Dan Pachet used to host a late-night public access cable TV show called Alternative Rockstand. His own tastes were quite varied, but he knew when something was worth listening to outside of the musical mainstream. He captured footage of Skinny Puppy playing the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 1985, but it was poorly lit and shot from the back of the venue. The video has gone from Youtube, but you can still find this unique early interview by Pachet.
Canadian synthpop heroes, Rational Youth, and expatriate darkwave masters, Psyche, have joined forces for a cover of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” The idea first took shape when the bands toured the Nordics, earlier this year, and is realised with the release of a 7″ single on Artoffact.
News of the collaboration led to Rational Youth receiving hate mail and being on the wrong end of criticism from American radio stations, who deemed the song, which is used in hockey arenas, “untouchable.” Video footage of an early performance in Sweden was widely shared, and the controversy even made it to the Spanish edition of Rolling Stone. The English-language edition should pay attention now, because on first hearing the cover is respectful to the original, while infused with the unmistakable styles of Tracy Howe and Darrin Huss.
Both singers also appear on the flip side, a new song called “Underrated.” Because they are.
Click the image for the Soundcloud link:
A Split Second had success with a number of hard-edged singles in the 1980s. Tracks like “Rigor Mortis,” “Flesh” and “Mambo Witch” were standard equipment for any DJ working an alternative dancefloor. Like Front 242, A Split Second was one of the first generation of EBM artists to emerge from Belgium, working heavy beats and sequencer patterns into a darker form of poptronica. Their style gave rise to the New Beat movement, in which electronic tracks were slowed down using pitch control on turntables, but A Split Second tracks have also been remixed in a trance style by Paul Oakenfold. In this exclusive interview with CWNL’s Anders Junfjärd, Marc Heyndrickx of the influential band talks about the music that inspired him and the band’s plans for the future.
As a reminder of A Split Second’s singular style, revisit the video for “Flesh” below:
This is their video for “Colonial Discharge”:
The Cassandra Complex were founded in Leeds in 1980. The original cyberpunks, they combined a driving rock sound with electronic instruments that became a template for successive generations of artists. With the band in Stockholm for Bodyfest 2014, CWNL’s Anders Junfjärd sat down with singer and founder member, Rodney Orpheus, together with guitarist Andy Booth, to catch up on three decades of fighting against sleep and below-standard alternative music.
Leeds was the home of Fad Gadget and Soft Cell. Did you feel an affinity for those artists when you were starting out?
[Rodney] I met Marc and Dave from Soft Cell briefly when we first started, but they left Leeds just after we arrived, so we never really had much contact with them. There were some other great bands in Leeds in that period. The Sisters of Mercy started just before us. The Three Johns started about the same time as us, and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry started just after us, I think. Then, of course, The Mission came just after The Sisters broke up. So, there was a lot of cross-pollination, because our studio was next door to where one of The Three Johns lived, and Wayne Hussey lived about four doors down on my street, so I used to see Wayne walk past the house every day going to the shop beside my house.
So, there were a couple of square kilometers in Leeds that had somewhere like two hundred bands in it at the time. It was ridiculous – everybody was in a band. So, a lot of cross-pollination went back and forth between all the different musicians and bands. I worked with The Sisters, you [to Andy] worked with how many other bands. Then we had things like MDMA and Utah Saints coming up after that, who were ex-Cassandra Complex people.
Germany has become a second home for many alternative artists, such as Psyche. What is it that makes the German soil better for growing artists outside of the American-influenced mainstream?
[Rodney] The reason we moved to Germany was very simple – for tax reasons. Germany is where our music was accepted the most. We were relatively big stars in Germany, and we were still living in England. The problem was, when we played in Germany – we played a lot of concerts and big festivals – because we were living abroad, the German government took twenty percent of all the money before we even got it and kept it. When we went back to the UK, the UK government taxed us on the money we had left. Twenty percent is a lot of money, if you are a starving rock musician. By moving to Germany, we could keep that extra twenty percent of the money. That was the difference between starving and eating. So, given that choice, eating was sounding like a good alternative.
