Naked Lunch recently warmed up for Covenant, but they are stalwarts on the UK electronic scene, having appeared on the famed Some Bizarre album alongside Depeche Mode. Eddie Bengtsson of Page and Sista Mannen pa Jorden (playing in London on 19 April 2015 at The Lexington) has remixed one of the tracks from Rabies!, the most recent EP from the Lunch, and it’s a classy slice of dancefloor-friendly poptronica.
My God Damn Territory are back with new material. After The Stabby Sessions album comes a remix by Eddie Bengtsson of Page and Sista Mannen på Jorden (who are playing in London on 19 April 2015, don’t you know) of a track from their previous release, Who Are You Talk Show? Bengtsson and the band have met in the mix before: their third album, released in 2012, was billed as My God Damn Territory vs. Page. The combination is still potent, as this track shows.
Through the post comes a four-track 7″ single that plays at 33 1/3 rpm. On it are tracks recorded at The Bombshelter, the studio set up in St. Catharines, Canada by Andreas Gregor and Dave Rout (ex-Rational Youth). Each track is supplied by a different band with which Gregor or Rout has been involved. Techniques Berlin involved both of them, and so they put forward “And You” – the first time that the track has been released anywhere. Methods of Dance, one of Rout’s projects, offers “Dancing in Berlin,” recorded in 1986 and held in the vaults until now. The Beautiful Spies, the duo of Rout and Dina Naskos, are represented by “Bright Light” from their album, Just Fascination. Agents in Infrared, Gregor’s current project, weigh in with “Asleep from Years,” lifted from last year’s album, Tomorrow’s World.
The package is a carefully-assembled set of stunning minimal wave poptronica. As the needle vibrates in the groove, crisp snares and bubbling bass lines reveal the lineage of the current projects coming from The Bombshelter. The ordering information tells us that The Future Past EP is “ready for mail order. Numbered edition of 300 copies. $10 for the EP. Shipping and Handling: $4.50 for Canada, $6.00 for the US and $11.00 for the rest of the world. Paypal: dark.retro@gmail.com.”
Reaching back to 1987, Sista Mannen på Jorden (SMPJ) made their first live appearance at Stadt Hamburg, an all-ages venue in Malmö, Sweden. The band started as a side project to Page, with Eddie Bengtsson working on science fiction-influenced spacetronica. Almost thirty years and many quality albums later later, SMPJ are making their UK debut on 19 April 2015 at A Secret Wish.
It would be hard for an ezine called Cold War Night Life to let pass a film about the nightlife of West Berlin during the 1970s and 80s, particularly when it tells the story from the standpoint of Mancunian exile, Mark Reeder. Under the shadow of medium-range nuclear missiles and surrounded by tanks, West Berlin was an island of Western decadence in a sea of fake socialism; an outpost for the dollar and the mark which could neither expand nor contract. Few wanted to live there, but punks willing to squat in the walled city were able to survive on social assistance and by selling contraband. Some of them formed bands that exploded with energy. Some of them became addicts. Some did both. None of them slept normal hours.
Reeder found himself in the position of Factory Records’ sales representative for Germany, helping to promote Joy Division and A Certain Ratio. Circumstances also led him to co-manage Malaria! – the girl group that was all woman – and organise punk shows in East Berlin. He also made music in Die Unbekannten, which became Shark Vegas and toured with New Order. If you wanted to know anything about the creatures of Berlin’s night, Reeder was your contact – and you didn’t need Harry Palmer glasses to find him.
We’re excited about the trailer for B-Movie, a documentary of that time directed by Jörg A. Hoppe, Klaus Maeck und Heiko Lange. The tagline is “Lust & Sound in West Berlin, 1979-1989,” and it has a soundtrack that includes Malaria!, Neubauten, Tangerine Dream and Tödliche Doris. It is touring the festivals now.
B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin (1979-1989) – Official Trailer from scenes from on Vimeo.
The Department first came to our attention with a clever video for the catchy track, “As If Transformed.” The Anglo-Swedish duo of Rob Green and Magnus Lindström have now put out their first album, Alpha, which offers two versions of that song and another eleven poptronica tracks in one package.
The Department’s 80s influences loom as large as the hairstyles of that period, and touches of Depeche Mode, A-Ha and Duran Duran can be detected in songs like “Don’t Give Up” and “Glass Houses.” Rather than being derivative, this stylised approach is a nod to the band’s roots, and their album successfully combines that sound and feel with a series of infectious original songs.
For a debut album, Alpha is a strong effort. There are great sounds crafted by Lindström, using his collection of old-school synths, while Green has developed an 80s style that owes much to the dark wave as to his professed influences, New Order and The Smiths.
Alpha can be found on Bandcamp.
