Fresh from the artistic and critical high of ‘Splinter (Songs From A Broken Mind)’, Gary Numan has finally unleashed his twentieth album ‘Savage (Songs From A Broken World)’ following a prolonged Pledge Music campaign.
While its predecessor was a very personal record, ‘Savage’ looks at wider environmental issues. Based on an unpublished novel that the former Gary Webb had been working on, the album was conceived around a post-apocalyptic world reduced to desert as a result of global warming.
Provoked to completion by Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the United States of America from the Paris Climate Accord, Numan said: “The songs are about the things that people do in such a harsh and terrifying environment” because “the world’s leaders had failed to stop the rising temperature of the planet until it became an unstoppable catastrophe”.
The stark opener ‘Ghost Nation’ doesn’t stray too far from the formula of ‘Splinter’, but while the ghostly Middle Eastern flavoured launch single ‘My Name Is Ruin’ (featuring the eerie vocals of his daughter Persia) might be borrowing large chunks of ‘Love Hurt Bleed’ and is as Numan put it himself “more of the same”, several songs on ‘Savage’ highlight a breadth of diversity.
The mighty apocalyptic rock of ‘When The World Comes Apart’ is a revelation, primarily because of its use of synths as the dominant instrument, with guitars less obviously prominent in the mix. Add in the bonus of a richly anthemic chorus, and this is one song that will satisfy Numanoids, old and new.
Then there’s the brooding atmospheres of ‘Bed Of Thorns’ where there is space for traditional melismatic female voice samples alongside screeching vox humana synths and assorted guitar textures. Meanwhile ‘The End of Things’ captivatingly utilises deep choral moods and metallic chimes in between cavernous rhythmic cocoons where Numan despairs that “Everything I fight for leaves a bitter taste”.
But it’s the hauntingly beautiful ballad ‘And It All Began With You’ that stops all in its tracks, with an exposed and soulful vocal. With a slight hint of ‘Wicked Game’ (a favourite song of both Numan and his wife Gemma) in its chorus, it is a song equal to anything he has done in his career. With classic CP30 sounds that go all discordant, combined with subtle orchestrations and a gentle shuffling beat, producer Ade Fenton does a brilliant job bringing out the best in classic Numan while still maintaining forward momentum.
Religion is a recurring Numan theme and it pops up again on ‘Mercy’ and ‘What God Intended’; while both exude the expected percussive midtempo darkness, electronics are the main driving force; indeed it is a pleasant surprise not to be hearing overbearing goth metal guitar continually penetrating into proceedings, as on some of the more recent Numan albums.
The stabbing synthesized spikes of ‘Pray For The Pain You Serve’ lift the energy spectrum with Numan’s cry of “I belong here with the fallen”, before ‘Savage’ closes with the anguished resignation of ‘Broken’. The sombre lengthy instrumental intro, with its thoughtfully crafted widescreen sound design, could easily soundtrack a bleak Hollywood Sci-Fi epic, while ‘At The Heart Of It All’ by NINE INCH NAILS springs to mind when the desolate beats kick in.
Some have referred to DEPECHE MODE’s ‘Spirit’ as dystopian… no, it is ‘Savage’ that paints a scary dystopian future much more vividly. But most importantly, it does so with melody, something that was severely lacking in Gahan, Gore and Fletcher’s lame folly.
Heavy but emotive, aggressive but sensitive, electronic but organic, ‘Savage (Songs From A Broken World)’ is thematically and musically the closest Gary Numan has come to ‘Replicas’. As the powers that be square off along the 38th Parallel hell bent on world destruction, it captures the horrifying spectre of a world with nothing left to live for except survival.
Nearly forty years on from the first TUBEWAY ARMY album, Gary Numan shows he is still capable a springing a surprise, with a significant number of songs from ‘Savage‘ even surpassing the highlights on the creative rebirth that was ‘Splinter’.
Cardiff Tramshed (30th September), Bournemouth O2 Academy (2nd October), Leeds O2 Academy (3rd October), Bristol Colston Hall (5th October), Oxford O2 Academy (6th October), Nottingham Rock City (7th October), Newcastle O2 Academy (9th October), Glasgow O2 ABC (10th October), Birmingham O2 Institute (11th October), Manchester Academy (13th October), Brixton O2 Academy (14th October), Brighton Dome (16th October), Norwich Nick Rayns LCR (17th October), Southend Cliffs Pavilion (18th October), Leuven Het Depot (19th October), Paris Le Trabendo (20th October), Amsterdam Paradiso (21st October), Bratislava Majestic (24th October), Cologne Essigfabrik (25th October), Berlin Columbia Theater (26th October), Lodz Klub Wytwornia (27th October),
Possibly one of the best electronic albums of 2017, ‘Zombies 1985’ is the latest release by I SPEAK MACHINE, the enticing audio / visual collaboration between musician Tara Busch and filmmaker Maf Lewis.
‘Zombies 1985’ tells the story of greed and self-obsession in Thatcher’s Britain as a businessman drives home, oblivious to the zombie apocalypse going on around him. The live score was performed with the film by Busch as the opening act at UK and US shows with Gary Numan in 2015; the film incidentally also features his three daughters in cameo roles.
The soundtrack itself is a musical collaboration with Benge Edwards, best known for his work as a member of WRANGLER and JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS. But what had been intended to be a more abstract EP turned into a full length album, bolstered by superb mutant electronic pop songs like ‘Blood From A Stone’, ‘Shame’ and ‘Demon Days’. The end result will no doubt satisfy the curiosity of those with a penchant for stranger things.
