Category: Lost Albums (Page 7 of 14)

Lost Albums: ARTHUR & MARTHA Navigation

18 December 2018 /


As the first long playing release on Happy Robots Records, from its SECTION 25 inspired artwork inwards, ARTHUR & MARTHA’s only album to date was always going to be a bit out of step.

2009 was the year of LA ROUX, LITTLE BOOTS and LADY GAGA, where electronic music returned to the mainstream and went superpop! ‘Navigation’ was the work of Alice Hubley and Adam Cresswell, an unusual looking couple described as “Gilbert & George, disguised as The Carpenters…”

Cresswell had been a member of the indie combo SALOON who garnered support from John Peel including a ‘Festive 50′ No1 in 2002 with ‘Girls Are The New Boys’. Meanwhile, Hubley was a DJ and a member of the all-girl trio THE DULOKS. After SALOON split in 2003, Cresswell turned to analogue synths for solace and when Hubley moved to London, they found common ground via the Korg MS10 and NEW ORDER.

With a Melodica, Stylophone and Theremin also thrown into the playroom, ARTHUR & MARTHA were born. ‘Autovia’ was the glorious opening track of ‘Navigation’, shaped by a charmingly nonchalant vocal from Hubley and hypnotically propelled by a synthetic motorik beat.

Coming over like an eccentric English take on STEREOLAB meeting NEU! on the M1 during its closing third wig-out,  the tune got the pair branded as ‘cutie krautrock’ or ‘tweetronica’ thanks to the gentle mode of propulsion used for their achingly pretty, minor-chord melodies.

Cresswell recalled: “I was on tour with my previous band SALOON in Spain and I saw the word ‘Autovia’ on the road; it sounded a bit like ‘Autobahn’ and so I wrote a song called that. Most of it was recorded in the downstairs toilet of my house!” 

Continuing the mood, ‘Music For Hairproducts’ placed its melancholic vocals and driving octaves for some mutant robotic disco.

With its acoustic guitar and mournful melodic bass, Cresswell took lead vocals on ‘Kasparov’, sounding not unlike SECTION 25’s Larry Cassidy, in a position now familiar in his more recent acclaim as RODNEY CROMWELL. While almost synth-less until the close, it captured a sign of things to come, especially when the melodica solo kicked in.

Hubley remembered “Adam didn’t really sing much initially. ‘Kasparov’ on ‘Navigation’ was the first song Adam did sing, I kind of had to talk him into it, partly because he made it sound more like THE POSTAL SERVICE. He was always in the background with SALOON even though he wrote a lot of the songs”.

Borrowing the rhythm from SOFT CELL’s ‘Sex Dwarf’, the organ tones of ‘Vallorian’ came over like a lo-fi CRYSTAL CASTLES, aided by rugged bursts of Moog and fading on a lovely cacophony of ARP Quartet. On the quaintly sparse ‘Navigation’ title song, beautiful string machine provided the bed for Hubley’s naturally unorthodox delivery before the appearance of clarinet over a clattering collage of percussion and a sudden motorik thrust featuring the entire ARTHUR & MARTHA synth armoury.

The brilliant ‘Follow the Path’ was the sort of brilliantly quirky instrumental that use to accompany the weird East European animations they used to show on BBC2, an array of pulsing sequences and deep complimentary four string with Hubley’s vocal refrain adding naïve charm along with some surprise glockenspiel.

The more avant pop rumble of ‘Memory’ was aggressive in comparison, with robotic vocoder assisting a Hubley / Cresswell duet resulting in a surreal Factory Records face-off between SECTION 25, NEW ORDER and THE WAKE.

Taking its lead from NEW ORDER’s ‘Power, Corruption & Lies’ album but with brighter bubbling synthy overtones, ‘This City Life’ charmed over a busy drum machine offbeat, the contrast between light and shade providing a unexpected lift before evolving into a steadfast cosmic romp invaded by squiggly electronics and innocent piano.

