Hélène du Thoury is best known for her work with Minuit Machine. Hante. (with the period) is her solo project, and it’s as dark, moody and sensual as you would expect. French is the natural language for minimal wave material, just as German is for EBM. In this brooding track, taken from the recent album, No Hard Feelings, du Thoury turns on the sonic smoke machines to their highest setting.
coldwarnightlife
Lau Nau is an impossibly talented artist from Finland. Her music draws on folk roots, but like the shamanic potions of lore takes listeners to distant dimensions. At times, she is capable of hewing magic from the ice; at others, she makes you hold your breath at the delicate tones of her voice. In this video, released to support her third album, she’s somewhere between the Earth and the Moon.
A cold day in the run-up to Christmas finds Sarah Badr in the newest branch of a Finnish café in London’s Covent Garden. The place has just opened but is heaving with tourists, resting between credit card-facilitated dopamine fixes. It’s a nightmare of reverb, as the walls reflect the chatter of shoppers and the roar of a single-engine espresso machine, but Badr’s voice comes through clearly. A fitting metaphor, then, for FRKTL, her solo music project, which first cut through the background noise of Soundcloud with Atom.
An apple bun and coffee provide fuel for our conversation, but Badr is still up after a night of clubbing, riding a wave of energy that never seems to slacken. It will carry her to New York shortly, and then to the next node in her global network. A child of the internet, Badr is like a character from a Bruce Sterling novel, coding and communicating digitally while moving through the analogue world with a data packet’s disregard for borders.
In her FRKTL skin, Badr has just released Qualia, an album of processed electro-acoustic music that sits high up our list of 2016’s best releases. She also works in a world of graphics, interfaces and words that spans multiple disciplines and media. Our conversation occasionally takes a technical turn, but it is a relief that Badr consumes coffee as easily as machine code. Over a cup of Java, she tells the story of FRKTL.
In the fall or winter of 2010, I was loading everything on Soundcloud. People started getting in touch to see if it was available anywhere, so I took all those demos and put them in consecutive order – and that is that album. I didn’t sit down and make an album. It was more of a mixtape, in a way. And then what didn’t fit was the B-Sides [Ed: The companion album to Atom], and I just made that a free download. I was trying different things, different approaches.
Badr’s choice of instruments is very traditional, considering the level of processing that she subjects sounds to. A piano, violin or guitar are her tools of choice, rather than synths, and with Qualia she has added her voice to the mix. That leads to discussion about her musical training.
I did classical guitar as a kid, and then I started playing proper piano with recitals. I was living in New Jersey at the time, and there is a piano federation where you go and they mark you.
I played festivals and did marching band and jazz band. When I moved to Cairo to finish high school, I continued on with piano but independently; just learning songs that I liked.
Badr was born in London but moved around the world with her family. She speaks with a neutral American accent but is a polyglot. She champions obscure experimental music but grew up with classic pop. The conversation moves towards the evolution of her tastes.
The music I grew up with was classical Arabic music, which was more or less like pop music back then, and oriental, instrumental, modal music. I remember hearing The Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” – my Dad had a huge tape collection that I still have in Cairo with me. It had Abba, jazz – I listened to all sorts. It was more about exposure – it wasn’t that I was actively listening.
The first tape that I bought was Ace of Base. My second was Janet by Janet Jackson, and I might have had a Michael Jackson, as well. That was before the Free Willy soundtrack came out, so there was a track on there, as well. The first CD I ever bought was Hootie and The Blowfish. That was around the time when everyone was into Nirvana, GooGoo Dolls – grunge, Metallica. I liked rock and hip hop and watched a lot of music videos on MTV, when they still played music videos.
Electronic music came much later. I started to like trip hop – Massive Attack, Portishead, Mandalay. I was into Radiohead, as well. I guess with Kid A they started to become more electronic, and with OK Computer. There is that one track, “Idioteque” – Thom Yorke’s solo albums started to sound more like those tracks.
I just like good music, and I tend to go for more things in minor keys or modal. I like dark music. I’m a huge fan of Nine Inch Nails. I used to listen to Marilyn Manson. I went through all the music phases. When I was working out in California in 2012, I went to a country music festival.
I listen to Depeche Mode and David Gahan’s solo material. It’s really good. I’m now revisiting Tangerine Dream and synthwave stuff. I’m a huge fan of Vangelis and John Carpenter. I love soundtracks. That’s why I’m applying to sound engineering school – I love both sound and visuals. I’m happy to do them both together or separately. That’s why I’m obsessed with music videos.