I SPEAK MACHINE kindly chatted about the creative in-roads that led to their own day of the dead…
Tara, you’ve worked under your own name, as ANALOG SUICIDE and was a member of DYNAMO DRESDEN. How does I SPEAK MACHINE differ from all those?
Tara: Well, all four differ quite a bit from each other – one is a blog, the other is a band, and the other a rather leftfield film / music project. Prepare for a long answer!
DYNAMO DRESDEN was formed in 2001 with Maf and another producer/ engineer named Rohan Tarry. It was a particularly great learning experience for me as it was the first electronic project I was ever involved in that I liked; Maf and Ro were quite accomplished as producers and in the music business with Maf’s label, Plastic Raygun. I had come over to the UK from North Carolina after being in loads of bands and working as a session singer and was thrilled to finally get out of the States and be in a country that created the music I love the most.
It was a sample-based downtempo electronica that was hugely influenced by THE AVALANCHES and AIR’s ‘Moon Safari’.
ANALOG SUICIDE was a blog that Maf and I started in 2007 just for fun, and in my case, to learn more about synthesizers and production – I thought that if I found it interesting, perhaps some other people might? I would seek out artists I loved and interview them about their creative process and “how they got that sound” – sometimes visiting their studios or interviewing them on camera.
We also did a big series of gear videos, interviews and “making of” videos for remixes and songs on my “tarabusch” Youtube channel. It got to where it’s taken a backseat as other projects became more important and I became less interested in making videos that involved me talking to the camera. It’s a huge commitment to keep up a big blog and do it properly, so now it’s more of a so-called personal creative diary about how I make music, etc that I update from time to time.
I released a solo album on Tummy Touch Records, ‘Pilfershire Lane’ in 2009 after DYNAMO DRESDEN disbanded and Maf and I moved to the States. I was very intent on writing, engineering and producing the album myself. I had previously worked with several producers in my attempt to make a solo album, all of which were classic situations where they would take what I was trying to create and go a completely different direction with it. I just wanted to make what was in my mind, so I had to learn how to do it. Anyway – I threw as many learning curves at myself as possible, for better or for worse!
It was about as “psychedelic rock” of an album as I’d ever make, very influenced by ‘Pet Sounds’ and ‘Dark Side of the Moon’. It was lovingly maddening process, my first where I felt I was just finding my own voice at the age of 33 and really truly being in control of what I wanted to create and being totally obsessed with the process. Perhaps someday I’ll make another“Tara Busch” album.
I SPEAK MACHINE is, first of all, is a multimedia film / music project – Maf does the film component and I the music. Our basis for every project is that we try to create both components in tandem with each other so that neither are an afterthought. Then, the films are screened with me playing the score live. We don’t screen the films without the score – the only way to see them is our live shows. We also are quite keen to bring other collaborators in – I feel this project has a far more open minded creative approach than anything else I’ve ever done. We release our soundtracks on Lex Records.
You first became more widely known within the electronic community when you recorded ‘Where You End & I Begin’ with JOHN FOXX & THE MATHS?
Tara: Luke Turner from The Quietus contacted me to see if I’d like to come record a piece with John and Benge, to have featured on their site. Of course I jumped at the chance! It was fantastic to work with the both of them, and turned out to be a great ongoing personal and working relationship, especially with Benge.
This led to you reinterpreting ‘My Sex’ and ‘I Want To Be A Machine’ for the ‘Exponentialism’ tribute EP. What was it like to tackle two cult classics from the first ULTRAVOX! long player?
Tara: When covering songs, I always try to start with a totally clean slate and approach it as if someone gave me the song to produce as my own – to “adopt it”, so to speak. I don’t see the point in doing a “sound-alike” of someone else’s work. It has to be something I can really pump a lot of blood and guts into!
And with these two songs, I was lucky – they both hit me hard right off the bat. Both have such profoundly beautiful lyrics that I as a vocalist I was chomping at the bit to sing…. my production on ‘My Sex’ came together pretty quickly as I felt a super filthy, crunchy, slimy bass would be perfect, a bit like a crumbly, concrete wall under the vocal line, and drums that punch so hard they could give you a bloody lip (I hoped so, anyway).
‘I Want To Be Machine’ was a lot more stubborn – I wrestled with it for a good month until one day, totally frustrated, I picked up this SK1 that I had neglected for so long that the batteries inside of it were corroded. I had Logic going, plugged it in and turned it on, so I could record any odd sounds it might make when switching it on – and lo and behold, it makes a noise like a blender being chucked in a bathtub – and off I went. But that song took ages. You basically have to distance yourself from the originals and trust that you can hopefully create something that does it justice.
You’re no stranger to covers and a wide spectrum of classics such as ‘Cars’ and ‘The Sound Of Silence’ formed part of your Troika! live set. You’ve also recorded songs like ‘Our House’ by MADNESS and ‘Let’s Go To Bed’ by THE CURE in your own style, what attracted you to these songs?
Tara: It’s just so random how I choose these things. Sometimes I’ll hear the song in the grocery store (as is the case with ‘Our House’) and think “YES. I want to dissect this!”… or I’m just messing around in the studio and I start singing the line over something I have cooking, as is the case with ‘Cars’, ‘Ticket to Ride’ and ‘The Sound Of Silence’. With those, I also was creating my live set, so I wanted to add those as pieces that were just the synths and my voice, no samples or backing tracks.
It must have been interesting to perform ‘Cars’ in front of Numanoids when you toured with Gary Numan?
