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Here to Go: Gasleben & Electric Friends

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

SIlicon Teens once asked, “Why walk on the moon / if you could fly to the Sun?”

Twice a Man’s polymath, Karl Gasleben, is half way there. A Vessel Out of Here, the second solo album from Gasleben &Electric Friends, is an ark constructed with a frame of taught, tense rhythms. Around them, a scaffolding of synthetic textures supports vocals from collaborators, Anna Öberg, Peter Davidson and Daniel Kaufeldt. The result is a trip to the stars, powered by electricity and guided with a critical eye.

Out now on Bandcamp.

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Dubstar’s Investment in Token Pays Off

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Dubstar are back with a new album, Two. It comes on the heels of One, which saw Sarah Blackwood and Chris Wilkie reunited to hammer out dreampop hits with the classic Dubstar vibe.

The first single from Two is “Token,” a banger that takes over from the Pet Shop Boys just before the point where they started singing the Yellow Pages. Produced by Stephen Hague, who has his own history with the PSB, as well as Dubstar, “Token” captures the post-lockdown spirit with its sense of renewal. Uplifting and energetic, it is a club track to sing along to.

Blackwood’s vocals are as smooth as ever, and the re-energised instrumentation hints at great things from Two. Sorry, Chris and Neil, but your position has gone to Chris and Sarah.

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I Start Counting Open Archives

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

I Start Counting should have been the next Depeche Mode. Recording for the same label (Mute), working with the same producer (Daniel Miller), and writing songs filled with melody and pathos (see: “Letters to a Friend“), they ought to have nestled easily into the slipstream of the Basildon boys. Instead, their brand of detuned synths and pained observations took a less commercial turn; and, like Fad Gadget before them, the band became more influential than successful. The fickleness of the music industry meant that they were more likely to have their sounds plundered than played on radio. It is a pity, because many of the tracks they recorded were stronger than the charts could bear.

Simon Leonard and Dave Baker met at Middlesex University (which, in 2014, awarded an honorary doctorate to Daniel Miller, but that is another story). They began DJing together before recording some demos, which Leonard presented to Miller, a fellow North Londoner and acquaintance from the underground electronic music scene. That led to two singles produced by Miller using his Synclavier, “Letters to a Friend” and “Still Smiling.”

An album followed with one of Mute’s in-house producers, Paul Kendall, that demonstrated the duo’s ability to cannily combine experimental, humorous and pop-oriented material. My Translucent Hands was followed two years later by a second album, Fused (with the amazing “Lose Him”), before the project folded. Leonard and Baker then relaunched as Fortran 5, joining the wave of club material issuing from the house movement, before becoming Komputer, an act drawing heavily on the sounds popularised by Kraftwerk. Throughout, they have maintained their slightly quirky but knowing approach to music.

This past summer, Mute released two limited edition cassettes of material from the I Start Counting archives. Ejected (the blue one) featured a selection of demos, including the original versions of “Million Headed Monster” and their cover of “Rawhide.” Re-fused (the red one) continued the theme with versions of “Lose Him” and the excellent “Million Headed Monster.” The hand-made releases were a treat for collectors, but now they are being made into commodities for distribution through record shops and digital platforms. If there is any justice in the world, that is where I Start Counting belong.

Ejected and Re-fused are released by Mute on 25 March 2022, and pre-orders are open now.

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Lets Get Digital: Page Singles Hit Platforms

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Sweden’s Page are back on release, with a selection of their early singles finally going onto the major streaming platforms.

The choice cuts include “Som en vind” [EN: “Like a Wind”] from 1989 and “Som skjuten ur en kanon” [EN: “Like the Shot from a Cannon”] from 1986. Sandwiched between them is the 1987 split single with Page’s “Blå fötter” [EN: “Blue Feet”] and XL’s “Sorg flyg bort” [EN: “Sorrow Fly Away”]. The latter was a one-time collaboration between Eddie Bengtsson and Katarina Larke. All of the other songs feature the core Page lineup of Bengtsson and Marina Schiptjenko.

These tracks were all released on the Accelerating Blue Fish label in the 1980s, and did not make it onto their first album. Their return on streaming platforms fills in an enormous gap in their digital output for poptronica fans.

