ALICE HUBBLE is the new solo project of Alice Hubley, previously best known for fronting ARTHUR & MARTHA and COSINES.
Taking in the influence of Delia Derbyshire, Daphne Oram and Sally Oldfield, the avant pop heart of Hubley is now set free on her debut long player ‘Polarlichter’, literally translated in Deutsch as “polar lights” or auroras.
Recorded with analogue synths at home before being mixed at Big Jelly Studios under the co-production supervision of Mikey Collins who also contributed drums and guitar, ‘Polarlichter’ is undeniably escapist.
In keeping with the aura of varying colour and complexity projected by the album’s title, the opening instrumental ‘Ruby Falls’ offers mysterious octave shifts and pagan flutes while picturing North Sea islands painted by hand played keys.
Laced in Korg and Juno, her forlorn vocal presence makes its first appearance on the wonderful ‘Goddess’, a song about male obsession which has already been declared one of the singles of 2019 by BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq. With its moody vintage synths and primitive drum boxes, there are also hints of BOOK OF LOVE, THE CURE, SPARKS and OMD.
Channelling German trailblazers Manuel Göttsching and Harald Grosskopf, both in their solo guises and together as ASHRA, the pulsing cosmic overtones of ‘Atlantis Palm’ offer beautiful synthetic choirs and airy fluty textures for a superb seven minutes of melancholic ambience.
Hubley’s earthy demeanour returns on the sub-OMD of ‘We Are Still Alone’, where the lilting bass and elegiac transistorised melody are glorious.
But when the synth strings respond in that ASHRA style, it becomes perfect avant pop where Hubley sadly resigns to herself that she “couldn’t find the way to make me better”.
‘Kick The Habit’ takes a jump in tempo and schaffels with live percussion for a charmingly enjoyable slice of electro-glam. Meanwhile keeping things to waltz time, ‘Hunt For The Blood Red Moon’ is electronic folk, solemnly dancing around a maypole of Moog.
Filmic instrumental ‘The Golden Age’ has its synths set to toy town, but more haunting Mellotrons weave their way into the wicker lattice with brilliant vibrato swirls before progressing into mutant funk and a collage of album segments to create an uneasy schizophrenic feel.
The chimes of ‘Still Polarlichter’ sees Hubble still alone, again echoing OMD with the string machine playing a variation on the ‘We Are Still Alone’ theme, but with more of a psychedelic vibe. At over nearly seven minutes, the mighty bubbles of synth, drum breaks and Germanic demeanour concoct a recipe of feisty feminine prog.
With the language of melody in common, ‘Polarlichter’ makes a fine voice-assisted companion to OBLONG ‘The Sea At Night’, an instrumental album of rustic organically farmed electronica released earlier in this year.
Over four songs and four instrumentals, ALICE HUBBLE makes the perfect synth earth mother with her endearing array of vintage keyboards. This is an impressive solo debut that is a soundscape of pastoral solace.
Bristol Radio / ON (14th September), Manchester Salford Eagle Inn (3rd October), Glasgow Nice N Sleazy (4th October), Sheffield Hatch (5th October), London Servants Jazz Quarters (5th November)
ALICE HUBBLE is the new solo project of Alice Hubley, previously best known for fronting ARTHUR & MARTHA.
Channelling her inner Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram while also exploring the sonics of Germanic masters TANGERINE DREAM and ASHRA, Hubley’s upcoming debut album ‘Polarlichter’ is the product of one lady locked at home with her collection of synthesizers.
An impressive support slot for CAN’s Damo Suzuki finally showcased the electronic pop potential of Hubley which has largely remained hidden within the more indie confines of her musical adventures since ARTHUR & MARTHA. With her forlorn vocal presence, her earthy demeanour is ideal for melancholic pop layered by vintage synths and driven by primitive drum boxes.
‘Goddess’ is the first single and while its musical inspirations are cited as being ‘Boy’ by BOOK OF LOVE, ‘Plainsong’ by THE CURE and ‘Of All The Things We’ve Made’ by OMD, the iconic chordial structure from the first section of the full-length ‘No1 Song In Heaven’ by SPARKS, the Mael Brothers’ pièce de résistance recorded with Giorgio Moroder is also very much in evidence.
Laced in Korg and Juno, Hubley says: “Goddess is a song about the male gaze; about a man idolising a woman to the point that he doesn’t see her as a person. His ‘love’ is all consuming and the focus of his affection is seen merely as an object. As a result he consumes her and takes from her until she has little left, but thankfully she finds the inner strength to walk away.”
