The Ändå approach music with a sense of humour as strong as their sense of melody. The Swedish supergroup – reduced to a duo since the departure of Anna Öberg – have issued what the press release describes as their final hit. Not the “final hit” of Trainspotting but the last song to come from their rural base. The press material also claims that Simon Napier-Bell has backed the track. Is it true? Everything is possible, but no one can be sure that what Captain Karl Gasleben and Zac O’Yeah are offering isn’t parody. It is, as always, solid state entertainment.
There were many excellent records released in 2023, but it was also a good year for books about music. From the graphic wizardry of Brian Griffin’s MODE to the scrapbook of Yello, there was something for every bookshelf. We have collected our favourites below.
Brian Griffin, MODE
More than anyone else, perhaps, Brian Griffin created the image of Depeche Mode over their first five albums. At a time when they were capable of issuing an album a year, developing their style with each release, Griffin’s images were the best-known and most-distinctive features of their branding. From a plastic-wrapped lawn ornament to a monumental banner-draped building, Depeche Mode were defined by his eye and the lens of his camera.
Griffin’s best-known shot for Depeche Mode is the stunning picture of a peasant in a field, made for A Broken Frame. It became a sensation and one of the best-recognised photographs of the 1980s.
MODE collects these images, as well as other shots from the sessions and for promotional materials in a limited edition, finely-crafted book. A living archive, it is structured around an interview made for Radio Virus in Sweden. Gareth Jones, who produced three of the five albums with Daniel Miller, provides an introduction.
MODE is an essential read for any fan of the band or music photography.
Robert Görl and Hanna Rollmann, The Voice That Dwells Within
In 1989, Robert Görl was nearly killed in a car crash. The founder of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft survived but was left in hospital with a shattered body. It could have been the end of Görl’s career in music; but, instead, it marked a kind of rebirth.
Together with Dr Hanna Rollmann, Görl has written a book that traces his path from the clinic to spiritual healing in a compelling and dream-like style. Visions appear of the founding of DAF, the band moving to an Earl’s Court basement flat, adventures in New York, and romance in Thailand. Along the way, companions leave notes with their names, hoping for calls that do not come.
DAF changed the face of music with sequencers and Görl’s drumming. They sang in German and avoided the rock-and-roll conventions of Anglo-American music. With a punk spirit, they created a sound that influenced generations of musicians with proto-techno, EBM and Hi-NRG styles. With this book, Görl fills in the missing details of the band’s history and offers insights into a uniquely productive creative partnership.
Wesley Doyle, Conform to Deform
The truth is that Stevo Pearce, the founder of Some Bizarre and legendary Soft Cell manager, has more personality than his body can handle. It bursts out in moments of wildness that surprise and scare record company executives. With a love of the surreal and MDMA, Stevo (no one uses his last name other than his bank manager) took a duo from Leeds to global stardom while creating a label that gave obscure industrial acts access to major label resources.
The suits thought Stevo had a good ear for the underground, and they let him release important records by Cabaret Voltaire, Neubauten, Psychic TV, and Coil. Along the way, there were enormous quantities of drugs, episodes of violence, amazing works of art, outrageous lies, and epic attempts to humiliate the record companies that made it all possible.
Doyle has created a brilliant oral history from interviews with the artists who made music for Some Bizarre. Conform to Deform brings to life the controversies and accomplishments of one of the strangest and most influential labels – and its singular boss.
Cosey Fanni Tutti, Re-Sisters
The intersection of three lives – Cosey Fanni Tutti, Delia Derbyshire, and Margery Kempe – is explored with references to music, feminism, and marginalisation. Tutti, once denounced in Parliament as a “wrecker of civilisation,” is making a film version of her book, Art, Sex, Music, while contributing to another about Derbyshire’s complex life. At the same time, she is reading the story of the 15th century local mystic, Kempe. Similarities emerge about places, situations, and struggles.
Tutti was a founder of COUM and Throbbing Gristle. She told that story in her first book, including the abuse that she experienced at the hands of Genesis P-Orridge. In Re-Sisters, we find Tutti being blocked from using the music she contributed to by P-Orridge’s estate. It is just one example of how others refuse to accept her voice. Whether from Members of Parliament or family members, there is determined resistance against Tutti being herself. Through her story, we learn how Derbyshire and Kempe experienced similar challenges. Overcoming them is the only choice.
Yuma Hampejs and Marcel Schulze, Elektronische Körpermusik
The history of electronic body music really began with DAF. Gabi Delgado sang, while Robert Görl played drums. They used sequencers to play the bass lines and pulses that completed their sound, and the feeling was harder than their disco precedents. The approach was functional but also stylistic. In Elektronische Körpermusik, Hampejs and Schulze explore these origins but also celebrate the movement that grew from it.
