Category: Reviews (Page 18 of 200)

FINLAY SHAKESPEARE Illusion + Memory

26 April 2023 /

A graduate in audio engineering and an independent musical device manufacturer, Finlay Shakespeare founded Future Sound Systems to build modular synthesizer components predominantly for the Eurorack format.

Also a producer of music, Finlay Shakespeare released his first album ‘Domestic Economy’ in 2019 and opened for BLANCMANGE on their ‘Wanderlust’ tour. His second long player ‘Solemnities’ was a more structured progression. Developing on the debut’s complex modular construction and anxious theatrics, it maintained a distinct post-punk anguish that dreamt of wires rather than guitars and was one of the best albums of 2020.

Ultimately, Finlay Shakespeare is an electronic pop fan with a love of KRAFTWERK, THROBBING GRISTLE, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, ASSOCIATES, OMD and JAPAN so with his third album proper ‘Illusion + Memory’, the Bristolian presents his most pop collection of songs yet, continuing the good work showcased on ‘Solemnities’.

Opening with ‘Your Side of the River’, this deep and sombre ballad has hints of the more recent material of BLANCMANGE and THE HUMAN LEAGUE’s early work, while mechanical and call sign elements of OMD’s ‘Dazzle Ships’ album creep in almost unnoticed before a percussive build and a vocal delivery that is more restrained but no less honest than before.

The anguish of the past returns on ‘Always’ but there are exotic melodies and infectious machine rhythms that groove like a more steadfast take on Peter Gabriel’s ‘Shock The Monkey’. In a change from the scheduled programme, a more lovelorn side is revealed on ‘Theresa’ which features a snappy percussive backbone reminiscent of the late Ryuichi Sakamoto and his early standalone solo single ‘Warhead’.

The more experimental ‘Climb’ hits harder techno territory with anxious vocal stylings but on the album’s longest track, ‘Ici’ surprises with bursts of synthbrass and off-beats though a more structured form unveils itself about a third of the way in with squelchy electronic bass and what sounds like guitars. Meanwhile ‘I Saw You’ is shaped by sort the tight frenetic sequences that characterised much of Finlay Shakespeare’s previous work with his typically feisty vocal delivery.

The glorious album highlight ‘Ready Ready’ is almost Motorik in presence with a wonderfully pulsing drive and gorgeous synth tones as our hero doesn’t refrain from his spirited feelings; if this was by NATION OF LANGUAGE, it would be on the BBC 6 Music ‘A’ list. After all the action, ‘Upcoming’ surprises as a sparse ballad with no drum sounds but the tones, sweeps and buzzes form a haunting soundscape of Vangelis proportions to close an excellent album.

If you have enjoyed Finlay Shakespeare’s music before, you will love ‘Illusion + Memory’. Meanwhile, those who have been crying out and bemoaning that there is no good music anymore, well it’s right here. More varied than his previous albums and even introducing a romantic element to proceedings, Finlay Shakespeare has shown again that he is the real deal with a genuine heart for sonically immersive electronic pop.

‘Illusion + Memory’ released by Alter on 28th April 2023, available in vinyl LP and online formats via https://lnk.to/IllusionMemory

http://finlayshakespeare.com/

https://www.facebook.com/FinShakespeare/

https://twitter.com/FinShakespeare

https://www.instagram.com/finlayshakespeare

https://www.futuresoundsystems.co.uk/

https://alterstock.org

https://open.spotify.com/album/2jZ49Dr0AsyPhkC90sj8Ti

Text by Chi Ming Lai
26th April 2023

THEO SAYERS Tough Guys

4 April 2023 /

Ranging in style from hip-hop to electro, from crooner to rap, from grooves to dancey beats, Theo Sayers always applies witty humour and a playful sense of fun to his streetwise take on life.

‘My Nose Is A Little Runny’ from 2020 was his SLEAFORD MODS styled musical response to the worldwide pandemic, but he finally has new material and an album in the can. The first single released from it is ‘Tough Guys’ which also features the voice of former KNIGHT$ live band member Jasmine Brady.

His debut collaboration with Andy Carter who acts as co-producer, ‘Tough Guys’ takes inspiration musically from SOFT CELL and TEARS FOR FEARS while the amusing promo video has been directed by Tyrus.