With the single released by Happy Robots Records, the rather good B-side ‘Lake Louise’ is a progressive instrumental in two distinct movements…
Lightly Motorik while dressed with endearing transistorised keyboard tones and grainy synthetic strings in its first half, the second half is more baroque with a lonely piano adding to its solemn film noir quality.
Having already remixed ‘Radio On’ featuring ex-KRAFTWERK elektronisches schlagzeugmeister Wolfgang Flür for TINY MAGNETIC PETS, Hubley opened for the Dublin synthpop trio on their London sojourn during the late May Bank Holiday weekend.
‘Goddess’ featuring three remixes and ‘Lake Louise’ is released as a download bundle by Happy Robots Records on 31st May 2019
Happy Robots Records presented the reunion of ARTHUR & MARTHA to celebrate the 10th anniversary of ‘Navigation’, their only album to date.
The last time ARTHUR & MARTHA played live, it was opening for Jyoti Mishra’s WHITE TOWN. Back in 2010, the pair had actually been the third new act featured on ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK
However, they appeared to disappear soon after. So it was fabulous to see Adam Cresswell and Alice Hubley performing together in this guise after so many years.
Among the luminaries present for the occasion were David Bowie’s visual director Jonathan Barnbrook, YELLO collaborator Fifi Rong and SHELTER front man Mark Bebb with his FORM side project accomplice Keith Trigwell.
But opening the evening’s entertainment at The Islington in London were the Glaswegian duo RAINLAND, comprising of Ian Ferguson and Del MacDonald.
Experienced hands having supported ASSEMBLAGE 23, they began their performance with the symphonic neo-ULTRAVOX stomp of their self-titled signature tune ‘Rainland’ and the engaging synthpop of ‘The Light Of The Sun’.
With his self-deprecating Weegie humour, Ferguson was part cheerleader / part court jester while MacDonald remained largely stoic, save a passionate on-mic discussion with his bandmate on the merits of BRONSKI BEAT in relation to their digital bass driven ditty ‘Touch’.
There was the poetic ‘Silverlight’ while the lively set reminded those present to ‘Don’t Forget To Love’ and finished with the evergreen industrial pop of ‘Drive’.
The evening threw a curveball with the appearance of the feisty Californian PLASMIC, self-described as “your abused Barbie doll from childhood”.
Pretty in pink, Lauren Lusardi began with a spiky energetic cover of DIVINE’s ‘Female Trouble’. With a subversive DEVO edge, PLASMIC detonated lo-fi synth bombs via her Yamaha Reface with the catchy feminist anthem ‘Baby Machine’ and the social media commentary of ‘Validation Nation’, both from her most recent EP release.
Delightfully housing her work station and devices in a pink dressing case, she celebrated her recent support slot for Marc Almond in LA by treating all present with a punchy rendition of the seedy SOFT CELL classic ‘Sex Dwarf’ before finishing with the cathartic rallying cry of ‘Revenge’. Lusardi’s delightfully dervish antics won her many new friends.
And as she embraced the occasion and the crowd to celebrate her 23rd birthday, those bemoaning the lack of new young synth artists now only have to look in the direction of Orange County. 😉
Armed with a MicroKorg and a Moog Prodigy, ARTHUR & MARTHA’s headline set began with the glorious tweetronica of ‘Follow The Path’, the kind of neo-instrumental that used to accompany the sort of wiggly Czechoslovakian animations shown as intermissions on BBC2. ‘Ultra Alliance’ from the Happy Robots ‘Botpop Volume One’ also got an airing before the endearing ‘Navigation’ highlight ‘Music For Hairproducts’, an ironically titled tune given Cresswell’s alopecia.
‘Kasparov’, inspired by the Russian chess grandmaster and political activist, saw Cresswell take to the mic for a mournful guitar-centred interlude before Hubley returned with her charming off-key voice for the rhythmic organ-fest of ‘Vallorian’. An unexpected surprise came with the B-side ‘Japanese Kiss’, before the frantic motorik vocoder wig-out of the brilliantly named ‘Squarewave To Heaven’.
This fittingly set the scene for the glorious driving kosmische of ‘Autovia’, the ARTHUR & MARTHA song which has successfully endured the past decade to be now, as Cresswell pointed out, sitting next to Katy Perry on a compilation album!
Encoring with the mournful ‘Navigation’ album closer ‘Turn to Dust’, an affectionate homage to NEW ORDER’s ‘Leave Me Alone’, it was an appropriate way to end the ARTHUR & MARTHA story. Today in 2019, Cresswell continues making music as RODNEY CROMWELL and running Happy Robots Records, while Hubley will soon release her first solo record as ALICE HUBBLE.