The book is an ambitious attempt to cover a lot of ground, so Belgian club nights and Swedish radio shows rub shoulders with generations of bands, from Nitzer Ebb to Zweite Jugend. Like Bengt Rahm’s bible of the Swedish electronic music scene, Den svenska synthen, the book offers both breadth and depth in its coverage of an essential musical movement.
Simon Helm, Walking in Their Shoes
Written by our Editor, Walking in Their Shoes traces the path of Depeche Mode as they played and recorded in London. It locates the venues and studios where the band developed their sound and built their audience. It also includes key locations in Mute Records’ history, such as the Decoy Avenue house where the label was founded. Pictures and public transport details help orient fans visiting the sites. It is the best way to experience London in the footsteps of the band.
Audrey Golden, I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records
If you believe the conventional history, Factory was a group of men making things. There was Tony Wilson, the hero of every story. Rob Gretton, the drug-hoovering manager. Peter Saville, the graphic designer with no sense of time. Barney and Hooky from New Order sulking or scheming like schoolboys. Mike Pickering in the booth at the Haçienda. Everywhere and always, if there was a face to the label and its spin-offs, it belonged to a man.
Audrey Golden sets out to correct the picture with an oral history collected from the women of Factory. From Lindsay Reade (Wilson’s former partner and Factory employee) to Nikki Kefalis (Factory PR and founder of Out Promotion), Golden has tracked down the personalities who did the work, offered the ideas, and found the resources that others have claimed credit for.
There are some gaps – the absence of Martha Ladly jumps out – but this book restores the voices of the participants and fills in the blanks left by XY-biased narratives.
Boris Blank and Dieter Meier, Oh Yeah
The use of a Yello track in the teen comedy, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, gave the obscure Swiss act a hit. By that point the duo of Dieter Meier and Boris Blank, Yello had grown up on the same label as The Residents and were a stable in the record collections of underground DJs. The inclusion of “Oh Yeah,” with Meier’s processed intonation suggesting male lust, opened the money tap and took the band into the mainstream.
Oh Yeah, the book, is drawn from Blank’s archives. It features cuttings from newspapers, press releases, unseen photographs, and notes by Blank and Meier. Yello were from a privileged background, which gave them access to equipment like the Fairlight and opportunities that their contemporaries could only dream of. But it was their love of sounds taken from different cultures, the voices of singers like Shirley Bassey and Billy Mackenzie, and a feeling for rhythms that set them apart.
Placed next to Yello, Kraftwerk seem too serious and Depeche Mode appear naïve. Yello dress like aristocrats and play cards like James Bond. At the same time, they maintain a surrealistic edge. Like the 3D picture disc of “I Love You” that came out in 1983, they have a groove and a sense of humour that are captured perfectly in the book.
The Mortality Tables project was born in Bloomsbury in 2019. The result of a conversation in a delicatessen, it has already led to a series of releases with Vince Clarke, Simon Fisher Turner, Rupert Lally, and other creatives. Their briefs from the label are often to take a found sound as a starting point and see where it leads them. The results are – in different weights, depending on the artist’s inspiration and the listener’s responses – charming, disturbing, and rewarding.
The driver behind Mortality Tables is Mat Smith, who splits his time between freelance music journalism and working with insurance companies. The name refers to the work of actuaries, who measure the statistical probability of life insurance payments needing to be made. It is inspired by the biography of Charles Ives, who also split his time between work for an insurance company and creative activity. Ives’ work was discovered and celebrated only after his death – something Smith has contemplated when thinking about the distance between his own creative outputs and the way he is seen by those close to him. Do they read his work? Do they listen to what he releases? Will they see it differently once time has taken him?
Mat Smith
These questions led Smith to write what he calls “a manifesto with a lower-case m.” On Mortality, Immortality & Charles Ives, which kicked the project off, featured Smith reading the manifesto in Gareth Jones’ studio with musical responses by Vince Clarke and venoztks. The Erasure man had met Smith through an interview with Electronic Sound magazine and stayed in touch.
In one of my many email exchanges with Vince, I said, “I’ve done this thing, would you be interested in putting sounds to it?” And he said, “Well, I’m not really doing very much at the moment. If you want some drones, I can give you some drones.” The idea of Vince Clarke doing drones really appealed. I think he said it in a kind of slightly sarcastic way, but I was really interested in this. What came back – very, very quickly – from him, was a piece that is distinctively Vince Clarke but distinctively not.
The results were a taster of the experimentation that ultimately became Clarke’s solo album, Songs of Silence. With good timing, Smith had found Clarke addressing his own isolation during lockdown through an exploration of new sounds and tools. A born collaborator, Clarke was able to take Smith’s recording to engage with and respond to.
There followed an album of processed samples for Cyclic Demonstrating – an anagram of Strictly Come Dancing – with Xqui. Cyclic Demonstrating took as its starting point the theme music for his family’s favourite TV talent show; the falseness of which also happens to trigger feelings of alienation and sadness in Smith.