Taking a break from finishing his upcoming full-length debut album ‘Ramen For Two’ and preparing for his next ‘Old Dreams For A New Age’ radio show on Resonance EXTRA, Theo Sayers kindly spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about the lot of a tough guy…

What is ‘Tough Guys’ about, is the narrative autobiographical?

It’s not autobiographical and I wouldn’t really say there’s a strong narrative. With the song I suppose I wanted to poke fun at traditional ideas of masculinity and toughness, exploring the campiness of that imagery. There’s also subtle political undercurrents, “Fight back at the kingdom” has an air of resistance to it.

Your vocal delivery has been compared to Ian Dury, Jona Lewie, Kate Nash, Mike Skinner and Jason Williamson but who has it actually been most influenced by?

Those are all vocalists I admire and in the video you will, in fact, find me in the kitchen at a party… Haha! Some other vocalists that have strongly influenced me over the years are Terry Hall, Robert Smith and Damon Albarn.

Musically and technically, how was ‘Tough Guys’ seeded?

It actually began a long time ago (sometime in 2018) as a collaboration between me and my friend Andy Carter (who performs under the name COIN OP and appears in the video as the disapproving “tough guy”). We’d recently met and were bonding over a shared love of 80s music and cinema, we were also watching ‘Cobra Kai’ together so perhaps that had an influence.

We created the backing track together, I wrote my vocal part and then invited my friend Jasmine Brady (who previously performed with KNIGHT$) to sing on it. She came up with the lovely vocal hook you hear throughout and the song became the first of our many collaborations. Although it’s long been a staple of our live sets, I haven’t released it until now as admittedly I’m a bit of a perfectionist.

The video was filmed with a camera phone strapped to a waistband mount but you must have had some quite interesting and funny moments wearing it, particularly during the house party scene?

We used an actual camera, not a camera phone! There were many funny moments. Perhaps the unsung hero of the shoot is Rhys Votano (who directed my previous videos and also cameoed as the sleazy guy in ‘My Nose Is A Little Runny’), during the handlebar scenes he was actually underneath me, lifting me up. Later on at the party, he made a lot of fuss about being stuck with that role. Poor Rhys hahaha…

Are you sending up Vlogger/Influencer culture? Have people become too self-obsessed and narcissistic in their attempts to set up “a brand”?

You know, I hadn’t actually thought of that. I do think there’s a very toxic side to that culture though, especially the toxic male influencers like Andrew Tate. They deserve all the ridicule they can get!

How is your debut album ‘Ramen For Two’ coming along?

Very well! There’s just a few more tracks that require mastering so an actual release date will be set in stone soon. There will also be more videos!

‘Tough Guys’ b/w ‘Tell Me I’m A Super Lover’ is available via the usual digital platforms including Bandcamp at https://theosayers.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/theosayersmusic/

https://twitter.com/theosayers

https://www.instagram.com/theosayers/

https://linktr.ee/theosayers

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0iaqiCh8ozGLtdBjR7BdZJ

Text by Chi Ming Lai
4th April 2023

GEISTE Ashes EP

31 March 2023 /

Having opened for EMIKA at the Berlin-based producer’s most recent London gig at the end of 2019, it is fitting that GEISTE has her new EP ‘Ashes’ released on Emika Records.

“She never let go of the little child within her” her new label boss Ema Jolly aka EMIKA said, “telling the story through her music of how we as children of this planet, destroy our Earth but never let go of hope in order to start again and learn to live in harmony with ourselves”. Reviewing her 2020 debut EP ‘Utopia’, ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK had suggested that if JRR Tolkien had manufactured pop stars, he would have come up with GEISTE.

Born in the south of France, GEISTE is the nom de théâtre of Marie Chabrelie and her voice has drawn comparisons with Cat Power and Lorde. Seeded during the pandemic, the isolation while observing world events brought inspiration through upset and rage.

On board ‘Ashes’ to develop the fragile but fiery sound of GEISTE is Finnish co-producer Karri Mikkonen, noted for his work in modern South East Asian pop. With a sparse backdrop comprising of an ivory motif, the title song sets the scene with an emotive chill, washes of virtual strings and haunting layers of voices. ‘Immortal’ allows for some artful playfulness in its intro before the song moves into the epic Nordic territory reminiscent of Susanne Sundfør.

