Features

The Top 22 of 2022

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

This was the year of the music book. Instead of running the pop charts, many legendary figures migrated to the bestseller lists with their memoirs. Dr Martyn Ware provided his version of the Human League 1.0 in Electronically Yours. Trevor Horn offered some insights into his career in Adventures in Modern Recording. John McGeogh wasn’t here to write his own story, so Rory Sullivan-Burke took it on in The Light Pours Out of Me. Richard Evans’ Listening to the Music the Machines Make told the story of electronic music through the pages of the British music press. For Depeche Mode fans, the Halo book, revisiting the recording of Violator, was possibly more interesting than a press conference to announce a forthcoming album in the spirit of, well, Spirit.

Depeche Mode lost Andy Fletcher this year, reducing their original formation to two. Another casualty of 2022 was their former associate, Robert Marlow, who died without having achieved the broader recognition many thought he deserved. Nick Cave lost a second son, in an almost unimaginable tragedy. Hawkwind’s Nik Turner had lived a fuller life, but he couldn’t evade inclusion on a death roster that included Keith Levene, Klaus Schulze, Manuel Göttsching, Jet Black, and Vangelis. Front 242’s Jean-Luc De Meyer almost joined them, after running into heart problems. Andy Ross of Food Records wasn’t as lucky. There were constant reminders to show appreciation for artists while they are still alive.

There were plenty of opportunities to do so, as live shows were crammed into the calendar. The post-lockdown rush to get back on the road saw tours by many artists. Front 242 were up-and-at-them, as soon as the cardiologists were done, with a storming show. Rein took Manhattan (and a number of other US cities) as support for Front Line Assembly and other big name acts. Even the Electronic Summer festival returned en gång till, introducing Sierra and Piston Damp to a Swedish audience. Dave Baker’s Lonelyklown project had its stage debut. Minuit Machine valiantly returned to live performance after Helene de Thoury experienced significant inner-ear problems, but by year end de Thoury had to withdraw from live work. Kitka went to the Legion in Calgary for fries and draft beer. Test Dept beat the retreat with shows in Europe and the UK.

Mind you, some artists raised eyebrows. Patsy Kensit thought it was appropriate to snap the coffin at Fletch’s funeral and post to her IG account. We disagreed. Kanye West went full Yitler. Those lads from Right Said Fred continued to promote far right conspiracy theories. Just because you can sing doesn’t mean that everything that comes out of your mouth is golden.

Where the year fell short was in the number of quality new releases from established artists. Simple Minds, Dubstar, Leftfield, The House of Love, Wire, and William Orbit had new material on offer, but the release schedule was impacted by a combination of tour commitments, production backlogs, and record company apathy. When music is all about TikTok background sounds and  streaming service statistics, a band could get lost. Add to that the economic pressures on artists who struggle to make even a basic living, while the LiveNation monopoly sucks all the oxygen from growing scenes. It’s all about dynamic ticket pricing and pre-saves on Spotify: at the end of 2022, the crisis in music is in full swing.

 

22. Sierra – See Me Now EP

Kicking off our list is Sierra from France. The solo artist has been making highly sought after releases for several years, but — hands in the air — we didn’t have her on the radar until the Electronic Summer festival in Gothenburg. That is an error we are happy to correct, because her music fuses the old school sounds of Vangelis and Jarre with the hardness of the dark wave set. After the insufferable flotsam of most synthwave, this is what we hoped for from the next generation of electronic musicians. It delivers in spades.

 

21. Alanas Chosnau and Mark Reeder – Life Everywhere

Released into the political crisis caused by the Russo-Ukrainian war, Life Everywhere was a timely release by Chosnau and Reeder. Built around a fear of government control, the tracks embed hidden caches of New Order and Human League, while making Orwell danceable.

 

20. Blancmange – Private View

Neil Arthur is one of the epic showmen of British entertainment. Unfortunately, due to serious health concerns, he has had to continue Blancmange without Stephen Luscombe; but he has bolted his songs to Benge’s electronics without losing his step. Private View proves that aging is no reason to give up making strong material or switching to blues-rock stylings.

 

19. Mark Stewart – VS

The Pop Group giant has never been the shy one. Here, he storms the heavens with industrial dub and other delights delivered by the likes of Front 242, Leaether Strip, Stephen Mallinder, and Eric Random. Stewart’s got a bone to pick with the universe, and he isn’t letting it rest until he gets a result. That makes us hopeful for more of this in the future.

 

18. Francesca e Luigi – Dirty Disco

The Swedes are going to dominate this year’s list — prepare yourself now. This track is one of the reasons: they are congenitally unafraid to play with disco, Italo, and other stylings that might be dismissed as cheese by others. Choose fun!

 

17. William Orbit – The Painter

The return of William Orbit, after some health challenges, was welcome news. The Painter found him collaborating with a range of vocalists — from Beth Orton to Polly Scattergood — while playing with the spacial capabilities of Dolby Atmos. Orbit’s bag of tricks is always full of bubbling delays, and this set of tracks was loaded with them. It is an exercise in recovery, rather than dancefloor beats, and no less beautiful for it.

 

16. Kitka – House of K

From the north of Sweden came House of K by Kitka, which married pop, synthwave and trap stylings to good effect. It’s not your father’s electronic music, but it is exactly the kind of creative work that needs to keep coming.

 

15. Karin Park – Private Collection

Page could have reissued Glad and been happy with the enthusiastic response, but Eddie Bengtsson has some of that 1970s UV spirit in him. “Vi kommer tillbaka” [EN: “We Are Coming Back”] arrived as a single just as the year was running out, easily outpacing the competition with a slice of golden poptronica.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4SIGoC25t0Kqxf9dsXkTh1?si=cI1TBDxtSVGJigKooLYH0Q&utm_source=copy-link


Karin Park returned this year with an album reimagining some of her previous compositions. Reaching back across two decades, the songs retooled on Private Collection were her own favourites; but they included many of ours, as well. Motherhood and time in the deep woods have had their effects on how Park hears her work, and we found the songs stood up well to a stripped-down, raw, and unapologetic approach.

 

14. The Ändå – Update & Reboot


The Ändå were back this year with this track that breaks down several boundaries. We have to wait until next year for the Twice a Man compilation, but Karl Gasleben and his collaborators in this project know how to keep the theatrical flame nurtured by the band alive. Is it silly? Is it serious? You would never ask that of Laurie Anderson, would you?

 

13. Fifi Rong – There Is a Funeral in My Heart for Every Man I Ever Loved


Fifi Rong went heavily into NFTs, using the emergent technology to share her music with fans. The Crypto Winter has possibility dampened the market for trading in tokens, but her current double album (one part English and one part Chinese) is also on CD. In any format, the songs on There Is a Funeral… are creative treats. The Yello collaborator has taken the indie route further than most, but her album deserves to reach the mainstream.

 

12. Waterflower – Mycelium (Step by Step)


Waterflower’s work incorporates plant-life, which conduct electricity in ways that can be processed. The signals generated by mushrooms are measured, timed, and turned into music that accompanies the vocals of Sabine Moore. This might sound like just a Tesco Disco, but the material is rich and enveloping — like the forest itself.

 

11. Front 242 – Rewind


Front 242 put on what was arguably the Concert of the Year in London, despite Jean-Luc de Meyer’s recent health scare. They weren’t touring a new record, but their countrymen at Alfa Matrix released a set of remixes this year, with Terence Fixmer, The Hacker, Kant Kino, and Radical G taking turns to play with some classic tracks. Rewind was originally planned for release last year, to mark the 20th anniversary of the label and the 40th anniversary of the band, but Covid did its thing.

 

10. Strikkland – Bodypop


Sweden’s love of EBM is well known, and the fact that new bands keep emerging to fan the musical flame is encouraging. Representing the west coast, Strikkland have finally issued their first album, and it is a stormer. Mixing body music and pop, the duo have made the most of their inheritance.

 

9. Emmon – RECON


Another Swedish act that has embraced the pop-body combination is Emmon. Previously known for seriously danceable pop, they have shifted direction to embrace all of the sounds from Emma Nylén’s DJ days. That means a bit of Goldfrapp, a dose of Depeche Mode, a shake of Nitzer Ebb, and a pinch of Front 242, blended until smooth. Representing the east coast, they have retained the sophistication and sexiness of their earlier work while turning up the body element of the mix.

 

8. Lederman – Rohn – Rage


This collaboration between Jean-Marc Lederman (Fad Gadget, The Weathermen, Kid Montana) and Emileigh Rohn (Chiasm) quickly punched its way up the alternative charts with an aggressive, menacing sound. It is a long way from some of Lederman’s more pastoral output, but the composer covers a lot of ground. Just the thing for a new Matrix movie, don’t you think?

 

7. Lau Nau – Puutarhassa


The promotional material explains this album better than we can:


“In the summer 2020 Lau Nau did a video performance Live in the Orchard for the Munich based concert series frameless. She built a little transportable wagon that fits a modular synth, a miniature recording studio and a sound system, and created a concept for the performance where she made field recordings in the garden while playing the synth. This record includes two straight takes from the live performance, remixed with other material Lau Nau recorded in the same vein in the same place, a tiny village on an island in the Western coast of Finland.”


