Slovenian art activists, Laibach, are invading North America with a new video in their arsenal. “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean,” a cover of the Blind Lemon Jefferson song popularised by Bob Dylan, is the latest missive from the trenchcoat-clad dissidents. It comes as the black-cross spreads from East to West across the continent, fuelled by funds raised through an Indiegogo campaign initiated by the group. See here for the announced dates and links to ticket sites.
The recent disaster in Nepal has brought together a growing group of artists to raise funds for relief and reconstruction. At the initiative of Anni Hogan and Cathy O’Dowd, an impressive collection of artists has agreed to provide music for a compilation album, under the banner of MITRA (the Nepalese word for “friend”). So far, the contributing artists include Dave Ball (The Grid, Soft Cell), Wolfgang Flur (ex-Kraftwerk), Scanner, Ursula 1000, Thomas Gandey, Rupert Lally, Espen J Jourgensen, Richard Strange, Laurie Spiegel, Billie Ray Martin (Electribe 101), Cronos Titan, Bright Light Bright Light, Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds, Katie Marne, Waterson, Joe Cang, Farmacia, Nostudio, Caeser Gergess, Jarboe, Ashley Slater, Simon Fisher Turner, David Coulter, Sebastian Rochford, Marcella Detroit, Sarah Jane Morris, Ginger Light, Martin Bowes (Attrition) and others. The graphics for the album will be provided by Abby Helasdottir.
You can follow the project through its Facebook page.
Parralox are back with a storming new video for “Aeronaut.” Shot in a seemingly deserted Paris, it shows off the darker side of John von Ahlen’s pop imaginarium. Clad in a black coat, von Ahlen stalks Parisian landmarks to the hypnotic pop of “Aeronaut,” a track he originally wrote for a solo project. Quite what he’s done with the city’s residents and thronging tourists is a mystery, but after Parralox’s high-profile work with Erasure, chances are that they are down at the club dancing to the song.
The single is available in a special remix package, featuring versions from Vile Electrodes and Your Silent Face.
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.
Martin Gore has taken time out from Depeche Mode to release solo recordings before, as well as an album of techno made with Vince Clarke, but the emphasis has been on covers of classics from other genres. From Mute comes the news that an album called MG is on the way, loaded with 16 electronic instrumentals. The first taste is “Europa Hymn,” which loops pads luxuriously and might be said to follow the template of the House of Illustrious recordings of Vince Clarke and Martyn Ware. The full album is out on 17 April 2015, just in time for A Secret Wish.
John Fryer, the legendary producer and engineer, has many balls in the air at the same time. We recently highlighted Silver Ghost Shimmer, a collaboration with Pinky Turzo that hit all of the right spots with throwback references to The Shangri-Las. This week sees Muricidae, a duo arrangement with LA-based Louise Fraser, springing “Away,” a track that gets back to Fryer’s roots.
The lineage connecting “Away” to This Mortal Coil and The Hope Blister is evident from the treated piano sounds that echo and stretch to envelop Fraser’s voice, which slips through their grasp like seawater through the holes of a net. Muricidae are commonly known as rock snails, and their shells can be complex things of incredible beauty. Like its namesake, this new project is an aesthetic wonder, but spun from air rather than minerals. An EP, Songs from a Silent Ocean, is expected in the spring.
John Fryer performs an exclusive 4AD/Mute DJ set at A Secret Wish in London on 19 April 2015.
Silver Ghost Shimmer, the project of legendary producer John Fryer and singer Pinky Turzo, has taken the veil off their second video release, “She Keeps Me Hoping.” Filmed in Prague, the video draws on classic burlesque imagery and street scenes, while the underlying pulse of the rhythm track sets a frame for the pads and guitars that crash and soar above it. It’s a great Valentine’s gift from the duo.
Art/pop stalwarts, Wire, have announced a new album. Simply called Wire, the first eponymous release and the thirteenth studio album from the band is expected on 13 April 2015. That event will launch the DRILL:LEXINGTON festival, which takes place at The Lexington in Islington from 14 through 18 April 2015. The line-up for the festival is still to be announced, but Wire will be headlining each night.
We don’t reprint press releases, as a rule, but all we have to go on about the album, at the moment, is a preview at Vice and the following information from the official pinkflag.com Web site:
Their 13th studio album – simply titled Wire – comprises material that was written with the album in mind, but toured extensively first, as well as songs that Newman introduced to the group in the studio just prior to recording. The idea was to get the most spontaneous reaction possible from the musicians, and far from the rough and ready results one might expect from such a tack, Wire is full of swooning pop melodies with a 60s tinge and an irresistible, near motorik rhythmic momentum. One can recognise certain melodic inflections, guitar and bass motifs, and drum rhythms from Wire’s idiosyncratic vocabulary but it has a remarkable freshness.