A key number is ‘Golden’ which exudes the confident artist who has developed since ‘Utopia’; it features a superb vocal delivery on top of an expansive filmic arrangement, highlighting the sonic leap nurtured in collaboration with Karri Mikkonen. Playing with more organic textures, ‘Until I Come Back’ is heartfelt, but punctuated with alternating rhythmic passages, ‘22 59’ veers into prog rock with an unexpected guitar solo.

Closing proceedings, the angelic ‘Wake Me Up’ is neo-acapella with some gorgeous harmonies but halfway through comes a steady percussive build towards a widescreen crescendo.

Mixing lush electronically constructed soundscapes, appropriate beat mantras and powerful poetic prose, ‘Ashes’ is as bewitching as past GEISTE works. But thanks to the input of Karri Mikkonen and Ema Jolly, a new maturity has emerged that has allowed Marie Chabrelie to express herself in an even more direct honest fashion while still retaining her fantasial mystery.

‘Ashes’ is released as a digital EP via Emika Records

https://www.geistemusic.com/

https://www.facebook.com/geistefromashes/

https://twitter.com/geistefromashes

https://www.instagram.com/geistefromashes/

https://open.spotify.com/album/13SzMuLSScomFTfGvPP4th

Text by Chi Ming Lai
31st March 2023

JOHN FOXX The Arcades Project

27 March 2023 /

Following the release of the fierce guitar driven excursion of ‘Howl’ in 2020, John Foxx returns to more sedate relief of minimal ambient.

In the aural lineage of ‘Transluscence’, ‘Drift Music’ and ‘Nighthawks’, ‘The Arcades Project’ can be seen as a John Foxx’s tribute to the late Harold Budd. The sumptuous earlier trilogy saw two artists, who had working with Brian Eno in common, placing tinkling ivories into tranquil soundscapes. This new work is the first ever John Foxx solo piano album although subtle electronics play their part.

Inspired by Walter Benjamin’s ‘The Arcades Project’ which gathered new ideas emerging from Paris in the 19th and early 20th century, its city focus recalls Foxx’s 2015 ambient released ‘London Overgrown’ although that imagined a future in a derelict capital where vines and shrubbery grew unhindered.

‘A Formal Arrangement’ sets that spacious glistening scene and in places hints at the haunting air of Estonian composer Avro Pärt’s ‘Frates’. ‘Floral Arithmetic’ cascades its ivories over sustained synth shimmers while ‘Daylight Ghost’ pays homage to the Harold Budd collaboration with Brian Eno ‘Plateaux Of Mirror’ via its sumptuous soft pedal. ‘In All Your Glory’ has lullaby qualities but the synthy ambience of ‘Last Golden Light’ sees its piano set to almost zero.

Across its ethereal backdrop, ‘Momentary Paris’ provides windy sweeps while ‘Forgotten In Manhattan’ is a cool reminder of the magnificence of the ‘Transluscence’ album along with ‘The Sea Inside’. The filmic ‘Lovers And Strangers’ adds some drama to proceedings although ‘Starlit Summer Night’ keeps up the soothing atmospheres to provide its own dose of tingles. More reminiscent of ‘London Overgrown’, the notes of ‘Coincidentalism’ are sparing but immersed in reverb, the minimal ‘This Evening’ provides a fitting closer.

Benjamin’s book offered Parisians a chance to “meander, dream, gather impressions” through rows of shops and elegant apartments, so Foxx has responded with “immediate, often imperfect, gestural fragments of music and atmosphere that might allude to some momentary experience – a chance meeting, a glimpse into a garden, a coincidence, a life behind a window revealed at twilight, someone indistinct. And it all comes from walking.”

The end result is that ‘The Arcades Project’ is an immensely satisfying listen to assist an escape from all the self-serving modern day madness. “With the piano and the help of some old electronics”, this is another beautiful addition to the thoughtful corridor of the John Foxx tradition.

‘The Arcades Project’ is released on 31st March 2023 by Metamatic Records as a CD + digital download, pre-order from https://johnfoxx.tmstor.es/

http://www.metamatic.com/

https://www.facebook.com/johnfoxxmetamatic

https://twitter.com/foxxmetamedia

https://www.instagram.com/johnfoxxofficial/

https://johnfoxx.bandcamp.com/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
27th March 2023

808 DOT POP Pop Radio – FM 88.2, AM 1350 + MW720

23 March 2023 /

After several years of travel restrictions, it is time to be passengers again.