What we can add is that this is exactly the kind of experimentation that Lau Nau does like no other. While Virginia Astley bottled the essence of British summers in From Gardens Where We Feel Secure, Lau Nau’s approach is less constricted by cultural expectations. Where Astley supplied familiarity, Lau Nau delivers surprises based upon observation and engagement. Call it quaint but never twee. A band should be named after this, called And Also the Bees.

 

6. Lonelyklown – Funny Sunday Morning


Together with Simon Leonard, Dave Baker is responsible for some of the best love songs ever made–even when they are about satellites and walks through Muswell Hill. There is only one track on this album written with Leonard, but the plaintive vocals and catchy melodies show direct descent from the ouevre of I Start Counting, Fortran 5 and Komputer. The twist is that it is impressed with a classic 70s vibe and more songs about things feline than The Stranglers ever managed.

 

5. Minuit Machine – 24


Minuit Machine are one of the top acts in the dark wave scene for a reason. Their ability to weave together haunting vocals and catchy electronics breathes humanity into the machines in ways that few other scene acts accomplish. Sadly, news came at the end of the year that Hélène de Thoury’s health would prevent her from touring in the future.

 

4. Amusi – EP-A


A combination of Joakim Montelius (Covenant), Khyber Westlund, Richard Hansson, and Ulrika Mild (Computer), Amusi are an alternative Swedish supergroup. Don’t confuse them with the Travelling Wilburys.

 

3. Page – Glad REISSUE OF THE YEAR


The original release of Page’s third album has been out of print for many years. Issued in 1995, on CD only, it has changed hands between collectors for full price ever since. Now issued for the first time on vinyl, Glad is a classic of Swedish pop. Marina Schiptjenko and Eddie Bengtsson stopped working together after this album, while the former concentrated on an ultrapop career and the latter explored guitar sounds, but their all-synth reunion has brought new life to these songs.

 

2. Dubstar – Two ALBUM OF THE YEAR


Since they reorganised as a duo, Dubstar have become more sophisticated and thoughtful. The release of Two gathered up some singles, including “Hygiene Strip,”  and some new material crafted with producer Stephen Hague (New Order, Pet Shop Boys). The latter made it out to Dubstar’s release event at Rough Trade East, where Sarah Blackwood and Chris Wilkie performed some of the songs for an entranced audience. Blackwood’s vocals are as strong as ever, while Wilkie’s guitar work is accomplished and confident. You would have to be to have been through the Machine and come out the other side with an album that is essentially faultless.

 

1. Page – Vi kommer tillbaka SINGLE OF THE YEAR


When John Foxx left Ultravox!, they lost more than their punctuation mark. Foxx’s presence gave the band bite. Midge Ure made excellent, soaring pop but left no teeth marks–well, apart from the time he kicked Warren Cann out of the band he had founded. Musically, at least, there is something to be said for having an edge.


Page could have reissued Glad and been happy with the enthusiastic response, but Eddie Bengtsson has some of that 1970s UV spirit in him. “Vi kommer tillbaka” [EN: “We Are Coming Back”] arrived as a single just as the year was running out, easily outpacing the competition with a slice of golden poptronica.

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https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4SIGoC25t0Kqxf9dsXkTh1?si=cI1TBDxtSVGJigKooLYH0Q&utm_source=copy-link

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Shine On: Robert Görl

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Compared to the privileged founders of Kraftwerk, who were able to launch their project with family money, Robert Görl had it tough. Raised in an orphanage in Munich, he was attracted to punk and became one of the outsiders hanging around Düsseldorf’s Ratinger Hof. There, he connected with fellow spirit, Gabi Delgado, and the duo became the core of Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft, one of the leading Neue Deutsche Welle acts. A formally trained jazz drummer, Görl brought a sense of rhythm and structure to the band, which was to spin off acts like Pyrolator and Liaisons Dangereuses.

The first album by DAF, Ein Produkt der Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft, was an experimental, improvised collection of instrumental tracks. It led to a trip to London, which saw the group of German punks sleeping on the floor of Daniel Miller‘s mother’s middle class house in Temple Fortune, London. The next step was an album, Die Kleinen und die Bosen, which was the first full-length release for Miller’s Mute Records label. Given the catalogue number, STUMM1 (‘stumm’ being the German word for ‘mute’), it featured a live side recorded in London and a studio side produced by Conny Plank. Plank’s son tells the story that Görl, Delgado and Miller went to Conny’s Studio in Germany to finalise the material. Miller had booked three days of studio time. On the first day, Plank cooked and chatted with Görl and Delgado. On the second day, the same thing happened. Miller was watching his budget being eaten up – literally. On the third day, as Miller’s anxiety was peaking, the Germans went into the studio and did the entire session in one go. This was the beginning of a key relationship between Plank and DAF.

DAFIt also led to the reorganisation of DAF as the duo of Görl and Delgado. After Die Kleinen…, they clinched a contract with Virgin Records and forged a new, minimal sound. The rest of the band were out, and Miller was told only after the deal was done. It was a messy affair, but it led to a series of albums that set new templates for European electronic music. With only a sequencer, basic synths, a drum kit, and Delgado’s voice, DAF crafted a distinctive sound with songs that cut open the belly of punk. Görl’s drums and electronics steered a path between icy anthems and intimate tracks, avoiding the traps of both 4/4 dance music and pub rock, while Delgado purred and shouted slogans and sensual promises with equal intensity.

The new arrangement was successful, but it didn’t last. It couldn’t have lasted. After three albums in two years, all produced in Conny’s Studio, DAF pulled the plug. The passion that kept the music interesting also led to collisions that blew the partnership apart. They regrouped in 1986 for a dance-oriented album, 1st Step to Heaven, but the tensions kept resurfacing. Over the years, the fans pulled DAF back into the studio and onto the stage, but keeping the band together was a recurring challenge.

In the gaps between DAF projects, Görl continued to produce exceptional music. In 1983, after the first DAF split, Görl returned to Mute Records with the single, “Mit Dir.” That led to a further single and album produced by Mike Hedges, including a collaboration with Annie Lennox of Eurythmics. Görl had provided drums for the Eurythmics’ 1981 single, “Belinda,” which appeared on the Plank-produced album, In the Garden, and kept close to Lennox. Although critically well received, Night Full of Tension failed to ignite Görl’s solo career in the UK.

After the second DAF split, in 1987, Görl went off to study acting in New York; quickly finding himself expelled for having the wrong visa. On return to West Germany, he was picked up by the army, which wanted to know why he hadn’t completed his national service. Faced with the choice of joining the Bundeswehr or making music, Görl split for Paris, where he recorded demos in a suburban flat. He took them to London, where Daniel Miller recommended that he connect with the Canadian prog musician, Dee Long, who had set up as a Fairlight operator at George Martin’s AIR Studios. Long had previously worked with Rational Youth on the Heredity album and with Images in Vogue, so had some experience working with the current technology. Before they could properly record the material that Görl had developed in Paris, however, he was involved in a horrific car accident. The drummer began 1989 with broken bones and soft tissue injuries that prevented further work and would impact him for the rest of his career.

The result was a hiatus from music that lasted until 1992. In that time, Görl became a monk at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand; a role he traded in for techno production after returning to a reunited Germany and experiencing Berlin’s Love Parade. His love for Buddhist spirituality remained, but so did his drive to make music as DAF. In 2003, he and Delgado released Fünfzehn neue D.A.F.-Lieder, updating the DAF sound while demonstrating their continuing relevance. More splits followed, but a way forward was always found. In 2021, following the death of Delgado, Görl released the final DAF album, Nur noch einer, drawn from archive material and ideas the duo had been working on together. It was a kind of closure, but not the end of the journey: Görl has recently continued to perform as DAF, and there are other sketches in the vaults that could still be worked on. DAF lives…

10. DAF – Kebabträume

The first DAF single on Mute, “Kebabträume” is an electro-punk treatment of the controversy about Turkish immigration to West Germany. It deals with the division of Berlin and cold war spycraft, reflecting the anxieties of the times. It was re-recorded by the Görl-Delgado version of DAF for their third Virgin album, Für Immer, with cleaner production and a more minimal style, but the original 7″ in the Simone Grant sleeve remains the definitive version.


 

9. Robert Rental – Double Heart

Görl’s skills as a drummer have been called upon a number of times for other acts. Rental had worked with Daniel Miller on a tour of the UK and France, which had been documented on a one-sided album for Rough Trade. It was natural, therefore, that he would release his second single on Mute. It was recorded at Blackwing Studios, where Miller was working on his Silicon Teens material, with Thomas Leer and Görl assisting.


 

8. DAF – Ich und die Wirklichkeit

The version of DAF that went to Virgin was one that Mute would have loved to have bid for. DAF’s first album for Richard Branson’s label, Alles ist Gut, was to become a classic and a crossover hit in Germany. With the instrumentation reduced to drums and sequenced synths, the duo was able to reinvent electronic music entirely. The live version of this track offers a view of the band’s strong punk sensibilities; rejecting both the hippy ambience of Tangerine Dream and the angular pop of the Anglo-American New Wave.


 

7. DAF – The Gun

The return of DAF in 1987 was at the height of Stock Aitken Waterman’s powers. Hi-NRG was all over the dancefloor, and the band was well positioned to take a run at commercial success. They brought with them an early track – “Absolute Body Control” – and wrote new material, including this funky 12″ single. Some saw this as a sell-out, but DAF’s club campaign yielded a string of excellent singles and an album that added polish to their sound.


