The Swedish post-punk trio, Lejonhjärta, return with a new track. Henrik Stolpe, Henrik Wittgren and Dennis Carlsson offer their most Depeche Mode-influenced piece to date – like “Rush” without the needle.
(Photo: Krichan Wihlborg)
One of the leading tracks from Anna Öberg’s current album, SIN, gets the video treatment. Lie on your back, it says here, but you might want to hop around, too.
The full madness of Bill Drummond is on display here, as he dresses like an old aristocrat and explains how the KLF got to number one. Tony Wilson takes time off from promoting Stockholm Monsters to interview the Scouse scoundrel.
Lace up your bovver boots, strap on your suspenders, and fetch your flat cap: Container 90 are back with new remixes. “Hard Knock Life” and “Psycho Social Media” have new versions, but our choice for today is this mix of “Remote Mind Control,” which has been retooled by Katscan.
Bill Leeb joined Skinny Puppy as a teenager. He left in 1986 to found Front Line Assembly, which has almost reached its fortieth anniversary. Along the way, he has worked with other artists as (among others) Delerium, Noise Unit, Cyberaktif, Fauliage, and Equinox. What has been missing, amidst the constant flow of electro-industrial and ambient music, is a solo album.
That is set to be remedied with the release of Model Kollapse on Metropolis in September. The eleven-song album will be in vinyl and CD formats, showcasing the British Columbia musician’s current output. There will be guests involved, as the first single to be unveiled reveals. “Terror Forms” includes another Left Coast resident: Shannon Hemmett from Actors and Leathers.
(Photo: Bobby Talamine)
Propaganda were one of the most important acts of the 1980s. Signed to Trevor Horn’s ZTT label, they fused industrial and alternative sensibilities with the sleekest of aesthetics. Under the cover of elegant pop, they smuggled in the sounds of metal, the rhythms of the underground dancefloor, and scenes lifted from expressionist cinema.
At the time, many West Germans could be found listening to the Scorpions in stonewashed denim, with bandanas tied around their legs and squirrel tails hanging from their belts. Nostalgia shows selectively neglect to point out the contrast between the travesty of mass fashion and the haute couture of Propaganda’s sound.
The tools they recorded with cost the same as a house, at the time, but Propaganda was not elitist. They embodied a Teutonic coolness that seemed accessible to the kids on the alternative dancefloor. The icy vocals of Claudia Brücken could lean towards Brechtian cabaret, but there was warmth and power in the instrumentation. Their debut album, A Secret Wish, went top 20 in the UK.
After that initial rush, things got complicated. Legal troubles surfaced, Brücken went solo, and the other members of the band were subject to an injunction by ZTT. Another album was made with a different lead singer, but the original quartet were unhappy with a subsequent attempt to reunite.
The core songwriting team of Michael Mertens and Ralf Dörper has combined again as Propaganda for a new album. Propaganda is a double LP/CD with thirteen tracks or a standard LP with eight. On the evidence of the first single to be released from the album, “Purveyor of Pleasure,” the sound has been updated for the new millennium in a darker vein. The touches of the epic and the melodic are still present, but the shine of the 80s has been replaced by a grittier intensity and new textures. Our own secret wish comes true on 11 October 2024 through Bureau B. In the meantime, the second single is out now with vocals by Thunder Bae:
Tracklisting
A1) They Call Me Nocebo
A2) Purveyor Of Pleasure
A3) Vicious Circle
A4) Tipping Point
B1) Distant
B2) Love:Craft
B3) Dystopian Waltz
B4) Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte ltd
2-LP/2-CD Edition
C1) Not Good For You
C2) Solace In Sin
C3) World Out Of Joint
D1) I Feel Mysterious
D2) The Calling
(Photos: Thomas Stelzmann)
There is a theme to the musical projects of Mat Smith. His first visible enterprise was the Mute Response series of compilations. Organised around musicians (and non-musicians) reacting to the legacy of Mute Records, it set the tone by Smith proposing an idea to see what would come back.
