A celebration of music I've loved for a long time: electronic, synthesizer, new wave, post-punk, prog, soundtrack, avant-garde, industrial, ebm, and a lot more. Much of this material is long out of print. None of the links are stored on this blog; downloads are not my responsibility. If you like something then support the artist - if it's available, buy it.
I had to put the blog on hold for a long time because of insane work commitments but here it is again after a sad start to 2011 with the unfortunate, untimely deaths of three music luminaries. First, MICK KARN:
On January 4th, multi-instrumentalist Mick Karn died from cancer, aged 52. Born Andonis Michaelides on July 24 1958 in Cyprus, Karn will probably be remembered as Japan's bass guitarist but he also made a number of memorable solo and group project albums following Japan's acrimonious split in 1982 after a falling out with singer/frontman David Sylvian. His life and career have been eulogised widely, and rightly, but to me his passing is wistfully symbolic of the gradual severing of connections to a great and misunderstood era. Japan were widely dismissed as style-over-substance 'New Romantics' by commentators who couldn't see past the extravagant clothes and make-up, or listen past the first few notes, but there was much more substance to them than almost any other band of their type.
JAPAN: Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri, David Sylvian, Mick Karn
Japan were a little too cerebral to match the success of their more commercial electro (Gary Numan, OMD), or New Romantic (Duran Duran, Adam & the Ants) peers, and a little too 'artistic', i.e. complicated, for the pure dance crowd; that said, they had a large and devoted following, and were of course huge in Japan. They moved away from their initial glam-tinged post-punk spikiness, reducing guitars in favour of atmospheric electronics, but their sound was always centred around Karn's inspired, mesmerizing, fluid fretless basslines.
Mick Karn's first solo album, Titles, was released on Virgin in 1982. He retained the services of two ex-Japan colleagues - percussionist Steve Jansen and keyboardist Richard Barbieri - with whom he would continue to collaborate regularly. More esoteric than Japan, Titles pivots upon Karn's unique bass playing, often situating it as a lead instrument, and features his virtuosity on woodwinds and keys.
MICK KARN - TITLES 01. Tribal Dawn 02. Lost Affections In A Room 03. Passion In Moisture 04. Weather the Windmill 05. Saviour Are You With Me? 06. Trust Me 07. Sensitive 08. Piper Blue 09. The Sound Of Waves
The magnificent single Sensitive is below:
After guest slots with the likes of Gary Numan (Dance) and Bill Nelson (Chimera), Karn's next album The Waking Hour was the fruit of a 1984 project called Dalis Car with ex-Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy. It's strange, quirky, sparsely minimal, hypnotic, with tinges of Karn's solo arrangements behind Murphy's trademark vox, and it's a grower.
Karn produced his second solo album Dreams Of Reason Produce Monsters in 1987; certainly up to the quality of Titles and well worth seeking out. In 1991 the members of Japan reunited briefly for a one-off album as Rain Tree Crow - Sylvian did not want the old name used, and the music was very different from their previous incarnation - before, under Mick's name, Jansen, Barbieri and Karn released the stunning jazz fusion album Bestial Cluster in 1993. This video of the title track is from Dutch TV in 1997 and showcases three immensely talented musicians, augmented by Steven Wilson on guitar. Barbieri later became a member of Porcupine Tree, Wilson's art-prog rock band.
Karn continued to make music for as long as he could, both solo and a string of eclectic side projects. His final album The Concrete Twin was released in 2010.
Lastly, a dose of the mighty Japan in their heyday, with one of my favourite tracks of the era, Gentlemen Take Polaroids live on the Oil On Canvas dvd:
Karn was a tremendous musician/composer/arranger and I can think of no-one remotely like him, both in his overall stylings and the diverse musical paths he trod. Although he was a true virtuoso he couldn't read music and said he didn't really know what notes he was playing; it was just instinctive. I was lucky enough to catch Japan a few times and they remain among the greatest live experiences. One of my most spine-tingling memories from that period is of Karn, fretless held upright in front of his face, in jumpsuit and karate slippers, moving gracefully across the stage in a heel-toe-heel-toe motion. When the strobes shone on him it looked like he was floating from one side of the stage to the other.