A series of releases, linked as a numbered series of “LIFEFILES,” saw Dave Clarkson working on Smith’s recording from a flight to Scotland, Simon Fisher Turner responding to a field recording made in a Midlands church, and Andrew Spackman processing the sounds of clothes-hangers in a bedroom. In each of these, the starting point was something simple. Smith explains:
My field recordings are really basic. They’re pretty embarrassing. They’re basically recorded on the fly in different situations – like where we are [an Italian-themed café]. I have two recorded outside Liverpool Street station very late at night. This place has got its own sound character. I came out one night; there was a lady played mediaeval music outside – and so my natural instinct was to just pull out my phone and record it.
A recent album is a collaboration with Xqui that takes, as its spine, Smith’s reading of a list of the t-shirts that he wore during lockdown. It’s a bit eccentric, but it becomes a naming ritual – like The Dead Milkmen’s “You’ll Dance to Anything.” It describes a subculture that can recognise itself in an eyeball-graphic Residents shirt. Smith might have been isolated by public health concerns, but the t-shirts reflect a connection to a music movement outside of the mainstream – another step removed from the comfort of the herd. Music is invited in response, but there are no set parameters for contributors. “Habit is the input that you then delete,” Smith reflects.
Smith describes himself as “a frustrated creative person – frustrated because I have ideas and I can’t execute them.” Nevertheless, he has started to revisit his own sounds. On Equilibrium, recorded under the name Sketching Venus in 2000, Smith puts a Casio VL-Tone and a Maplin echo unit to use to create a short piece. It was then copied to a 3.5” floppy disk with a picture file and an explanatory note. The number of copies is limited to the number of disks Smith found when clearing out shelf debris.
In the spirit of the season, Dave Clarkson’s Ghosts of Christmas Past (Music from Vintage Toys) combines recordings of Smith as a toddler with “wind-up toys, tin robots, glockenspiels, dolls, Speak and Spell machines, musical boxes, chimes, Meccano, clocks, clackers, squeaky toys plus more.” The results are a melange of disco and ambient influences. The deluxe CD edition sold out quickly – but whether as artefacts or as pre-wrapped Christmas presents it is hard to say.
To wrap up the year, many of the Mortality Tables contributors sent in their versions of the Strictly Come Dancing theme song that was chewed up by Smith and Xqui at the start of the journey. Cyclic Demonstrating 2023 features Simon Fisher Turner, Moray Newlands, Rupert Lally, Sound Effects Of Death And Horror, Pete Murphy, Audio Obscura, SAD MAN, Alka, venoztks and Ivy Nostrum. The results call to mind the Touch project to create new ringtones for Nokia phones. Play them back as answers to the mindless, alienating rituals of BBC game shows and reconnect to your musical family.
“You’re gonna go far,” sings Guy Chadwick in “Love in a Car” – and who can doubt that has been said to The House of Love’s singer many times before?
The songs written by Chadwick in the 1980s and 1990s have the quiet-LOUD dynamic of the Pixies and the psychedelia of Brian Jones, wrapped up in young male angst and a Briton’s longing for European coolness. The Wedding Present have a parallel line in teenaged misery (as David Gedge demonstrates in a support slot), but The House of Love represent a Beaudelaire-reading, introspective type of student. There are no love-rivals called Kevin, winning the affections of their girlfriends in Chadwick’s stories – rather, there are poster images of Anna Karina provoking reflections on the meaning of pain.
Armed with the ability to make guitars sing, Chadwick’s success with these songs should have been assured. The House of Love did have some chart success, but it came at the cost of the band’s cohesion. Guitarist Terry Bickers was famously dumped from their tour van after setting fire to banknotes and taunting Chadwick about his aspirations. There were still great songs left to write, but the group never really recovered from the experience. Bickers returned for a while, but the moment had passed when they could make good on their commercial promises.
Chadwick didn’t give up on his dreams, but he did face reality. After a long hiatus, he changed the line-up and explored a more American sound with blues influences. There is no harmonica or slide-guitar on stage at Camden’s Electric Ballroom, however – just a glorious walk through the classics.
From the opener, “Cruel,” to the final, feedback-filled blast of “Love in a Car,” The House of Love demonstrate why record company executives got so excited by them. There aren’t many bands with songs as devastating as “The Girl with the Loneliest Eyes” or as strangely-wrought as “Safe.” Chadwick’s learned to spend less time tuning guitars on stage, and twenty songs seem to fly by – even with an acoustic interval by the singer in solo mode. He seems genuinely humbled that his songs are remembered, but there is no forgetting material like “Blind” and “Fade Away.” The real problem is hearing the more subtle moments over the nonstop chattering of the pissheads who mistake a concert for a night in their local pub.
There are calls for “Christine,” which are answered in due course. It’s the one song the part of the crowd who didn’t read Beaudelaire or Nin can remember the name of. For the rest, there is still “Destroy the Heart” and an exercise in automobile romance to settle the question whether Chadwick’s team have still got it. Of course they do.