Since then, Smith has undertaken an ambitious set of releases under the Mortality Tables label. The LIFEFILES set, featuring Simon Fisher Turner, Xqui, Dave Clarkson, and Andrew Spackman, among others, is based on found sounds supplied by Smith. Artists are them invited to restructure, mangle, and edit the raw material as they see fit. The series is up to number twenty with BMH’s Killigrew.
The latest release from Mortality Tables is The Engineer. Made available as a limited-edition cassette tape and a digital download, it is based around a story written by Smith and narrated by Barney Ashton-Bullock. Interwoven with the reading are twenty-nine contributions from artists who had been supplied with thirty second extracts. They were allocated sections sequentially, based upon the order in which they agreed to provide their responses.
Some of the artists will be familiar to the wider public – step forward, Vince Clarke, Gareth Jones, Reed Hays, and Simon Fisher Turner. Others will be more niche, but readers of The Wire or Smith’s contributions to Electronic Sound and Clash might recognise Rupert Lally, Alka, Hattie Cooke, Veryan, and Erika Tsuchiya. The list of contributors is long, and the quality of compositions is high. Ashton-Bullock, who is also known for his work with Erasure’s Andy Bell, does an exemplary job of leading the proceedings.
The basis for the story was Smith’s father, Jim. A mechanical engineer who worked in Shakespeare’s purported birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, the elder Smith was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2018. Smith, the younger, created this project as his response his father’s condition, and it serves to promote his memory. It also raises funds for the Alzheimer’s Society, so get your copy of the digital album on Bandcamp and help a good cause.
Anna Öberg has the knack of popping up with catchy tracks imbued with a little mystery. With producer Charles Storm, the Nordic songstress creates techno-infused songs that hint at the exotic or add drops of pagan ecstacy. Like Chris & Cosey in the Swedish woods.
SIN fits the pattern. It’s a set of tracks with their roots deep in traditions of dance music and experimentalism. The love child of Fad Gadget and The Flowerpot Men. The album title isn’t a celebration of misdeeds – “sin” is the Swedish third person reflexive possessive pronoun. So, it corresponds to “her” or “his,” depending on the context. Feel free to add it to your email signature amd Instagram profile.
The album features found sounds, but you will get lost in the music. The sources are diverse:
Animal sounds and wind in foliage on trees outside at Alvaret, Öland. Locks on the Dalslands canal. Tin buckets with stones; porphyry from Vinga and granite from Bohuslän. Flakes of ice that are thrown towards a frozen Kattegat.
SIN offers a rich vein of sensual and dynamic material. Mine it at your leisure.
The release of the new EP from Emmon provides an opportunity to know the band through Emma Nylén’s record collection. There are influences of Nitzer Ebb, Front 242, Massive Attack, and Depeche Mode detectable throughout the set. That isn’t to say that the Swedes are slavish copying the sounds and styles of these artists. Nej. They are channelling the vibe of the early 90s alternative club and bringing it up to date with Emmon’s entrancing pop energy.
XCEPTION collects five songs from the Stockholm act’s recent repertoire. The opener, “DARK,” is characterised as a “vampire epic,” but it’s not just for Goths. Even if the bats are set loose on the dancefloor, they will have to use their sonar to share space with the industrial crowds who appreciate sexy sequences.
“Devil’s on Your Back” is impressed with tension. Nylén’s vocals glide smoothly over the bubbling anxiety created by Jimmy Monell’s programming; recreating the emotional peaks of the Bristol sound. It’s elegant and dramatic – and Shara Nelson would approve.
It is followed by a reprise in the form of “On the Devil’s Back,” all moody strings and bass plucks. Who is riding whom? That’s for you to discover.
The pace picks up again with “SKIN,” which serves as a reminder of Emmon’s electro-pop heritage. Tracks like “Black Light” and “Lips on Fire” were driven and full of sensual energy before they took a more aggressive turn. “SKIN” is faithful to that inheritance, while importing the nuances of mid-career Clock DVA and Eric Random. An Atari computer and fractal visuals generator are all you need to get back to 1993, but Emmon fuse that feeling with their ability to make hips shake.