Tara: I was pleasantly surprised by how well it went down with Gary and his fans! Performing something as brilliant as ‘Cars’ where the original is so perfect is scary but thrilling. It was a bit surreal playing it and seeing Gary, Gemma and the band in the wings watching me…it was lovely.
Have you any more covers you would like to do?
Tara: Every day one pops into my head, but I have to discipline myself to steer the focus towards my own work! The ‘Dr Who’ theme was in my head in a loop for days after they announced the new doctor! Also, there’s a lovely Skeeter Davis song, ‘The End Of The World’ that I would love to do and I’ve always wanted to do Nick Cave’s ‘People Ain’t No Good’. Also a very morbid version of ‘Here Comes the Sun’ would be fun, since I’m not a fan of the California summers. I really enjoy covering songs that are radically different from what I write myself.
How did you both conceive ‘Zombies 1985’?
Maf: Zombies are my favorite monster, as they’ve often been used as a reflection of our culture. I wanted to turn it around a bit and tell a story against the background of the emerging zombie apocalypse, and a man (Steve) who is so self-obsessed and greedy that he doesn’t notice it happening around him. He sees everyone else as a zombie, because they are not as driven and ambitious, but ultimately he is the zombie, both figuratively and literally. Also, who doesn’t want to make, be in, write the score to a zombie film? We had the idea to set it in 1985, as Tara and Benge wanted to be really strict with the score, with everything was created on pre 1985 equipment.
You opted to crowdfund ‘Zombies 1985’, what were the pros and cons?
Tara: We didn’t ask for a huge sum, and we got what we needed in a couple of days – then it went continued and luckily wound up raising a lot more than our goal. It made it so that everyone could get paid decently at least. The pros are of course that you can fund projects you love, but the cons – you really have to, for want of a better word – do quite the sh*t ton of whoring for the 3 weeks or so that you have to raise funds. And it can be stressful as everything hinges on being able to raise those funds.
The first three tracks on ‘Zombies 1985’ are distinctly soundtrack based while the rest of the material comprises of various song-based formats. How and why did the project expand?
Tara: It happened pretty organically. Benge and I had always wanted to write together, so we took the opportunity to do so here, by expanding on the ‘Zombies 1985’ world. I wanted to create something of an “imaginary soundtrack”, something that the characters in the film would have been listening to in 1985. So, after we finished the score, we remotely wrote 6 more songs. I guess we just had a bit more to express, and we wanted to explore more of a Chris & Cosey, Grace Jones, Gary Numan, CABARET VOLTAIRE sort of territory.
What was the general creative dynamic between you, Maf and Benge?
Tara: Well, I feel a great equilibrium myself with Benge and Maf of this project – there was no one person that was anointed “boss”. Benge and I write very easily together, I guess there’s a lot of respect between the three of us and a lot of humor! Benge and Maf are both incredibly skilled at what they do, so it’s also a great learning experience. I don’t ever feel like “the woman in the back of the studio waiting to sing over some guy’s tracks”. It all feels very natural and equal, as it should.
The album had an artistic self-imposed restriction of using only “1985 period equipment”. Which synths and bits of gear came to be your favourites to give you the textures you wanted?
Tara: SO many! Benge has some incredible machines, and I’ve recently come into a nice handful myself, so it was a blast to work with these “personnel”, so to speak.
The one that stood out for me the most was Benge’s ARP 2500 – it’s like conversing with a beautiful ghost – I mean, this was the machine they used in ‘Close Encounters Of The Third Kind’ to communicate with the aliens! It brought tears to my eyes to play it.
I had also just adopted an ARP 2600, Roland SH5, 808, Oberheim 2 voice and a Model D in my own studio, which I used a lot on the songs we did remotely. Benge used an Oberheim DMX on the soundtrack part of the score, and I loved it so much I ran out and grabbed one myself. Anything by Oberheim is gorgeous though!
And of course my ever -present Pro One. I always have to pinch myself that I own these things and get to work with them. The restriction wasn’t too big a deal, as I now tend to use machines that are pre ’85 most of the time anyway… except for my laptop of course!
‘Shame’ recalls ‘Hot On The Heels Of Love’ by THROBBING GRISTLE, what first drew you to that early British electronic experimentation?
Tara: Thanks, that’s a big compliment! That is one of those “holy grail” songs for me – if I live to write anything even half that beautiful, I’ll be pleased. Anyway – when Benge and I wanted to expand the score into an album with extra songs, that was just simply the atmosphere that we wanted to call upon – THROBBING GRISTLE, CHRIS & COSEY etc.
Meanwhile, ‘Trouble’ appears to have been inspired by ‘No-One Receiving’ by BRIAN ENO?
Tara: I shamefully admit I’m not familiar with that song! I must research… ‘Trouble’ was the first of the songs we did together, in fact it’s the one that did not adhere to the “early industrial” vibe I was after. But it just came out that way, more atmospheric and mellow.
‘Demon Days’ does what it says on the tin, what was the genesis of that one?
Tara: That plays over the ending credits, it closes the film. I pulled components of the score out to create a cohesive song – and the lyrics are about how much I hate summer (or in general hot weather) in LA.
We were doing a residency of shows with Gary in LA at the same time I was writing that, and I think ‘Down In The Park’ was creeping around in my head a lot at the time! That was very much influenced by ‘Replicas’- era Numan.
‘Blood From A Stone’ is a brilliant track and has this eerie early GOLDFRAPP feel?
Tara: Thank you! I’m not totally sure what influenced me here if that’s what you’re asking; most likely I was happily overdosing on GAZELLE TWIN at the time or THE KNIFE… I was really into bleak, dark, disorientating artists at the time, GAZELLE TWIN being my favorite.