This has been a difficult year for parts of the music industry. Bandcamp, owned by Epic Games, turned on its workers in an attempt to break its union and reduce its size. Moog was sold to inMusic, the owners of Akai and M-Audio, and started its own programme of layoffs. Spotify announced that it would stop paying artists for 2/3 of the songs it makes available. Glume and Xylo announced that they had turned to sex work to compensate for the challenges of making a living in music. Merchandise sales – the life-blood of touring acts – came under taxation by many venues. At the same time, overall revenues continued to rise – data from 2022 showing new record levels of cash flowing towards the monopolies that control live performances, publishing, and recorded music catalogues. Independent labels and self-releasing artists were squeezed for every last drop, while the grabbing hands grabbed all they could. To quote a California millionaire who contributed to a top-selling album this year, it’s a competitive world.
The misfortune is that exceptional music gets drowned out between the cacophony of TikTok and the sanitised celebrities of the Superbowl half-time show. Challenging sounds and radical ideas are marginalised, even as alternative venues are bulldozed to make way for new developments (goodbye, Iklectik). So, what is to be done?
Part of the answer is greater public funding of the arts – and not just the opera. By supporting festivals and other live events, resources can be used to keep venues and performing artists on their feet. Bursaries for artists to be able to meet their bills while creating new works can be an alternative to sex work or other last-ditch measures. Setting fair royalties for streaming of creative works can help to make up for the declines in physical sales. Rules against union-busting can keep skilled workers engaged. Streaming services should be treated like broadcasters and subjected to royalty regulations. None of these should be controversial measures, but the neoliberal assault on public life has, over decades, eroded the foundation on which culture industries stand. Without action, only Live Nation/Ticketmaster, Sony, and Spotify will be left standing. Breaking up those monopolies would be no bad thing, either.
In that spirit, all of the artists in this year’s chart are on independent labels. We encourage you to buy their releases, rather than just stream them. Wear their merch. Go to their shows. Ignore events designed to suck all of the oxygen out of the scene, with “dynamic pricing” and £50 t-shirts sold by multinational corporations. You can do better, and these artists deserve it.
23. CAPPA – Hell of a Time
LA-based Carla Cappa has been working for years, knocking out dreamy pop music with to-the-minute touches. This track demonstrates CAPPA’s commercial sensibility and pop dynamics. One for the car or the dance floor.
22. Aux Animaux – Night
The long night has descended on Sweden, so it is a good time to highlight this track from Stockholm’s aux animaux, which appears on the new Body Horror album. It comes with a playful video and old-school gothic vibes that give a taste of Gözde Düzer’s style.
21. Elegiac – Meet My Stalker
The collaboration between Blurt’s Ted Milton and Wire’s Graham Lewis known as Elegiac first took shape in 2021, but their work was far from finished. This EP is their second release, pieced together by sound artist Sam Britton. It collects revised versions of three songs from the debut Elegiac album, married to this newly revealed piece.
20. Container 90 – Grand PrixXx
This collection of songs by Container 90 is the duo’s fourth album. It comes as a comic book, instead of a traditional insert, with each page reflecting one of the tracks. Old school EBM lives on through Container 90, and this set draws together their “Eurovision Song Protest,” “EBM Way of Life,” and “Roller Derby Love Affair.” Solid.
19. Sunroof – Electronic Music Improvisations Live in London and Frankfurt
The really fun thing about Sunroof is that two of the most accomplished producers of our time balance on a knife’s edge with unpredictable modules to generate sounds together. There are psychological studies that show band members develop a hive-mind when playing together, but neither Daniel Miller nor Gareth Jones consider themselves musicians. Still, their process of engagement with the sounds (and silences) of the other yields compelling and finessed results. There is a danger with improvisations that threads are lost or egos compete, but neither of these risks has arisen during their performances. The evidence is on this album, which captures shows in London and Frankfurt. The vital flow of electrons, mediated through the hands of the two friends, is something to behold.
18. Vince Clarke – Songs of Silence
Although Vince Clarke is best known for bouncy pop songs made on monophonic synthesisers, he has a long history of making music on the more experimental side. In particular, his collaborations with Martyn Ware as The Illustrious Company have dabbled in multidimensional sounscapes and material for installstions.
It shouldn’t have been such a surprise, therefore, that a break from Erasure work should have led to the development of Songs of Silence. Billed as Clarke’s first solo album, it is a collection of songs built from drones generated on the units incorporated into Clarke’s Eurorack modular system. It could be standard Cafe Oto/Wire Magazine fare, if it wasn’t for Clarke’s ear, which is tuned in an unusually sensitive way.
17. Lucy Gaffney – Daydream in Tokyo
From Belfast, Lucy Gaffney appeared with a style that recalls the much-missed Delays. Fusing guitar-based rhythms with touches of electronics and a very smooth vocal, Gaffney came up with several great songs this year, but this is our favourite.