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Freudian Geology: Dubstar Release “Tectonic Plates”

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Dubstar, the duo of Sarah Blackwood and Chris Wilkie, are back with new material.  “Tectonic Plates” is their first release since last year’s “Hygiene Strip” and “I Can See You Outside” singles, which were also produced by the studio legend, Stephen Hague.

Although styled to resemble a geology lesson, “Tectonic Plates” is actually about boy-meets-girl passion. Or, at least, that’s where our minds are. The cover image isn’t the first time that the Dubstar team have hinted at the defining parts of the female body in their graphics, and their cheeky invitation to plunge into lava wouldn’t get past Dr Freud. We could be wrong but hope that we aren’t.

The song has the melodic flow that we have come to expect from Dubstar. Blackwood’s vocals are teasing and innocent, while Wilkie’s guitar resonates over a driving rhythm. In nature, tectonic plates move slowly but with insistent pressure. The pace of this single is a little more rapid, but it has to do in 3:34 what can take centuries at Thingvellir.

A new Dubstar album is under development.

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This Fish Needs a Reissue

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

First released in 2004, Between A&B was Eddie Bengtsson’s first solo album with English lyrics. Until that point, the Page and Sista mannen på jorden (SMPJ) front man had made a point of singing in his native language. So, it was a pleasant surprise for non-Swedish speaking audiences when the CD came out under the artist name, This Fish Needs a Bike.

Between A&B was in a similar vein to SMPJ: bubbling synthetic bass lines, science fiction themes, and adventures in minor key poptronica. It even had a version of SMPJ’s hit, “Luft,” rendered as “Air.” Essentially, it is the “missing” SMPJ album between Bengtsson’s time on the Subspace and Energy labels.

The album has now been released to streaming services by Energy with the addition of four new tracks. To the classics, including “Stan” and “Putting My Suit On,” have been added four new songs from the archives. Fans can now hear “Sharkattack,” “Little Punkgirl,” “How Do You” and “Headache.” The new tracks are unmistakably part of the Bengtsson canon, and fans of his recent work with Page will be surprised by the presence of non-Moog keyboards like the Yahama CS-15. They will also be charmed by the catchiness of songs like “Do It” – one of his best dance tracks.

Between A&B is live now on Spotify.

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Market Led: I Start Counting Return to the Stall

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

The I Start Counting duo were famed for their connections to London’s Spitalfields Market. The circle is completed, then, with the news that Mute Artists will be releasing two, limited edition, cassettes of demos from 1985 and 1986 at the 10th Anniversary Independent Label Market this weekend.

The event takes place on Sunday, 18 July 2021, on Carnaby Street in the West End of London. There are only 150 copies of the tapes, signed by the band, and if there are any left over they will be on Mute Bank and Bandcamp from 3 September 2021.

We were super proud that Dave Baker and Simon Leonard appeared on stage for Cold War Night Life in their last show as Komputer+, reprising many of their songs as I Start Counting, as well as material from their time as Fortran 5 and Komputer. They have been closely embedded in the Mute sound and ethos since the 1980s, when Daniel Miller took them under his wing. Their uniquely British sensibility and love of electronics combined to produce some of the most touching and dynamic songs of that period, and the demos they presented to Miller only hinted at their potential.

Here is the track listing for the cassettes.

Re-fused CSTUMM178    

Talk About The Weather
You And I
625
Grass Snake
Pretty Too
Birmingham
The I Can’t Express
Lose Him
Say Something

Ejected CSTUMM193     

Charlie
Modern Sunbathing
Is She On Her Own
Cooler Than Calcutta
Red Car
My Sister’s Friend
Million Headed Monster
I’m A Murderer
You Can’t Write That Down
Rawhide

And here is a sample. “Talk About the Weather” isn’t a Red Lorry Yellow Lorry cover, but a different take on a very British theme.

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Wire Reveal RSD Special

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Wire‘s Record Store Day release this year is PF456 DELUXE.

Issued on the band’s Pink Flag imprint, PF456 DELUXE is a retooled version of their 2002 album, PF456REDUX. The next edition features full length versions of the songs featured on the original, which had been edited from their Read & Burn EP and Send album. The package includes the “12 Times You” single, which was a rework of their classic song, “12XU.”

