Category: Reviews (Page 143 of 201)

COVENANT The Blinding Dark

27 October 2016 /

It’s been twenty two years since COVENANT ‘s legendary opus ‘Sequencer’, featuring the exquisite ‘Stalker’, was aired.

Further albums followed with ‘United States Of Mind’, ‘Northern Light’ and ‘Skyshaper’ being the most notable. With Eskil Simonsson in charge of synths, vocals, programming and production joined by Joakim Montelius who looks after execution, lyrics and engineering, the pair form the core of modern COVENANT. ‘The Blinding Dark’ as an album number nine, promises a return to the darker matter of serious futurepop, without being too nostalgic towards ‘Sequencer’.

The production’s motto is “There is No Berlin Wall to defiantly dance on any more”, but the listener is invited into the “void”, which welcomes the “unstoppable Nautilus through the black waters, straight towards the future, never looking back”.

The matters of “confronting the dark side of self” manifest themselves in the advance single ‘Sound Mirrors’. Relating to the sound mirrors from World War Two’s Britain, which were the concrete anti-aircraft installations deflecting the enemy planes, the track touches upon the modern state of Europe as we see today, with refugee problems of mass scale, affecting the Continent’s safety and security while plunging into the nasty depths of human nature. Of course, all the signature COVENANT elements are combined here, including the ominous voice of Simonsson.

Indeed, the deep probing auras are raised immediately on the opening instrumental ‘Fullwell’, and they’re further developed on ‘I Close My Eyes’. A more progressive, “implosive instead of explosive” and “fuelled by a cold fury rather than a roaring fire”, the cutting sounds resemble shaking off the shackles into the arty, futuristic sound.

The first ‘Interlude’ to ‘Dies Irae’ works as a catalyst for the fusion of Carpenter Brut and Leonard Cohen with the mediaeval Catholic requiem mass. The peculiarities of the track seem to work, thanks to the simplicity of the electronica and a poignant vocal. The second ‘Interlude’ to ‘If I Give My Soul’ introduces a hopeful moment towards the wishful attitude of the latter number, laced with bass and captivating synth.

A more sombre mood is portrayed in a haunting duet for ‘A Rider On A White Horse’. This spectacular cover of a 1977 country hit by Lee Hazlewood, comes as an unexpected turn, proving that even a western track can be revamped as a superb electronic tune. Further proof that COVENANT know their synths, yet do not shy away from further development of their signature sound, lies in ‘Morning Star’. Lyrically, the song mentions the album title over a plethora of disturbingly apt sound variations, opening a brand new chapter for the Swedish masters.

‘Cold Reading’ only reminds the listener that COVENANT are superb at trance-inducing, alternative dance tracks, even as a newly found quintet with Andreas Catjar, Daniel Jonasson and Daniel Myer, the latter returning for ‘The Blinding Dark’, having left in 2013 citing “too many egos” as the reason for his departure.

The tribal, almost “ritual noise”, heralds the closing ‘Summon Your Spirit’, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the latest instrumental works of GAZELLE TWIN. If COVENANT wanted to reincarnate the ‘Sequencer’ sound, they certainly achieved that on ‘The Blinding Dark’, without repeating themselves. The long player definitely puts its predecessor ‘Leaving Babylon’ to shame.

The Swedish maestros themselves described “the dystopian, unforgiving music of the reflective shadows we all carry within us, but often lack the courage to take a good look at” by creating a “triumphant embrace of the strengths and resilience of the soul”.

A triumph it is.

‘The Blinding Dark’ is released by Dependent Records on 4th November 2016 in a variety of formats

COVENANT tour Germany throughout November, please visit the official website for more details and other dates in Europe

http://www.covenant.se/

https://www.facebook.com/Covenant-OFFICIAL-156626197713557/

http://en.dependent.de/covenant-the-blinding-dark.html

Text by Monika Izabela Trigwell
Photos by Chris Ruiz
27th October 2016

BLANCMANGE You Keep Me Running Round & Round

18 October 2016 /

‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’ is an original film by Playworks.tv exploring the life of Irish electronic music enthusiasts during the fledgling days that corresponded with the Synth Britannia revolution across the water. It recently won an Award of Merit from IndieFest, while it has been nominated for the ‘Best Music Documentary’ category at UKMVA 15.