 

6. Robert Görl – Dominatrix Supreme

Görl’s return to Germany led to a period of techno production that is sometimes overlooked in his work, but the material is of very high quality. DAF’s sound was one of the major influences on the development of dance music, and it is only natural that Görl would have turned his hand to the music of the clubs.


 

5. Client with Robert Görl – Der Mussolini

In 2006, Görl performed live with Client, the band fronted by Sarah Blackwood and championed by Andy Fletcher of Depeche Mode. At the end of their set, they had a go at this classic dancefloor number by DAF. In 2007, Görl’s remix of the band’s Adam Ant-written song, “Zerox Machine,” was released.


 

4. Robert Görl – Part 1 (Vince Clarke Remix)

The accident that prevented Görl from taking forward his second solo album with Dee Long was very serious. He spent six months in hospital, was implanted with steel pins, and had to learn to walk again. Completely defeated by chance, he took himself away to a monastery and gave up music entirely. The discovery of a cassette with his demos led to the release of an album by Grönland Records in 2018. Vince Clarke provided a remix of this track; hinting at the way the material could have taken shape if Görl had worked on it in London as planned.


 

3. FLA – Eye on You

Canada’s Front Line Assembly called on Görl to contribute to this track from 2019. As Bill Leeb told The Electricity Club: “We met at M’era Luna and another festival. We all hung out backstage, and I kind of hunted him down. One time, [DAF] played right after us and we were hanging out backstage, waiting to change, and I just started talking to him. I was such a huge fan, and the first couple of DAF albums were groundbreaking – kind of like the whole Mute and DEPECHE MODE world. We just started chatting in German, and he’s a super nice guy, and next thing you know we were doing the track.”


 

2. DAF – Ich denk an dich

Released in the wake of Delgado’s untimely and unexpected death, “Ich denk an dich” [EN: “I Think of You”] is Görl’s tribute to his musical partner. Their relationship was sometimes difficult, but it was also productive. Some of Görl’s most significant material is inseparable from Delgado’s contributions. With the last DAF album, he had an opportunity to express this using archival recordings and the sketches made with Delgado.


1. Robert Görl – Mit Dir

Released in the spring of 1983, “Mit Dir” finds Görl singing a love song over a minimal, icy-cold set of synth sounds. One of the most beautiful songs released on Mute, it is a masterpiece that shows off Görl’s expressive range and control of minimalist instrumentation.


 

 

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Shine On: Martyn Ware

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Dr Martyn Ware recently joined a growing list of luminaries from the 1980s alternative music scene in acquiring an honorary doctorate. The University of Sheffield awarded the degree to Ware in recognition of his contribution to music; particularly in Sheffield, his hometown. It’s a long way from the NME’s review of his first proper album, The Human League’s Reproduction, which writer Andy Gill slated “as flat, neutral and unappetising as a glass of Coke that’s been standing for too long.”

Gill was wrong, of course. Reproduction was a landmark achievement for 1979; representing the keystone for Synth Britannia. Unlike Kraftwerk, with their instinct for clarity and perfection, The Human League organised noises into pop songs. They were more mensch than maschine. They wore beards and 70s fashions instead of Bauhaus-inspired uniforms. They embraced the absurd and emotional over scientific progress. They weren’t punk, prog or rock, but they absorbed and reprocessed influences from all of them.

Whatever the NME’s reaction, the band felt that Colin Thurston’s production had neutered the sound they were reaching for, and their answer was 1980’s Travelogue. From the fierce opening of “The Black Hit of Space,” to a retooled and repurposed version of their first single, “Being Boiled,” The Human League staked their ground as daring conductors of electricity. Oakey’s lyrics veered from the peculiar (“A Crow and a Baby”) to the prescient (“WXJL Tonight”), while a cauldron of sounds punched their ways through the speakers. Ware and Marsh squeezed sounds from their machinery that invested the songs with emotional qualities that could never have been wrought from guitars. Travelogue moved the bar for the growing crowd of alienated young men with Moogs who were posing as post-punk robots.

And then, suddenly, it was over. A split was engineered by their record company, who sent Phil Oakey and Adrian Wrightoff to one corner and Marsh and Ware to another. Oakey kept the band name and his haircut, while new doors opened for Ware. Together with Marsh, he launched the British Electric Foundation (B.E.F.) as a production company. Although it would be overtaken by Heaven 17, as an outlet for new material, B.E.F. gave Ware a chance to work with artists like Sandie Shaw and Tina Turner. His involvement with the latter revived her career and helped propel Ware into the music production big leagues.

Heaven 17, which brought Marsh and Ware together with another Sheffield native, Glenn Gregory, had its own success. Alongside the Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode, Heaven 17 married electronics with danceable rhythms in a way that was more post-disco than post-punk. With songs like “Play to Win” and “Temptation,” they won over the yuppies they were side-eyeing, but they also snuck in sharp political commentary. Ware, a steel-city socialist, took particular pleasure in subverting Reagan-era nightlife with “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang.”

As the 80s ended, so did the First Cold War and the heady days of vinyl-based pop. As acid house and then Britpop took over the mainstream, Ware found himself involved in avant-garde technologies, such as immersive sound environments. With Vince Clarke, he started the Illustrious Company and made electronic and ambient sound for commercial purposes and public spaces. Ware continues to work in this field, while keeping up Heaven 17 and doing production work. He teaches music production at a postgraduate level, which will help put his new title to use.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Ware started a podcast to help keep himself working and to chat with people he found interesting. Named after a phrase that appeared on the first Human League single, the series is also the title of the good doctor’s forthcoming autobiography: Electronically Yours.

10. The Future – Dance Like a Star

When Ware and Ian Craig Marsh started making music together, they acquired a Korg 700s synthesizer. It was soon joined by a Roland System-100 semi-modular set-up, and they took on Adi Newton to make material as The Future. Newton left to form Clock DVA — a later press release had him “deleted due to a malfunction” — and Marsh and Ware looked around for another member. They settled on a hospital porter called Phil Oakey, whom Ware knew from school and whose haircut he admired. Oakey’s sax didn’t fit with the programme, so he took on vocal duties, but that is another part of the story.

9. The Men – I Don’t Depend on You

Virgin Records signed The Human League with a significant advance, but they lacked confidence that their new act’s experimental electronic leanings would have mass appeal. The Human League were a little too weird for most A&R men to get their heads around. Never mind that David Bowie had declared them the future of music, the makers of “Being Boiled” were looking like a risk.

To address their concerns, Virgin piled pressure on the band to produce a commercial hit with more traditional instrumentation. Ware resisted, but eventually agreed to a compromise: they would make a record under a different name, so that The Human League brand could remain unsullied by drums and guitars. The song didn’t give Virgin the hit they were looking for, but it did turn up in a cover by the Ware-produced Hot Gossip two years later. It also provided a glimpse into exactly what Oakey’s Human League would become.

8. The Human League – The Black Hit of Space

As the opening track on Travelogue, “The Black Hit of Space” broke all boundaries. The story of a song that swallowed up the charts as it rose in popularity, it used distorted synth sounds aggressively; creating a storm of filtered and flanged noise. Oakey’s surreal lyrics set off swoops and bleeps characteristic of science fiction, while the instrumentation worked the kind of charge otherwise found in throbbing guitar chords.

7. BEF – Groove Thang

A primitive version of what would become the first Heaven 17 song,”Groove Thang” is a sketch that shows Ware and Marsh in transition from the pure electronics of the Future and Human League to a more open pop format after the split engineered by Virgin and manager Bob Last.

6. Heaven 17 – Let Me Go

The debate about which release was the first to use the Roland TB-303 Bassline continues, but this was certainly an early example of the silver box in action. Paired with the TR-606 Drumatix, it was designed to give guitar players a rhythm section to play along to. In practice, the ability of the 303 to generate overdriven squarks made it the ideal tool for acid house. Ware played it straight here, finding a sweet spot that leveraged the machinery’s capacity for warmth in one of the most elegant tracks of the 80s.

5. Tina Turner – Let’s Stay Together

Tina Turner’s career was in the doldrums when she was asked to take part in the B.E.F. project, Music of Quality and Distinction. On the strength of her version of “Ball of Confusion,” Turner was signed to a new deal by her label and Ware was asked to produce another cover.

Turner was ready for a screaming comeback, and her Private Dancer album ended up selling tens of millions of units. Ware and his production partner, Greg Walsh, also recorded a version of David Bowie’s “1984” with Turner for the album, leaving a deep imprint on one of the iconic albums of that era.

4. Erasure – Always

This hit from Erasure’s sixth album is one of the duo’s best loved songs. Ware stepped into the studio with Vince Clarke and Andy Bell at the invitation of Daniel Miller. I Say I Say I Say went to number one in the UK charts, while also giving Erasure their best US result to date. “Always” was held at number four in the singles charts, but it is an enduring synthpop ballad with enough quirkiness to avoid blending into the background of 90s nostalgia.

3. The Clarke & Ware Experiment – White (You Are in Heaven)

Ware’s relationship with Clarke grew on the back of his Erasure work. The two pop pioneers started creating material that explored the use of space from a space in Brixton.