As it happened, I lived in Hamburg for many years, because I really liked Hamburg – it’s a really good city. That’s how I met Volker and Axel, for example – who still live in Hamburg. So, Hamburg is still our second home. And, of course, other musicians from England – famously, Andy Eldridge – moved to Hamburg, as well. It had a good vibe, a good atmosphere, and was less boring than Leeds.
With downloading and YouTube making your music freely available, is it still possible for musicians to make a living with their music?
[Andy] No – from touring.
[Rodney] I do a lot of music industry conferences, speaking on panels – from a production and technology side, which is my other career. Andy, Volker and I are all heavily involved in the music industry.
[Andy] We all are. All our jobs are related to the music industry.
[Rodney] We sure as hell don’t make enough money out of the Cassandra Complex!
The internet had a lot of promise in liberating music – and it did, and I’m very happy about this and think it is a wonderful thing – but the days of selling an album are over. If you take a band like U2 – arguably, the biggest and most successful band in the world, and they decided to give their new album away. If the biggest band in the world can make no money – [they are] giving their stuff away – then that should be a message to everybody else. So, if you want to be in the music business to make a living, forget it. Just forget it! It’s not going to happen. Unless you are unbelievably lucky. You’d be better off putting your money in the lotto – you have more chance of winning.
[Andy] I’ve acted as a lawyer for hundreds of bands, and I always say to them at the start, “Don’t stop your job until this really pays for itself.” Because you might get some money and think, “Oh, I’m a professional musician!” You can’t!
Don’t quit your day job
[Andy] Not until you can.
[Rodney] Here [indicating Andy] is a very successful music business lawyer; so trust us, we know this.
You covered Throbbing Gristle, back in the 80s, with “Something Came Over Me.” What other bands are an influence on you?
[Rodney] We’ve covered a lot of bands who have been influences on us. Suicide, obviously. We’ve done “Frankie Teardrop” – we play that live quite frequently. They were a huge influence on us. Alan Vega was a very big influence on me as a singer.
[Andy] When we started, Suicide was the band we all really liked.
[Rodney] Throbbing Gristle, obviously – we are big fans of Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV. I’m very happy that Genesis and I are very good friends now, and I got to meet Sleazy before his death and spent some time with him. Chris & Cosey – I really love those guys, they are amazing. Who else are big influences on us? A lot of early punk bands – I mean, we were punk. Buzzcocks were a huge influence I would say on songwriting, and they are still amazing songwriters. Velvet Underground – gigantic influence. Hawkwind – which most people wouldn’t get, but there’s a lot of psychedelia and improvisation in what we do – that comes a lot from that Hawkwind-y kind of vibe, I think. Wire – a big influence. Who else?
[Andy] Cabaret Voltaire…
[Rodney] My favourite band ever! Cabaret Voltaire were a gigantic influence on us and me personally. They were my favourite band for many, many, many years, and when I met them it was just an amazing experience for me.
[Andy] The interesting thing is, you don’t always end up sounding like the things that you are influenced by.
[Rodney] That’s right. I don’t think that we sound like Cabaret Voltaire.
[Andy] Or the Buzzcocks. Well, we know where we’ve stolen things from.
[Rodney] Obviously, Joy Division, New Order – huge influences.
You invented cyberpunk.
[Rodney] Yeah, we did. You know what was really weird the other day? Somebody on Facebook posted some clips from the Billy Idol cyberpunk album. I thought it was so f—ing bad. He was trying so hard to rip us off and just missed it completely.
Have you won the war against sleep?
[Rodney] At our age?
[Andy] Yeah, we’re still here!
[Rodney] We’re still here and we’re still kicking ass. It amazes me that we are still around – me and him [indicating Andy] started together thirty years ago. This is our thirtieth anniversary show tonight, which is amazing.
[Andy] We don’t look that old, let’s face it.
[Rodney] Well, I do. It was really good – we were doing “Motherad” earlier on in the sound-check and I suddenly had a flashback to doing it in a studio in 1986. This is twenty-eight years ago. I remember what it was like the first time I sang it in the studio – we effectively wrote it in the studio. We’re still doing it and it still sounds amazing. I think we still sound very vibrant.