Using a brilliant title pun, the LADYTRON go Krautrock of ‘Squarewave To Heaven’ gave the closing straight some frantic energy before ending with ‘Turn to Dust’, another lovely mournful tune in the vein of ‘Leave Me Alone’.

Ten years on, ‘Navigation’ has stood up remarkably well with its charm and honesty. And with a live reunion for ARTHUR & MARTHA on SATURDAY 2ND MARCH 2019, it is a perfect opportunity for even the keenest 21st Century electronic pop enthusiast who might have missed it first time to discover this lost long playing synthpop curio.

‘Navigation’ used the following instruments: Korg MS10, Moog Rogue, Moog Opus 3, Bass, Guitar, Casio DG50, Stylophone, Melodica, Theremin, ARP Quartet, MicroKorg, Casio 1000P, Omnichord, Glockenspiel.

‘Navigation’ is still available via Happy Robots Records on CD or download direct from https://arthurandmartha.bandcamp.com/album/navigation

https://www.facebook.com/arthurandmarthaband/

https://www.happyrobots.co.uk/arthur-and-martha

https://www.facebook.com/happyrobotsrecords/

https://twitter.com/Happyrobotsrecs

https://www.instagram.com/happyrobotsrecords/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
18th December 2018, updated 19th March 2020

Lost Albums: BERLIN BLONDES Berlin Blondes

13 October 2018 /

BERLIN BLONDES were a post-punk band who formed in Glasgow during 1979.

The original line-up comprised of Steven Bonomi (vocals), Robert Farrell (guitar + synth), Jim Spender (keyboards + synth) and David Rudden (bass). But as the quartet signed to EMI in 1980, Rudden left to form ENDGAMES who signed to Virgin Records and went on to have a minor German hit ‘Waiting For Another Chance’ in 1983. Rudden’s replacement on bass was Nick Clark from THE CUBAN HEELS.

THE CUBAN HEELS were an offshoot of punk band JOHNNY AND THE SELF ABUSERS whose members included Jim Kerr and Charlie Burchill of SIMPLE MINDS; they famously split up on the day their debut single ‘Saints & Sinners’ was released!

BERLIN BLONDES only ever made one self-titled album, recorded at GARY NUMAN’s Rock City Studios in Shepperton and produced by Mike Thorne, best known for his work with WIRE, SOFT CELL and BRONSKI BEAT. This combination meant that not only was Numan’s Polymoog present on the record, but also the first version of the Synclavier which SOFT CELL later used to such great effect on ‘Non Stop Erotic Cabaret’ under Thorne’s direction.

As with many acts of the more artistically inclined post-punk period, ROXY MUSIC and Berlin-era DAVID BOWIE were both key influences on BERLIN BLONDES. They differed by using a drum machine, which gave them a stark rhythmic sound unusual at the time, as the acts they were often compared to like SPARKS, WIRE, MAGAZINE and SIMPLE MINDS used live drummers.

A meeting of synthesizers, art rock and obscure vocals, BERLIN BLONDES had the air of a Highland FAD GADGET, with a very European detached cool. Beginning the album with what was their second single, ‘Framework’ was the sort of syncopated futurist disco featuring crashing electronic beats and bursts of string machine that SPANDAU BALLET and DURAN DURAN were to initially make their fortune with.

Densely produced, it failed to be a hit and could be considered one of the great lost songs of 1980. But then in that same year, SIMPLE MINDS ‘I Travel’ and THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s reissue of ‘Empire State Human’ also failed to trouble the chart return shops, so even the best were having it hard.

BERLIN BLONDES’ debut 45 ‘Science’ was more in touch with new wave, although on the album rework, the addition of live drum beats from Danny Frankel and more prominent synths added some qualities that were absent from the original single version. The waltzy ‘Astro’ was entertainingly SPARKS-lite, reminiscent of ‘Falling In Love With Myself Again’ from ‘Kimono My House’, but coming over like a less accomplished version of SIMPLE MINDS’ similarly influenced ‘Kaleidoscope’.