Badr’s phone vibrates throughout our chat. The world is calling. Certainly, there is recognition growing for her work: she was chosen to attend the Red Bull Music Academy in Paris as Egypt’s selection.
I got in, but I didn’t go. I might be the only person who didn’t go. Things got really hectic towards the end of last year and I took a break from the internet – regrouped – and had that not happened, I don’t think I would have made this album.
Part of the distraction came from Badr’s involvement in documentary film, a publishing channel she founded called Cairowire, and strings that wrapped around the world.
I’m trying to reel it all in and just focus on the audio and the visual – just make music and stick to sound and sight in different contexts.
So what about a FRKTL live show? Plans are in the works.
I want visuals. In terms of my set up, definitely much more than a laptop. My set up is quite low maintenance – I don’t have a modular synth. I have an Ableton controller and my guitar and violin. I have a pitch-shifting pedal and a microphone. I still don’t know – that’s what I have to work on next.
I leave Badr in the café, but it seems unlikely that she will sit still for long. Her plans include a move to Berlin to study sound engineering, and from there to jack into the media currents flowing through the city. Collaborations have been mooted, and the promise of live shows offers new possibilities, but first there is an apple bun to finish and a stack of texts to catch up on.
The Curse of 2016 took a lot of artists from us. The year opened with Lemmy’s passing fresh in everyone’s minds, and the roll call of musicians claimed by the Grim Reaper kicked off from there: David Bowie, Prince and Vanity, Leonard Cohen, Pierre Boulez, Keith Emerson and Greg Lake, Gisela May, Craig Gill (Inspiral Carpets), Pete Burns, Caroline Crawley, James Woolley (Nine Inch Nails), Alan Vega (Suicide), Steven Young (M/A/R/R/S and Colourbox) and Richard Lyons (Negativland) all shuffled off this mortal coil. We’ve often said at Cold War Night Life that we need to show appreciation to artists while they are still with us, as you never know when the window to do it will close, and Death did its part to reinforce the warning.
Those who survived 2016 were confronted with the spectre of a Trump presidency and the consequences of the Brexit decision. It was as if Pinky and The Brain had finally succeeded, setting up 2017 to be the United Nations International Year of Incompetence. There will be dark times; but, as Brecht once noted, there will also be singing about the dark times. We will be there to critique the critiques. In the meantime, here are our sixteen picks for 2016.
16. Pieces of Juno – “Your Mouth Is a Dragon”
Norway’s Pieces of Juno went darker than usual for her year-closing single, “Your Mouth Is a Dragon.” The KOSO protagonist has impressed us with sets of more experimental material in the past, so it was a bit of a surprise to hear her exploring a traditional song structure with seductive, haunting guitar licks fit for a Tarantino movie. This is territory that John Fryer and Barry Adamson have explored previously, but Juno’s approach is feminine, subversive and underpinned by exotic rhythms that lift the material from smoke-filled nightclubs into a world of dreams.
15. I Am Snow Angel – “Losing Face”
As I Am Snow Angel, Julie Kathryn issues the kind of quirky and angelic pop that sometimes belies its more serious lyrical content. “Losing Face” sounds jazzy and jaunty, on one level, and the accompanying video of Kathryn spinning on a pole might pass for a sensual presentation designed for VH1, but when the singer laments being left feeling “dirty and incomplete” there is more going on. Sugar-sweet on the surface, “Losing Face” is deeper, more complex and richer than your usual music television fare.
14. Zanias – “Through This Collapse”
Zanias is the latest project from Alison Lewis, the mind-expanding, psychedelics-ingesting chanteuse of Berlin’s underground. The video for “Through This Collapse” is a stark, futuristic performance of the song, showing Lewis in a Vantablack dress surrounded by particles as fine as her voice. The song is tension itself: with needle-sharp vocals and a vein-scraping, bit-crushed instrumental track, it will play as intensely in caverns as it does in clubs.
13. Stephen Huss – Notes of a Lifetime
As the half of Psyche who handled the keyboards, Stephen Huss was a legend of Canadian alternative music. His spiky hair and hook-laden synth lines were instantly recognisable, and Psyche’s style became the template for a dozen imitators.
Huss withdrew from active participation in the band after illness made it impractical to continue, but in the background he didn’t stop recording original material. After his untimely death last year, brother and Psyche vocalist Darrin collected many of Stephen’s solo instrumental recordings and put them out for appreciative fans. Notes of a Lifetime is both a reminder of Stephen’s talent and the love that held Psyche together. The inclusion of a joint Huss brothers recording makes it even more poignant.