With something for almost everyone and covering an eclectic selection of synth based music while maintaining a central curated theme, this was a fine gathering of good music and good people that exuded warmth and quality.
The organisers give their warmest thanks to all the acts who performed and Simon Helm of Cold War Night Life who provided a fine DJ set throughout the evening.
As well as hosting the reunion of Alice Hubley and Adam Cresswell as ARTHUR & MARTHA, Happy Robots Records will also be celebrating their 10th anniversary.
A boutique independent record label based in London, Happy Robots Records specialises in dreamy electronic robotpop, it was originally set-up to release ARTHUR & MARTHA’s only album to date ‘Navigation’.
It has since developed an international roster of acts including TINY MAGNETIC PETS, HOLOGRAM TEEN, RODNEY CROMWELL, PATTERN LANGUAGE and SINOSA. Happy Robots artists have been notable for being featured in a variety of mainstream publications and newspapers as well as receiving BBC Radio airplay.
With ARTHUR & MARTHA reuniting at The Islington in London on SATURDAY 2ND MARCH 2019, Happy Robots CEO and self-confessed “Moog snob” Adam Cresswell took time out from ARTHUR & MARTHA rehearsals to chat about the label’s first decade and what might be in store for the future.
Is it true Happy Robots was partly created out of necessity?
Partly. I had always wanted to start my own label, just the plan had been to start it after I’d given up making music. Alice and I had ARTHUR AND MARTHA’s ‘Navigation’ in the can for ages, but we kept getting mucked about by labels. But then when the LITTLE BOOTS / LA ROUX synthpop explosion happened, we thought let’s start a label now so we won’t completely miss the boat. We got the distributor Cargo on board and it all came together.
At the time ARTHUR & MARTHA ‘Autovia’ was released as a single as BOT1, the record industry was going through a state of flux, dilemmas about downloading, whether to release vinyl, self-releasing versus labels and the onset of social media. What was that like to have to deal with?
Running a label is always a massive gamble but now you don’t just gamble on the bands, you gamble on formats as well. When we started, it was really good for labels and artists as the download and streaming services were paying really well. But they realised they couldn’t make enough profits so they massively slashed the return to labels. Revenue nose-dived leading to the situation we are in now. I have been looking back on old invoices and we made more from the download of the Autovia EP than anything until BOT10.
How had your dealings with labels in the past been?
Like anything, mostly very good with the very occasional bad egg. With labels, I find you always remember the promises that they make but don’t keep – which is why I always try and be very measured and honest with the acts on Happy Robots. No false expectations, just cold hard reality.
Happy Robots issued a compilation ‘Botpop Volume One’ as BOT2, what was the aim of that, how was it to put together and will there ever be a ‘Volume Two’?
‘Botpop Volume One’ was our calling-card to the world. We didn’t want the label to be just about ARTHUR & MARTHA. It was mostly acts we knew – in truth – mostly acts Alice knew. I found KATSEN on MySpace, but Alice found most of the rest. It had some great reviews, not least in The Guardian which I still use on the website. I did talk about doing Volume Two a couple of years back, but I would need Alice or someone else involved in selecting the acts, otherwise it would probably end up being 50 minutes of post-Soviet darkwave.
Doing singles is one thing but albums is another, so how did you find releasing your first artist long player ‘Navigation’ by ARTHUR & MARTHA as BOT4 in 2009?
Sadly by the time it came out, I was already sick of it. For one thing we’d both gone through some pretty dark times making it, and I’d become a real pain in the arse to work with.
It was just Alice’s enthusiasm that kept us going. I still like ‘Navigation’ but see it as a wasted opportunity on my part.
I was just mentally and emotionally burned out – I hadn’t taken any time away from music after the difficult spilt of SALOON, and I needed space. I’m very grateful that there are people who really love ‘Navigation’ though – even if it took us almost ten years to realise it.
‘Navigation’ can’t have been easy to promote then as printed press via Q, NME and The Word was still the expected route back then?
Ha. No, it seemed infinitely easier than now because there was an established promotional route. We had a brilliant and lovely press agent and we got loads of features for all the ARTHUR & MARTHA records – NME, Word, Zoot, The Guardian, Artrocker. We had lots of Radio 1 play too which seems unthinkable now.
You took a break but you and Happy Robots returned in 2015 with BOT5 which was ‘Age Of Anxiety’ by RODNEY CROMWELL. Now this appeared to gain promo momentum in a way that ‘Navigation’ didn’t… discuss!