What is great, but is also kind of sad, is I think we sounded a lot more alive and vibrant and modern than most of the other bands – hearing new bands – who just sound old and tired. I hear so many new bands and there is nothing original in what they are doing whatsoever, which is kind of scary, because we are huge music fans. That’s how we started playing – because we loved music. As Andy said to me yesterday, we still have another great album left in us, so we’re not finished yet.
There was a time when bands like Lush, Ride and Pale Saints worked feedback into luscious channels, on which the voices of real grrrls and guys would float; clouds of sound and uncut fringes providing a Brechtian distancing effect from the fragility of feeling in their lyrics. Ex-pat Canadian, Jennie Vee, has given new life to the style with a near-perfect debut solo EP. Die Alone is a five-track download on Bandcamp, and we struggled to pick a single track to highlight. In the end, “Wicked” wins out, because it has a video that doubles as a travelogue of EC1 with a sleek, stylish soundtrack.
Going back to Parralox‘s first album, Electricity, is like rifling through a collection of the best singles of the 1980s. John von Ahlen’s celebrated lyric videos for Parralox compress the decade’s finest music into graphical quotes, hints and allusions, sometimes using nothing more than the colour palette of a Neville Brody or Designers Republic sleeve. On record, the references come fast and furious, in complex layers. Each listen reveals another tribute to Yazoo, Front 242, Propaganda, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, OMD, that John Farnham track from Hot Rod, Depeche Mode, Ultravox, Human League, New Order, Kraftwerk – a breath-taking sweep through the best-loved poptronica of the period, even if the clue is just a particular reverb on the snare or a three-note chord played on a Pro One. Electricity is loaded with suggestive sounds to celebrate the sonic style of the decade that fashion forgot, but Parralox’s songs remain strikingly original and infectious.
The 2014 release of Electricity comes in two flavours. Electricity (Expanded), available for download at Bandcamp, delivers new, extended versions of all fifteen tracks from the 2008 original album. A physical release, issued in Germany, includes previously unreleased demos from the Electricity sessions, specially commissioned remixes of selected Electricity tracks and expanded versions.
Hard work has gone into perfecting the new versions, so that they aren’t just stretched out with drum fills (we’re looking at you, Pete Waterman and Trevor Horn) but genuinely built up with clever additions on the scaffolding first erected in 2008. “Black Jeans” is sexier than ever; “The End of Summer” even more Yazoo-flecked; and “Eastern Wall” is packed tighter with New Order, Human League and Italo disco references. Rebooted and suited, hotter than a “Cruel Summer,” Electricity (Expanded) is a solar flare of talented pop. It’s confirmation of Vince Clarke’s line: you really can’t get enough.
Secession were one of Scotland’s finest alternative acts. The video for their 1987 single, “The Magician,” had been missing in action, as it was never officially released, but it’s just been uploaded to Youtube by the video’s director. Where’s it been hiding? Why wasn’t it released? We don’t know, but any video mixing bicycle repairs with beans on toast might have been vaguely suspect in those days.
Emmon’s new album, AON, has just been released as a limited edition package by Wonderland Records. We’re holding our breath for the review copy, but the signs are very promising, if this video is anything to go by. Emma Nylén’s vocals are as strong as ever in this soaring track, the first single to be released from the album.
John Fryer has a long history making and shaping music. Look on the back of the sleeves of the most important releases from the Mute or 4AD stables from the 1980s and his name will probably pop up as an engineer or producer. Speak and Spell? He was there. Upstairs at Erics? Yep. Head Over Heels? Check. Pump Up the Volume? Mmm-hmm. Not to mention his work in This Mortal Coil and The Hope Blister, nor his role in putting Nine Inch Nails over the top. Fryer’s been at the coal face when musical history was made so many times that it’s of immense interest when he has a new project to share. In this case, it’s a shiny, dark number with Pinky Turzo on vocals, layering delicate and spiky sounds like the finest muslin draped over thistles. Silver Ghost Shimmer cite 1960s pop acts like The Shangri Las as influences, but they have a post-punk pedigree like no other.