12. Parralox – Subculture/Holiday ’16
John von Ahlen’s Parralox project is as prolific as it is impressive. At the end of 2016, Parralox released two full albums: Subculture and a collection of covers, Holiday ’16. Subculture shows off von Ahlen’s growing list of celebrity connections, featuring vocal contributions from Marcella Detroit (Shakespears Sister) and bass work by Ian Burden (Human League), while Holiday ’16 re-interprets classic tracks by Pet Shop Boys, Cicero, Depeche Mode and Human League.
You don’t have to choose between the two, as Parralox’s label, Conzoom, offer a package deal, but the place we would take you first is von Ahlen’s take on Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumours.” It is positively fizzing with energy, turning a rather mournful piece about teen suicide into an energetic, acid-fueled dance track with a more positive vibe.
11. FRKTL – Qualia
Sarah Badr’s FRKTL project matured in 2016 with a proper second album. The first release from the Anglo-Egyptian digital pioneer was Atom, back in 2011: an electro-acoustic marvel that stretched sounds beyond recognition. Qualia, named for the psychological and philosophical categories of qualities that are always experienced but hard to explain, went further and incorporated Badr’s voice and world rhythms suitable for the dance club into mixes that were both exotic and intriguing.
We recently caught up with Badr to learn more about her approach, and our interview with the globe-hopping multi-instrumentalist will be coming out shortly. In the meantime, we can’t recommend Qualia strongly enough.
10. Covenant – The Blinding Dark
There are signs that Covenant, the Swedish darkwave legends, are slowly, collectively, morphing into Brian Eno. It’s certainly hard to avoid that conclusion when a feature of their new album is the sound of the sea and engines being focused by a parabolic sound mirror; particularly as they were attracted to it as a sonic and historical metaphor for Europe’s response to the Mediterranean refugee crisis. The Blinding Dark puts some of the experimentation that was reserved for the bonus disc on Leaving Babylon in the foreground, even as it showcases the band’s continuing deftness with energetic rhythms.
9. Black Needle Noise – “Warning Sign”/”Heaven”
John Fryer’s Black Needle Noise is really the reincarnation of This Mortal Coil, his most famous studio project. Fryer’s prolific writing and recording make it hard to keep pace with the new tracks that issue from his current base in Oslo, but there were two very exceptional songs beamed out by BNN this year: “Warning Sign” with Kendra Frost and “Heaven” with the dreampop cult figure, Jennie Vee.
“Warning Sign” was a revelation for listeners more attuned to Frost’s work with Kite Base (see number 3 in our list, below). It also featured the kind of spatial depth that has long been a signature of Fryer’s production style. Although it clocks in at 4’35”, the single seems to flash by and require a constant replay. Proof of progress: in the old days, you would have to return the needle to the groove by hand.
With “Heaven,” we got to hear Vee at her darkest, intoning a mantra for an unhappy state of mind. Vee’s voice is one of the most distinctive in modern pop, but with Fryer behind the controls it emerges with new textures that reveal painfully sensitive moments.
8. Nash the Slash – Dreams and Nightmares including Bedside Companion
Nash the Slash is sorely missed. A true Canadian original, he is known outside of his home and native land mainly for his early work with Gary Numan and an album produced by Steve Hillage. However, Nash was also a composer of soundtracks to surrealist films (“Un Chien Andolou”) and – so we argue – the inventor of the sounds that became signatures for The Orb and System 7.
A bold claim? Just listen to “Blind Windows” from Bedside Companion and try to make a counterargument. We’d go even further and point out that there are sounds in “Blind Windows” that can be found in Wamdue Project’s “King of My Castle.”
Thanks to Artoffact, both Dreams and Nightmares and Bedside Companion were re-released in 2016. We have it on good authority that 2017 will see a reissue of And You Thought You Were Normal, which will be an even bigger reminder of how big an influence Nash was on electronic music.
7. Various Artists – Heresy
Are we allowed to blow our own trumpet? Well, we’re going to, because the Heresy compilation blew many minds in 2016. A tribute to Rational Youth, it gathers no less than nineteen artists, including the Canadian electro-pioneers and two former members of the band, into three vinyl platters. There is a CD bundled into the package, but no downloads. There is no way not to touch the vinyl in order to play the material. You can almost hear Super Hans saying: “No downloads.”
Did we mention that it makes an excellent present? And that it can be ordered from Storming the Base, who also handle Psyche and Nash the Slash products, should you know a vinyl junkie who needs that final hit? We did? Then you are sorted.