Muricidae, the duo of John Fryer and Louise Fraser, has revealed its first EP, Tales from a Silent Ocean. Awash with atmosphere, the release is infused with the sophisticated style that Fryer conjured up for 4AD during his time as a member of This Mortal Coil and studio magician at Blackwing Studios.
The collection begins with “Away,” a flowing Siren-song in which Fraser’s vocals float like a breeze over waves of treated piano. Fans of This Mortal Coil and The Hope Blister will recognise the lineage of the immaculate production, while Fraser’s voice will exert its alluring action on all those whose hearts have been dashed on life’s rocks. It has a cinematic feel, like ocean spray shot in slow motion, and we’d be surprised if it didn’t end up in a David Lynch film.
There is a rawness to Muricidae’s sound, which is particularly exposed on “Real Slow.” Fryer’s guitars grind with a raunchiness that is sonic Tarantino: all ripped tights and interlocked fingers. Fraser’s vocals are confident and assertive. The effect is primal, free from gloss and inhibition.
"Real Slow" a Super 8 music video from FireTrial Films on Vimeo.
“Should I Stay” raises a doubt that The Clash also once sought to resolve, but here the question is posed internally. There is an English feel to the song, which lets it sit alongside Virginia Astley’s From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, but without the latter’s twee romanticism.
“Falling” begins with harsh rhythms and builds up into an elegant, soaring track with sparkling synthesized accents. Like the shells of the murex snails that give the duo its name, the sound is beautifully complex.
Another version of “Away” closes the set, bracketing it with added strings and underlining what Gilbert and Lewis told us so long ago: it ends with the sea.
Tales from a Silent Ocean is released on 1 April 2015.
Jean-Marc Lederman’s career in music has covered a lot of ground: from playing with Fad Gadget and The The to sound design for video games; from reinventing alternative dance music with The Weathermen to classy poptronica in Mari & The Ghost. The Brussels-based musician and composer has been part of the European music scene for more than three decades.
His latest project is a concept album that reaches beyond the edges of your virtual turntable. The music in The Last Broadcast on Earth crosses genres and decades, but it is only one part of a multimedia package. The album is accompanied by an computer game (also available as an app for Apple and Android) that brings together Lederman’s interests in sound design, gaming and pop music. The umbrella of The Jean-Marc Lederman Experience draws under it contributions from chanteuse Anna Domino, Jay Aston from Gene Loves Jezebel, Matt Johnson of The The, Tom Shear from 23 Assemblage, The Weathermen, Mari & The Ghost, Jacques Duvall and a host of other artists.
If you tune your dial to 99.5 FM, then in most American towns you will receive the signal of a station that plays “only the HITS!” with the last word always in capital letters. At the end of the world, the last broadcast is not a collection of Top 40 favourites but an eclectic mix of original songs and covers that reflect the styles of times past. Civilisation ends, not with a bang (or, as The Weathermen would put it, a “BANG!“), but with alt-ballads and well-paced poptronica, interrupted only by listener calls, in a Steampunk blend. To let Lederman set the scene:
A deserted country road at night. You’ve been driving for hours, headlamps on full beam flash-illuminating ghosts of sleeping trees. The radio plays desperate love songs, songs of hope, songs of despair, lost time and moments where you regret not reaching out to touch another. These songs are gifts wrapped in shiny sonic paper that you tear open with just your mind and your heart. The radio station wants you to cherish them, as you wind through the empty starlit landscape, wondering if this really could be the last night on Earth.
The Last Broadcast on Earth is not a hardline manifesto from The Weathermen but an organic, flowing set of songs that come together as a whole. The links that connect them include out-takes from a genre-crossing collection of films, spanning the distance between Aladdin and The Big Lebowski. The album is best listened to as a complete piece, as the grooves are etched with elegance.
The album is available now on iTunes and Amazon. The dedicated Web site, from which the accompanying game can be downloaded, is at www.jmlederman.com.
We are immense fans of Fad Gadget/Frank Tovey here at Cold War Night Life, so finding this treasure from 1982 is a source of great happiness. The clip is from the British TV series, Whatever You Want. The show starts with a nonmusical reference to “Lady Shave” and launches into “Coitus Interruptus” before moving onto tracks from his then-current album, Under the Flag.
Sweden’s Train to Spain were one of the very first bands to appear in Cold War Night Life. They were also first up on stage at our event, “An Evening with the Swedish Synth.” We like Jonas Rasmusson’s catchy, uptempo electronics. With great vocals from the Kylie-esque Helena Wigeborn, the band has enormous potential, so it’s fantastic to see them moving into video and raising the level of their production. There is an 80s thread running through “Keep on Running” that is brought out strongly here.