I love GOLDFRAPP, but they’re not in the front of my mind as an influence – it’s odd… I think people compare me a lot to Alison Goldfrapp because we have the same vocal range, we’re both women and synths are involved? Women get clumped together like that constantly, and it’s bizarre – I guess that’s another topic for another time.
Production-wise, this was the first one I got to use my 808 on as well which was a huge thrill – it sounds so meaty and satisfying.
You’re an Anglophile but on ‘Petrified Mind’, you seem to head towards more Stateside vibes. Who were your influences on that track?
Tara: That was a straight up Peter Murphy imitation, actually. I was listening to ‘Third Uncle’, ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’ and wanted something boomy and gloomy like that. So I’m still straight up Anglophile, no worries there.
What are your own favourites on ‘Zombies 1985’?
Tara: ‘New Dawn’ has taken on an even more disturbing context since the so-called US election. It reminds me of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ more and more each time I listen to it. That’s my current favorite, plus ‘Gone To LA’ and ‘Shame’.
How is the ‘Deep Clean’ project with KITE BASE who you toured with, coming along?
Tara: I believe they’re in the process of filming it! More to come, not sure I can say much else about it, other than I’m very excited to work with Kendra and Ayşe from KITE BASE – I absolutely adore them as artists and humans.
What else is next for you?
Tara: ISM are working on 2 new short films this summer, one with Raven Numan who impressed us so much in ‘Zombies 1985’, we wanted to work with her again, and an animated project with our label Lex and comic book illustrator/ writer/ director Tommy Lee Edwards.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its sincerest thanks to I SPEAK MACHINE
Zeus B Held is the veteran German producer and remixer who has been a key presence in the development of electronic pop music.
Making his name as a keyboard player in the progressive rock band BIRTH CONTROL, he later progressed as a session musician, solo artist and producer. His vocoder layered cover of THE BEATLES’ ‘Fool On The Hill’ became a favourite of Belgian sibling duo SOULWAX.
His production breakthrough came from working with GINA X PERFORMANCE in 1979 when the single ‘No GDM’ became an underground club favourite. As a result, he worked with the likes of FASHION, DEAD OR ALIVE, DIE KRUPPS and John Foxx while also remixing ALPHAVILLE, SIMPLE MINDS and Gary Numan. Other acts who benefited from his musicality and sound design were MEN WITHOUT HATS, SPEAR OF DESTINY, TRANSVISION VAMP and Nina Hagen.
Later, Held moved into more jazzy grooves and while resident in Australia, he led a World Music collective featuring Aboriginal musicians and released an album called ‘Digital Dreaming’. He returned to electronic music in 2015 with the release of ‘Logic of Coincidence’ via Les Disques du Crépuscule, a largely ambient imaginary film soundtrack.
Almost simultaneously, he teamed up with former TANGERINE DREAM member Steve Schroyder to form the appropriately named DREAM CONTROL. The pair are releasing their first album ‘Zeitgeber’, a largely uptempo electronic record that could potentially satisfy the headspaces of proggers and the feet of clubbers.
While in the UK on a short promotional trip for ‘Zeitgeber’, Zeus B Held kindly stopped for coffee to chat to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about DREAM CONTROL and his vast production portfolio.
You took a break into jazz and world music, what has brought you back into working in electronic pop again?
After I left England in 2003, I did a few different things like working around the ZKM Karlsruhe on more theoretical aspects of music and teaching. Call this lecturing “transfer of knowledge” which is ok and I still do it, but I am more interested in making music. In 2013, I had four weeks in Japan where I locked myself away with a couple of synthesizers; I really enjoyed that and rediscovered that it was the core of what I do best and what I want to do. This is what became ‘Logic Of Coincidence’.
Did the improvements in digital technology make your return much easier?
Not really, because the actual physical hands-on experience when you work with sequencers, moving sliders and twiddling knobs is a much more sensual action than if you programme it or do it with a mouse. I think there’s a big difference, like between virtual and real action-response.
I started the album with lots of virtual instruments, a master keyboard and a Moog Source. Then I replaced them slowly and as I was doing this, it confirmed my thoughts about the differences between the virtual and real thing.
I remember a time when I was a bit tired of those sounds, not realising that these sounds were the signature of what I’ve been doing! And it took a few years for me to realise those are my tools! And that’s what happened in the solitude of my Japanese hut…
What synths do you have?
I still have a Minimoog, Moog Source, Prophet VS, Oberheim 4 Voice, PPG wave, Korg Prophecy and through Steve, I got access to the Memory Moog which is an amazing machine. I also have a collection of rack mounted synths including a Nordlead and an Oberheim DBX1. But there are some instruments which I sold – that I shouldn’t have, but there you go…
Which ones do you regret selling then?
Oh, the Polymoog and the ARP 2600 which I am looking to getting back, or something similar. I went to this year’s Superbooth in Berlin and I could see there is a new wave of old style analogue synths coming up from all over the world; it’s been a really good experience to meet so many other synthesizer freaks.
What is the direction you are taking in DREAM CONTROL, how different is it from ‘Logic Of Coincidence’?
It was amazing that Steve’s and my life were running parallel without us ever meeting each other and incredibly, he also lives in Freiburg, streets away where I am now. So it happened to be another ‘Logic Of Coincidence’ *laughs*
On our first studio session, we played around with some chords and rhythms – I played various synths and piano, added some sequences and experimented with vocoder lines. It all fitted and we both really enjoyed this new form of jamming and improvising on the spot, sometimes being amazed how our individual music and sound became one… you listen, you play and you answer, you throw a ball in, it’s just playing and responding. And that is something me and Steve can do on all kind of electronic instruments. When you create music, it should be playful.