This is one piece of a commissioned work that linked music to colour. Mute released it as part of the album, Spectrum Pursuit Vehicle — the title a reference to Space 1999 and a link to the Human League’s early imagery.

2. Martyn Ware – Tales from the Bridge

Ware’s experimental work is extensive, ranging from installations to investigations on the use of sound for people with autism spectrum condition. In this clip, he explains one of his pieces. The range of his creative work is impossibly broad, but this conceptual piece gives a good flavour.

1. The Human League – Being Boiled

If he’d had his way, Ware would have put loads of realistic brass onto this track. Thankfully, for music history, he was limited in the sounds he could work with for the debut Human League single. The result was a minimal, elegant and captivating track in the same DIY spirit as The Normal’s “Warm Leatherette/TVOD” and Throbbing Gristle’s “United.” Oakey’s completely mad lyrics make no greater sense today than they did when he presented them to the band, but they are entirely unqiue. Kanye West ripped off the single’s distinctive orange and black cover style for The Life of Pablo, and many have tried to accomplish the same degree of menace since without nearly the same level of success. An enduring classic.

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Shine On: Dave Ball

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

As the half of Soft Cell charged with operating the machines, Dave Ball has played a crucial role in the popularisation of electronic pop music. With Ball leering on the keyboards and Marc Almond prowling with his microphone, Soft Cell was a futuristic panto made with equal measures of soul and sleaze. They looked like they were lifted from Soho but delivered in a spaceship, issuing melodic hooks like lighting bolts. They introduced the synth duo to the mainstream with their UK Number One, “Tainted Love”–a cover of the soul classic originally performed by Gloria Jones–and subverted all expectations from then on. Soft Cell came and went as an act, but Ball continued to innovate with experimental collaborations and dance music: from Psychic TV to Kylie, he has added electricity to the acts that followed in their footsteps.

Ball was raised in Blackpool, a town on Britain’s left coast that was also the hometown of Chris Lowe, his counterpart in the Pet Shop Boys. He left its faded seaside glamour to attend Leeds Polytechnic, where he met his future musical partner, Almond. They started working together in 1977, rescuing disco from the jaws of punk, and released their first EP, Mutant Moments, the next year using money from Ball’s mother. The result was more industrial/Suicide-influenced than anything that followed, but it caught the attention of the emerging electronic influencers in London. One of them was an eccentric DJ called Stevo, who built a relationship with the band that took them to major label heaven and global success. Another was Daniel Miller, who produced the act’s first singles, “A Man Could Get Lost” and “Memorabilia” for Stevo’s label, Some Bizarre.

Soft Cell’s success was rapid and quickly outgrew the creative relationship between Ball and Almond. Easy access to drugs didn’t help, and it had fallen apart by 1984. It would take until 2001 for the act to release new material, but the hiatus didn’t leave Ball without interesting projects. From a solo album in 1983 to the acid house craze, he always found relevant and creative personalities to work with. There were no publishing royalties from “Tainted Love,” due to a lack of foresight by Some Bizarre, but there were always new ideas to be explored. Soft Cell have now returned with new management, selling keychains and working with the Pet Shop Boys, but the ideas keep coming.

(Photo of Dave Ball by Peter Ashworth)

10. Soft Cell – Martin

As the Mutant Moments EP revealed, Soft Cell were not all sweetness and light. They were happy to explore themes of horror, mental illness and danger. Early copies of Soft Cell’s second album, The Art of Falling Apart, came with a bonus 12″ featuring this tribute to the George Romero film of the same name. Recording of the album had been difficult, and producer Mike Thorne recalled that “Martin” injected a sense of fun to the proceedings. He described it as “a monstrously over-the-top extravaganza,” and he wasn’t wrong. It was the aggressive, experimental spine that held the Soft Cell monster erect.

This is a live version, as performed on The Tube in 1983. As a bonus, we have included one of the bands most heavily influenced by Soft Cell, Psyche, performing a delicious cover version at a Cold War Night Life event.

9. M.E.S.H. – Meet Every Situation Head-On

Genesis P-Orridge was a counterculture figure with a distinctive presence in the 1980s. After Throbbing Gristle imploded, he founded Psychic TV with Alex Fergusson of Alternative Television. Genesis claimed to have invented acid house with his compilation album, Jack the Tab, which featured a number of acts organised for the purpose. Ball and Richard Norris contributed to the process with “Meet Every Situation Head On,” which led to them working together as the Grid, one of Ball’s more successful projects outside of Soft Cell.

8. Psychic TV – Money for E

Ecstacy use is said to be one of the things that broke up Soft Cell. It is, perhaps, then, ironic that Ball remixed “Money for E” for Psychic TV. This is one of the more successful attempts to rework PTV’s acid-house material; and it shows Ball displaying an innate sense for the dancefloor while being respectful of Fred Giannelli’s original material.

7. Kylie Minogue – Breathe

For someone who mixed with Genesis’ Temple crowd, Ball has had some unexpectedly commercial turns. In 1994, he worked on Billie Ray Martin’s “Your Loving Arms.” A few years later, he was in the arms of Kylie Minogue’s record label, who brought him in to produce three songs on her album, Impossible Princess. This one became a Top 20 single in the UK.

It isn’t, perhaps, surprising to find Minogue working with a producer outside of the commercial mainstream–it was around this time that she was emerging from her indie phase, which saw her working with Nick Cave–but Ball and collaborator Ingo Vauk weren’t necessarily the obvious choice. It worked well for the Australian pop icon, even with a old school synth opening to thrill Moog enthusiasts.

6. David Bowie – Hallo Spaceboy (Lost in Space Mix)

Described by Bowie as “Jim Morrison meets industrial,” this track was originally crafted with Brian Eno for the Outside album in 1995. The official single went to the Pet Shop Boys for their contribution before being released, but this remix by Ball and Vauk made it fit for the dancefloor.

5. The Grid – Swamp Thing

On paper, mixing banjo and samples from old records shouldn’t have been much cop. The novelty paid off, however, for Ball and collaborator Richard Norris, with a top ten single around the world. You can probably still find sealed copies in discount bins, but there is no doubting Ball’s ability to make a hit from the things he found lying around the yard.

4. Other People – Have a Nice Day!

An oddity in the Ball canon, this was a collaboration between Ball and his wife, Gini, together with Andy Astle. With sampled voices, a chugging bass line, sirens, and a repetitive vocal, it came out in the same year as Propaganda’s “Mabuse” and Depeche Mode’s “People Are People” – there was clearly something industrial in the air.

3. Vicious Pink Phenomena – My Private Tokyo

Originally the backing singers for Soft Cell’s live shows, Vicious Pink Phenomena were the duo of Josephine Warden and Brian Moss. With Warden all Euro and Moss all electro, they were too sexy to stand behind Almond forever. Two Ball-helmed singles led to an album of stuttering greatness, but it started for them with this studio work.

2. Client – In It for the Money (The Grid Static in the Attic Mix)

Sarah Blackwood‘s sabbatical from Dubstar led to an outing as Client, the first signing for Andy Fletcher’s Toast Hawaii label. The St. John’s Wood/Notting Hill set took them to heart, and the act’s showbiz connections led to some interesting collaborations. Ball contributed to this one as part of a Grid remix, showing that his finger was never far from the beating pulse of underground music.

1. Soft Cell – Sex Dwarf

In the Soft Cell canon, there are many influential songs to choose from. The best representation of them, however, is in the banned video for “Sex Dwarf”–an over-the-top fantasy of drama and sleaze that reaches comic book proportions. The duo did excess to excess, and the swooping synths left a trail of wine bottles, wrappers and hair products behind them that still hasn’t been properly cleaned up.

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The Top 21 of 2021

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

For a while, it looked like things would open up in 2021. Heaven 17 finally had a chance to stage their Human League shows. Bands like Duran Duran were able to get back in front of live crowds. Bjork finally revealed her symphonic shows. Even Dave Gahan left his Battery Park apartment for a run of shows in London. And then reality set in again: the mismanagement of public health was a continuing debacle. Covenant’s UK upcoming tour was cancelled. Other bookings were pushed out. The end of the year saw infection rates skyrocket and venue takings plummet. As winter set in, the prospects for live music became as dark as the sky.

At least the year in recorded music offered some redemption. From Karin My’s Silence Amygdala to Rational Youth’s late entry, Wavelength, there were some outstanding releases to make up for the lack of live events. Curiously, few of them came from the larger, more established, acts. Perhaps the lack of touring prospects encouraged them to hold back releases; or maybe it was just too hard to get into the studio to record during Covid conditions – in any case, the year belonged to the independents. Of course, Spotify didn’t care, because they would collect their monthly fees irrespective of which monkeys were grinding their organs.

In the end, we had a unique challenge selecting the releases for this year’s list. The biggest was the appearance at year end of several productions that couldn’t be ignored. After the rotating door of lockdowns and openings, it was a nice problem to have.

21. Men Without Hats – Again (Part 1)

Kicking off our year-end chart is an EP from Men Without Hats. The Canadian pop group have survived for four decades, but they are still best known for “The Safety Dance,” which they have reworked and matched with covers from some of their influences – Lou Reed, The Rolling Stones and David Bowie.

As with everything the Doroschuk brothers touch, all of the tracks are upbeat, infectious versions. The danger is that you will never hear the covers without Ivan’s vocal style again.