16. NNHMN – Circle of Doom
The duo of Lee Margot and Michal Laudarg have worked out how to make dark electro tantalising. The current NNHMN album, Circle of Doom, is laden with elegant, charged and dynamic songs to keep the body moving.
15. Die Sexual – Tremble for Me
The US duo, Die Sexual, released a tremendous debut EP this year. Bound, I Rise is certain to make a number of year-end charts with its edgy grooves. We went for this later release, which goes to show that the EP wasn’t beginner’s luck.
14. Cosmic Garden Project – The Green Reverb
There are some artists who seem to be able to add magic to everything they touch. Dan Söderqvist, the Twice a Man singer, is one of those. This year, he has released two albums and still found time for the Cosmic Garden Project. Bringing together Söderqvist, Per Svensson and Pontus Torstensson, The Green Reverb is a poetic, enchanted journey through ancient forests to the sea. It has a psychedelic flow, but there is a reflective tone to the material, as it contemplates our connection to Mother Earth.
13. Lonelyklown – I Believe in Snow
The solo project of Dave Baker, Lonelyklown, was active this year with an album of remixes (Day Jar View), an ode to “All the Summers Gone,” and a pair of songs for the season. This is the last of them, and the proceeds go to support Care4Calais, a charity supporting refugees. It is a reminder that Baker’s songwriting talents and current fascination for the 70s can produce the most amazing gems.
12. John Foxx – The Arcades Project
Harold Budd’s The White Arcades is one of the best applications of reverb ever. John Foxx’s The Arcades Project calls that 1988 album to mind, and it certainly doesn’t stint on the processing. Inspired by a book by Walter Benjamin of the same name, it explores spaces and sights through ambience and presence. John Foxx is a national treasure, and this is an album that belongs in a gallery instead of the CD rack.
11. Strikkland – Enkelriktat
Representing Sweden’s West Coast, the body-pop fusion of Strikkland continues to charge ahead with its hard-edge rhythms. The duo have been picking up more live shows, and their style is like a set of shiny leather boots on the pavement of modern radio.
10. KUNT – Unleashed
The first album from Sweden’s KUNT is a blast. The duo of Paula Lè Boss and Rickard Rosendahl have created a powerful, in-your-face sound that strikes with sequenced blows. This track, remixed by Cryo, gives a good taste of the emphatic, no-nonsense attitude the band delivers.
9. Kite – Don’t Take the Light Away SINGLE OF THE YEAR
Produced together with the Swedish team, Aasthma (Pär Grindvik and Peder Mannerfelt), Kite released this track back in April – just in time for their first live shows in London. Need we say that they were storming demonstrations of the duo’s capability to write outstanding tunes? This track adds to the evidence.
8. Psyche – Live in Sweden
Psyche returned to Europe from a nightmarish year with a storming and emotional show at the famous Dickens pub in Helsingborg. It was quickly released as a live recording, which is excellent, as it captures Darrin Huss at his rawest. The set includes “Prisoner to Desire,” “Uncivilised,” “Misery,” and “The Outsider” – classic Psyche tracks that show a European soul in a Canadian body.
7. The Weathermen – 40 Years REISSUE OF THE YEAR
Take the keyboard player from Fad Gadget’s first live band. Add the visuals director from Tuxedomoon. Stir in politics, cynicism, and a fondness for the absurd. Bake in some hard, minimal electronics. That gives you The Weathermen – Belgium’s iconic electro-jesters.
The band had a string of hits that moved the alternative dancefloor in the late 80s and early 90s. This year, PIAS, their label, marked their 40th anniversary with an EP collecting several of them in one place on vinyl. The throb of Jean-Marc Lederman’s bass synth on “Poison” shakes the walls as Suzanna Stammer (Bruce Geduldig) threatens your Bruce Springsteen records. “Barbie and Ken” is a reminder that Margot Robbie wasn’t the first to satirise the impossibly perfect dolls. “Bang!” is just terrific fun. This is an essential collection of timeless dance music with a knowing glint in its eye.
6. Zanias – Chrysalis
Berlin-based Alison Lewis has honed her alter-ego project into something very special. As Zanias, she released Chrysalis this year; combining personal and political viewpoints into a statement of hope. You don’t mess with Zanias – and you don’t mess with Mother Earth.
5. Pieces of Juno – Atlantis
The last of the Pieces of Juno works expected from Norway’s Juno Jensen, Atlantis struck us with its naturalistic touches. There are also glints of Nick Cave’s, Tom Waits’ and PJ Harvey’s influences. This is the perfect album for Sunday night listening with the lights down. If it doesn’t leave you touched, you are a psychopath.
4. Lau Nau – Aphrilis
Finland’s Lau Nau was very active again this year. She released 5×4 as summer approached, and then this album came towards year-end. Her tenth album, Aphrilis is a figure of beauty and wonder. There are lullabies and songs for the planet, and the material flows with sensual tension. Not a foot is set wrong across the seven songs. Lau Nau and her collaborators have taken the space to create them with a sense of connection with the natural world, and the results are lush.