How would you describe the sound of ‘Zeitgeber’, given Steve’s history with TANGERINE DREAM and your own background?
This album has a lot of energy in it, definitely not just a dreamy ambient album. Steve introduced me to the natural law of the “Cosmic Octave”, which is a different approach to frequency and rhythm definition.
After I experienced the difference to the standard concert pitch, I was happy to do the entire ‘Zeitgeber’ album with this method. And yes, you can hear the difference. Overall it is an instrumental album with a good deal of vocoder. There is also assorted overtone singing and some other vocal elements by two female singers.
Because of our name and history, we decided to rework one TANGERINE DREAM song and one BIRTH CONTROL song ‘Gamma Ray’, although later we dropped the TD track from this album.
Is ‘Kant Can Dance’ representative of the album?
I would say yes and no! It is the existing link to my ‘Logic of Coincidence’ album, but it’s in the spirit of us both. ‘Gamma Ray’ and ‘Kant Can Dance’ are the more accessible tracks of the album. The other tracks, like for example ‘Tomaga’ are deeper journeys into sound and unknown spaces.
Although you served your apprenticeship with BIRTH CONTROL, you went solo…
BIRTH CONTROL was a progressive rock band, doing lots of gigs all over Europe, but mainly in Germany. I was always doing my 15 to 20 minute keyboard solo which actually became my first solo album! *laughs*
Slowly I was moving more into electronics, away from the EMERSON, LAKE & PALMER and DEEP PURPLE thing. By pure coincidence, I became neighbours with Conny Plank’s studio and I realised that you can do different sound work in the studio and that’s how I did my solo stuff; I discovered the vocoder which made me develop my own singing approach – and guess, I was glad not to have to deal with a singer’s ego! *laughs*
With electronic pop producers of the era like yourself, Mike Howlett, Trevor Horn, Stephen J Lipson and Steve Hillage, there appears to be this connection with progressive rock?
I am sure there is a theoretical connection, the spirit of the time. But for me, it was my own development from thinking in chords, melodies and the traditional compositional building blocks to learn how to work with sequencers, machines and multi-tracks; I remember very well when I did this 2 minute track ‘M.P.C.’ on BIRTH CONTROL’s ‘Rebirth’ album, by discovering the Mellotron. I spontaneously put strings, flute sounds and choir together and played an impressionistic piano on top, all in an hour, while the other guys were having lunch. I got so inspired by sounds and multi-tracking, I learned to understand the studio as an instrument.
You became more widely known in the UK for producing GINA X PERFORMANCE and ‘No GDM’, what was the creative dynamic between you and her?
I wanted to make an album with vocoder, drums and only synthesizers and I wanted to make it really cold, no bluesy chords or melodies, no guitar and nothing rocky. I had in mind science fiction inspired tracks, also possible songs for the ROCKETS next album. Gina was an art student and was really into cutting edge art and music.
We became a creative unit and I invited her into the studio, maybe to put some spoken words on the recordings – she developed from this, her own way of singing. With ‘No GDM’, she wrote the lyrics in the café upstairs of the Cologne Studio Am Dom after she saw the ‘Naked Civil Servant’ film; so when she stepped in front of the microphone she transformed herself as well as the track. She put that particular life into my music, effortless and free of clichés.
What were peoples’ reactions to what you both did?
It was an amazing experience for both of us, but at first, nobody was interested because this was a non pigeon hole-able unheard music. I’ll never forget when this studio mastering engineer in Cologne put the ‘Nice Mover’ album on the spectrum analyser and said “Look here at the frequencies, this can’t work! Nobody wants to listen to that!”*laughs*
But we found a little label and suddenly people started to like it. It came from three places where we had the best feedback; there was Rusty Egan and The Blitz Club, Austrian main radio where it entered the charts and Canada… this all took about a year to happen.
So this led to you coming to the UK and working with Birmingham band FASHION?
What also led me to FASHION was my vocoder production for a French / Italian band called ROCKETS. I went to the Midem, the annual music event in Cannes, to sell my first solo album and I passed this stand where I saw a video with five silver painted guys playing a slightly futuristic rock song ‘Future Woman’ using a voice box.
I thought “this would be so much better with a vocoder” and I asked to speak to their manager – after he heard my stuff, I was in. A week later, I was in Paris recording a cover of CANNED HEAT’s ‘On The Road Again’ and it became the ROCKETS’ big European hit.
FASHION heard this and also liked GINA X PERFORMANCE – so eventually a guy from Arista Records asked me to listen to their demos and I liked it. I particularly liked it because Dee Harris, the main songwriter and front man, also played a wicked Roland guitar synth in a slightly jazz-funky way; in those days the only other guitar synth player I knew was Pat Metheny on his group’s ‘Offramp’ album. The ‘Fabrique’ album was recorded in Cologne, Paris and London, it was nicely developed over six months.
You also worked on the next FASHION album ‘Twilight Of Idols’ which closed with the brilliant instrumental title track…
Well… ‘Twilight Of Idols’ was FASHION Mark 2, it’s OK, but for me it was a compromise. The second version of FASHION with Alan Darby on guitar and vocals and songs like ‘Hurricane’, for me, it was stylistically too close to the overcrowded field of mainstream rock.
FASHION’s first album with Dee Harris was his subtle funk and jazzy chord structures, influenced by American songwriting and this particular mixture of electronics from me applying my Germanic sequencers. Lately, 35 years after its making, I have been asked to overhaul ‘Fabrique’ with Dee Harris, so I can assure that we’ll eventually be working on that.