20. The KVB – “Unbound”

There aren’t many British acts worth opening the seal on the CD for these days. The KVB are an exception. Their new album, Unity, offers a combination of electronic pop and shoegaze that soars miles above the basement laptop no-hopers who fill most of the local festivals. “Unbound” signals there is still hope for music on Boris Island.

19. Various Artists – The Ultimate Remakes of Substitute 46

When Andreas Noreen turned 50, some friends got together to remake the sounds of his former band, Substitute 46. Pouppée Fabrikk, Octolab, Strikkland and Jäger 90 each contributed new versions for a limited run, cassette-only release. Each of the covers excavated something new from the source material, paying tribute to its authentic EBM roots. The tapes quickly sold out, but the tracks can be found on the artists’ own pages.

18. Andreas Catjar – The Mainz EP

Much of Andreas Catjar’s work can be described as theatrical, and The Mainz EP contains two tracks specifically composed for the stage. Originally prepared for a 2018 production of “Die Nibelungen” at Mainz Staatstheater, they were retooled for release only this year. “Song for Freya” is a soaring piece that draws on Eno’s ambience and Krautrock’s deconstructions to create a compelling and dramatic impression.

17. Hannah Peel – Fir Wave

Sampling the sounds and textures of the 1972 album, Electrosonic, Hannah Peel has ripped and reassembled them into a palette of her own. The original album, composed by Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson and Don Harper, was prepared as library music for radio and television. Peel’s take is rather more particular and better suited to listening in that space on a Sunday evening when there is nothing to be done and the lights can be dimmed.

16. Actors – Acts of Worship

At some point, Vancouver’s Actors decided to stop hiding their love of Roxy Music. Acts of Worship, their second album, opens with “Love U More,” in which lead vocalist Jason Corbett channels Bryan Ferry in front of chugging guitars. The rest of the collection is infused with 80s influences from the alternative side of the dance floor, but it never becomes derivative. Acts of Worship is a keeper.

15. Dlina Volny – Dazed

Minsk is closer to Chernobyl than Moscow, but both locations exert more influence over the Belarussian city than they should. We imagine that the weight they add to life helps to shape the dark wave of music coming from the East; compressing it into diamonds like Dlina Volny’s new album.

Dazed is a pop-flecked, post-punk creation that shines in places like Polina Malinovskaya’s highlights and fades into glamorous pain in others with the style of Linea Aspera.

14. Psyche – “Cry Little Sister”

Released for Halloween, Psyche’s take on the theme from The Lost Boys, “Cry Little Sister,” is a new spin on a Gothic classic. The song has been covered by dozens of artists, as wide ranging as Tangerine Dream and Marilyn Manson, but we prefer Darrin Huss’ take.

13. Leathers – Reckless EP

The latest EP from the solo project of Actors’ keyboardist, Shannon Hemmett, features a collection of smooth, elegant dreamwave and pop songs in different tempos. There is an album being recorded for release in 2022, which we can only hope will be to the same standard.

12. William Orbit – Starbeam EP

William Orbit needed some time off. He returned in 2021 with an EP full of the classic Billy Bubbles vibes. The title track opens proceedings with the kinds of sounds we fell in love with at the time of “Water from a Vine Leaf.” Scroll down a little, and Lido Pimienta appears to collaborate with Orbit on Aguilas. It is good to have him back.

11. Hante. – Morning Tsunami

In recent years, one of the dominant forces in alternative music has been Hélène de Thoury. In her Hante. solo project and Minuit Machine collaboration, de Thoury has been responsible for breathing new life into dark wave. She has also managed to keep producing top quality material, despite the pressures of the pandemic – we submit Morning Tsunami as proof.

10. Minuit Machine – Sainte Rave

Recorded at the end of 2020, Sainte Rave is from a streamed performance by Minuit Machine, the duo of Hélène de Thoury and Amandine Stioui. From the opening of “Don’t Run from the Fire” to the closer, “Prey/Hunter,” the show was a glorious reminder of the power of live shows. Now available in digital and physical formats, it is also a reminder of the strength of Minuit Machine’s songs.

9. Rohn-Lederman – Venus Chariot

The project of Jean-Marc Lederman (The Weathermen, Kid Montana) and Emileigh Rohn (Chiasm) topped the German alternative music charts this year. Their Venus Chariot album combined cinematic sweeps, piano and strings with Rohn’s delicate vocals in a collection of songs fit for screens or earphones.

8. Sunroof – Electronic Music Improvisations Vol. 1

For many years, Gareth Jones and Daniel Miller have worked together on commercial projects and for their own interest. As they have gone deeper into the unfillable well that is modular synthesis, the two legendary producers have also spent time together teasing sounds from their equipment. EMV1 is the product of some of those sessions; prompted by Jones’ suggestion that they get a recording out together before time runs out for either of them.

The result is a throwback to the type of experimental album that used to have its own section at the local library. There are blips, bloops, wobbles, and clicks that were generated either incidentally or purposively by the two men on an improvised basis. Like AMM, when Cardew and Rowe were involved, everything depends on the ear of one performer picking up the sounds of the other. You can’t dance to it, but you will have fun trying.

7. Strikkland – “Gone Swimming”

Sweden’s love affair with EBM has been reinvigorated by the emergence of Strikkland, who combine the heavy duty beats and chunky sequences of body with the more melodic merits of pop. “Gone Swimming” provided an excellent reason to put on the Dr Martens again.

6. Dubstar – Tectonic Plates

Geology is just a theory, but Dubstar have some ideas about the way the flow of lava impacts boy-girl relationships. Produced by Stephen Hague, “Tectonic Plates” brought singer Sarah Blackwood and guitarist Chris Wilkie back for another single that should have rocked the radio all summer.

5. NNHMN – Tomorrow’s Heroine EP

From Berlin comes another great release from dark wave favourites, NNHMN. The duo of Lee Margot and Michal Laudarg give us another five slices of fried gold to motivate dancefloors. Our favourite is the title track, which features Lee’s voice drifting like vapour across a bouncy bassline. Inhale deeply and surrender completely.

4. Zanias – Unearthed

Alison Lewis has an uncanny way of connecting the organic with the synthetic. With Unearthed, the second album from her Zanias alter ego, she marries field recordings with acoustic instruments, before processing them electronically. The showstopper, as ever is Lewis’ incomparable vocal, which weaves through staccato synth lines like water through a forest of kombu.

3. Rein – Reincarnated Dub Mixes (Vol. 1)

Rein’s Reincarnated was one of the top albums of 2020. This year finds Boys Noize putting two tracks, “Reincarnated” and “Release Me,” through the mixing machines for some added dancefloor oomph. The result is a fusion of Kraftwerk, Invincible Limit and The Anti Group that could have kept the rave in the second Matrix movie going all night.

Rein is on tour with Front Line Assembly in May-June 2022 across the US. Don’t miss out, if you are on one of the stops.

2. DAF – Nur Noch Einer

The passing of Gabi Delgado in 2020 marked the end of an era. A child of the Rattinger Hof, Dusseldorf’s legendary venue, Delgado had voiced the transition from the chaos of punk to the sleekness of the digital domain without losing his provocative edge. The band he founded with Robert Görl shed its rock wrapper at the beginning of the 1980s, creating a minimal, electronic sound that turned from the Anglo-American stereotypes.

Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft was founded in defeated Germany but reinvented in victorious Britain. From the floor of Daniel Miller’s house to a basement flat in Philbeach Gardens, the DAF sound was peeled back until it was just a basic sequence accompanied by Görl ‘s drums and Delgado’s semi-menacing purr. The children of the vanquished made a sound that was the creation of EBM, the inspiration for techno, and the beginning of a complicated journey that bound the two men for decades.

Nur Noch Einer was created by Görl following Delgado’s untimely death, drawing upon the materials and memories of this time. An album had been planned, based upon fragments from their archives; but, in the end, Görl was left to complete the project alone. A DAF album without Delgado was impossible, so Görl worked with archive material; weaving the vocals into new songs while maintaining the band’s punk spirit. The results are both a tribute and the culmination of a friendship.

1. Rational Youth – Wavelength EP

In a year when billionaires took themselves to space–filling the atmosphere with toxic gasses–before flying to eco-summits by private jet to pose as world saviours, someone has to ask why they don’t just stay up there. Cue the return of Rational Youth with a new song that takes the rich to task for having laid the planet to waste for their profit. “Kepler 48” is the lead track on the Wavelength EP, and it shows that Tracy Howe has lost neither his sense of melody nor his socialist instincts.

The other three tracks on the EP are remakes of classic tracks from Rational Youth’s first major label release. “The Man in Grey” is a song that was bizarrely coopted by American rightists who didn’t understand its critique of CIA dirty ops. Howe slapped them down from his position north of the US border and updated the sound together with this partner, Gaenor.

Together, they have also refreshed “Latin Lovers” and “In Your Eyes,” two of the greatest pop songs to escape from the land of April Wine and Glass Tiger. Tracy Howe never lost his ability to forge a hook, and Wavelength should be required listening for a generation raised on Melodyne and Beatport.