3. Lucifer’s Aid – Destruction
The new album from Calle Nilsson’s solo project, Lucifer’s Aid, is an exciting career highlight. The previous four studio albums have shown great workmanship, but the craft on Destruction is next level. It sits neatly alongside the best work by Front Line Assembly and label-mates Cryo. This is seriously good dance floor-filling material.
2. REIN – God Is a Woman
In 2023, Stockholm’s REIN criss-crossed North America with Front Line Assembly, and opened for Nitzer Ebb and Front 242, but her new album showed a side several steps removed from her EBM roots. With her coproducer, Djedjotronic, REIN fused elements of Robyn, Janet Jackson, Eurythmics, and The Prodigy to create a dynamic and forward-looking set of songs.
1. Page – En ny våg ALBUM OF THE YEAR
When Daniel Miller released a series of records as Silicon Teens, he showed the future to a young Eddie Bengtsson. The Swedish skateboarder sold his drums and bought two cheap synths. One went to Marina Schiptjenko, and the result was a pioneering band that took over where ABBA left off.
More than four decades later, Page are still making innovative and dynamic sounds with their equipment. Both have been updated for the times, but the spirit of 1979-1980 runs through them. En ny våg is the concentrated extract of Synth Britannia, as imagined by Bengtsson and processed through Moog keyboards. The material is as rich as anything the duo have made, and proceedings are enhanced by the appearance of Chris Payne and Rrussell Bell from Gary Numan’s touring band and Dramatis. It is a match made in Heaven (at least, before Branson bought it).
There is a danger that electronic music events are becoming conventions for men with bald heads and a passion for vintage equipment. Vince Clarke’s recent London performance brought out the shiny-domed gear-heads in large numbers – an audience in his own image. The fans who discovered synth sounds in the 1970s and 80s have competing demands on their time, and a night on the alternative dancefloor isn’t as easy to arrange as it once was. Those who make the journey out are drawn from an increasingly homogenous pool.
Swedish promoters, FutureRetro, tackle that issue head-on at their Weekender festival in Stockholm. Taking over the Slaktkyrkan venue (a converted abbatoir) for two nights, they balance the programme with established and upcoming artists. They also lean away from all-blokey staples; inviting many artists with strong feminine energy. As a result, fans can punch the air aggressively, if they like, but they can also dance without coked-up tanks clearing paths between the venue bar and the front of the stage. Dark wave and electro festivals typically attract decent crowds, but few are as recognisable as the Swedes for their decency. Vinyl skirts and cat-eye make-up don’t need to compete at the event with dad-bods and black t-shirts for space – both are easily accomodated.
Day 1
Proceedings begin with Emmon, a local and very well-regarded act fronted by Emma Nylén. Once the pop darlings of Wonderland Records, Emmon has been reinvented as an EBM-influenced show. Nylén has returned to her DJ roots, and the current material remains striking and catchy with elements of her record collection. There is a trace of Front 242 here, a reference to Goldfrapp there, a nod to Depeche Mode – and an original spine of rhythm and tension that builds excitement throughout the set.
The show begins with “Reconstruction” and ends with “Like a Drum” from the RECON album, written by Nylén and Jimmy Monell. Emanuel Åström of Agent Side Grinder joins Emmon on stage for another of the album’s stand-out tracks, “Purebloods” – a showcase for both sets of vocals. With songs like these, Emmon deserves to be better known outside of Sweden.
From Italy, Ash Code delivered a performance full of dark flourishes. The greatest number of the songs came from their debut album, Oblivion, but the set was also peppered with later crowd favourites like “Nite Rite” and “Posthuman.”
Zanias, the lead project and alter ego of Alison Lewis, takes things up a level with a set of dramatic and artful dark electro. Accompanied by her tour partner, Neu Romancer, on bass guitar, Zanias reaches deep for the energy to keep feet moving and heads bobbing on a night where the wind chill factor reaches Spinal Tap levels. As a carpet of snow grows outside, Zanias throws off sparks that catch hold throughout the “slaughter church.” Zanias’ songs often explore our relationship with nature, but they are as political as they are personal. Many of those in the set come from this year’s Chrysalis album, which has the intention to “weave hope from hopelessness.” In these times, Zanias’s voice is directed against decay and towards renewal. It is a powerful and moving one.
A more classic goth vibe takes over as Clan of Xymox occupy the stage. Singer Ronny Moorings steers the band through a set of old and new songs that resonate with the room. A nostalgic wave surges for two iconic tracks: “A Day” and “Muscovite Mosquito.” Xymox and their label, 4AD, had some kind of falling out involving master tapes once, but these songs helped to define the sound of the alternative Underground in the 1980s. It is the only act with an all-male line-up, but a third of the show include songs named after women or their common pronoun.