At one point, FASHION were rated higher than DURAN DURAN on the Birmingham scene but of course, it was DURAN DURAN who broke big, what’s your take on it?
In Birmingham, FASHION and DURAN DURAN were rehearsing in the same building when I got involved. DURAN DURAN were already ahead in the game, having a few singles out with EMI while FASHION were just entering the major pop arena. As much as I like Mr Simon Le Bon, I think Dee Harris was a different calibre as a vocalist – but there you go, the DURAN DURAN guys just went a fair bit faster, were better managed and they administered one hit after another!
Unfortunately after ‘Fabrique’ was finished, some chemical reaction in certain brains caused the ‘Fabrique’ line-up to collapse and the album had to be buried by Arista. Their German and American labels hugely believed in the group and things could have been different, but FASHION didn’t really enter the league they should have been in.
How did working with John Foxx on ‘The Golden Section’ come about?
I was a big fan of John’s ‘Metamatic’ album. He had the same publisher as Gina X who also was his manager. John had been working with Mike Howlett, but it wasn’t working out for various reasons… and he had discovered THE BEATLES! I told John that it should be more about sound and noisy abstract tunes but he wanted melodies with second and third harmonies. *laughs*
We were working in his studio The Garden in Shoreditch and it was his solo album, so I was there to make his vision happen. I guess our collaboration was not a very successful one as he pulled too far away from his roots, something that he later realised “ooops”! I helped him but I was torn, I had to make the best out of it.
I wanted to bin songs and put more sequencers on others as it would have been more suitable and appreciated by his existing fan base, but he galloped into ‘The Golden Section’. John is a multi-talented, very intelligent artist and we met at an interesting moment in our lives, but we didn’t make the kind of mutual masterpiece which we could have done.
You then went on to producing DEAD OR ALIVE, your work with them had an amazing rhythmic element to it, how did you achieve that?
They loved Patrick Cowley and Sylvester, that uptempo HI-NRG gay disco. I often went to the Heaven club during those days and listened to that music, I really liked this irresistible drive and energy. They brought many of those elements to the table themselves. We started to work on ‘Sophisticated Boom Boom’ with Wayne Hussey on guitar, thus getting a slightly gothic element which I quite liked.
But Wayne and his guitar were sacked relatively early during the production, you can hear his guitar best on the first single ‘Misty Circles’. For me, producing DEAD OR ALIVE was a mixture of sound-styling as well as making sure Pete Burns’ mighty vocal performance had the right backing. We got on fine, but there were moments when we argued about what’s best for the arrangement and dynamics. Sometimes I offered ten ideas and they’d take one and a half… I guess that’s part of the producing process…
So in DEAD OR ALVE, had the sequence programming been done by Tim Lever and you were sweetening it for the final recording, or were you redoing it?
It was a bit of both, some tracks came with some basic sequences to start with, others we started from scratch. I brought along my Moog and ARP 2600 to fill up the space. For drums we used mainly the Oberheim DMX, a Linn Drum and sounds from the Akai S1000. We also had a Korg drum machine but they didn’t like the TR808; it’s funny, when I worked with KILLING JOKE, they hated the 808 as well.
After all these British artists, what was it like to work with a German act like DIE KRUPPS in 1985?
With John Foxx and DEAD OR ALIVE, we had more open ended concepts. DIE KRUPPS were more German, much more “korrekt” and “…it’s all been worked out!”*laughs*
They pretty much had worked out how their tracks should be structured but by playing around with the Fairlight, we found space for new ideas and sounds. In the end, a lot of the ‘Entering The Arena’ album was Fairlight based. Listening back to it now, I feel we were close to a real classic. And somehow we wanted to hold our own against PROPAGANDA, but this was tricky because PROPAGANDA’s production budget was in a different range. We had a limited budget and the LP was released by the Virgin sub-label Statik, whose claim to fame was MEN WITHOUT HATS who I later worked with.
How did you find the move into the world of the Fairlight and digital in general?
I wanted to master the Fairlight and luckily enough, Octave Hire, a London rental company based in the Docklands, left one with me at my basement flat in Earls Court when it wasn’t being used. I spent days and nights on end to dive into this new world of sampling and sequencing. I’ll never forget how I once got stuck and someone suggested to phone this guy Hans Zimmer who was also working with one and had a studio in Fulham called The Snake Ranch. He came to my house and showed me a few tricks. When he spoke in his Bavarian accent, I realised there was another “Deutsch Musik Mann” in my London hood! *laughs*
I used the Fairlight on the last Gina X album ‘Yinglish’ and it was here when I met JJ Jeczalik, a real expert on the CMI. We made a deal: I’ll get him a few studio gigs, teach some musical basics and give him sounds and samples which went into his library – some of them ended up on the first record by THE ART OF NOISE. But at one point, Pete Burns walked into Olympia Studios and shouted “ZEUS! YOU B*STARD, I HEARD MY VOICE ON THE ART OF NOISE, I KNOW IT’S ME!”… I replied “it’s impossible”, but thought to myself “oh sh*t, it could well be!” *laughs*
You had a bit of a remix period, one was ‘Big In Japan’ by ALPHAVILLE…
ALPHAVILLE used an edit of my 12 inch remix for the normal 7 inch… I mixed it at a studio in Queensway with the engineer Femi Jiya, who later worked with PRINCE. This music wasn’t exactly funky and so we worked with repeat echoes and dropped in a fretless bass sound from a Roland D50. Next door was ASWAD, the reggae band – you could smell it… so I asked them to come in and played the mix to them, they gave it the thumbs down! *laughs*
On your remix of ‘Ghostdancing’ for SIMPLE MINDS, you gave space to the rhythm section…
SIMPLE MINDS then had a drummer I did some studio work with before, Mel Gaynor… he also played on an unreleased track I produced with Ian Burden from THE HUMAN LEAGUE, called ‘She’s Always On The Dancefloor’. I studied the parts and played around with the drums because I really enjoyed what Mel Gaynor did. He was a timing and groove master who beat every drum machine.