Well ‘Navigation’ got good press and then disappeared almost overnight along with the band. With ‘Age of Anxiety’ I put it out and, apart from Gideon Coe, everyone ignored it until ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK picked up on it. Then I just kept plugging away at it, I took on an agent and kept sending to more bloggers and DJs until by the end of 2015, RODNEY CROMWELL featured in a load of ‘Best Of’ lists. It was a lot of work but ‘Age of Anxiety’ was the foundation for v2 of Happy Robots.
HOLOGRAM TEEN ‘Marsangst’ as BOT7 in 2016 was your first foray into releasing artists outside of the Happy Robots circle?
I worked with Morgane on the ‘Let’s Get Static’ album by THE PROJECTS in 2003 and we struck up a friendship. She moved to LA but we kept in touch and when she asked me to put out a record, it seemed a perfect idea. Obviously having been in STEREOLAB, she could have gone with loads of labels, but she chose Happy Robots. We’ve both know though, the ability to trust and get on with the people you’re going to work with is way more important than anything else.
How did you come across PATTERN LANGUAGE for BOT9?
Chris aka PATTERN LANGUAGE was fan of HOLOGRAM TEEN, he liked the look of the label and pitched me some tracks. Some of his earlier tunes were a bit ‘out there’ but I thought I’d take a punt anyway. I’m glad I did because then he sent me ‘Total Squaresville’ which is one of my very favourite Happy Robots records.
It must have been quite interesting when Happy Robots released TINY MAGNETIC PETS ‘Deluxe / Debris’ as BOT10 in 2017 and they went on a UK tour opening for OMD; that was originally going to be a vinyl and digital only release but eventually due to demand, there was a CD…
Interesting isn’t the word! I was already a fan of the first TINY MAGNETIC PETS album. But when I offered to put out their second one, I had no idea that Wolfgang Flür would be on two of the tracks or that they would go out on tour with OMD.
The original plan was to just do vinyl and digital but when I heard the OMD news, I thought I’d better press up some CDs and merch too. My only regret is not doing more XXL T-shirts.
Happy Robots released the debut single of performance artist SINOSA as BOT11, so is the label expanding and planning to sign more acts?
There are no plans for major expansion; Happy Robots just exists to help out acts I like and to get them heard more. I’ve got a full time job, a wife and two kids, there are only so many hours in the day and I’m not mad enough to think I could do this for a living.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK thinks that demand for vinyl is not as high as the music industry would like the public to believe, while there appears to be a conspiracy to deliberately sabotage CD… discuss!
I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories. Different formats appeal to different markets. There is no point doing a CD for a band with an under 40s fanbase. Equally, unless you are releasing indiepop, there is very little demand for 7” singles. The one thing about vinyl is it has at least remained consistent and if you’re pressing 250 vinyl LPs, you’d be pretty unlucky not to sell them all out in a few years.
There’s no BOT13… so you didn’t fancy being the Pastor Maldonado of independent electronic music?
BOT13 is reserved for the ARTHUR & MARTHA remix album – it seemed appropriate. 10 years in the making and still late! It’s a terrific collection with top remixes by GABE KNOX, SOFT RIOT, KATSEN, BRUTALIST ARCHITECTURE IN THE SUN, HONG KONG IN THE 60s and loads more.
ARTHUR & MARTHA will be reuniting to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release of ‘Navigation’ at TEC005 in March 2019, what’s planned for that?
All the hits, lo-fi visuals, barely in-tune old synths, silly clothes. Ours was never the most well performed or technically proficient show, but it was never dull!
What’s next for Happy Robots Records?
I’ve just confirmed some more Happy Robots gigs for TINY MAGNETIC PETS. Then we have albums from ALICE HUBBLE, PATTERN LANGUAGE and ARTHUR & MARTHA up soon. I’m also putting out one record which is all 9 minute long Krautrock jams and another which is 30 second long KPM-library music. Something for everyone. 2019 is going to be a busy year.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Adam Cresswell
ARTHUR & MARTHA reunite on SATURDAY 2ND MARCH 2019 at The Islington, 1 Tolpuddle Street, London N1 0XT
As the first long playing release on Happy Robots Records, from its SECTION 25 inspired artwork inwards, ARTHUR & MARTHA’s only album to date was always going to be a bit out of step.