If 2013 was a bumper year for recorded music, then 2014 was the year of the live show. Besides carefully curated festivals, like Electronic Summer and TEC 003, there was an ambitious Nordic tour by Rational Youth, Psyche, Sista mannen på jorden and I Satellite, followed by a German-Polish outing for Rational Youth and Psyche. Cold War Night Life sponsored “An Evening with the Swedish Synth” in Brick Lane, showcasing leading poptronica Vikings, Page, Machinista and Train to Spain. Karin Park and Parralox stormed the London stage this year, as well. The high water mark for UK artists was set by Vile Electrodes, however, who warmed up for their show at TEC 003 by winning awards in Germany. Sure, Avicii can fill hockey arenas with EDM DJ sets, but does he hand-make CD sleeves from faux fur, wear hats made from washing-up gloves and sing like a young Debbie Harry? No, and until he does, the Vile ones will have the creative edge.
With that, we are pleased to present Cold War Night Life’s Top 10 Releases of 2014.
ALBUM OF THE YEAR
1. Rational Youth – Cold War Night Life / Recordings 1981-84
Pole position in 2014 was easily taken by a set of recordings that were all made by 1984. Rational Youth’s first album, Cold War Night Life, came out in 1982 and quickly took a place in the synth pantheon next to the classic releases from that time, such as Depeche Mode’s Speak and Spell and John Foxx’s Metamatic. Over the years, it has become a cult favourite outside of Canada, with Swedish and German synthers fanning the embers into occasional flames. This year, the leading European artisan label, Vinyl on Demand, lovingly collated it with live recordings, demos, singles and EPs for one of their ultra-high quality box sets. Stunning sound from heavy-duty 180gm vinyl and amazing design mean that this is a package that only comes around once every thirty years.
SINGLE OF THE YEAR
2. Sista mannen på jorden – ”Stadens alla ljus”
Eddie Bengtsson nearly didn’t record “Stadens alla ljus” [EN: “City Lights”] himself. He first offered it to his former band, S.P.O.C.K. It was only after they turned it down that he took the plunge with his legendary project, Sista mannen på jorden [EN: The Last Man on Earth]. That proved to be a good move, as SMPJ fans have come to expect world-class poptronica with themes of space and longing from Sweden’s own Vince Clarke. “Stadens alla ljus” is the story of an astronaut looking down on the Earth and commenting on urban illumination as his air supply runs out. With sweeps that cover the cosmos and sequences set to Warp 4, it’s an evocative song made more poignant by Bengtsson’s emotive vocals. Once you’ve been transported by the chorus, there’s no way back.
The 12” version came with another SMPJ original, “Vem gör det då?” [EN: “Who does it, then?”], as well as two covers: an exquisite version of OMD’s “Stanlow” with Swedish lyrics and a faithful Devo tribute, “Going Under”. The combination was unbeatable in 2014.
3. Hannah Peel – Fabricstate
One of the highlights of the year was receiving a copy of Hannah Peel’s Fabricstate EP on a Saturday when the Sun was shining. We said:
“It’s not just that the record is pressed in red vinyl, mirroring the colour of her hair; nor that it contains Chloe, the award-winning song already heard in a British television production – the thing that sets Fabricstate apart is that it is infused with distillates of folk music but is a thoroughly modern musical cocktail. Take the title track, which begins with a piano accompaniment, but quickly develops a martial rhythm underpinned by Test Dept-esque metal, before razor-sharp sawtooth waveforms come in. Peel’s voice has a delicate quality, which sits against the more dangerous sounds of the instrumental track, setting them off by highlighting just the slightest hint of menace. Folk music for urban living, let’s call it.”
Peel’s talent and technique are solidly in evidence throughout. We couldn’t pick just one song, so the whole EP takes third place in this year’s list.
