They had a big hit with this song in France in 1980, so a lip-syncing TV appearance would have been a given. This clip has a lot of the classic Sparks tropes, but it’s still the glorious Moroder/Faltermeyer production that knocks it into the stratosphere.
November 2014
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Back in 1980, the distance between the gate to Martin Gore’s garden in Basildon and the front door of his neighbour and band-mate, Vince Clarke, could be covered in a few steps.
Fast-forward thirty-odd years and they are living on opposite coasts of the United States, the key figures in two of the planet’s best-known electronic bands, Depeche Mode and Erasure. Over this period, separately or together, they have sold scores of millions of albums and reached hundreds of millions of fans.
Both songwriters are close to the hearts of the dedicated fans who call themselves “devotees” (after the Songs of Faith and Devotion album): avid collectors of Depeche Mode releases and memorabilia, who gather at themed parties, wear tour t-shirts and scour the internet for information about rare mixes. Devotees come in all shapes and sizes, with all kinds of backgrounds, and are found far from the Gore family’s Basildon garden – not even, but especially, in Gothenburg, Sweden’s second city.
The proof comes in the form of A Film of Faith and Devotion, a documentary from director Henrik Thyselius. Twelve Gothenburg devotees invite the audience into their homes or to sit down for a drink, sharing their collections of recordings and memories of discovering and following Depeche Mode.
Andreas Noreen has a room dedicated to his collection, in which he maintains a shrine to the Violator album and preserves his correspondence with the Depeche Mode Information Service run by Deb Mann and Jo Gahan. Anneli Persson has a great collection of badges, while Withold Chandra painted the walls of his flat to reflect the band’s graphics. Johan Östberg has thirty-seven versions of The Singles 1981-1985 on vinyl, and even more versions on CD and cassette. Sebastian Hess and Henrik Wittgren run Depeche Mode parties in the city, between their superlative Electronic Summer and Electronic Winter music festivals. These are super-fans, who connect with the band in diverse but intensive ways.
The film is more album- than feature-length, running to 46 minutes, so there is little opportunity to explore connections between the devotees. Fans are represented from different stages in Depeche Mode’s career, but they mainly appear as isolated individuals, rather than a community. One of the mainstays of the band’s writing, since Martin Gore took over from the departed Vince Clarke, has been an exploration of feelings of pain and alienation in different tempos, so it would have been interesting to learn what it is that attracts the devotees to the band and each other as a group. Perhaps, the film-makers would say, it’s for another day – sometimes, it really is just a question of time.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Mankind, Brecht once noted in song, is kept alive by bestial acts. Reading the papers, it is hard to find evidence to the contrary: we have always, it seems, been at war with Oceania, and the only possible response to one murderous outrage is to launch another. Drones and mercenaries are part of the ecosystem now; as ubiquitous as images of Kim Kardashian or Miley Cyrus.
A poptronica single isn’t going to clean up this mess, but Hannah Peel’s “Find Peace” mutes the rattling of sabres for 4:00 with Brechtian directness. Released in time for the winter holiday season, it’s a special edition 7″ from the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club, a Dutch label, on white vinyl. Mercenaries, drone pilots and Westminster armchair warriors will dislike its pacific sentiment, but nothing about Peel’s delicate, ethereal vocals nor the modular instrumental underpinning of collaborator Benge Edwards is suited to their ambitions. There’s something of a Robert Wyatt vibe to the piece, in places, which makes it feel as subversive as it is sentimental.
The single is available in a signed edition through the divine Ms Peel’s Web shop.
Maybe we’d forgotten how great it was when Lush, Pale Saints and Galaxie 500 were doing their thing, but the shoegaze spirit is strong with this one. Canadian expatriate, Jennie Vee, already impressed us with her debut solo EP, Die Alone, and from her New York base shows that there is more to come. Just don’t let a major label do to her sound what Virgin did to Frazier Chorus.
From what we can tell, Sean Barron of Empire State Human has a new project called iEuropean, into which he has pulled Wolfgang Flür (ex-Kraftwerk, Yamo), while tapping Clive Pierce and Rob Doran (both of hard CORPS notoriety) with Phen for remix support. “Activity of Sound” sounds a little bit like Torch Song borrowing the voice-over from a Juno Reactor track in places, which is no bad thing, and it has been more than competently repurposed for the dancefloor in this mix. Flür, of course, was a robot once, but there is an organic warmth in this song that suggests the machines are evolving.
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.