BLACK NAIL CABARET’s debut London gig reinforced why European acts are ahead of the game with regards darker flavoured synthpop.
It was a fine, charismatic performance by singer Emese Illes-Arvai and keyboardist Sophie Tarr, accompanied by some beautiful and occasionally erotic arthouse visuals.
In a passionate set which comprised highlights from their second long player ‘Harry Me, Marry Me, Bury Me, Bite Me’ including ‘Hair’, ‘Blonde’ and ‘Lovely Girl’, it was evidence of how BLACK NAIL CABARET have made a sonic leap forward since their promising debut ‘Emerald City’ in 2012.
‘Satisfaction’ magnificently stole the show while proceedings were nicely rounded out with first album faves ‘Let Me In’ and ‘Veronica’, as well as a lively electronic rendition of STARSAILOR’s ‘Tell Me It’s Not Over’.
Having supported CAMOUFLAGE, COVENANT and DE/VISION, the confidence of BLACK NAIL CABARET is on such a high right now that the duo have just released a four track EP in their native Hungarian. Entitled ‘Steril’, the title track is a moodily percussive composition that adds further to their enigmatic demeanour, thanks to the unfamiliar language tone.
Of the other tracks on the EP, ‘Fekete’ adds some viola by Celine Righi to bring some rich Lisztian spirit into the equation while ‘Reggel’ uses harmonium textures to procure a sparse, haunting soundtrack. But ‘Mágia’ provides a more obvious synthpop template from which listeners who enjoyed ‘Harry Me, Marry Me, Bury Me, Bite Me’ can reference from.
With songstress Gwenno having had her Welsh language album ’Y Dydd Olaf’ recently reissued by Heavenly Recordings, electronic pop in something other than English is steadily gaining ground. But historically, this is nothing unusual as prior to the Synth Britannia dominance of the classic era, the UK first became enlightened to popular music of electronic origin thanks to ‘Autobahn’, a record that was of course, recorded in German! On Facebook, the duo said: “There are several reasons why we wrote these on our mother tongue, one of them was that the rhythm of the lyrics suited better in Hungarian, it was a lot easier to express these feelings which are partly about our home and being away from it”
With the general open mindedness of many electronic music fans, the ‘Steril’ EP is timely. It is also an indication of BLACK NAIL CABARET’s willingness to experiment and push artistic boundaries.
When Bionic Bubblepunk duo HYPERBUBBLE made a rare visit to the UK in 2014 to play at Helen Love’s ‘Does Your Heart Go Boom?’ all-dayer at The Lexington in London, there were a lot of smiles in the audience.
Now that performance has been released as album, titled appropriately ‘Live in London’. It was their first gig in the capital and with the crowd convinced they were about to witness a mutant Country & Western duo, synthpop’s own Carter & Cash launched into a 45 minute performance of quirky electro with hints of The B-52s.
“We definitely play upon that” said lead singer Jess to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK, “because we see ourselves as part-performance art, kitsch cabaret pop…”. Her partner-in-crime Jeff added: “With our stage clothes, we’re playing up to people’s expectations, then throwing in a paradox… looking like their pre-conceived idea of what a Texan is and then sounding nothing like it!”
‘Live in London’ is a highly quality recording featuring a set that could be regarded as HYPERBUBBLE’s greatest hits! Beginning with their calling card ‘Candy Apple Daydreams’, fun uptempo numbers such as ‘Synesthesia’, ‘Bionic Girl’, ‘Non-Biodegradable Hazardous Waste Disposal’ and ‘Chop Shop Cop’ also figure.
But this is naturally audio only, so one can only imagine the onstage spanking that Jess gives Jeff during ‘Girl Boy Pop Toy’. However, his charming larger than life personality more that comes over on the recording, as does Jess’ Southern sweetness. This is Rayna and Deacon from ‘Nashville’, but in outer space! Despite having released five albums and several EPs, HYPERBUBBLE are still comparatively unknown in worldwide synthpop circles.