6. Rational Youth – Future Past Tense
Speaking of Rational Youth, they made 2016 better with a new album up their sheer black sleeves, in the form of Future Past Tense. The first studio album from RY since To the Goddess Electricity, it proved that the Canadian pioneers have lost none of their sense of melody or political angst. The lead single, “This Side of the Border,” is influenced by Canadian nationalism, social democracy, nostalgia and The Who – a heady cocktail made more potent by the addition of Gaenor Howe’s vocals.
We caught up with RY on their European tour to support the album, and it was striking how much enthusiasm there was for the new material. Crowds in Sweden and Germany happily sang along to the new tracks with the same confidence and affection as the hits from 1982’s Cold War Night Life. They didn’t always give Tracy Howe his microphone back, but that’s another story.
5. Vile Electrodes – In the Shadows of Monuments
It is hard to believe that Vile Electrodes are only on their second studio album. Britain’s best synth band stunned with The Future Through a Lens, which established a benchmark for the island’s electronic scene with tracks like “Proximity” and “Nothing.” Now that the island has decided to sink into the Atlantic, rather than accept European influences, the Viles are setting the bar again in a less pop-oriented vein.
In the Shadows of Monuments sounds like an industrial title, and singer Anais Neon certainly channeled more Cosey than Debbie on the interim EP track, “Love Song for a Pylon,” but discogs.com thinks that the band is going in a “synthwave” style. It isn’t. From the opening, eponymous track, Shadows is part 4:00 am and part 4AD: dark, moody and sleep-deprived. You can dance to “The Red Bead,” but you’ll want to get the headphones back on for “As Gravity Ends.”
There is not a spot of magenta or cyan to be seen, nor a sample from the Tron soundtrack to be heard. This is not “synthwave” but dark ambient and experimental material of the highest standard.
4. Hannah Peel – Awake But Always Dreaming
Hannah Peel shifted gears half-way through her latest album, moving from delicate pop into more industrial sounds, layers and loops. The arc of the album mirrored the dementia that eventually claimed her grandmother, and many of the songs are both raw and unnerving for anyone who has lived through a similar experience. It turns out that many people have, as Awake But Always Dreaming received substantial attention and acted as the focal point for an Alzheimers-related culture event in Shoreditch to general acclaim.
It was Peel’s performance of the new material at the Troika! show that led us to include her in our Live Act of the Year selection. It might have a serious motive, but the songs of Awake But Always Dreaming work best when you can feel the rhythms and see the hair flicks up close.
3. Kite Base – “Soothe”/”Dadum”
We first saw Kite Base warming up for Hannah Peel in deepest, darkest hipster territory. First impressions were very promising with dueling bass guitars, natty electronics and Kendra Frost’s vocals forging an original and deep sound. Bandmate Ayşe Hassan also plays in Savages, so you’d expect them to be loud, but Kite Base has subtlety as well as rhythm.
This year, we finally got a 7″ single to spin, and it turned out that the duo were just as good in the studio as on stage. “Dadum” has the kind of hook that sticks in your ear for days on end, while the accompanying video highlights the band’s interest in origami. It’s on the flip side, however, that the promise of Kite Base really starts to kick off with Frost’s voice opening up over bass lines that throb like the veins of a long-distance runner.
Along with Hannah Peel and I Speak Machine, Kite Base were our joint choice of Live Act of the Year for their Troika! show at London’s Shacklewell Arms. The rumble outside would have been only a partial clue to the intensity of their performance, which has been crafted through shows in Europe and America alongside Savages. The sonic fractals really fly when Kite Base are plugged into their DI boxes, and they expand and shift with a deft psychedelic touch that is anchored by the tautest of bass lines.
2. Page – “Är det jag som är en idiot?”
Eddie Bengtsson has promised a new Page album in 2017. Until then, we have the band’s midsummer single, “Är det jag som är en idiot” (EN: “Is it Me Who Is an Idiot?”), to keep us company through the Nordic winter. Produced and mixed by Richard Flow of Machinista, this is Page’s only official release since 2013’s “Som ett skal” (EN: “Like a Shell”), and it’s a tease that it was accompanied by only one B-side. We know what’s coming next, and we can’t wait.
1. Eric Random – Words Made Flesh
Pole position for 2016 didn’t go to an obvious choice with a hipster following on Facebook. Eric Random has come and gone from the music scene over the years, but is most closely associated with Cabaret Voltaire and its Doublevision label. Random’s return in 2016 with Words Made Flesh kept some of the indie-industrial vibe from his earlier recordings, but was notable for repositioning dance music as something with character and texture. With influences drawn from world music, Random breathed new life into electronica, as this stand-out track demonstrates.