How did you feel when you were asked to do the ‘E Reg remix’ of Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’ in 1987?
I was a big Gary Numan fan, I saw him in 1980 in Düsseldorf at the Philipshalle… guess who was the support act? SIMPLE MINDS and they played on about four square feet of stage because Gary Numan had such a huge stage set up!
Beggars Banquet asked me to remix ‘Cars’ and I was already booked and had to squeeze it in. So I worked 20 hours non-stop on it. This was when the Roland D50 came out and if you listen to my remix, it’s full of those sounds! I enjoyed doing it because it’s a great song, I love his voice, the dynamics of the sounds work brilliantly with Gary’s melodies. I saw my job to get more excitement and shape into the track as well as doing an extended version. Armand Van Helden actually sampled parts of my remix for ‘Koochy’!
Four weeks later it was out, doing really well and I was invited to a Gary Numan concert, I sat next to his dad… I looked on stage and there were five D50s! *laughs*
Your work with TRANSVISION VAMP was fascinating in that you used technology to make an album sound punk…
I worked closely with their label and they wanted a record, like you could have a cup of tea to… well, they didn’t actually say that but it was how I translated it, “pop punk”. The first album ‘Pop Art’ took nearly two years and the band grew during its making; they had started to work on demos with Duncan Bridgeman who also did most of the pre-production; after a few tracks into the actual recording sessions, I was asked to revisit the production and arrangements.
I got a chance to enrich the sounds and take care of the mixing. A few tracks I did from scratch and started with an electronic song frame. Especially ‘Tell That Girl To Shut Up’, I’ll never forget when I was doing the arrangement, Wendy James walked in and screamed at me “THAT SOUNDS LIKE F*CKING HOWARD JONES, I HATE IT!” and she stormed out of the studio. I yelled “wait, we’re going to stick the guitars on and it will work!” which is exactly what happened. So yes, in the end most of the album sounded a good mixture between electronic versus rough and punk.
Of course, this was in the days before Melodyne and Autotune… when Wendy sang the soul out of her guts and it wasn’t quite right, we would have to record up to thirty tracks of vocals and do compilations of the takes – and in the end it sounded like one convincingly performed take, which would have to grab the listener. She sold that band!
Before that, there was the aborted Clare Grogan album that you did, what happened there?
With Clare, we were forced for too much in a little amount of time. I couldn’t really open her up musically, it was like being whacked in with the record company watching… before I could sit back and analyse, it was all finished. It was done in a rush, that was a pity. With her voice, we should have done something a bit more whacky, something more off the wall.
I had the same experience when I was paired with Annabella Lwin from BOW WOW WOW. It could have been brilliant but it was squeezed into three weeks trying to record ok songs. I couldn’t find her best musical language, you need time when you develop something new. With TRANSVISION VAMP, we had eighteen months and it grew. It all started when Nick met Wendy and said “do you want to be a rock star?”, she said “yes” and they worked on it.
This record company pressure would drive any normal person crazy?
Yes, there’s a danger, you’d better have strong nerves and a good sense of humour… and you have to avoid ending up doing paid crap!
Is that why there has been such a big gap in your production work after Nina Hagen in 1991 ?
It coincided with a breakdown of my private life. Whether it was too much time spent in the studio or a typical mid-life crisis, whatever! It happened! So I had a desire to be free, travel the world – I ended up in Australia, doing music there with Aborigines and playing concerts in the middle of nature. That’s when I recorded my “audio postcard of down under” called ‘Digital Dreaming’. All in all I took ten years off and then I didn’t come back easily. I did film and ad music and that didn’t really satisfy me.
So I had a rethink, did workshops and coaching, gave lectures – call it “knowledge transfer” – but again, this was not what I wanted to do. I realised I feel most comfortable doing music in the studio or on stage. And by now, as much as I’m an optimist, I have given up on the idea of immortality *laughs*
I would love to do more DREAM CONTROL concerts, events and festivals. I still want to play and entertain people – their ears, their eyes and their imagination. In the studio I would like to do more songwriting and remixes; in an ideal world I’d always work with new inspiring equipment and learn how to master it.
I always enjoy listening to music but I am a difficult consumer. For pleasure I’m often listening to more jazz based music, but occasionally, a mega exciting track by the likes of Justin Timberlake or Justin Bieber will knock me out and I applaud. Apart from a song’s composition, I always want to know how it is done the way it sounds – from the musical & frequency arrangement to the immaculate mastering.
Music doesn’t stop… music keeps me alive
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK give its grateful thanks to Zeus B Held
Gary Numan may have promised “just more of the same really, if I’m totally honest” with his new album ‘Savage (Songs from a Broken World)’, but launch single ‘My Name Is Ruin’ is a mighty and brilliant first salvo.
While ‘My Name Is Ruin’ does borrow heavily from ‘Love Hurt Bleed’, one of the highlights from ‘Splinter’, it features several interesting musical directions. Guitars are less obviously prominent and the Middle Eastern flavoured backing is more hauntingly electronic.