Proceedings wrap with “No Man’s Land,” which proves that Emmon are pushing out the frontiers of the Swedish scene. Sorry, Max Martin – this is what we want to hear from your hometown.
A sound starts to rise that conjours the ghost of Throbbing Gristle. The industrial ambience of the Beck Road jazz funk combo is, in the way of these things, consumed by growling beats that owe more to Skinny Puppy’s manifesto of aggressive electronics. Welcome to the first performance by m:onitor, which is, in the way of these things, also the Swedish act’s first recording.
Using CCTV footage, we tracked down the members of m:onitor and asked them to resolve some issues for us.
What is m:onitor all about?
John Lindqwister: It’s about being spontaneous and trying out stuff. It’s to learn things we haven’t done before and have fun while doing it.
Joel Lindqvist: m:onitor is all about letting our creativity run amok – with no boundaries. Lots of improv. Basically, things that you can’t do within the framework of the other guys’ bands. For me, it is a lot of playing with samplers, drum machines and modular synths!
Khyber Westlund: This came about as a one-off thing, like Joel mentioned; then we realized that this format gave us the opportunity to experiment and do things we haven’t tried before. So, before we did our first concert, we didn’t rehearse. We made the decision to improvise, and that became the first foundation of what we do. Looking forward, the idea is to let the music lead us, follow the noise, follow the beat…
Tell us about your musical backgrounds.
John: Well, my background is within lots of bands, which have released at least 12-13 full-length albums and lots of other stuff. Bands like Cat Rapes dog, Machinista, Folk är folk, Atemlos, Headtrip Inc. – to name a few.
Joel: I am the one of us with the shortest background in music. I released one album together with John as Basswood Dollies a few decades ago – that is about it!
Khyber: For those who remember, I started my musical journey with q-department. In the late nineties, I met John and joined Headtrip Inc. By that time, I’d come to an end with q-department and wanted to explore new territories, so I started the (h)industrial band, Independent State. About ten years ago, I met Ulrika from Compute, Joakim from Covenant and Richard from Dvala, and we formed the left-field band, amusi. During that time, I’ve done work, programming, remixes, etc., for Page, Machinista, Darkside Cowboys, Den Där Killen – and the list goes on. The last few years, I’ve been recording John’s vocals for different projects like Atemlos; and, in the midst of all this, m:onitor became a thing.
How do you share duties?
John: Mainly, lyrics and vocals; but, live, I will do some synths, drum pads and some bass.
Joel: I do the driving back and forth to our gigs! No, seriously: I write the songs with Khyber and make a lot of noise on my synthesizers!
Khyber: We kind of share things. Me and Joel write the music and make the beats and all the noises, I also play bass, and John is more focused on the vocals – but we also consider that as an instrument.
Are there plans for recordings?
Khyber: The idea is to record every concert we do and release that. From those recordings, we will pick-up ideas as to what comes next. The first recording is called m:ovement and the second probably will follow in October/November. We are going to combine live and studio work, and there isn’t a really clear-cut boundary between those two. Some of our material will only be live and you actually have to be there to experience it, since not everything is about sound. There are other elements involved to make m:onitor what it is.
What have reactions been like, so far?
John : The first gig was at a local record store, Rundgång. It was packed, and the reactions were really positive.
Joel: First of all, this was supposed to be a one-off kinda thing, but all three of us fell in love with what we had accomplished making music together!
Khyber: Very positive, I would say. The first gig was packed ,and no one left. That is always something, since no one had heard us before. People were curious what we were up to, and they really liked it. During the short time leading up to the gig, and during the gig, we realised that we were onto something.
What’s the price of love?
John: Music.
Joel: 99 red balloons?
Khyber: To quote a very famous band, “And in the end/The love you take/Is equal to the love you make.”