So ‘Live in London’ is a perfect starting point for those who are now curious.
So, here it is, veiled in mystery for months, with an unclear release date and promises of a masterpiece – the fourth album by the Canadian songstress Claire Boucher aka GRIMES.
‘Art Angels’ is manna for the hungry fans of the extraordinary and self-sufficient Music Dame and a worthy follow-up to 2012’s ‘Visions’.
Boucher herself has stressed that this production “lyrically, it’s more political and less abstract than before, like, really trippy free association about nature and sh*t.”
GRIMES has always been inspired by what most would find random like: “There’s a song that’s from the perspective of a butterfly in the Amazon as people are cutting down trees; there’s a song that’s from the perspective of angels who are polluted, so they’re crying polluted tears. I feel like it’s more about the Earth. I think I was more in society when I was making it, so it feels more grounded.”
The self-confessed “super feminist” uses herself and herself only, to complete the albums. She despises the idea of a producer taking credit for her work, so the whole enterprise is a very DIY job, including the tarot cards inspired artwork accompanying the release.
The girl does what the girl has to do, and the opening ‘Laughing & Not Being Normal’ sums up the entire outing with an ‘Alice In Wonderland’ inspired intro, leading into the “Miley Cyrus in her good girl country and western stage”, ‘California’. The sweetly laced track lyrically hits the negative experiences the artist went through while on “writer camps”, shaping the next hits for the Billboard 100, where she realised nothing is about art, and that it was the complete opposite to what she wanted to do.
‘SCREAM’, with its guitar riffs inspired by Tarantino movies, is an innovative track where GRIMES collaborates with a Taiwanese female rapper ARISOPHANES. Odd, you may think; well, Boucher tried to use Soundcloud more randomly, exploring the musicians with the least number of followers. That’s how she came across the artist, who shares the feminist vision she thought perfect for this record.
Next comes the first single and the mesmerisingly superb ‘Flesh Without Blood’, a poppy American Dream track, which to many, could land the artist a decent chart position. In one of her recent interviews, she swiftly replies to that statement. “I hate that all music right now has to exist in the context of the Top 40. I just want to make music that’s good. Some good music is pop, some good music is not pop.”
‘Flesh Without Blood’ is pop, but it’s beyond the sweet and candied: it’s immense, grown up and arty, without the need of being labelled within the realms of any chart position out there.
‘Belly Of The Beat’ brings a light super girly accent to the record, acting as a coma between the single and the following ‘Kill Vs Maim’. The song was written from a perspective of Al Pacino in ‘The Godfather Part 2’, except that “he’s a vampire and can switch gender and travel through space”. This statement alone summarises the artist’s flaunting approach to making music.
‘Artangels’ is a mish-mash of the good old pop, electronica and features influences of many an artist, being ingenuously fresh at the same time, while ‘Easily’ starts off with a simple piano and mellow beats flowering into a sophisticated hip-hop ballad. Just like with the clothes Boucher wears, you couldn’t find a song crammed with more genres coagulated into one, seamless number.
‘Pin’ similarly acts like a catalyst of variety, and ‘REALiTi’, which had been previously released as a demo with great success, has its overhauled version on the album, showcasing quite how magnificent the song is. Marked with Berlin’s Love Parade elements, this mellow track is remarkably modern and demonstrates the talents of the Canadian man-hater quite visibly. Go back few years to the marvellous pop creations of MADONNA, spice them with added synth and techno elements, and you have got yourself a perfect GRIMES song; quite possibly the best on this production.
‘World Princess Pt II’ and ‘Venus Fly’, the latter featuring Janelle Monáe, a multiple Grammy nominee, are as unconventionally original as they get, while ‘Live In The Vivid Dream’, which formed the act two of the promotional video, together with ‘Flesh Without Blood’ is a punctuating shortie, leading onto ‘Butterfly’. The last track on the production shows off the perfectionist and the tendency to push boundaries, being of a socially vital lyrical content, yet sung from the perspective of a butterfly, seeing the Amazon rainforest being cut to nothing.