Sierra closes the night with a burst of sequenced pyrotechnics. The French artist released her first album this year, but she has been making dents in the scene in the US, UK and Europe in all the right places.
Day 2
The second day of the festival opens with Selofan and Lebanon Hanover. The Fabrika Records label-mates deliver the bass guitar and pained vocals that characterise most gothic rock these days. The result is a comforting familiarity rather than a raged disturbance.
Los Angeles-based Spike Hellis combine European and American influences in a way that wins them a new following. Launching their first European tour, the duo start with the industrial-glitch of “Crisis.” Fans of The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy and Manufacture will find phrases to their taste, but songs like”Control (Rage)” and “Teardrops (Kisses)” demonstrate a range that also takes in flavours of Front Line Assembly and Clock DVA. The set ends with a cover of the Revolting Cocks track, “(Let’s Get) Physical” – an aerobics track for industrial people.
Berlin-based NNHMN have a line in classy electronics. Lee Margot moves like a snake, winding her way across the stage. Michal Laurag mans the machines that charm. The smoke machine belches clouds that conceal them. The crowd dances to “Der Unweise” and “Arabische Ritter.” There isn’t a better sounding dark wave act on the scene today, and NNHMN rise to the occasion.
Stockholm is clearly ramped up for REIN. After touring with Front Line Assembly and opening for Nitzer Ebb and Front 242, she is well-known to the EBM and hard electronics crowds. Tonight, however, she is on stage with her co-producer, Djedjotronic, and they are working solid pop angles with flashes of techno. REIN’s new album, God Is a Woman, gets a live work-out together with key cuts from her debut, Reincarnated. There is a crackle in the air as she fires up her set, looking like Janet Jackson reimagined by William Gibson. The beats explode like throwing caps as Rein demonstrates her versatility and captivates the hometown crowd.
REIN
Djedjotronic follows with a state-of-the-art DJ set that turns Slaktkyrkan into Mitte before the remaining crowd pulls on their toques and gloves to march into the frozen moonlight. They have one question on their lips: How do you pronounce Djedjotronic?
“Hear the crashing steel…”
Robert Görl’s story begins at The End. A chance meeting between black ice and his BMW brings the lyrics of “Warm Leatherette” to life, shorn of their Ballardian eroticism. He joins the car crash set in a German hospital, where doctors piece his shattered body back together like a jigsaw puzzle. The wheel of life makes another rotation, and Görl is reborn into a bed where he has nothing but time to reflect on his intentions and his desires. When he learns to move his limbs again, he will act on them.
“Feel the steering wheel…”
There are few living musicians as influential as Robert Görl. As one-half of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft (DAF), he reshaped pop music in post-War Germany within the limitations of 8-step sequencers. Born by punk’s spirit and kegs at the Ratinger Hof, DAF rejected the rhythms and languages of the four occupying forces; particularly the American conventions of rock and rule by guitar. After early experiments and collaborations, DAF was stripped to two members, a drum kit, and Japanese synths. Gabi Delgado took the microphone, while Görl struck the skins with a sensitivity that belied the hard edge of DAF’s sound.
Together, they created a new genre. It is hard to imagine Front 242 in Belgium or Nitzer Ebb in England without DAF having cleared the path. Their heat was sometimes generated by friction, but DAF united as often as they split; returning to release the spirit that first inspired them. From their first days in a Philbeach Gardens flat to their domination of the German charts; from the Hi-NRG of “Brothers” to the sharp politics of “Der Sheriff” – Görl and Delgado never lost their touch, even if they were sometimes out of touch for long periods of time. They were the princes of the alternative dancefloor from the beginning until the end.
“A tear of petrol is in your eye…”
Not The End. That is where the story begins – remember? In Das Versteck der Stimme [in the English version, which is found on the reverse of the book, The Voice that Dwells Within], Görl takes us through his experiences with the assistance of Hanna Rollmann. The co-authors take a non-linear, impressionistic approach; rendering an account of Görl’s accident, recovery, and return to life with vivid and personal details. Cut through it are Görl’s recollections of his difficult childhood, unhappiness at school, and the transformative creation of DAF. There are fleeting glances and clothes abandoned; hopes expressed and disappointments delivered; and, through it all, the lure of freedom. It is not found in the neon signs of the West nor the touristy temples of the Far East. It is located, rather, in the simplest of touches and – in both directions – a sense of acceptance.
The book fills in many of the blanks left from interviews. The founding of DAF and the band’s emergence from the Ratinger Hof are coloured in with luminous detail. The excitement of making the magnificent “Mit Dir” and Night Full of Tension spills from the page. Görl’s time in Thailand, where he studied Buddhism and found connection with the daughter of a water-buffalo farmer, is finally laid out. His return to Germany and reunification with Gabi, just in time to take part in the Love Parade, sets the stage for the next volume. Written in a way that conveys Görl’s feelings at every step, it is a cinematic and compelling read that no fan of DAF or student of pop music should be without.