That his latter years should have been lived out in relative poverty - so much so that a campaign was raised to bring him back from Cyprus and pay for cancer treatment in London - is a tragedy. In a just world he would have been at the very least comfortable through his musical talent and legacy. The guy could make a bass guitar sit up and talk like very few others and deserved much more recognition for it. The world is just too slow to tune into such innovators.
R.I.P. Mick. Your music enriched many lives, including mine. Thank you.
To find out more about Mick's music, and his sculpture, visit his site at http://www.mickkarn.net/ His autobiography, Japan and Self Existence, is recommended and available to buy from lulu.com here.
Riding the crest of the minimal wave... One of the most exciting electro labels in the world right now is New York's Wierd Records. Although it has only a small handful of acts on its roster, polymath artist/DJ Pieter Schoolwerth's brainchild is at the forefront of the new analogue bubblebath, promoting artists who use 'antique' synth sounds instead of digital, and in live performances eschew laptops in favour of spaghetti-wired mixing consoles & outboard FX. The label's mainstay is Sean McBride, otherwise known as Martial Canterel and one half (with his partner Liz Wendelbo) of Xeno & Oakland er. The overall Martial Canterel tone is sombre and the mood darkly melancholic; the minimal arrangements and live-in-the-studio recording techniques add to the DIY feel, but make no mistake - this material is considered, arranged and polished. McBride's approach is deceptively simple and very effective: catchy sequencing & arpeggiation; busy white noise generators and old-school drum machine percussion, memorable minor key riffs/breaks and echoing half-spoken, half-sung vox. The whole thing exudes a delightful 1979 throwback DIY ethos, and genuinely sounds like it could have been recorded back in the day by the likes of John Foxx, Chris Carter, Cabaret Voltaire or Vice Versa. It reminds one of ex-DNA member Robin Crutchfield's early 80s Dark Day albums Exterminating Angel and Window, and especially Tommi Stumpff's composition and production on German songstress Silvia's eponymous 1982 album.
Xeno & Oaklander has much the same sonic foundations as MC but the sound is fuller and more mellow with the addition of Wendelbo's lush string and pad chords and silky vocals. How they manage to get so much mileage and variety from essentially the same formula - and to sound so damn FRESH with it - is a thing of wonder, and beauty.
Although McBride & Wendelbo are clearly enamoured of a wide range of late 70s/early 80s EM artists and their sound references a 'Golden age' of electronics, it never appears derivative or plagiaristic. There is a joy in the purity of analogue timbres, both cold and warm, that seeps into the listener and transports them to a delirious hybrid of 'now' and 'then'. For me it recaptures the essence of those first minimal synth discoveries over 30 years ago that so few artists today can get close to, and if that's shameful nostalgia or wilful fancy on my part, I'm flat-out grateful for it.
There is a new Martial Canterel album due this year which is welcome as releases have been minimal: the rare self-issued cassettes Sister Age (2004) and Drilling Backwards (2006); limited issue LPs Confusing Outsides (2005) on Genetic and Austerton (2007) on Xanten; Refuge Underneath LP/CD (2007) on Wierd; Cruelty Frames Our Age CD-R (2008) on Xanten and the 2007 Tarantulla CD Views Beyond the City Wall, shared between MC and Silent Signals.
X & O live are a study in just getting on with things. Liz swings, sways and bops, losing herself in her vox and then adding crucial keyboard lines. Sean is an intriguing performer: a tall, gangly frame topped by an angular head. Oddly unhip smart casual attire, a touch rumpled at the edges. A one-man hive of activity, fiddling constantly with his synth & mixer settings and controlling most live sound elements. Instead of using a stand he just tucks the mic into a back pocket or under his arm. A cigarette is often clenched between his fingers. He seems happy to play in the tiny, cramped Wierd space with the audience only inches away. They are both is focused and sincere, and refreshingly free from pretension. No electronic act has had a more immediate impact on me for a long time and I hope to get to New York sometime to attend Schoolwerth's regular DJ/live Wednesday club nights at Wierd HQ, and of course catch MC and/or X & O...