Claire Boucher has become a clear icon of today’s youth; no limits, rules, obligations and no feeling of “owing” anything to anyone. Coming from British Columbia’s strict Catholic school system, where the teaching of science was banned, the inquisitive girl was always in trouble for asking too many questions. She’s flourished into a woman, who knows what she wants and is not scared to get it.
The very woman, who on her last release used “a lot of drugs” and recorded the album using Garageband only, this time has stepped up to Ableton Live and learnt to play a dozen of instruments; collaborated with known and not-so known artists, and channelled everything she’s got, is definitely the pronounced artist of today. She’s proud to live in her own house, she’s buying her own equipment, she’s not relying on producers (on which she lashes out with her “diss” track), and doing what she wants and how she wants it.
Berlin’s SOLAR FAKE came into existence in 2007, creating an instant stir in the electronica circles, hungry for more anger and industrial laden beats.
Sven Friedrich, best known for his rockier enterprises ZERAPHINE and DREADFUL SHADOWS, joined André Feller and to date have released three albums, ‘Broken Grid’, ‘Frontiers’ and ‘Reasons To Kill’.
The latest ‘Another Manic Episode’ is described by the band themselves, as their best work to date, which immediately invites the challenge to verify the veracity of this claim.
Happily charging €25 a year for their fan club membership, the SOLAR FAKE boys seem awfully confident in their latest product. The deluxe edition harbours nineteen songs, including the ten core tracks, with additional remixes by AESTHETIC PERFECTION and PROJECT PITCHFORK among many, as well as further seven piano versions of selected numbers.
The opening ‘Not What I Wanted’ curiously welcomes into the heavy world of SOLAR FAKE with EBM beats and alluring sequences, in which the band stays true to their roots. Influences of various other German bands are clearly palpable, making the opening track an eclectic mixture of pretty much everything heard before. ‘Fake To Be Alive’ follows with a clear danceability factor interwoven within a melodic, yet heavy sequence of drum and bass, as if borrowed from ‘Automation Baby’ by Bristol’s MESH.
‘All The Things You Say’, also being the first single from the production, changes the mood into more of a gentler, sublime and intelligent synthpopia. Refined vocals, this time lacking the heavy rock base, are fuller and inviting. Very clear influence from their native FROZEN PLASMA, yet original in their own way.
‘Under Control’ as well as ‘Observer’ serve heavy boot stomping to their industrial beats, while ‘Until It’s Over’ returns to the temperate, placid electronica which Friedrich is a master of. ‘The Race Of The Rats’ reprises the theme with a substantial dose of EBM, followed with ‘If I Were You’; it’s a melancholic track, yet well suited to heavy head bob and dance craze of your life.
The slower, more defined ‘I Don’t Want You Here’, is a broken love affair, MINEVE style. A listener-friendly melody with gentle piano elements, this makes the track one of the best on this collection. The closing ‘Stay’ is perhaps the song which ought to mark the style of SOLAR FAKE, as this type of direction is what they do best. Delicate electronica with a refined vocal, it wraps the album skilfully, denoting the fact the band are capable of a decent ballad.
The second CD, apart from the remixes by big names, includes two tracks which are worth a mention. ‘Somebody Told Me’ rings the familiar sounds of THE KILLERS. It has become a kind of a given, that SOLAR FAKE will include a cover on each album. And this one is basically a version of the original, which has been beefed up with synth sounds, leaving it resonating not too dissimilar from the prototype. ‘You Need The Drugs’, another cover, this time of WESTBAM’s big hit, from ‘Götterstrasse’, is more palatable and assembled with apt knowledge of the blueprint.