Smothered in a macabre cocoon of intensity, ‘Romance’ made the most of its horror film soundtrack synths, chilling string machine and a brilliant bassline. Meanwhile ‘Trail To Istanbul’ with its John McGeoch-like guitar over a distorted mechanical backbeat provided a skeleton for Eno-esque guitar treatments to imitate bursts of sax.

The claustrophobia of ‘Secret Days’ recalled MAGAZINE coupled to elements of SIMPLE MINDS ‘Premonition’, while ‘Mannequin’ possessed some New Romantic swagger and swirling electronics, although things got a bit overbearing towards the end with cries of “dummy-dummy-dummy”! The over-driven drum machine and icy synths attached to a harsh arpeggio on ‘Neon Probe’ came over like John Foxx, while suitably eerie with doom laden bass guitar saw ‘Zero Song’ progressing into a steadfast easel of screeching synth.

BERLIN BLONDES had everything in place, a major label deal and a top producer directing the operation but with no hit singles, it wasn’t to be in terms of sales success. Shortly after the album’s release, Jim Spender reverted back to his real name McKinven and left the band to find fame and fortune with ALTERED IMAGES.

Meanwhile, BERLIN BLONDES left EMI and released a single ‘Marseille’ on the independent Scratch Records. But it sank without trace and the band were no more. Looking back, it’s easy to see how BERLIN BLONDES became lost among acts like WIRE, MAGAZINE and SIMPLE MINDS; while derived from the same school as Russell Mael and Howard Devoto, Steven Bonomi was less convincing vocally in an era where Bowie-esque mannerisms were almost compulsory.

It took several years for SIMPLE MINDS to make critical and commercial headway, so it would have been interesting to see how BERLIN BLONDES might have evolved. The original nine track debut album has now been reissued as a CD by Cherry Red Records as ‘The Complete Recordings 1980-1981’. The package includes eight bonus tracks including ‘Marseille’, its B-side ‘The Poet’ plus an assortment of single mixes, extended remixes and instrumental versions.

‘Berlin Blondes’ wasn’t the greatest album of the period, but it had some cracking tracks. As a fascinating time capsule piece on how music north of Hadrian’s Wall was developing outside of the Glasgow School jangle of bands like AZTEC CAMERA, ALTERED IMAGES and ORANGE JUICE, the debut album from BERLIN BLONDES is an intriguing listen, a history lesson in the emergent synthetic sonics of the period within post-punk.

‘The Complete Recordings 1980-1981’ is released as a CD by Cherry Red Records, available from https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/berlin-blondes-the-complete-recordings-1980-81/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
13th October 2018

Lost Albums: ROBERT GÖRL Night Full Of Tension

22 October 2017 /

DEUTSCH AMERIKANISCHE FREUNDSCHAFT, also more commonly referred to as DAF, undoubtedly all but invented electronic body music; the late veteran DJ John Peel charmingly called them the “Grandfathers of Techno”.

Featuring the nucleus of Gabi Delgado-Lopez on vocals and Robert Görl on drums and electronics, their punky ethos utilised the availability of the-then newly affordable synthesizer technology, attaching the Korg MS20 semi-modular synth driven by its corresponding 16-step SQ10 analog sequencer to heavy Teutonic rhythms.

DAF’s music was a confrontational statement against the very strong American influence in popular culture that had seeped into post-war Germany. But following the cult success of their acclaimed Virgin album trilogy of ‘Alles Ist Gut’, ‘Gold Und Liebe’ and ‘Für Immer’ produced by Conny Plank, DAF went into hiatus after falling under a haze of “sex, drugs and sequencer”.

1982’s ‘Für Immer’ with its best known song ‘Kebabträume’ had already seen DAF veer towards synthpop territory at various points, but it was still something of a surprise when the DAF drummer appeared in 1984 with an eight track album made in that vein, released on Mute Records.