Xeno & Oaklander have released two albums to date: Vigils (2006) on Xanten, and 2009's Sentinelle on Wierd. The sound is more mellow and less minimal, but will be instantly recognisable to anyone familiar with Martial Canterel. All of these albums are required listening and are out there in the blogosphere but no download links from me - please help the artists and the label by ordering direct from Wierd Records. This kind of music has long been marginalised by a mainstream industry and audience seemingly allergic to cerebral electronica outside a very narrow bandwidth, and needs all the support it can get to stay alive. Right, to the tracks/videos then. All are live recordings from performances at Wierd. The first two are from Martial Canterel: Windscreen, November 12 2008, and Occupy These Terms, August 19 2009 (uploaded in 1080p HD resolution). The last two are by Xeno & Oaklander: Blue Flower, October 28 2008, and Saracen, March 18 2009. These are among the most precious things I've heard for many a long day; Blue Flower especially is a soaring joy. This is live electronica as it should be delivered: with heart, skill, passion and intelligence.
Stop press: Xeno and Oaklander are playing a few British dates in April so I'll get to catch them sooner than I thought and I can't bloody wait: Brighton Cowley Club on April 14th, Nottingham Spanky Van Dykes on the 19th and hopefully Brixton Windmill on the 20th.
Severed Heads live Beck's Festival Bar, Hyde Park Barracks Sydney, 14 January 2010. Pic by Zoltan Blazer.
Of all the electro-geniuses (genii?) out there twiddling their knobs in basements and attics, Australian Tom Ellard stands (like many, largely unrecognised outside a hardcore of appreciators) at the top of the tree. He has ploughed a singular furrow welding together experimental and melodic electronics and quirky visuals since the late 70s in Sydney when he joined an anti-commercial 'band' called Mr & Mrs No-Smoking Sign. When original members Richard Fielding & Andrew Wright left, Ellard continued as Severed Heads. The early music was almost beyond labelling, incorporating elements of 'industrial' noise-generation, tape cutting & looping, early sampling of found sounds and electronic sound synthesis. As the project developed it became more 'conventional', employing song-structures and vocals in a more-or-less recognisable mutant electro pop style. Over the years he has been assisted by several fellow electro-travellers including Garry Bradbury, Paul Deering, Stephen R. Jones, inventor of one of the first video-synthesizers, and the late Simon (Insect-O-Cutor) Knuckey and Robert Racic.
For a long time Ellard has had a notoriously spiky, up and down relationship with his musical alter-ego, the music business and a fair few of his fans. The Heads supposedly signed off with a spectacular Sydney show in January but on the website www.sevcom.com Ellard pronounces the project as '...born 1979, died 2008.' In truth, he's viewed the Heads as an albatross and railed against the dying of the light for quite a while. He has accused certain post-punk new wave bands like New Order and Depeche Mode of continuing well past what he sees as their their sell-by date while at the same time bemoaning the critical establishment's failure to notice Severed Heads' activities since 1985. He frustratedly refers to fans and critics who prefer early Heads material as 'Cliffords' (the 79-85 compilation album was called Clifford Darling, Please Don't Live In the Past) whom he sees as burying their, er, heads in the sand and refusing to open up to the later, less abstract stuff. Seems like a case of having cake and eating it, but that is one of the most refreshing things about Tom Ellard: he speaks his mind whatever is on it and wears his heart on his sleeve. He now lectures at the University of New South Wales and, reading his blog, even this seems to have as many cons as pros. Perhaps he's just a frustrated rock star ;) or more likely, one of those people (like me, for sure) who never really found out what they wanted to do after they left school.
A major reason I and many Heads fans love the band so much is that for the best part of 30 years they forged a unique identity with heart, spleen and ideology, produced some of the most amazing electronic music ever heard (for me Ellard is THE master electro melodician; his trademark off-kilter basslines are the nuts and his minor-key harmonies are almost overwhelmingly beautiful) and continued through the wasteland of the late 80s/entire 90s into the noughties when doing so must have felt like banging their, er, heads against a bigger, harder wall each year. So I can certainly forgive his spikiness, I just wish he'd try to see it from a wider point of view. People's likes and dislikes are usually hardwired into them for very complex reasons and if anyone out there loves even one part of your oeuvre so much, it's a job well done in my book. Would that many of us had the talent and perseverance to produce something half as good...
