dream’, U2 decided to get a bit more artier and took on board some Eurocentric experimentation with Brian Eno as their willing conspirator.

Whereas after the massive sales of the 1985 FM rock flavoured long player ‘Once Upon A Time’, SIMPLE MINDS gradually experienced a law of diminishing returns, U2 more or less maintained their standing in the long term and are still working with Eno to this day.

Interestingly, at their most recent concerts, remaining founder members Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill may have finally seen the light about what was musically SIMPLE MINDS’ most glorious period – ‘Sons and Fascination’ and ‘This Earth That You Walk Upon’ are in the live set along with material from the ‘New Gold Dream’ album while ‘Belfast Child’ has finally been dropped!

‘Sons & Fascination’ / ‘Sister Feelings Call’ is available on Virgin Records

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Text by Chi Ming Lai
11th July 2011

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