Görl’s solo career had begun with a standalone single ‘Mit Dir’ in 1983. Dark, brooding and magnificent, the song was to become a favourite among the cognoscenti, eventually borrowed by a newer generation of electronic duos like SIN COS TAN, reinterpreted for Prada commercials and covered by DJ Hell with STEREO MCs. But by ‘Night Full Of Tension’, Görl had lightened up considerably and the artwork even had him looking totally relaxed, posing by a swimming pool.

Co-produced by Mike Hedges who had worked his studio magic on ASSOCIATES ‘Sulk’, the percussive backbone of the record was dominated by an Oberheim DMX, in a contrast to the live drumming that DAF followers were used to. And while sequencers were still prevalent, the patterns were now more sophisticated, thanks to the advent of digital sequencers like the Oberheim DSK which could control polyphonic synths such as the OBXa which DAF had used on ‘Für Immer’.

Singing in English apart from on the solemn Brecht-influenced cabaret art piece ‘Gewinnen Wir Die Beste Der Frauen’ reciting a 13th Century Poem by Walther Von Metze,  Görl exuded a relaxed vocal style in the manner of Bryan Ferry and David Bowie that actually came over more like Yukihiro Takahashi of YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA and Winston Tong of TUXEDOMOON.

Photo by Sabine Raef

And in another twist, ‘Night Full Of Tension’ featured vocal contributions from Annie Lennox; the two had met when Görl played on EURYTHMICS’ ‘Belinda’ from ‘In The Garden’ which Conny Plank had produced. Laced with ad-libs by Lennox, ‘Playtime’ was a fine accessible opener recalling NEW ORDER that showcased the sequencer and drum machine driven pop ethos of the album.

‘I Love Me’ referenced ASSOCIATES and resembled a less frantic and more electronic ‘Club Country’, a track which Mike Hedges helmed. Given the Mute connection too, elements of DEPECHE MODE’s DAF influences that had been heard on ‘Construction Time Again’ ironically also crept in… the sorcerer was grabbing back from the apprentice. Meanwhile the quirky ‘Charlie Cat’ actually saw Lennox take the entire lead vocal and unsurprisingly, it sounded like something by EURYTHMICS as around this time, David A Stewart was using similar Oberheim equipment.

The second half of ‘Night Full Of Tension’ was glorious; ‘Queen King’ played with androgyny and sexuality over hypnotic sequences and synthetic brass stabs, while on the brilliant ‘Love In Mind’, its machine groove sat comfortably next to the similarly constructed ‘Big Brother’ by Winston Tong and ‘Big Blue World’ by Paul Haig as fine examples of the sophisticated electronic pop that was emerging during this period.

But the album’s highlight was probably ‘Darling Don’t Leave Me’, a passionate but fun duet with Lennox that was also a wonderfully wiggly synthpop pleasure. Closing with ‘Wind In Hair’, this was the closest ‘Night Full Of Tension’ got to DAF, its bassline resembling ‘Der Mussolini’ although this realisation was far lighter, with the synthetic choir and string drones pushing it closer to KRAFTWERK.

DAF reconvened in 1985 for ‘1st Step To Heaven’, their only album in English, but the pair parted ways again. Since then, Görl and Delgado-Lopez have more than occasionally reunited for DAF shows, while the recent release of the ‘Das Ist DAF’ boxed set on Grönland Records has cemented the duo’s status as the “Grandfathers of Techno”.

Meanwhile, the intervening years have seen Görl pursue that very Techno direction with albums like ‘Watch The Great Copy Cat’, ‘Sexdrops’, ‘Final Metal Pralinées’ and ‘Dark Tool Symphony’. So like Winston Tong’s wonderful ’Theoretically Chinese’ excursion, ‘Night Full Of Tension’ was a one-off experiment.

But Görl’s intriguing and cool escapist journey into synthpop crossed over into an audience that may have found DAF a bit too threatening, and that was not necessarily a bad thing. ‘Night Full Of Tension’ is a very good but forgotten body of work that deserves as much recognition as DAF’s Virgin-era albums.