From the very early days of the shared (with Rhythmyx Chymx) Ear Bitten album in 1980, through Terse Tapes cassette releases like Clean (1981), Blubberknife (1982) and Since the Accident (1983), Severed Heads did their own experimental thing like no-one else, with a determinedly DIY aesthetic. One track that Ellard created to fill space on Since the Accident became a double-edged sword: Dead Eyes Opened, featuring simple but killer interweaving sequences cradling Edgar Lustgarten's macabre spoken vocal from a cassette audiobook, has been the band's most consistently-loved cut ever since. This fuelled Ellard's frustration with the fandom and marketing side of making music - but quality is quality is quality. I'm guessing he's not a subscriber to the death of the author principle...
Subsequent releases opened the band up to international critical attention. City Slab Horror was released by UK label Ink Records in 1985 and live UK appearances followed, at London's ICA and Everyman Cinema. They went on a fraught tour in Canada and at home, but some good did emerge: Volition Records signed a deal for domestic releases and Nettwerk took on North American distribution. Clifford, Darling... and The Big Bigot soon appeared, followed in 1987 by Bad Mood Guy and 1989's Rotund For Success. The 90s proved traumatic, with record company indifference and financial difficulties to the fore. 1991's Cuisine included an experimental suite entitled Piscatorial, outlining schizophrenic tensions of trying to align & market the band's diverse musical styles. Nothing else appeared until 1994's (96 in the US) Gigapus album, which was a commercial disappointment. Ellard had long been interested in video technology and the album was reissued as Metapus, a limited 2 disc package with one disc a CD-ROM of video work. This ushered in a new era of embracing developments in internet and digital technology. Sick of trying to forge new deals, Ellard released 1998's Haul Ass album as a self-issued CD-R, ordered direct from the sevcom website. In the early 2000s a series of cd releases entitled Op (v1.0, v2.0 etc.) became available and he also issued DVD-Rs of new video material like Robot Peepshow. A film soundtrack (Illustrated Family Doctor) in 2004 was followed by a deal with James Nice at LTM to reissue Rotund For Success with remixes and extra tracks. The soundtrack even earned a record industry award - the first recognition of its kind.
In December 2005 I was fortunate enough to see Severed Heads live for the first (and, I guess, last) time at the BIMFest (Belgian Independent Music Festival) at Hof Ter Lo in Antwerp. I went over with a good friend who was lucky enough to have been at the Everyman Cinema gig in 85, the bastard - I couldn't go. Ellard was on great dry form that day and he and Alison Cole played a terrific set augmented by his surreal and blackly humorous video animations. Ellard's first words on stage were "And now, the comic relief"- he even got in a spike to start with. He followed this with "We're called 'Frank Sinatra.'" Severed Heads live Antwerp BIMFest 2005. Pics by Man On Wire.
I have a good quality audio file of the gig which I found on the sickness-abounds blog a few months ago. I notice the blog has been removed and a smaller version has replaced it - see my blog list - but the file is no longer there. If it is not forthcoming I'll upload it to a server myself for a future post. Some of the live tracks did appear on LTM's Viva Heads! cd in 2006. The same year, Sevcom released Under Gail Succubus packaged with Over Barbara Island, a round-up of new material. The 2cd remix compilation ComMerz appeared from LTM in 2007, and in 2008 Ellard released the mammoth 5-album vinyl early/rarities retrospective Adenoids, which has just appeared as a cd set available from sevcom.
This list is not exhaustive, and doesn't include side projects like Co Kla Coma, nor does it cover Ellard's occasional production roles for bands like Skinny Puppy and Single Gun Theory. It's been a 30 year career of pioneering music and video work so please do it justice by researching it further at http://sevcom.com and http://tomellard.com - also go to LTM's Severed Heads catalogue page HERE and bio page written by Bernie Krause HERE.
Tom Ellard has his own YouTube channel (of course), where you'll find some of his superb, unique home-made video gems. If he were Czech or similar his animations would have been enough to forge a cult career in their own right. The latest video additions are in HD - 720p max at the moment - paving the way for a mooted Blu-ray disc. This track, Sevs In Space, from the phenomenal Haul Ass album, is a glorious fusion of music & visuals. Velvet Numanesque chorus melodies and a crazy narrative concept based on a monumental flying head (yep, a homage to John Boorman's 1974 sf curio Zardoz) will do it for me every time.