If you’re going to call your band Cosmic Overdose, you’re going to have to deal with some preconceptions. The first is that you are a bunch of hippies, sitting in fairy rings and tripping on mushrooms. The second is that your material consists of overblown guitar solos. If your music is actually varied and complex, inspired by dada, punk and experimental electronics, and you are meant to be warming up for New Order, then it might be time to rethink the name.
That’s not the whole story of Twice a Man, but it is how it usually opens. Before the Swedish godfathers of alternative music adopted their current guise – prompted by the promoters of the New Order show they were scheduled to join – they swam in many of the streams that were converging or competing in the second half of the 1970s. Punk was a rebellion against the high-art extremes of prog rock, but Cosmic Overdose found something to appreciate in both. Experimental and industrial music provided an antidote to pop, and the band absorbed the textures and freedom of the former while maintaining the accessibility of the latter.
If there is a surprise in the recently issued Cosmic Overdose box set from Progress Productions, it is just how much groove there is in their material. Over the course of two studio albums, the band belied their name with sets of jaunty, angular material that did as much to shake hips as expand minds. There are passages of smooth, prog-influenced pop, but they are respite between slabs of pure energy generated with a provocative spirit.
If English comparators were sought, then Blurt, Brian Eno and Cabaret Voltaire would figure, but the points of intersection would be limited. Cosmic Overdose defied definition as craftily as those artists, even if they sometimes drew inspiration and confidence from similar sources. The three albums packaged in Koko Total don’t fit a template, nor do they bear direct comparison to others. Cosmic Overdose were true originals.
The first album they shared with the world was Dada Koko. From the opening number, “Investera i Framtida,” with its synthetic waves, it was clear that something new was being born. “Modern Dadaister” isn’t a million miles from XTC’s jerkier sound, when it starts, before growing into something trippier. There is a moment of calm in the arc of the album before “Tanten” explodes with a burst of dark energy. The Arp synth returns on the album closer, “Råttan,” a track tailored for the alternative dancefloor.
The second album, 4668, showed that the Swedes had absorbed something from Joy Division. As the Manchester doom-meisters had done, Cosmic Overdose were starting to push through the punk chrysalis to emerge as something more electronic. Their transformation into Twice a Man would put them at the forefront of the Swedish synth scene and keep them in its top tier for a generation. In the meantime, fans had the brooding “Android,” the well-crafted “Nina Fontanell” and the charming “Liten Storsint” to contemplate.
The third CD in this package collects live recordings, singles and strays from the archives. “Observation Galen” from 1979 is here with its B-side, “Isolatorer.” Then there are live versions of “Suicide Case,” “Ruta Nr 1” and “Läckan” from a show the same year in Kalmar. They reveal a band confident in its presentation with spellbinding material. Further live sessions follow from shows in Oslo, Lund and Stockholm (with an appearance by Lars Falk on “Väx och Njut”) before the album closes with the single, “To Night.”
The quality of the recordings is excellent, and they open a window into the short time when art and punk overlapped with the electronics of the Futurists and the psychedelia of the proggists. Wire unpacked that confluence methodically over four decades, but Cosmic Overdose concentrated it into two albums and two singles and changed their name. What came next is a story for another day.
The first FRKTL release, Atom, popped up on a Soundcloud stream one day about five years ago and immediately stood out as a work of excruciating beauty. Highly processed electro-acoustic material is rarely crafted as finely, and the album felt as if it had been spun from the most delicate threads. A little digging revealed it as the output of Sarah Badr, a young Anglo-Eygptian artist immersed in the digital stream of the 21st century.
It has been a long wait, but FRKTL is back with Qualia. Named for the categories of subjective experience associated with perception, the new album is like a collection of spices: exotic tones from the East mingle with rhythms from Western dancefloors, while piquant signals from pianos merge with ambient loops. The flavours come together in “Leviathan Wakes,” a drum-and-pad driven track that wouldn’t be out of place in a Richard H. Kirk anthology:
Things even get a little Chris & Cosey on “March of the Danaides,” which incorporates processed voice:
Qualia is a solid second album from FRKTL, and just the kind of material to cut through the darkness and damp of an English winter.