In 1982, BLANCMANGE released their debut album ‘Happy Families’ and thirty years later, it was re-imagined as ‘Happy Families Too’. The documentary centres on the recollections of a number of men (…and yes, they are ALL men 😉 !) from the Dublin electronic scene attending BLANCMANGE’s first ever gig in the Irish capital during the subsequent tour.

It is the story of their journey, waiting three decades to see one of the bands who helped ignite their love of electronic music. The synth heads gathered include personnel from assorted local acts such as EMPIRE STATE HUMAN, POLYDROID, KUBO, THE CASSANDRA COMPLEX and CIRCUIT3. And they are all a passionate bunch who can tell their drum machines from their tape recorders, unlike some so-called electronic music journalists.

Their entertaining monologues are inter-dispersed with excellent live footage of BLANCMANGE from that Dublin gig, with ‘Feel Me’, ‘Blind Vision’, ‘Waves’, ‘Living On The Ceiling’ and ‘I Can’t Explain’ all figuring. The fact that the songs featured are all in full-length form is one of the documentary’s major strengths. This is a relief after all the song butchering and fast editing that has occurred in Channel 4 music programmes aimed at attention deficit inflicted youngsters over the last few years.

In 1982, there was very little electronic music in Ireland. Rock was God with the nation focussed on U2, THIN LIZZY or traditional music. It was a time when there was no YouTube and very few people even had a VHS recorder. So finding an electronic pop record imported from the UK was the Saturday adventure for a discerning synth inclined teenager.

Around this time, BLANCMANGE had just signed to London Records and began recording the songs that would eventually form ‘Happy Families’. While ‘Living On The Ceiling’ was to become the hit that brought BLANCMANGE into many teenagers’ homes, the pivotal track was its predecessor ‘Feel Me’.

On how the song came about, Neil Arthur told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “Stephen Luscombe came round with this cassette and on it was this rhythm which was the backing of ‘Feel Me’. It was a great bassline and we blasted it in the studio through these big speakers and I did this kind of ad-lib vocal. I had this idea that went ‘feel me now – feel the pain – feel the strain’… simple rhyming, repetitive words”.

One key point made in ‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’ is that synthpop is about synthesizers, and that there is no other music form that has such a broad spectrum of possibilities within one track.

It ultimately has a sensibility that not only encompasses shiny pop but also the avant-garde and is often coupled with dark lyrical matter. “With the line ‘Your hand’s in the pocket – pocket of a friend’, it was just to get people thinking that the song was going one way but then to say ‘what do you feel?’, ‘what do you think?’… for me, it’s just a song to be interpreted or misinterpreted any number of ways” remembered the BLANCMANGE frontman, “It’s like ‘Here comes a love song – there goes a banister’, what could it be? It could be a sexual reference, it could be a reference to relationship intensity. It’s not exactly a very melodic vocal line so the intensity had to build throughout. On reflection, I always thought it was more David Byrne than Ian Curtis, but there was never any intention” 

Using synthesizers was about control as well and not needing a drummer! Arthur recalls: “We didn’t own any of the synths we used for ‘Happy Families’. We hired a Roland Jupiter 8, an ARP sequencer and a Korg MS20 plus a Linn LM-1 Drum Computer which Stephen and I programmed up”.

And it was also about unlimited creativity and unconventional thinking: “The catch on the bassline of ‘Feel Me’ is having that pick-up on the sixteenth beat coming into the one… that was the thing that got me when Stephen came in with that. It was put together with a TR808 initially using the cowbell as the trigger to the synth. That was replicated using the Linn with the bass part being the Jupiter and Korg. David Rhodes’ E-bowed guitar melody is doubled with a keyboard”

But of course, many in the documentary did not have access to this kind of technology at first, but the use of cheaper synths as a starting point allowed for punk’s DIY ethic to be applied. It was the same for BLANCMANGE before they were signed and the approach they had to take for their first release ‘Irene & Mavis’.