‘Night Full Of Tension’ is still available via Mute Records as a digital album featuring the extended version of ‘Mit Dir’ as a bonus track

http://www.robert-goerl.de

http://mute.com/category/robert-gorl

https://www.groenland.com/en/artist/deutsch-amerikanische-freundschaft/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
Photos by Sabine Raef
22nd October 2017

Lost Albums: BETH DITTO EP

14 October 2017 /


Not an album at all of course, but Beth Ditto’s self-titled four track EP from early 2011 showed what she was capable of when presented with a juicy electronic soundtrack away from the funk laden punk of GOSSIP.

Following their first collaboration ‘Cruel Intentions’ on SIMAN MOBILE DISCO’s album ‘Temporary Pleasure’ in 2010, the dance duo of James Ford and Jas Shaw acted as producers on this brilliant solo EP. Their ethos allowed Ms Ditto’s very present personality to shape the character of the tracks without detracting from the inherent dancefloor mood.

The result was four tracks that successfully crossed over into both GOSSIP’s indie punk audience and SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO’s more club inclined crowd. Opening track ‘I Wrote The Book’ was a close cousin of ‘Cruel Intentions’ and pulsed in a marvellous Detroit techno fashion that was immediate.

‘Goodnight Good Morning’ was driven by a solid groove and that would be the word that would ably describe this EP. Despite all the technology used to craft these four numbers, they possessed a warm humanity while the music itself retained a sparkling New York vibe.

‘Open Heart Surgery’ was driven by white noise percussion and a bassline reminiscent of THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s early work and while not frantic in tempo, it did begin like a dreamboat collaboration between Da League and Donna Summer.

The EP ended with ‘Do You Need Someone?’; digital claps took the lead while Ms Ditto’s passionate yearning added soul to the sparkling electronic groove. The melodic Polymoog-like tones of KRAFTWERK towards the song’s close were a marvellous aesthetic touch. Throughout the four songs, Ditto’s voice was rich, emotive and powerful.

On the evidence of this EP, a solo career in electronic dance music could have beckoned post-GOSSIP. She would have made a most perfect disco diva and certainly later offerings by GOSSIP like the suitably titled ‘Move In My Direction’ indicated that could be the case.

Alas, her debut solo album ‘Fake Sugar’ ventured into Ditto’s Southern rock roots, but at least this electronic EP existed as an indicator of what could have been. It also showed how James Ford could not be blamed for the lemon that was DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Spirit’ 😉

‘Beth Ditto’ is still available as a CD EP or download via Deconstruction Records

https://bethditto.com/

https://twitter.com/oBETHoDITTO

http://gossipyouth.com/

http://www.simianmobiledisco.co.uk/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
14th October 2017

Lost Albums: S.P.O.C.K Five Year Mission

9 August 2017 /

During their ‘Star Trek’ careers, both William Shatner and the late Leonard Nimoy made various excursions into the musical world with mixed responses. Nimoy gave the world ‘The Ballad Of Bilbo Baggins’, while Shatner’s melodramatic cover of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ had to be heard to be truly believed.

But one noted musical offshoot inspired by the long running franchise were a bunch of Swedes who traded under the moniker of S.P.O.C.K

Alongside bands such as PAGE, ELEGANT MACHINERY and SISTA MANNEN Å JORDEN, they were to become key players in the Swedish electronic pop scene. The project started in 1988 when Eddie Bengtsson of Svenske synth trailblazers PAGE put together some ‘Star Trek’ themed songs for his friend Finn Albertsson to perform at his birthday party; another friend Alexander Hofman provided the vocal accompaniment.

Calling themselves MR SPOCK, the performance was well-received and unexpectedly led to further local live bookings with Bengtsson now also incorporated into the line-up. Formal approaches were made to Paramount Pictures to use the name of the Vulcan Science Officer, but unable to reach agreement with the studio giant, the trio opted to call themselves STAR PILOTS ON CHANNEL K, otherwise abbreviated to S.P.O.C.K.