Zanias is the latest project from Australasian artist Alison Lewis. Now based in Berlin and performing as Zoe Zanias, Lewis has taken a step sideways from the darktronica of her previous acts, Keluar and Linea Aspera. In her new video, we see her as never before – bewitching and stern – with a sound that is as dramatic and angular as her look.
Through This Collapse [Zanias] from Ouroboros on Vimeo.
Sound mirrors are acoustic devices that reflect sound to a focal point. Prior to the advent of radar, large versions were built to pick up the sound of incoming enemy planes along the British coastline. Operators would listen to the drone of the sea, captured and focused by the mirrors, and put out an alert if they detected changes introduced by the sound of aircraft engines. So why would the Swedish darktronica pioneers, Covenant, name a single after them?
According to the band’s Joakim Montelius, the inspiration came from an article on the devices while reflecting on the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean:
My reading coincided with the refugee situation in Europe. The fact that we all knew about the reasons for it since years, without doing anything to help, made me think of this pattern. How we, humans in general, do everything in our power to try and predict future threats. That ability to anticipate possible scenarios is of course key to our survival, from an evolutionary point of view.
The track is lifted from Covenant’s new album, The Blinding Dark. It sits nestled among tracks of remarkable strength, pointing out the sounds of burning homes and broken souls. It is a unique statement from Covenant, and sits alongside Portion Control’s “Refugee” as a song about mass displacement that you can dance to. Perhaps, if we weren’t bombing their homes and arming the mercenaries who attack them, the peoples of the Middle East and North Africa wouldn’t need to move to colder countries – a point your DJ can make by spinning one of the excellent remixes that feature on the single release.
The other songs on The Blinding Dark are similarly bleak, even if they are less tied to the day’s headlines. It has been pointed out that Eskil Simonsson’s vocals in “Dies Irae” owe something to the style of Leonard Cohen, but the bard of Montreal rarely ventures into territory this dark. The title refers to the “day of wrath” in Christian mythology, and in the hands of Covenant it is also “a day of loss and mourning.” It will be the soundtrack to a thousand Goth funerals.
The filters work hard on “Cold Reading,” another dancefloor-oriented track infused with fizzing electronics. “I’m not the one to fear,” intones Simonsson over a trance-inducing pattern, but it sounds like he is. Stripped down and minimal, the electronics are sinister and tense, creating an atmosphere of darkness and dread transported from a Grimm tale.
Covenant’s experimental side comes out at several points on the album. The opening track, “Fulwell,” replicates the experience of listening to an acoustic mirror, in what might be the first industrial track featuring a seagull. There are two “Interludes”: the first tying together loops of machinery, pulses from modular kit and crushed vocals; the second sounding like a distant cousin of the sketches from New Order’s Power, Corruption and Lies. The peak of this thread, however, is found in a cover of Lee Hazlewood’s “Rider on a White Horse”: static, loops, drones and a duet combine to refract the imagery of the original, returning it to the Book of Revelations.
Theatrical, experimental and moody, The Blinding Dark is a compelling follow up to Leaving Babylon that captures the mood of 2016 to a T.
Photo credits: Chris Ruiz.
Norway’s current best export, Highasakite, have revealed an acoustic version of “Samurai Swords.” The original appears on their current album, Camp Echo, in an electronic form. Their unplugged effort shows off their roots, as a lovely complement to the album version.
Bonfire Night is a good time to hold TEC004. The event, curated by The Electricity Club, avoids apple-bobbing and effigy-burning; bringing the fireworks indoors for the fans of electronic music assembled in Norwich’s Epic Studios.
First up is Rodney Cromwell, who delivers a set of New Order-inspired tracks. We get “Fax Message Breakup” and “Barry Was an Arms Dealer” – songs that reflect a sense of humour as well as melody. Kid Kasio follow, borrowing phrasing from Depeche Mode tracks for a set of danceable poptronica.
Headliners Marsheaux come to TEC004 with a new album under their belt, and they aren’t shy about showing it off. After last year’s remake of Depeche Mode’s A Broken Frame, they have focused on original material, and Ath.Lon is a dynamic, dancefloor-oriented set, full of references to Suicide, The Cure and the boys from Basildon.
They get the crowd moving with a blistering set. Marianthi Melitsi and Sophie Sarigiannidou work the audience up-front, while their partners develop the live mix in the second echelon under a video backdrop that looks like it was lifted from Anton Corbijn’s personal collection. The great thing about Marsheaux is that they have fun performing, and the audience cannot help feeling the same way.
TEC004 ends with a bang. The apple-bobbers out in the rain have missed an event hotter than any bonfire.