It’s raining outside. Winter light barely penetrates the November sky. Amidst the gloom, April is just a dream. A brave crocus shows itself, but there is a mountain of cold to be crossed before it will be in the company of others.
The dream becomes more lucid with the arrival of Aphrilis, the tenth studio album from Lau Nau. It takes the ancient name for the fourth month, dedicated to Aphrodite. “April” opens proceedings with the gentlest instrumentation and the Siren call of spring. It is a long wait for the birds to return, but Laura Naukkarinen’s soothing vocals guide them on soaring currents.
As they float over oceans and deserts, “Kielet on viretty tuuleen” [EN: “The Strings Are Tuned to the Wind”] will carry them to more familiar land. If they are tired, they can stretch their wings and be lulled by “Nukahtamislaulu” [EN: “Lullaby”]. These are songs that lift and flow with warmth.
“Simona” incorporates the chatter of the birds. “Planeeta” [EN: Planet] flows and ebbs like the tides, pulled by the moon and released in a gravitational rhythm. Borderless migrants all, the birds carry seeds from place to place and must wonder why the air must get worse so that a handful of billionaires can put more dollars into their pockets.
As their destination draws near, “Paratiisin kukkivat puut” [EN: “The Flowering Trees of Paradise] shows the power of renewal.
“Seitsemäs taivas” [EN: “Seventh Heaven”] strokes the soul with feather-light touches. When you have arrived in your smultronställe and feel in alignment with the world, then it might be like this. Aphrilis is the month of Aphrodite, but there is enough beauty and love in Aphrilis to last more than thirty days.
Seitsemäs Taivas is also the name of Lau Nau’s extended musical family. Assisting Naukkarinen here are collaborators Matti Bye on celesta and synths, Pekko Käppi on jouhikko, Hermanni Yli-Tepsa on violin and contrabass, Topias Tiheäsalo on electric guitar, and Samuli Kosminen (Múm) on various instruments. They were given their own spaces to contribute, and the results are intricate murmurations of the most delicacy and precision. The album is a journey through the elements, but it ends where we started – with the gentle patter of the rain.
Sweden’s affair with EBM shows no sign of abating. The latest track from Strikkland, from the sequencer-loving West Coast, is a thumping, contorting piece of energy, wrapped in barbed wire. It precedes a new album, which is expected in 2024.
Juno Sandbæk-Jensen never intended her project, Pieces of Juno, to get this far. It was timed to coincide with the end-of-life of NASA’s probe with the same name; but, when the spacecraft was granted an extension, another – final – album was conceived.
Atlantis is not an extension of the Pieces of Juno tetrology that began with Kalopsia in 2017. It is a stand-alone work that brings together Jensen’s interests in classical mythology and the state of the planet.
I wanted to say something about our time in history where humanity is on the brink of self-extinction, where everything feels so hostile and vulnerable and unadaptable. I also wanted to say something about accepting the things I can’t change and ask myself; if I had little or no time left, how would I spend it?
So far, so “Eve of Destruction,” but Pieces of Juno hasn’t given up. Besides the album, she has a film doing the festival circuit that is a visual poem to the north of her native Norway and wider humanity. Øya [EN: The Island] is Sandbæk-Jensen’s second documentary, and it draws on music from Atlantis.
Stylistically, the album is recognisably a Pieces of Juno creation, but it brings in touches of Tom Waits, Nick Cave, and PJ Harvey. One of Waits’ collaborators, Bebe Risenfors, appears on the album, which might have something to do with it. Other contributions come from Magnus Nymo on nylon guitar, Freddy Holm on strings, and Åsa Ava Lange Fredheim. A special feel is added by the harp work of Aseta Koloeva, whom Sandbæk-Jensen found on social media.
Opening with the piano-led “The Musky Opulence of Summer,” the tone of the album is quickly established. Before you can get comfortable, the track is pitched down and brought to an end to to line up with “Juniper,” one of the songs that led the release. Here, we are treated to Sandbæk-Jensen’s vocals, which are as smooth and cool as freshly fallen snow. There are elements of jazz and blues in her approach, but this is lounge music from the edge of the world.
In one of the eco-friendly signals transmitted from the Pieces of Juno base, “Heaven’s Murky Brew,” we are invited to “Drink in the dew and breathe out the fumes.” It is a core part of the message, but social consciousness is also found in the instrumentation of “El Niño.” Whether with words or feelings, Pieces of Juno is invested with care for this lonely rock. The drowned city of Atlantis provides a metaphor for the fragility of humanity.
There are deep considerations of time and acceptance in “Sense of Self.” Sandbæk-Jensen explains that the track was inspired by coming to terms with aging and moving on from the easy beauty of youth. A friend once warned her that women become “unfuckable” as they grow, but the spirit of the song is summed up in her retort: “I’m not ‘fuckable’ – I’m irreplaceable.”