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Plague Songs: The Top 20 of 2020

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

2020 – the Year of Cancellations

Who ordered the year of plague and misery? Just as things were getting interesting, musically, many parts of the world were forced to shut down in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Shows were postponed, one after the other, and then cancelled or pushed into 2021. Simple Minds came off tour, Heaven 17 called off their special events in the UK, and then other shows fell like dominos: Kraftwerk, Wire, The Art of Noise, Goldfrapp and festivals were forced to reschedule.

Cryo streaming from Sweden, April 2020

There were attempts to move performances from venues to live streams, but even Björk’s planned broadcasts had to be put off when Iceland’s infection rate climbed and staff safety could not be assured. Cryo, Karin My and some other acts managed to get online, but few bands managed to make streaming work both technically and economically.

In the face of this unprecedented crisis, the UK government left culture workers to fend for themselves, while stuffing billions into the pockets of their spouses or friends. They found billions more for weapons, while music venues had to close, record stores were shuttered, and freelancers were left out in the cold. The chaos of Brexit-shambles wasn’t enough: musicians and dancers in the UK were actually told to retrain for FinTech jobs, as if a flood of right-brain creatives into a left-brain industry would somehow improve the situation.

Conspiracy theorists and a Swedish health official decided that the virus wasn’t such a big deal, but it did its damage. We lost some highly respected artists to Covid-19, particularly from the older generation. Carole Chant from The Scratch Orchestra and Resonance FM, the actor Swen Wollter, and Dave Greenfield of The Stranglers all lost their battle with the disease, as did hundreds of thousands of others with lower profiles. It wasn’t inevitable, nor was it accidental, that the virus was able to cause so much harm; it was the result of decades of neoliberal policies that left our societies undefended. The politicians knew of the risks but chose to ignore them.

Music might not matter to politicians – just as pandemic planning got no attention until it was too late – but it is vital for a healthy society to know about itself through song. Music is inherently social, and its abandonment weakens the ties between us. Our bodies are at risk to the virus; but, if we leave culture to the wolves and substitute cannons for hospital beds, the plague will have taken our souls, too.

There has been more than enough work released this year to make choosing our Top 20 list incredibly difficult. In the selection below, we had to pass over excellent work by many new and established artists. To help make up for it, have a listen to our playlist on Spotify!

20. Centre Excuse – Joy Joy Joy

Based on a Ren & Stimpy line, “Joy Joy Joy” signalled Centre Excuse’s musical intention to marry 80s pop and indie. As we noted on its release, “The song has synthetic stylings reminiscent of Propaganda, matched with the drive of Ride.”

The Rutland duo’s first album, Favourite Soul, caught our attention with its barbed hooks. Live, Centre Excuse put out the kind of energy normally seen in solar flares, and their studio work shines with the same intensity.

19. Þórunn Antonía – Flugdreki

If there was one thing that was needed in lockdown, it was the spirit of pure pop. This arrived in the form of a single release from Iceland’s Thorunn Antonia, who unleashed “Flugdreki” [EN: “Kite”] as a statement of personal freedom.

For last year’s “Ofurkona,” she appeared with a child on her breast and a second in the womb – breaking down the walls between her media and domestic roles more effectively than possibly any other artist before or after.

“Flugdreki” arrived at Midsummer. We thought it an “uplifting song of rebirth and independence, which finds the Icelandic chanteuse being lifted to freedom on currents of beauty.”

18. NNHMN – Deception Island

The duo of Lee and Laudarg make dark wave recordings from their base in Berlin. The circling of Odin’s birds is a sure sign that they are at work, and this year saw the ravens in the sky more than once.

NNHMN released two EPs this year: Deception Island, Parts 1 and 2. We chose the second of them to feature in our year-end list, but both took us to the darkest corner of the club with unnervingly cool vocals and icy electronics.

17. Pieces of Juno – Euthymia

The final instalment in Pieces of Juno’s tetralogy, Euthymia, drew from the concept of emotional stability or calm, particularly after swings to extremes.

Juno Jensen’s project has been, in turns, ambient, spiritual and elegant. It has dealt with suicide, passion and self-acceptance. With Euthymia, she brings it to an end on a reflective and sensitive note. As we said of this splendid album, in the first days of lockdown, “Open your third eye and see; open your ears and feel.”

16. FRKTL – Excision After Love Collapses

Sarah Badr

Sarah Badr (Photo: Simon Helm)

Sarah Badr’s FRKTL project has consistently provided us with electro-acoustic material to provoke the mind and heart.

Excision After Love Collapses is the first full FRKTL album since Qualia in 2016. The wait has been worth it, as the release features a dozen exceptional tracks encoded with Badr’s creative DNA.

In our review, we felt the pressure of the material deeply:

The claustrophobia of the title track is almost overwhelming. Bowed sounds and scraped percussion, scratched discs and reverb create a sense of psychological pressure usually only experienced at dark sites operated by the East European members of NATO on behalf of Washington.

15. Jean-Marc Lederman Experience – Letters to Gods (and Fallen Angels)

The Belgian composer and biker, Jean-Marc Lederman, gathered a new group of singers into a huddle for one of his themed projects this year. They returned work that answers the question, “If you could write a letter to a god or fallen angel, what would you say?”

Each of the notes from singers as varied as Lis van den Akker and Mark Hockings was personal and unique, but they maintained a high standard. The problem with gods is that they never reply to messages, no matter how well produced.

14. Strikkland – Dance Like a God

Strikkland (Photo: Krichan Wihlborg)

From Gothenburg came a new act this year, which finally broke open the boundaries of EBM.

The duo of Henric Ceder and Henrik Johansson, Strikkland, released a number of fine, energetic songs. We chose “Dance Like a God,” because it comes with an excellent video, but their latest single, “La Danse est Finie,” is just as fine.

13. Independent State – Rumspringa

Although Rumspringa is their first full album, Independent State have been on the Swedish scene for a number of years. They have remixed other bands and released some covers, but their first collection of originals has been keenly anticipated.

With Rumspringa, the duo of Khyber Westlund and Arjumand Carlstein have created a collection that combines industrial dance music with solid state pop. The wait has been worth it.

12. Autobahn 86 (feat. Jokey) – National Health Service

With the politics of Test Dept and the beats of Portion Control, “National Health Service” was the most subversive and energetic track tackling the public health crisis. It came with a blisteringly clear message, right in the face of the far-right newspaper columnists who had captured state power just when the nation needed the opposite.

11. Dubstar – Hygiene Strip

Yorkshire’s best export since parkin, Dubstar’s current incarnation is the definitive version of the band. With Chris Wilkie working the instrumentation and Sarah Blackwood evolving her trademark vocal style, the release of One signalled growth.

The singles that have come out since that album have leveraged themes lifted straight from the headlines. “Hygiene Strip” must have been the first video to incorporate the wide use of medical masks into the imagery, but the song was also a solid dose of poptronica.

10. Psyche – Heaven in Pain

From the Baltic coast, Psyche came out with a sensational new track and video this summer. “Heaven in Pain” took an old school electro path that led directly away from the claustrophobia of lockdown.

Fans of Wamdue Project’s original version of “King of My Castle” will appreciate the production style, as will followers of Psyche’s fellow Edmonton exile, Mantronix. The hand of Karl Bartos is clearly evident, too.

“Heaven in Pain” pulls out all the stops with a compressed, gated mix for the deserted dance floors of 2020.

9. Robert Görl & DAF – Ich Denk An Dich

Gabi Delgado

Gabi Delgado (Photo: Simon Helm)

The death of Gabi Delgado, the singer in DAF, came just as Europe was being shut down. It was heart failure, rather than Covid-19, that robbed us of the punk vocalist, but it was no less tragic for that.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Delgado and Robert Görl had struck out on their own with a vision of punk electronics that created a whole new genre. Over Görl’s carefully articulated rhythms and simple, sequenced patterns, Delgado’s voice purred with sensual mystery or growled with masculine energy. His words were provocative and celebrated lust and love – a counterpoint to the gleaming bourgeois dreams of Kraftwerk.

Görl revealed that he and Delgado had been working on material, before unhappy events intervened, and he promised to find a way to continue connecting with fans. Along the way, he provided a recorded tribute to his old friend and punk comrade. Setting the scene, he explained:

Gabi and I had some grand plans. We wanted to make a new DAF album. We were thinking of it being a mix of new tracks created on the fly and a selection of our best hidden gems left over from the 80s. We were really raring to do it. We were certain the album was a done deal. We wanted to finish producing it this summer. I listened to all our old bare-bones from back then again – absolute treasures! Gabi departed this life suddenly, a life he loved so much, and I’ve resolved to produce all of these unheard jewels for DAF and Gabi in spite of it all.

8. Anna Öberg – Varelser inut

An Anna Öberg album is always a surprise.

Her third collection, Varelser inut, fits the pattern by drawing on influences as diverse as Men Without Hats and SPK. It is an addictive and entertaining set that sits head and shoulders above most of the releases we heard this year.

7. Fragile Self – Narcissistic Disturbance

It might seem strange to learn that a reasonable percentage of the people around you are suffering from a personality disturbance so severe that they have no constant sense of self.

People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder interact with others in order to prop up a false self that they have invented. To mask their internal shame and self-loathing, they might create a false image of themself as talented, beautiful and creative; and their days and nights are then spent trying to get others to support that fantasy. Such is their need for validation that they can be exploitative, deceitful and manipulative to shocking degrees.