4. Machinista – Xenoglossy
Machinista’s infectious poptronica travelled well in 2014, reaching London for “An Evening with the Swedish Synth.” Their live show is a razor-sharp combination of up-tempo pop and experimental rock (think Bowie meets Suicide at Nico’s house with lots of Italo records scattered around). Xenoglossy is their first proper album, and it comes filled with the same superb, original poptronica; sometimes pointing at the skies and sometimes in our hearts for signs of life, but always moving feet and hips in tandem. On disc, John Lindqwister’s vocals let rip while Richard Flow runs the machines, and the two Swedish veterans conjur up a sound that is both fresh and electrifying.
5. I Satellite – Zephyr EP
Rod MacQuarrie’s collection of machines is impressive by any standards: he owns equipment formerly housed by Bill Zorn of Rational Youth and Phil Collins, and his studio is crammed with Oberheims, Rolands, Logans and ARPs that can be used to recreate the sounds of classic tracks by everyone from Alphaville to ABBA. With the release of Zephyr, the Kalamazoo-based musician showed off his old-school influences, as well as his ability to construct distinctive original material. Covers of New Order’s “Your Silent Face” and ABBA’s “I Am the City” are polished and respectful; but, by moving more in the direction of Gary Numan and John Foxx, we’d argue that the latter is arguably better than the original version. Tracks like “This Time” and “City Streets” are instant classics, while “Bubbleboy” channels alienation and pain to a mid-tempo beat. It’s pure magic.
6. Karin Park – “Shine”
Karin Park ran a remix competition on Beatport for her 2014 single, “Shine,” but none of the contributions came close to the original. With pained lyrics yielding a glimpse of hope in the chorus, the track sounded best with the attack side of the envelope set high on the keyboards and the beats restrained. Park’s voice is distinctive and sometimes compared to Karin Dreijer Andersson’s, but it’s got a texture of its very own. It provides the emotional overlay that lifts “Shine” to the next level, gliding frictionless over the instrumental track.
7. William Orbit – Strange Cargo 5
It’s perhaps easy for an album given away for free on social media to be overlooked, but the latest instalment of William Orbit’s Strange Cargo series wasn’t exactly a vanity project. The musician and producer, best known in popular music circles for his work with Madonna, Britney and (once, but we doubt ever again) Blur, had the material up his sleeve but just wasn’t looking to cash in on it. He could have charged the market rate for Strange Cargo 5, because it is the type of exemplary poptronica that record companies write him large cheques to use as a platform for their major stars, but he just put it on Soundcloud with the download feature enabled. Pure class – in more ways than one.
8. Parralox – “Crying on the Dancefloor”
We interviewed Parralox just before they appeared in London as support for Polly Scattergood. John von Ahlen’s sophisticated pop sense had consistently impressed us, but we were still blown away by the unveiling of “Crying on the Dancefloor.” With the addition of vocalists Francine and Johanna, Parralox ramped up its capabilities and glammed up its image even further. The accompanying video, in which the band play the role of a talent show jury, revealed them to have a sense of humour, as well as style. Parralox are back on the London stage to warm up for Erasure before the end of the year, and this is certain to be a crowd favourite. We’ve featured a techno mix here by Your Silent Face.
9. Vile Electrodes – “Empire of Wolves”
Drawing enough power to keep National Grid engineers on their toes during live performances, Vile Electrodes are the UK’s leading electro duo. Anais Neon has stunning vocal control, while keyboardist Martin Swan just about keeps the machinery under his spell in their synthetic Fantasia. This high-voltage track came in an exclusive package of remixes, embedded in a faux fur envelope, and it’s coiled to spring out of your speakers with fangs bared.
10. Colouroïd – Long Play
Colouroïd are the Icelandic/Swedish duo of Jòn and Ella Moe. Besides making excellent lower-case M and W minimal wave music, they also run the FlexiWave label from their Stockholm base (which we hear will be relocating to Berlin soon). Their first album is a masterful slab of vinyl, pressed with grooves cooler than the surface of Neptune. From the run-in groove until the stylish inner-label, each side is an icy, voltage-controlled mindscape. With titles like “Pillow Fort” and “Eye Shadow,” we’d say their songs are playful and dark – fifty shades of black, if you will.