Meanwhile the song features vocals from Numan’s daughter Persia which add a distinctly ghostly edge to proceedings. She even makes an appearance in the superbly panoramic post-apocalyptic video filmed in the Californian dessert; it was directed, shot and edited by Chris Corner aka IAMX.
When Gary Numan spoke to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK in early 2016 to launch the Pledge Music campaign for what has now become ‘Savage’, he said: “I want it to be heavy, I want it to be electronic, I want it to be dark and aggressive in places… so that’s just described ‘Splinter’”.
But if Numan’s twentieth album gets the acclaim and reception of its predecessor, it will be another fine achievement to add to the Ivor Novello Award he has already received in 2017
Cardiff Tramshed (30th September), Bournemouth O2 Academy (2nd October), Leeds O2 Academy (3rd October), Bristol Colston Hall (5th October), Oxford O2 Academy (6th October), Nottingham Rock City (7th October), Newcastle O2 Academy (9th October), Glasgow O2 ABC (10th October), Birmingham O2 Institute (11th October), Manchester Academy (13th October), Brixton O2 Academy (14th October), Brighton Dome (16th October), Norwich Nick Rayns LCR (17th October), Southend Cliffs Pavilion (18th October), Leuven Het Depot (19th October), Paris Le Trabendo (20th October), Amsterdam Paradiso (21st October), Bratislava Majestic (24th October), Cologne Essigfabrik (25th October), Berlin Columbia Theater (26th October), Lodz Klub Wytwornia (27th October),
I SPEAK MACHINE is the audio / visual collaboration between musician Tara Busch and filmmaker Maf Lewis, inspired by Ennio Morricone and Sergio Leone who used to discuss score ideas while scripts were being written for the classic Spaghetti Westerns.
In Busch’s own words “What was meant to be a 3 song EP by Benge & I morphed into an 11 song brain chomping monster”.
The ‘Zombies 1985’ film itself tells the story of greed and self-obsession in Thatcher’s Britain as a businessman drives home, oblivious to the zombie apocalypse going on around him. It features GARY NUMAN’s three daughters Persia, Raven and Echo in cameo roles and was screened with the live score performed by Busch on a UK and US tour with Numan.
Fitting in with the film and album’s title, a conceptual rule of using only “1985 period equipment” was imposed including mixers and effects units. The end result is striking with the station idents, drones, percussive mantras and abstract electronic screeches forming the start of the album, supplemented by apocalyptic mutant pop songs influenced by the likes of CHRIS & COSEY and CABARET VOLTAIRE.
The hazy ‘Demon Days’ is the first of these songs and sounds like early GOLDFRAPP trapped aboard the starship Nostromo with Busch’s unsettling gothique and siren synths penetrating a distinct horror movie vibe.
The mysterious workshop electronica of ‘Blood From A Stone’ also evokes even more overtones of early GOLDFRAPP and while the superb track is perhaps nearer to Busch’s excellent solo ‘Rocket Wife’ EP from 2011, it is far less conventional as the pace picks up in a militaristic fashion with a vocoder harmony in tow.
The pacey ‘Hollywood Power’ is driven by fat sequences, with claustrophobic radio announcer samples and cold string machines capturing the tension as the airwaves get taken over by dark forces.
Meanwhile, the brilliant ‘Shame’ with its cascading synths and noise percussion is equal parts THROBBING GRISTLE, THE HUMAN LEAGUE and again GOLDFRAPP.
The robotic tech house of ‘Gone To LA’ leads to the crystalline arpeggios of ‘Trouble’ where a wholly synthetic reimagining of BRIAN ENO’s ‘No One Receiving’ is given an angel of death twist.
With a stuttering rhythmic passage and swimmy atmospherics, the deep bass driven ‘Petrified Mind’ sees Busch cross HEART with GAZELLE TWIN for the most American sounding track of the collection.
The deadpan ‘New Dawn (1986)’ has that air of finality about it, doomy and reminiscent of JOHN CARPENTER with rich synth tones that are complimented by Busch’s eerie vocal presence of spoken and sung phrases.
‘Zombies 1985’ is a wonderfully mutant mix of vintage synth collages and “Doris Day in outer space”, as JOHN FOXX once described Tara Busch and her delightfully odd electronic pop sound. And with the recent passing of George A Romero, the modern day Zombie film’s Godfather, this I SPEAK MACHINE album also now acts as a fitting tribute to his legacy with movies such as ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and ‘Day Of the Dead’.
One of the best electronic albums of 2017? ‘Zombies 1985’ is definitely a contender and will satisfy the curiosity of those with a penchant for stranger things.
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tells the story of greed and self-obsession in Thatcher’s Britain as a businessman drives home, oblivious to the zombie apocalypse going on around him. The live score was performed with the film by Busch as the opening act at UK and US shows with 
album on the spectrum analyser and said “Look here at the frequencies, this can’t work! Nobody wants to listen to that!” *laughs*
was finished, some chemical reaction in certain brains caused the ‘Fabrique’ line-up to collapse and the album had to be buried by Arista. Their German and American labels hugely believed in the group and things could have been different, but FASHION didn’t really enter the league they should have been in.
. John is a multi-talented, very intelligent artist and we met at an interesting moment in our lives, but we didn’t make the kind of mutual masterpiece which we could have done.
with Wayne Hussey on guitar, thus getting a slightly gothic element which I quite liked.
took nearly two years and the band grew during its making; they had started to work on demos with Duncan Bridgeman who also did most of the pre-production; after a few tracks into the actual recording sessions, I was asked to revisit the production and arrangements.
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