“Everything then had been recorded on a Sony cassette machine; we had another cassette machine purely for playback with decent speakers on it” recalled Arthur on those fledgling days, “We would take a line-out and feed it into a mono input and do the other track live at the same time. Or we would overdub by playing in the room and having the backing track playing from the extension. We combined that and a borrowed 4 track machine with varispeed on it”

The one term that keeps reoccurring in ‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’ is “synthpop”… yes, that’s synthpop, pop songs with synthesizers, NOT “dance” or “electronica”! There is an unashamed embracement of synthpop by all concerned. Now while the Acid House and dance revolution is briefly touched upon towards the end and helped make electronic music credible enough for music hacks to want to write about it, it largely took songs out of the equation. And let’s face it, those club-oriented excursions were generally pointless without the use of substances!

But course, with the return of the synthesizer in an avant pop context, it’s not about harking back to the past, but looking forward to the future. On reworking ‘Feel Me’ for 2013, Neil Arthur said to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK: “My new version is more stripped down. There’s so many VST plug-ins you can put on top of things. Unless your ideas are good, it’s not worth it. I tried to remember what it was like in that room when I first heard that rhythm Stephen had put together. David came in to play his great guitar on it again. The vocals are my daughter, myself and a vocoder… I wanted to keep it really simple. Hopefully it still works. At least doing ‘Happy Families Too’, I wasn’t going to tear myself apart over the songs… they are written for better or for worse”

In all, ‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’ is an enjoyable hour of music history, presented in a refreshing, intelligent manner. Indeed it is the antithesis of those ‘I Love The 80s’ type cheesefests that often portray synthpop in the worst way possible, as something to be derided and mocked. In fact, it would make rather good viewing on BBC4.

With thanks to Patti Carbonell, Poppy Seekins  and Tone Davies at Playworks.tv

Additional thanks to Neil Arthur and Peter Fitzpatrick

For further information on ‘You Keep Me Running Round & Round’, please visit www.ditto.tv/ditto-is-running-round-and-round/ or email campfire@playworks.tv

https://www.blancmange.co.uk

https://www.facebook.com/BlancmangeMusic/

http://www.playworks.tv/

Text and interview by Chi Ming Lai
12th September 2015

HIDDEN PLACE Nero Schwarz

14 October 2016 /

Italian quartet HIDDEN PLACE came into being in 2004 and have since gathered a sizeable audience within the followers of electro wave trends.

Antonio Losenno, Fabio Vitelli and Giampiero Di Barbaro are the three culprits responsible for the music, while the lyrics and vocals fall into the ownership of Sara Lux.

Having released a few albums like the excellent ‘Fantasia Meccanica’ in 2007 and a compilation of their body of work over ten years; this annum sees the release of another long player, ‘Nero Schwarz’.

‘Nero Schwartz’ is a retrospective collection of tunes sounding not too dissimilar from the works of KIRLIAN CAMERA, another Italian band fronted by the songstress Elena Alice Fossi; also known as Spectra Paris, she recently featured on John Fryer’s BLACK NEEDLE NOISE album ‘Before The Tears Came’.

Sara Lux’s vocals are frosty and laced with cold, indifferent exterior, especially when backed with gentle sounding, ethereal guitar on tracks such as ‘Picture Hall’ or ‘Histoire D’Amour’, both reminiscent of the riffs from JOY DIVISION or early DURAN DURAN. ‘Nei Versi Di Prevert’, which had previously been released as a 7″ single, strikes as an enjoyable concoction of LADYTRON and early MARSHEAUX.

‘Without Time’ strikes with cold electronica, while ‘Window Sill’, this time in English, rings unusual connections with Polish new wave band MAANAM.

The darkness continues with ‘Alexander Strasse’; Lux’s vocal clearly leading the mood into the gloomier of directions, while the musical elements of the greatest synthy decade are fully palpable.