The duo of Jonathan Barnbrook and Anil Aykan took this problematic personality structure and the study of it as the cornerstone of their project, Fragile Self. The name is taken from literature on the disorder, but their real focus is on dark electronics and haunting but elegant vocals. There is no cure for NPD, but there is a place for addictive beats and basslines processed through modular synths.

6. Karin Park – Church of Imagination

Karin Park (Photo: Krichan Wihlborg)

Karin Park (Photo: Krichan Wihlborg)

Karin Park had a daughter and lost her father within a short time frame. Nevertheless, both were able to contribute to her current album, Church of Imagination, which features their voices and the organ of her father on this track, which was co-written with her husband, Kjetil Nernes.

Based on a dream that Park had about her daughter, “Shape of Child” features many of Park’s closest relatives on vocals, as part of the local village choir. It also has an outstanding turn from LaGaylia Frazier. Park calls this her anthem of 2020, and it could be ours, too.

5. Lau Nau – Själö OST

Lau Nau (Photo: Simon Helm)

Finland’s Lau Nau has had a prolific year. Besides this soundtrack for Lotta Petronella’s film, Själö, about an island for banished women, she has contributed to Matti Bye’s commission for the film, Tove (which is headed for the Oscars as Finland’s official submission); released a collaboration with Bye; and had a live album come out.

All of this has been great for fans of her experimental music, which is impressed with beauty and space like no other. We brought Lau Nau to London, on a visit that coincided with the UK premiere of Land Without God, another Petronella film scored by her. What it showed is that, with her combination of modular synthesisers, electro-acoustic sounds and ethereal vocals, Lau Nau has a show that fits in a suitcase, can fill a concert hall, expands minds and moves hearts.

4. Linea Aspera – Linea Aspera II

Alison Lewis (Photo: Simon Helm)

The return of Linea Aspera was one of the highlights of the year. From their storming, ecstatic show in London to the release of their second proper album, the duo of Alison Lewis and Ryan Ambridge created the most genuine excitement in 2020.

Linea Aspera II picks up where the duo left off in 2013, combining synth hooks with Lewis’ striking, expressive vocals. This is the kind of magic that can’t be bottled, and it stood out that the legendary act was able to summon so much creativity after such a hiatus.

It isn’t as though they have been sleeping in the intervening years. Lewis, in particular, has been involved in other bands; and her other main project, Zanias, also put out exceptional material this year. Despite the interruption of live events, which forced them to put off shows at festivals and in Sweden, it has been a bumper year for their fans.

3. Twice a Man – On the Other Side of the Mirror

The Swedish veterans, Twice a Man, have seen a lot in their time. They warmed up for New Order on their first European tour, survived acid house, and watched four decades of lesser acts come and go.

On the Other Side of the Mirror finds Twice a Man feeling less optimistic about current events. The destruction of the natural and social environments weighs on them, and the pace of political change is glacial. The songs made for this album were prepared before the pandemic, but its spread has only made starker the sober visions of crisis they reflect.

2. Rein – Reincarnated

The release of Rein’s first full album was highly anticipated.

On stage, the Queen of EBM had clearly moved beyond the limits of the genre, merging body beats with technopop to create a new, cybernetic style. In the studio, her mechanics had hammered the wrought iron of her bass lines into weapons of mass satisfaction.

The result of studio collaboration with Carli Löf, with input from Priest’s Linton Rubino, some said that Reincarnated was an attempt to break Rein on Swedish radio. If so, it succeeded without compromising the vitality and integrity of the songs.

The resentment of the shouty men was palpable, but tracks like “Bodyhammer” and “Closer to Reality” speak with a different voice. Rein’s story is one of renewal and resurrection, charged with the kind of energy that sparks from Tesla coils. It is impressed into every groove of Reincarnated.

1. Page – Aska / Under mitt skin

Page (Photo: Simon Helm)

Page regularly top our year end lists, but that is because they keep getting better. Every new album refines and focuses their ability to distill the feeling of 1979 electronics into a 3′ 30″ track.

Page have the most uncanny ability to produce maximal poptronica with minimal electronics, and this release is no exception.

A combination of two EPs from 2020, collected on vinyl, Aska / Under mitt skinn demonstrates Eddie Bengtsson’s unrivalled ability to marry the classic Ultravox feel with modern poptronica. Each of the EPs is available in CD format; but, if you are going to channel the 1970s, then vinyl is the way to go.

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The 50 Albums Strage Should Have Included

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Fredrik Strage, the Swedish culture journalist, has published his list of the 500 best albums of all time.

Appearing in Dagens nyheter under the title, “From The Congos to Alphaville – Here Are Fredrik Strage’s Best Albums,” the list includes plenty of classics, but we couldn’t help noticing that there were some big gaps. Everyone is entitled to their own list, but there are some releases that we think are towering achievements. After a quick whip-round, and just for fun, we offer our own list, The 50 Albums Strage Should Have Included, in no particular order.

1. John Foxx – Metamatic

2. This Mortal Coil – It’ll End in Tears

3. Propaganda – A Secret Wish

4. Visage – Visage

5. Simple Minds – New Gold Dream

6. Apoptygma Berzerk – Exit Popularity Contest

7. A Split Second – Ballistic Statues

8. Berlin – Pleasure Victim

9. Boytronic – The Working Model

10. Classix Nouveaux – Classix Nouveaux

11. Colouroid – Long Play

12. Bronski Beat – The Age of Consent

13. 808 State – ex:el

14. Eurythmics – Sweet Dreams Are Made of This

15. Hard Corps – Metal Flesh

16. The Human League – Travelogue

17. Kim Wilde – Select

18. William Orbit – Strange Cargo III

19. Lustans Lakejer – Uppdrag I Genève

20. Ratata – Ratata

21. Adolphson-Falk – Med rymden i blodet

22. Madness – One Step Beyond

23. Indochine – L’Aventurier

24. The Mission – Dios Es El Remedio

25. Mr Jones Machine – New Wave

26. Mylène Farmer – L’Autre

27. Secret Service – Cutting Corners

28. Position Parallèle – Néons Blancs

29. Page – Page

30. Psyche – Unveiling the Secret

31. Rational Youth – Cold War Night Life

32. Revolting Cocks – Big Sexy Land

33. Sparks – No. 1 In Heaven

34. Talk Talk – It’s My Life

35. Tears for Fears – Songs from the Big Chair

36. Telex – Sex

37. Twice a Man – Music for Girls

38. The House of Love – The House of Love (Butterfly cover, of course)

39. I Start Counting – My Translucent Hands

40. Thomas Leer and Robert Rental – The Bridge

41. Cabaret Voltaire – The Crackdown

42. Wire – 154

43. Sista mannen pa jorden – Ligger tyst ett tag med

44. Simple Minds – Sons and Fascination

45. Portion Control – The Man Who Did Backward Somersaults

46. Skinny Puppy – Cleanse Fold and Manipulate

47. Ministry – Twitch

48. Nash the Slash – Children of the Night

49. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – The Good Son

50. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses

Thanks to Anders Wickholm
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Still Life: Estelle Moughton

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Born and educated in Australia, but living on the other side of the planet, Estelle Moughton is a self-taught painter. She has worked as a model for fashion editorial, music videos and fine art projects, but she is most often found with brush in hand.

From her base in Stockholm, Moughton creates abstract works that resemble cityscapes, dancing couples, jousting families and ghostly faces. They are the perfect partners to gothic music and Nordic pagan practices. Her trademark bob pops up all over the internet, while her paintings show up at events like the Melbourne Spoken Work Festival and on album covers. They hang on walls and lurk in shadows with emotional intensity.

We asked Moughton some questions about her creative approach.

What are the inspirations for your creative work?

I draw inspiration from my lived experience. For example, pivotal moments in my life or the deep emotions I am feeling.

It is a process of getting that out onto canvas. It’s a form of therapy.

Who or what are your current influences?

From a young age, I was very drawn to Salvador Dali and his incredibly vivid surreal paintings. Science fiction has also been a massive influence on me. I began reading Terry Pratchett novels at age seven. At age eleven, I saw Alien and Aliens, and that led me to an obsession with H.R. Giger. Most recently, in the past decade, I’ve grown to love artists such as Francis Bacon, Picasso, Jackson Pollock and Zdzislaw Beksinski.

Which materials do you like to work with most?

I work with acrylic and house paints. Sometimes watercolour. I find oil incredibly bothersome and dislike the texture.

I love painting on panel board and canvas, especially; but, as I lack a large space in which to paint at the moment, I am mainly using high quality paper, instead.

How important is social media for you to communicate about your work?

Very. I would not be able to have reached so many different people around the world in such a short amount of time (I began painting last year) without it.

What are the songs that you can’t live without?

Oh, man. This is a tough one! Ok. I will try to narrow it down to five or so.

  • Fade Into You – Mazzy Star
  • Public Pervert – Interpol
  • Ride A White Horse – Goldfrapp
  • The Order Of Death – Public Image
  • Joga – Björk

For anyone interested in collecting your art, what is the best way to find it?