For Belgium’s favourite passengers METROLAND, not only is there a new album ‘0’ but simultaneously, their Passenger S presents his second solo record as 808 DOT POP entitled ‘Pop Radio’. While not quite the same as when all four KISS members issued solo albums on the same day in September 1978, with the online music world saturated with product, one release has the potential to fall into the cracks of the listening sofa.

While METROLAND have gone for the countdown concept, 808 DOT POP celebrates the joy of the airwaves with three different radio band variants with ‘AM 1350’ and ‘FM 88.2’ in continuous compact disc formats and ‘MW 720’ as a digital download with tracks as separate entities. So welcome to 808 pop radio…

With a celebration of radio reminiscent of KRAFTWERK and OMD, the sound is naturally vintage electronic music with key analogue melodies. The ‘Pop Radio’ show idea was seeded when Passenger S sought permission from Andy McCluskey to cover ‘Radio Waves’ from OMD’s ‘Dazzle Ships’; but the reworking was dropped in favour of material inspired by it. Among the themes are crystal radios, noted radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi, Heinrich Hertz who discovered radio waves and the voice of Radio België, Jan Moedwil.

All formats begin with variants of ‘Pop Radio’, a call sign à la ‘Radio Prague’ off ‘Dazzle Ships’ but across the concept, ‘Marconi’, a girly techpop excursion courtesy of Lis van den Akker hails the joy of transmission via melodies and morse in radioland.

Not a KRAFTWERK cover, ‘Antenna’ bases itself around sparse circular structures and vox humana synthesis although an extended uptempo motorik passage provides a nice surprise. Celebrating the ‘Cat’s Whisker’ semi-conductor diode in crystal radios, this track similarly plays with pulsing tempo variation over a lengthy excursion with echoes of the late Klaus Schulze and his ‘Crystal Lake’ on its conclusion.

In ‘Modulation’, there is a touching homage to ‘Europa Endlos’ reworked with ‘Expo 2000’ in mind while danceable hypnotic resonances and retro-futuristic votrax colour ‘Syntonic Telegraphy’. ‘Shumann Resonanz’ rumbles across many frequencies but there’s a pulsating Open University lecture in ‘Crystal Radio’ that requires “no batteries or amplifier”.

‘Capacitor’ sparkles in its arpeggios at the start before a darker speedy mutation segues into the bubbling Industrielle Volksmusik of ‘Distant Voices’ earthily voiced by Lis van den Akker. Dealing with noise and interference, ‘Sinpo’ takes a more sombre tone with gothic choirs in evidence alongside the sparkles.

A highlight of ‘Pop Radio’ but exclusive to the ‘AM 1350’ set, the infectious ‘AM/FM’ gets the robo-funk on to an electro beat while also only available in AM, ‘Radio Waves’ comes over like DIE KRUPPS offshoot and Alfa Matrix label mates DIE ROBO SAPIENS in places. There’s also the propulsive ‘Jan Moedwil (Radio België)’ but ‘The Detector’ sees another honest and delivery from Lis van den Akker while the track itself recalls the YAZOO inspired Swedish duo ALISON.

Exclusive to ‘FM 88.2’, the photoelectric ‘Heinrich Hertz’ is from a similar lineage to METROLAND’s ‘Harry Beck’ but countering it, ‘Österreich 3’ has more eerie atmospheres to accompany its beats. There is certainly a lot of music to get through on ‘Pop Radio’ and with a METROLAND album too, enthusiasts of Passenger S have got themselves a boxed set in all but name this Spring.

‘Pop Radio’ is released on 25th March 2023 by Alfa Matrix in ‘POP.823 – FM 88.2’ or ‘POP.824 – AM 1350’ CD and ‘POP.822 – MW720’ download variants

The 808 DOT POP / METROLAND 4CD bundle including the FM and AM variants of ‘Pop Radio’, ‘0’ + the ‘X’ megamix collection is available from https://store.alfa-matrix-store.com/product/metroland-808-dot-pop-exclusive-pre-order-cd-pack/

https://808dotpop.com/

https://www.facebook.com/808dotpop/

Text by Chi Ming Lai
23rd March 2023

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