The basic tracks were recorded at Rockfield Studios near Monmouth, with overdubs added at Brighton Electric last December following the group’s DRILL : BRIGHTON Festival. The 11 tracks selected for release were the ones that came together most naturally.
From the outset Wire was an alliance between four very different characters and continues today with the addition, in 2012, of It Hugs Back guitarist Matthew Simms, who is around thirty years younger than the other group members. “With Matt there was a really new dynamic that had appeared in the group’s sound and that was something we wanted to capture, utilise and be creative with,” says Lewis.
Wire is the first album where Simms has been involved in formulating the material from the ground up, but when the group’s particular chemistry starts working he is now very much part of the process.
“With ‘Sleepwalking’, I don’t think we even ran all the way through it before we recorded it.” Newman says. “Wire do this thing so well and there’s instant atmosphere. There’s my rhythm guitar, Matt playing lap steel, Graham (Lewis) playing bass with effects – there’s as much effects as bass – and Rob’s tolling drumming. It was already almost sustainable for six minutes with just that.”
Lewis also provides most of the lyrics for the album, their subject matter encompassing love songs, cryptic narratives and coded messages. One time, Newman asked Lewis to send over some unfinished, unformatted text so he wouldn’t be bound by what to use for the chorus. This material spawned two songs written on the same day, ‘Split Your Ends’ and the droll ‘In Manchester’. The latter has one of the album’s loveliest melodies, but it’s no coded paean to the city in its Baggy heyday. Instead this process led to the disorientating and rather absurd situation of having “In Manchester” as a soaring chorus, when the song is not about Manchester beyond a single line in the lyric.
As the album progresses, some of the sunlit pop tunes become more shadowy and it ultimately plunges into the musical black hole of ‘Harpooned’, eight churning minutes of the group’s darkest, most abrasive music to date, and a favourite in live performances since 2013.
Big money offers have been made to Wire to become part of the Heritage Rock industry, to get the original line-up back together and play only 70s music. These have all been unequivocally turned down. Fun though that might be, why plant yourself firmly back in the past when you are making new music this potent with the promise of more in the future?
“The point where our personal narratives meet is all about change – moving on and keeping it interesting for ourselves,” says Newman. “We’re in it for the long haul and this is a one-way trip.”
We’d note in passing that A Secret Wish, the Cold War Night Life-curated alternative music event, happens at the same venue as DRILL:LEXINGTON just a day later. It features the legendary producer and engineer, John Fryer, who has worked with Graham Lewis of Wire.
Wire official site: pinkflag.com
DRILL:LEXINGTON: Tickets
Sweden’s Twice a Man have a new album on the way and plans for a unique “Warm Wave” event in May.
One of Europe’s most respected electronic bands, the duo of Dan Söderqvist and Karl Gasleben recently expanded to include former member Jocke Söderqvist for the thirtieth anniversary of their pioneering album, From a Northern Shore. They will be in Gothenburg to host “A Warm Wave Concert” on 29 May 2015. A Stockholm show will take place on the following day.
Featured artists for the event include Argentina’s Vólkova, Sweden’s Red Mecca and Alvar, and Keluar from Berlin, as well as the hosts. They explain the unifying theme for the evening:
The concept of Warm Wave was originally coined by César Canali (Vólkova) and Chris Inlaw in front of the release Not so Cold, “A Warm Wave Compilation”.
In the early 80´s when Twice a Man initiated their music style in Scandinavia, many critics and others, blamed the band for playing dark, depressive music and gave the name “Cold Wave” to their genre, picking on that synthesizers were not real instruments. “You just push buttons”. Obviously we have kept pushing those buttons, because we are passionate in what we do and have love for our music, so after all we are “Not so Cold”.
Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/442650519216867/
Silver Ghost Shimmer have taken the wrapping off their first video for their debut release, “Soft Landing.” The project of legendary producer and engineer, John Fryer, and singer Pinky Turzo, Silver Ghost Shimmer hit the sweet spot with this track. Here’s what we said when we made “Soft Landing” our Track of the Day:
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.
Fryer is one of the featured guests at Cold War Night Life’s event, A Secret Wish, on 19 April 2015 for those in London.
You can find and follow Silver Ghost Shimmer on Bandcamp or Facebook.