Like with any SOLAR FAKE release, the feeling persists, that perhaps the band, with their strong performances, are more of a live act and are better appreciated when in front of audiences, having toured Europe extensively before the release of ‘Another Manic Episode’ with great success.
The album, being rather compelling, will probably suit younger, less expectant listener.
For the lovers of COMBICHRIST, this is a perfect alternative; angry, in your face and destructive at times, only seldom punctuated with softer, lighter synth.
Whether the claims that the album is their best work to date, are indeed accurate, is debatable; however, the continuing popularity of the group speaks for itself.
For the last eight years, French synthesist Jean-Michel Jarre has mainly focused on his live work and reworking past glories, touring the world with a greatest hits set featuring most of the iconic pieces of equipment that were used on the holy trinity of albums he is most associated with – ‘Oxygène’, ‘Equinoxe’ and ‘Magnetic Fields’.
Despite nearly pushing 70, the creative urge has sparked Jean-Michel Jarre to release some new material and ‘Electronica 1: The Time Machine’ sees his welcome return with 16 tracks and 15 collaborators. Whilst for other artists (hello DURAN DURAN!), the collaboration option is often one which is resorted to a) when the creative fire has started to splutter out and b) when you cynically try to “get down with the kids” to attract a new audience, for Jarre it is the obvious and perfect route to take.
The album was a lengthy four years in the making, mainly because of his insistence to work in the same space as the collaborators, avoiding the internet route preferred by many electronic artists. All of the guests featured here are either ones who Jarre admires or who have been influenced by him, some of them are obvious choices, others are a little left of field, but more on that later.
The opening title track created with BOYS NOIZE is classic Jarre, both compositionally and sound wise, a very hooky melody with driving drums and sequencer parts that keep the piece moving throughout. Entertainment for some can be had on this album by playing synth-spotting and seeing which sounds have been previously been used by Jarre. ‘The Time Machine’ features the Laser Harp sync bass sound used on the second half of the epic ‘Second Rendez-vous’ and works brilliantly here on what is an excellent album opener.
Unfortunately, the M83 song ‘Glory’, as well as being desperately mistitled, kills the momentum generated by the opener and still feels as plodding and pedestrian as when it was released as one of the lead-off tracks of the album earlier in the year. It’s not a bad song per se, it would surely have been preferable to have placed it towards end of the album… so for those of you that love to generate custom Spotify playlists, you know what to do!
The AIR pairing is a musical no-brainer, the duo being arguably the best electronic act to come out of France since Jarre first broke through. ‘Close Your Eyes’ features typical AIR chord progressions and ethereal vocals, both live and vocodered. But the surprise here is the rhythm track which lopes along like something from ‘Autobahn’; this is a good thing though and there are enough musical ideas in this piece which could easily have seen it extended by another 3-4 minutes.
The outro features classic pitch modulated synths and burbling EMS sound effects (both Jarre trademarks) and the song itself is sung from the perspective of a synthesizer “Switch me on, play my song and close your eyes”. On the strength of this track, one can only wish that there could be a whole collaboration album in the pipeline, it’s easily one of the most cohesive fits here and works beautifully.
For many, the Vince Clarke collaboration is a match made in synthetic heaven, and fans will be rewarded with two tracks here – ‘Automatic Part 1’ and ‘Automatic Part 2’. ‘Part 1’ is centred around an electro drum beat before leading seamlessly into ‘Part Two’ which goes 4/4 with the energy level being raised with another classic Jarre melody. Both pieces feature wonderful interlocking sequencer parts and they are everything that a follower of both musicians could hope for.
‘Suns Have Gone’ featuring Moby starts off like a long lost Philip Glass piece, interlocking arpeggios recall the iconic minimalist composer before the former Richard Hall’s world-weary vocals and a solid beat take the track into more into EDM territory, but still with a melancholic feel to it. LITTLE BOOTS, whose recent profile in the UK has waned significantly, pops up with a typical piece of electropop fluff – ‘If..!’ sounds very MARSHEAUX-like in its conception with an ultra-hooky chorus and is only let down by some dubious tuning on some of Miss Hesketh’s ad-lib vocals.