Releasing their debut single ‘Silicon Dream’ in 1990, the S.P.O.C.K crew adopted character personas with Hofman, Bengtsson and Albertsson calling themselves Android, Captain Eddie B Kirk and Cybernoid respectively to fully immerse themselves into their conceptual vision.

1992 saw the release of their signature song ‘Never Trust A Klingon’ on Energy Rekords. A frantic robotic synthpop number with a hypnotic dance feel, Hofman’s detached but theatrical vocal style told the message loud and clear. A magnificent blip splurge in the middle eight was further enhanced with samples of Captain James Tiberius Kirk from ‘Star Trek III: The Search for Spock’.

‘Never Trust A Klingon’ bordered on nerdiness, but presented with a straight face and accompanied by a brilliant synthetic backing track, it strangely came over as a work of genius even with lines about “evil barbarians” who “if you ever give them a helping hand… can be sure they’ll chop off the arm”. Klingons on the starboard bow? THE FIRM’s 1987 novelty hit ‘Star Trekkin’ this most certainly wasn’t and ‘Never Trust A Klingon’ became an alternative club favourite in both Sweden and Germany.

The parent long player ‘Five Year Mission’ appeared in 1993. Predominantly based around the cult of ‘Star Trek’, it began by exploring the ‘Neutral Zone’ in a steadfast ERASURE-ish recollection of a mission where the USS Enterprise responded to a distress call sent from the no-man’s land dividing The Federation from The Klingon Empire.

Continuing the Trekkie theme, ‘Mr Spock’s Brain’ utilised Android’s processed Numan-esque drone with some enjoyably daft lyrics, while the bleeps and chattering drum machines on ‘Charlie X’ accompanied the story of a disturbed teenager who appeared in a first season episode causing mayhem aboard the Enterprise while stalking one of the female crew members. But it was a story that could be related to any aspect of society, not just in outer space.

The deadpan drama of ‘Black Hole’ saw the USS Enterprise trying to get more warp speed to prevent being sucked into oblivion, while ‘Edge Of Forever’ with its distinctive tones of mechanical vocal expression was great spacey Eurocentric synthpop.

Despite the concept of ‘Five Year Mission’, not all the tracks were based around ‘Star Trek’ but most were still Science Fiction based. ‘Space Race’ borrowed from Vince Clarke-era DEPECHE MODE and S.P.O.C.K were later to pay tribute to Basildon’s most famous sons when they recorded ‘Ice Machine’ for the Svenske DM tribute ‘Sometimes I Wish I Was Famous’.

Meanwhile ‘E-Lectric’ celebrated future technologies in a typically Kling Klang fashion and the HG Wells inspired ‘Time Machine’ told of a trapped time traveller whose survival supplies were running on empty.

‘Five Year Mission’ ended appropriately enough with ‘Last Man On Earth’, a dystopian doomscape about machines taking over the earth. “The robots are now out of control” muttered Android dispassionately in a tone that could have easily come from TUBEWAY ARMY’s ‘Replicas’.

S.P.O.C.K’s music could on first impression be seen as bordering on parody. But expanding on the sly deadpan humour of KRAFTWERK and combining it with Bengtsson’s melodic synth laden compositions, S.P.O.C.K’s music possessed enough authentic weight to complement Hofman’s amusing wordplay.

In a period when the UK had more or less given up on synthpop and Britpop was rearing its ugly head, Sweden and Germany were still keeping the genre alive on ‘Planet Earth’. Rather fittingly, the inter-galactic adventures of S.P.O.C.K would later lead them to reinterpret that same titled DURAN DURAN track for the ‘To Cut A Long Story Short’ synthpop covers collection in 1995 alongside ELEGANT MACHINERY and PAGE.

In the end, everyone comes back down to earth…

‘Five Year Mission’ was released as a CD by Energy Rekords

http://www.subspace.se/spock/

https://www.facebook.com/StarPilotOnChannelK

Text by Chi Ming Lai
9th August 2017

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