The best ways to find my art are via my two main platforms online:

Instagram: instagram.com/__estelle_m_abstract__

Facebook: facebook.com/EstelleMoughtonabstract

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Still Life: Julia Pivén

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife
Julia Pivén

Julia Pivén

Julia Pivén is an artist, organizer, DJ, writer, and model from Sweden. In this piece, she describes her artistry, which is built on dark existentialism and many years of practice at the easel. She has a background as a painting student at Gothenburg School of Art and as founder of various art organizations and projects. At 26 years, she has managed to exhibit her art throughout Sweden, Germany and Denmark, with collectors in different parts of Europe and North America.

Pivén works with existential and dark themes, as well as on the subject of mental health. She believes that art is the language we use in order to communicate the unique complexity we experience in life. She prefers working either with highly pigmented oils or ink drawings, and is not afraid to use striking colours to convey her vision.

She aims to be bold and in control in her brush strokes, and that raw energy shows. Her imaginative oil paintings and drawings have their own life, and often have more depth than meets the eye. It takes a certain type of artist to describe darkness and horror using colour, and a certain type of person to be able to tell a story in such few strokes. The art of Pivén is sprawling and incomplete, which is for the best, according to herself –  as it’s a good premise for creative growth.

By Julia Pivén

To paint has been important to me ever since things started going south. I don’t really have any clear sources of inspiration, especially since we’re all bombarded with so much information every day, that there’s plenty of impressions to go around. However, something that does inspire me a lot is people creating; no matter their skill level. I love meeting around art, which is why I’ve created many platforms for just that over the years.

I have few artistic idols and influences that I’m aware of, but the theme of mental health does come to mind. As a person with experiences of living with schizoaffective disorder, I have a certain perspective on life. Perhaps that’s what makes my art special.

”Witches and whores become human” – so reads the headline of one of the articles published about my very first exhibition in 2015. “Ur Minnet” [EN “From Memory”] was a discovery of the genre of archive art, which in large part consisted of hours upon hours deep in the archives, searching through witch trial protocols and police documents. I was looking to get to know these displaced women whom history only knew as witches, prostitutes, and beggars. In collaboration with Malmö city archives and Malmö Stad, I was able to present a collection of portraits depicting these women of the city’s past, dating back to the 1600s. The collection is now preserved in Julia Pivén’s Collection at Malmö city archives.

Another art form I explored in the beginning was body art. However, it was less of an art project and more an almost primal urge for self expression which exceeded the limits of makeup and canvas.

Since then, I’ve been lucky to attend Gothenburg School of Art, which is where the “spark” happened; as students we were made to abandon acrylics and try our hand at oil painting. A whole new world opened. The depth of the medium, the pigments, the ways of application and behaviour of the paint completely captured me. I came to expand from my darker portraits, venturing into abstract colourscapes, such as the piece “In search for I”, spanning 250x180cm. Colour mixing and mixed media experimentation made new worlds possible, such as in “If only I had danced,” wherein I mixed textures, oil and my beloved pastels.

I’ve also participated in the EU artist exchange, during which I spent three months in Berlin. There, I learned about leather work, sustainable art, what life as a practising artist can be like, and so much more.

Vow 2019 is a suicide prevention artwork produced around New Year’s, along with over a hundred participants who all supported the cause and vowed to continue on throughout the year of 2019. The piece includes their names, along with quotes of, and odes to, many individuals who where lost to suicide over the years.

I served as chairperson and organizer for the national art association, Avgrunden [EN: The Abyss]. This gave me invaluable experiences collaborating with other artists and publications, as we organised numerous art shows and learning exchanges throughout Sweden.

I’ve only just begun to realise the possibilities of art as an intermediary with the surrounding world. I’m excited to learn what more lies hidden in the paint.

The art of Julia Pivén of can be found at the following links:

www.juliapiven.com
www.facebook.com/artbyjuliapiven
www.instagram.com/juliapivenart
www.gallerima.com/artists/julia-piven/
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“I Said I’d Write a Letter” – Devoted Pen Pals Remember BONG

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Depeche Mode fans are a special breed. The band might only release albums on a four-year cycle, but this Olympian schedule is synced with gruelling tours that are estimated to earn in the area of $200,000,000. The bulk of that revenue comes from their most hardcore fans, who are devoted to the trio and their songs of pain and suffering in different tempos.

The strength of the commitment and the connection between fans was neatly summed up by Karen Castrischer Stegall on Depeche Mode’s Facebook page:

Fans. The Devotees, The Black Swarm. Those are my people! Before the internet, I found a pen pal through an issue of BONG and made my very first DM international friend for life.

BONG was Depeche Mode’s official fanzine. Published fifty-two times in its UK edition between 1988 and 2002, BONG provided information on the band’s latest exploits. It also featured a section which allowed fans to publish their interest to hear from others by post.

The growth of email and chat groups eventually made the pen pal section of BONG redundant, but for a time it provided a way for devotees to share their love of the band, connect with other fans for tour events and meet-ups, and even fall in love.

We asked three of the fans who took part in the pen pal section of BONG to tell us about their experiences.

MERJA OUTALA (Finland)

Photo: Merja Outala

I remember it was a such a dream world to me to find the DM fan club and get the magazines.

Living in Finland, there was hardly anyone around who was loving DM, too. I have my DJ brother to thank for get to know about DM. He had their music and a lot of similar stuff, like Kraftwerk, Human League and so on. The “Shake the Disease” 7″ I got from him, and I used to play it before going to school. I was totally hooked and started collecting DM.

When I started getting pen pals through BONG and then the DM pen pals site, it was a dream to me and so much fun. I had eventually about forty pen pals, and I think I got to know some Finns there, too.

Mainly, all we wrote about was DM. I had friends from all over the world, and seem to have many bootleg fan club magazines from Japan, etc. We exchanged pics, posters, cassettes and videos of DM – practically everything you can send. People sent me real pics when they met DM and went to concerts. I couldn’t because they never came here and I could not go approad at the time. All the letters and envelopes were full of DM pics and drawings.

We used to all have a nickname, depending on whom we loved the most. I was called Gorette 😁

I still have all the cassettes I got from pen pals. I got to know some other bands who played synth music and got their tapes. I remember I once sent a tape with good music like DM, etc., and mixes to someone who worked for Russian radio and they played it. I guess it was harder for them to get music the music then 🤔

I got so much: so many friends, and so much more knowledge of DM and similar bands through these pen pals around the world.

It was so much fun, and it was very exciting waiting for letters. Some days, you got many letters. I went to Essex to be an au pair for two months to get to a DM convention in London at Camden Palace in 1990. I also ended up dating, for a while, one of the pen pals. He once won a Dave Gahan look-alike competition at a DM convention. I went once to a DM convention in Birminham with him and his band mates.

Some of the pen pals came very close to me. We have met in real life and found each other again on Facebook.

BERNARD VAN ISACKER (Belgium)

Back in the day, there was simply no internet; or, at least, it looked rudimentary. Look at what the first official Depeche Mode Web site looked like: it was a graphical monsterpiece! Anyhow, BONG magazine offered a good platform to connect with people, so I got in touch with a few via the ad I posted there (which looked quite freakish to be honest – I wouldn’t have reacted if I were a reader!). I remember I exchanged lots and lots of cassettes with bootleg material, and I got to know a few more obscure bands – but also Wumpscut, thanks to a German pen pal.

Twenty-seven years later and I’m helming Side-Line magazine and the Alfa Matrix label, and I’m still sporadically in touch with some of these people. Those were damn good times, and it was a pity when BONG stopped – you kinda lost a ‘community,’ so to speak. Having said that, many readers from back then now turn out to be current contacts and friends of mine these days! The world is full of surprises.

LISA SHRED (USA)

Photo: Merja Outala

The DM fan club has changed over the years. In 1990, I was volunteering at the New Music Seminar in NYC when I asked Daniel Miller, who I met there, if I could start a DM fan magazine myself in the USA, besides the UK BONG. Daniel told me that someone else in the USA had already just started one. I managed to find this person months later, became friends with him, and helped him out with the US issues of BONG magazine from time to time.

We worked on a DM convention in New York together, along with Jo Bailey from the UK, who ran BONG there at the time. We visited the Mute Records office together. Years later, I joined the DM fan forum online at www.depechemode.com, since there were no more paper magazines. I met many local friends on this forum, and we would chat every day online on the Web site about not just Depeche Mode but other things, too. We would meet each other at local Depeche Mode parties in town, where a DJ would play mostly DM all night and we’d dance. We then would meet each other in person when the band was having record signings, or at concerts. This happened for several years, and many of us have remained friends or acquaintances to this day, eighteen years later!

Photo and Cover Photo: Merja Outala

On some tours, we fans would all get together and get a hotel room for after the show, after car-pooling together to an out of town DM show. In fact, one day the band held a private party in NYC after their rehearsal show, and all of us fans who knew each other and who always attended the DM events were allowed in to their private party at a rooftop hotel in NYC. Here we were, drinking champagne with Martin and Fletch, and yet it all started because we met online at depechemode.com. That was also the year I became a Depeche Mode DJ in NYC, and started to have dance parties where I’d play lots of Depeche Mode songs all night myself.

Now, as a DJ, I can attract as many as 600 people per Depeche Mode party. The record company helps us at our events (Sony – and, before that, Warner), and we do the official after-parties for DM on each of their tours. I still see some of the same faces that I saw almost twenty years ago on the dance floor! Although I have become a professional DJ over the years (somehow by accident!), I am and will always be a big Depeche Mode fan.

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