‘Travelator’ is probably the biggest surprise on ‘Electronica 1’; despite being well known for his electronic experiments with THE WHO, few would expect Pete Townsend to appear on a Jarre album. The result is more successful than the pairing would suggest, although the sound of the rock vocalist surrounded by driving synths takes a few listens to get used to!
‘Zero Gravity’ is one of the other collaborations here that got fans of instrumental electronic music excited, it features TANGERINE DREAM and possibly one of the final pieces that Edgar Froese contributed to before sadly passing away earlier this year. Full of classic TD sequencer parts, it takes a few listens to truly appreciate, but once it has sunk in, acts as a fitting memorial.
In many eyes, Jarre is recognised as The Godfather of Trance, so a joint venture with a current artist from that genre would seem like a safe bet. ‘Stardust’ featuring Armin Van Buuren sounds pretty much as you would expect it to, very melodic with a thumping kick, descending synth melody and a hands in the air breakdown section.
The last couple of tracks on ‘Electronica 1’ will be welcomed by those that prefer Jarre’s mainly instrumental work, both the pieces with John Carpener and Lang Lang are truly superb; ‘A Question of Blood’ (given its co-creator’s background) is a movie theme waiting to happen whilst the latter (‘The Train & The River’) combines classical piano over an extended electronic backdrop with one of Jarre’s classic sequencer riffs.
At approximately 4 minutes into ‘The Train & The River’, you WILL get goosebumps when Jarre drops in a descending phased Eminent string chord and just for good measure brings back THAT sync bass sound again… again this is another collaboration that is crying out for more pieces.
The only missed opportunity with ‘The Time Machine’ is that despite many of them being well known in their field, none of Jarre’s collaborators here could be classified as exceptionally strong vocalists; it would have been intriguing to have (for example) someone of the calibre of Susanne Sundfør vocalling, but it’s understandable why he chose the people he did. Jarre has an embarrassment of musical riches here and with more saved up in the bank, a second volume is due next year due to the sheer volume of artists agreeing to work with him like Hans Zimmer, Sebastien Tellier and Gary Numan.
This work, and hopefully ‘Volume 2’, will be a wonderful addition to the tradition and provides what is one of the best electronic albums that you will hear this year. As Jarre himself mentions in his sleeve notes, “Electronic music has a family, a legacy and a future…” and ‘Electronica 1: The Time Machine’ comfortably ticks all three boxes with consummate ease…
‘Electronica 1: The Time Machine’ uses the following electronic instruments: ARP 2600, EMS AKS, EMS VCS3, Fairlight CMI, Minimoog, Memorymoog, Moog Modular 55, RMI Harmonic, Roland Jupiter 8, Korg Micro-Preset, Theremin, Korg MS20, Roland AXS, GRP Modular, Elka Synthex, Laser Harp, Eminent 310, Mininova Vocoder, DigiSequencer, Coupigny GRM, Swarmatron, ARP Omni, ARP Pro-Soloist, ARP Odyssey, Waldorf Blofeld, Alesis Ion, Roland VP330, Virus Access, Clavia Nord Lead 1, Clavia Nord Lead 2, Clavia Nord Lead C2D, Emulator II, Korg PA500, Moog Taurus, Farfisa Pro 2, Vox Continental, Mellotron, Keio Minipops, Korg KR55, Roland TR808, Roland TR909, Roland CR8000, Eko ComputeRhythm, Keio Doncamatic, Linn LM-1, Linn LM-2, Metasonix D1000, Native Instruments Maschine
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. It was their first gig in the capital and with the crowd convinced they were about to witness a mutant Country & Western duo, synthpop’s own Carter & Cash launched into a 45 minute performance of quirky electro with hints of The B-52s.
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