Lastly, here are a couple of archival must-watches thanks to YouTuber 'QRhuggies': Severed Heads live in the studio on ABC's Rock Arena TV show from October 1986. The first video is 13 minutes and features the tracks Petrol, A Million Angels and Bless The House. The second clocks in at 15 minutes and features Big Blue Is Back, Harold & Cindy Hospital, Propellor and Halo. I defy any true fan of electronic music to watch these videos and listen to a Sevs album without getting hooked and diving head first into the whole shebang.
I've loved the Heads since Since the Accident and especially City Slab Horror, duly conforming to the Clifford stereotype by loving that album perhaps the most of all the band's output. I've lost count of the people I've introduced to Severed Heads down the years who wondered how come they'd never heard them before and bought their product. I hope the blogosphere serves to increase profiles and sales of artists like Szajner, Ellard and others featured on eclectic music blogs - even I'm not cynical enough to think that everyone who comes across the material is only destined to download it for free wherever they can find it. As Ellard himself put it a long time ago on an album sleevenote: 'Remember - no-one lost their job buying Severed Heads.'
Back in 1980 the best way to encounter new wave, post-punk, synthesizer, avant-garde and all kinds of non-mainstream sounds was to listen to the late, great, much lamented John Peel. Peel's Radio 1 show (10pm-midnight Mon-Thur) was THE showcase for anything off the commercial radar and he introduced a few generations including mine to all that was interesting in contemporary music.
One evening he played a cool slice of electro heaven called A Living Person by The Metronomes, a quirky Aussie band that mixed weird and melodic electronics, topped off with a supremely disinterested but sexy spoken female vocal. What wasn't to like?
Not for the first time nor the last after listening to Peel, I rushed to get the album and it didn't disappoint. Some lovely synth work - melodic string washes, bleeps, sequences, alien noises and FX - complemented by guitars, inventive vox and basic but effective drum machines. A dark humour shone through this elegantly crafted album, especially on cuts like The Ballad of the Metronome and Sex II, while the gorgeous A Living Person and Music For Lounges just oozed composition and production class. My favourite piece, Justification, provided the crossover between styles with its simple bass step-sequence, delicious strings, swirling high leadline and repeated spoken mantra "At least it has a steady rhythm." A cover version of this is in the offing sometime; it's on a long list. The album followed two 7" single releases, 1979's Saturday Night/Sunday Morning and 1980's A Circuit Like Me/Closed Circuit (video below). The Metronomes did produce another album but not for another five years, Regular Guys (1985). It certainly has its moments but lacks the inspiration and style of its predecessor. The band members are still musically active but no further releases have been forthcoming - the links to new tracks on their website are dead.
Like so much of the music I loved then, I thought it a crime that bands like The Metronomes flew so far under most people's radar. Synthesizers were fast becoming the new guitars but, with few exceptions, only the most commercial acts broke through and shifted enough units to make a good living from the business. Most of my favourite artists were fated to languish in obscurity or achieve limited cult 'success', get stitched into dodgy record deals, release a couple of albums that were largely ignored, and sooner rather than later, find something else to do. Thirty years on, it's amazing to see so many of them reunited and back on the 'scene', often enjoying hindsight reputations they never achieved first time around.
The Metronomes: Multiple Choice, Cleopatra Records CLP 210. 01. A Living Person 02. Sex I 03. The Ballad of the Metronome 04. Commentator 05. The World Is My Oyster 06. Music For Lounges 07. Sex II 08. Hey Coach 09. Justification 10. Bad Timing
Main personnel: Ash Wednesday - rhythm programs, synthesizer, random syncussion, treatments, some lead vocals Andrew Picouleau - bass guitar, synthesizer, random syncussion, Milo tin, some lead vocals Al Webb - rhythm programs, synthesizer, guitar, random syncussion, backwards hurdy gurdy, some lead vocals
Let's face it, in 1980 those were credits to make any electronic music fan drool.
JAPAN: Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri, David Sylvian, Mick Karn