2009 was the year of LA ROUX, LITTLE BOOTS and LADY GAGA, where electronic music returned to the mainstream and went superpop! ‘Navigation’ was the work of Alice Hubley and Adam Cresswell, an unusual looking couple described as “Gilbert & George, disguised as The Carpenters…”
Cresswell had been a member of the indie combo SALOON who garnered support from John Peel including a ‘Festive 50′ No1 in 2002 with ‘Girls Are The New Boys’. Meanwhile, Hubley was a DJ and a member of the all-girl trio THE DULOKS. After SALOON split in 2003, Cresswell turned to analogue synths for solace and when Hubley moved to London, they found common ground via the Korg MS10 and NEW ORDER.
With a Melodica, Stylophone and Theremin also thrown into the playroom, ARTHUR & MARTHA were born. ‘Autovia’ was the glorious opening track of ‘Navigation’, shaped by a charmingly nonchalant vocal from Hubley and hypnotically propelled by a synthetic motorik beat.
Coming over like an eccentric English take on STEREOLAB meeting NEU! on the M1 during its closing third wig-out, the tune got the pair branded as ‘cutie krautrock’ or ‘tweetronica’ thanks to the gentle mode of propulsion used for their achingly pretty, minor-chord melodies.
Cresswell recalled: “I was on tour with my previous band SALOON in Spain and I saw the word ‘Autovia’ on the road; it sounded a bit like ‘Autobahn’ and so I wrote a song called that. Most of it was recorded in the downstairs toilet of my house!”
Continuing the mood, ‘Music For Hairproducts’ placed its melancholic vocals and driving octaves for some mutant robotic disco.
With its acoustic guitar and mournful melodic bass, Cresswell took lead vocals on ‘Kasparov’, sounding not unlike SECTION 25’s Larry Cassidy, in a position now familiar in his more recent acclaim as RODNEY CROMWELL. While almost synth-less until the close, it captured a sign of things to come, especially when the melodica solo kicked in.
Hubley remembered “Adam didn’t really sing much initially. ‘Kasparov’ on ‘Navigation’ was the first song Adam did sing, I kind of had to talk him into it, partly because he made it sound more like THE POSTAL SERVICE. He was always in the background with SALOON even though he wrote a lot of the songs”.
Borrowing the rhythm from SOFT CELL’s ‘Sex Dwarf’, the organ tones of ‘Vallorian’ came over like a lo-fi CRYSTAL CASTLES, aided by rugged bursts of Moog and fading on a lovely cacophony of ARP Quartet. On the quaintly sparse ‘Navigation’ title song, beautiful string machine provided the bed for Hubley’s naturally unorthodox delivery before the appearance of clarinet over a clattering collage of percussion and a sudden motorik thrust featuring the entire ARTHUR & MARTHA synth armoury.
The brilliant ‘Follow the Path’ was the sort of brilliantly quirky instrumental that use to accompany the weird East European animations they used to show on BBC2, an array of pulsing sequences and deep complimentary four string with Hubley’s vocal refrain adding naïve charm along with some surprise glockenspiel.
The more avant pop rumble of ‘Memory’ was aggressive in comparison, with robotic vocoder assisting a Hubley / Cresswell duet resulting in a surreal Factory Records face-off between SECTION 25, NEW ORDER and THE WAKE.
Taking its lead from NEW ORDER’s ‘Power, Corruption & Lies’ album but with brighter bubbling synthy overtones, ‘This City Life’ charmed over a busy drum machine offbeat, the contrast between light and shade providing a unexpected lift before evolving into a steadfast cosmic romp invaded by squiggly electronics and innocent piano.
Using a brilliant title pun, the LADYTRON go Krautrock of ‘Squarewave To Heaven’ gave the closing straight some frantic energy before ending with ‘Turn to Dust’, another lovely mournful tune in the vein of ‘Leave Me Alone’.
Ten years on, ‘Navigation’ has stood up remarkably well with its charm and honesty. And with a live reunion for ARTHUR & MARTHA on SATURDAY 2ND MARCH 2019, it is a perfect opportunity for even the keenest 21st Century electronic pop enthusiast who might have missed it first time to discover this lost long playing synthpop curio.
‘Navigation’ used the following instruments: Korg MS10, Moog Rogue, Moog Opus 3, Bass, Guitar, Casio DG50, Stylophone, Melodica, Theremin, ARP Quartet, MicroKorg, Casio 1000P, Omnichord, Glockenspiel.
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ALICE HUBBLE 2019 live dates include:
is the first single and while its musical inspirations are cited as being ‘Boy’ by 
is a progressive instrumental in two distinct movements…
featuring ex-KRAFTWERK elektronisches schlagzeugmeister 
album closer ‘Turn to Dust’, an affectionate homage to NEW ORDER’s ‘Leave Me Alone’, it was an appropriate way to end the 
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