‘Nero Schwartz’ equally embraces the good old age of synthesis with avant-garde references. The album is both arty and sophisticated with frosty feel of the icy new wave. As far as Sara Lux’s voice goes, some will find her vocal tedious, others will marvel at its stability and glacial clarity. One thing is certain, however, the Italians aren’t doing too badly at the electronic game.

‘Nero Schwarz’ is available on CD from https://hiddenplace.bandcamp.com/album/nero-schwarz-collezione

https://www.facebook.com/hiddenplaceitalia/

Text by Monika Izabela Trigwell
Photo by Daniele Onarati
14th October 2016

APOPTYGMA BERZERK Exit Popularity Contest

6 October 2016 /

APOPTYGMA BERZERK have long been hailed as the best EBM act since FRONT LINE ASSEMBLY.

The founding member Stephan Groth has experimented with many a metamorphosis. But it has to be said that the Norwegian wizard is at his best while “emulating the analogue soundscapes of innovators like KRAFTWERK, TANGERINE DREAM, JEAN-MICHEL JARRE, VANGELIS and KLAUS SCHULZE, and the driving motorik Krautrock rhythms of NEU!”.

With his latest opus ‘Exit Popularity Contest’, APOP reinvents its core values, keeping closely with the drive to produce futuristic pop; this is synthwave fed on the essence from the pioneers of electronica, further elevated to the art level of sci-fi soundscapes.

The release is cleverly clad in the backstory of certain TP; an individual under the Reality Displacement Program who has started a new chapter in his life. However, wiping the slate clean from being a successful recording artist to a rural life in a new society to “start over, fit in and become a normal person” is not working out as expected.

The idea of Tabula Rasa has been challenged by the innate inability to be anything else but an artist. The journey has resulted in TP making music from his “deepest wellspring”, challenged by the quest to find “the source”, helped by multiple analogue synthesisers resurrected from the community vault. The outcome becomes known as “conducting voltage to choose sides”, or to the listener, a journey through an unexpected, peculiar and unbelievable mash-up of ideas and sources.

‘For Now We See Through A Glass, Darkly’ could have taken its simplicity from the works of KRAFTWERK, congealed with JEAN-MICHEL JARRE‘s ideas, a concept that whilst the “doors of perception are ajar: would it not be majestic to force them wide open?” On ‘The Genesis 6 Experiment’, “the Old Testament’s Rosetta Stone, unlocks understanding of mythology, legends, ancient history and religious belief” – is the chess match between two players going to finally see its resolution in ‘The Cosmic Chess Match’? Can the “Irresistible Force” be stopped?

The symbiosis of synth gentleness and extraordinarily deep train of thought manifests itself in ‘U.T.E.O.T.W’, while ‘Rhein Klang’ acts as an oscillating source of “electronic lifeblood”, VANGELIS style. The most poignant track on the long player must be the Wilder-esque ‘The Devil Pays With Counterfeit Money’, a political statement urging for standing up to the fraudulent ordinary, for the rejection of common rules and regulations, for the “exit from the popularity contest”. It is vital to degrade the beast we all feed. Wrapped up in KRAFTWERK sounding elements, the piece is wholesome and urgent; a superb synth work.

‘Exit Popularity Contest’ is what Martin Gore’s ‘MG’ should have been. APOPTYGMA BERZERK excels in instrumentals, achieving the same aims as JEAN-MICHEL JARRE’s productions. For a chameleon act, the Nordic synth king has created a coagulation between the good old synth era and the future of electronic pop.

If you’re expecting ‘Kathy’s Song’, you’ll be disappointed, but after all “…and man created machine, and machine, machine created music, and machine saw everything it had made and said ‘Behold’.”

Amen.

‘Exit Popularity Contest’ uses the following instruments: ARP Odyssey, Moog Source, Korg MS20, WintherStormer Modular, Kawai 100f, Logan String Melody II,  Roland SH2, Roland SH5, Roland VP330 Vocoder Plus, Roland Juno 60, Roland CR8000 Compurhythm, Siel Opera 6, Simmons Claptrap, Boss DR55 Doctor Rhythm, Sequential Circuits Drumtraks, Elektron Machinedrum, Vermona DRM1 Drum Synthesizer.

With thanks to Per Aksel Lundgreen

‘Exit Popularity Contest’ is released by Hard: Drive in CD, double LP and cassette formats only, available from http://www.stormingthebase.com/apoptygma-berzerk-exit-popularity-contest-cd/

http://www.theapboffice.com/

https://www.facebook.com/ApoptygmaBerzerk/

https://twitter.com/apoplovesyou

Text by Monika Izabela Trigwell
Photos by Tarjei Krogh
6th October 2016

NIGHT CLUB Requiem For Romance

5 October 2016 /

night-club-requiem-for-romance

‘Requiem For Romance’ is the debut long playing opus by the LA based duo NIGHT CLUB.

Although Emily Kavanaugh and Mark Brooks kicked off NIGHT CLUB in 2011, their music has been extensively used in television offerings, such as ‘Jersey Shore’, ‘XOX Batsey Johnson’, ‘Washington Heights’, ‘Miami Monkey’ and ‘The Mysteries Of Laura’.

The Comedy Central show ‘Moonbeam City’ saw the band’s compositions featuring in all ten episodes of the production, and its soundtrack was released in 2015.

Although 2014 saw their best body of work so far with the ‘Black Leather Heart’ EP, ‘Requiem For Romance’ promises to capture a “more bombastic and aggressive” sound. Indeed, the heralding single ‘Bad Girl’ offers a darker, rockier approach to synthpop, with quirky use of pitch shift on Kavanaugh’s vocals. LADY GAGA wouldn’t be ashamed to put her name to the production, which is fresh and provocatively jagged.

Acting as an intro track, ‘Requiem’ sounds suspiciously similar to DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Shake The Disease’ plus or minus a few notes, with that haunting voice humming the simple melody. ‘Show It 2 Me’ introduces uncomplicated electronica laced with an intoxicating delivery, while ‘Dear Enemy’ truly plays around the synth capacities, interwoven with the candied tones of the euphuistic singer.

‘Psychosuperlover’ offers a wholesome club track, brilliantly executed both vocally and musically, with scantily clad synth, sexy guitar and the perfect bounciness of a marvellous dance tune.

Brooks’ production brilliance shines through on ‘Freak Like Me’. No, it’s not another SUGABABES meets Numan serving; it’s Kavanaugh sounding like a bloke at times!

‘Magnetic’ is indeed magnetic, and ‘Dangerous Heart’ provides another perfect club piece, fabulously executed with vocal samples reminiscent of PET SHOP BOYS’ ‘New York City Boy’.

The sequenced ‘Pray’ with its unsettling dual pitch harmony is an exhibitionist infatuation with anything synthy, whilst ‘Requiem For Romance’ closes with ‘Little Token’; a piano based ballad laced with sparse electronic elements dotted about strategically, wrapping up the opus in the warm embrace of Kavanaugh’s Madonna-esque vocal.

This pleasing album certainly serves the listener with an adequate dose of fantastic synth action provided by Mark Brooks and the larger than life personality of Emily Kavanaugh. Unlaboured rhythms lend themselves beautifully as the canvass to the many voices of this talented rock chick.

Kavanaugh recently lent her vocals to Rusty Egan’s project ‘Welcome To The Dancefloor’, on a song called ‘Evermore’ co-written with Chris Payne. On NIGHT CLUB’s latest offering, she certainly showcases the multitude of her oral talents.

‘Requiem For Romance’ is released by Gato Blanco on 7th October 2016 in CD and download formats from http://nightclubband.com/album/requiem-for-romance

http://nightclubband.com/

https://www.facebook.com/nightclubband

Text by Monika Izabela Trigwell
5th October 2016

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2017 ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK | Email: theelectricityclub@googlemail.com
Privacy Policy

Up ↑