PF456DEUXE comprises 2×10” singles + 1×7” single housed in a hardback book designed by Jon Wozencroft, including a 6000 word essay from writer Graham Duff, with new interviews with WIRE’s Bruce Gilbert, Colin Newman, Robert Grey and Graham Lewis, as well as complete lyrics and recording details, plus many previously unpublished photographs.

PF456DELUXE track list:
1. “In the Art of Stopping”
“I Don’t Understand Comet”
“Germ Ship”
“1st Fast”

2. “Raft Ants”
“The Agfers of Kodack”
“You Can’t Leave Now”
“Spent”

3. “Read & Burn”
“Trash/Treasure”
“Half Eaten”
“Nice Streets Above”

4 “Mr. Marx’s Table”
“Being Watched”
“99.9”

7″ single: “Twelve Times You” (X mix)
“Twelve Times You” (Y mix)

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A Patch Above: Sunroof Reveal Album

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

(Via Mute)

Sunroof [Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones] have announced, after four decades of friendship and collaboration, the release of their debut album. Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1, a collection of eight improvised modular pieces recorded as live in various studio spaces across London in the spring and summer of 2019, will be released on the newly revived Parallel Series of Mute on 21 May 2021.

Daniel Miller (founder of Mute, the “accidental label” that began with the release of his own 7” single The Normal’s T.V.O.D / Warm Leatherette) met Gareth Jones, (the innovative and influential producer, engineer and artist) back when Miller asked Jones to work with him in late 1982 on what became Depeche Mode’s Construction Time Again. After the band had gone home for the day, they would stay on to work on their own sessions, a practise that continued and, by the mid-nineties Sunroof had emerged as remix project, reworking the likes of Can, MGMT, To Rococo Rot, Kreidler and Goldfrapp, and appeared on a compilation paying tribute to Neu!.

Back in 2019, Miller and Jones were heading to a György Ligeti concert at the Barbican and beforehand – as they often do when together in the same city – the pair spent a couple of hours improvising with modular systems. Unusually, this time they decided to record the session and over a pre-concert meal, Gareth asked a question that seems logical after all these years: “Are we actually going to make a record together before we die?”

The following day, they set themselves some rules: “We decided to get together to do a bunch of improvisations,” explains Gareth. “We said we’d work in a number of different physical spaces but always together, in the same room. We were keen to do shorter pieces because we were both very inspired by Chris Carter and Martin Gore’s electronic music projects, where the pieces were very concise and compact.”

Key to their manifesto was a distinction between an improvisation and a jam session. “With modular systems, you can just go on and on forever and never actually complete anything. Sometimes that’s okay – part of the joy of a modular is that you can just keep going indefinitely. But with this we were keen to actually finish something, so setting that timeframe became a really important rule for us.” adds Daniel.

Nothing was pre-planned, they didn’t rehearse, and the pieces were recorded as live performances using a limited number of channels. What they accumulated during the course of those 2019 sessions was a suite of evolving, restless pieces, each one containing layers of pulsing, atmospheric sounds.

The pieces on Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1 have a timelessness evoking the classic sound of some of the earliest electronic experiments. They also  sound resolutely modern. Even for the two players, their individual contributions are no longer obvious to them, nor is it actually necessary to separate who did what – the whole journey is what’s important, not the individual twists, turns and tweaks that happened along the way.

The album possesses a spirit, energy and discipline of improvisation and in these pieces, you can hear the almost symbiotic connection that they share, and the new sonic pathways and different, unexplored ways of working opening up in front of them.

Pre-order the album: https://mute.ffm.to/sunroof.opr

https://www.facebook.com/garethjonesnoisemaker/

http://wwww.garethjones.com

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Telex Reveal Lost Beatles Cover Ahead of Mute Reissues

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

(Via Mute)

Telex have released their kaleidoscopic synthpop take on The Beatles’ 1968 track, ‘Dear Prudence’. ‘Dear Prudence’ was recently discovered by Telex while were compiling their first release with Mute, This is Telex, a brand new 14-track compilation – out on 30 April 2021.

This is Telex features singles from across the Belgian synthpop trio’s career, from their debut single, ‘Twist à Saint Tropez’ in 1978 through to their final album release, How Do You Dance? in 2006. Tracks on the compilation are newly mixed and remastered from the original tapes by band members Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers, these new mixes often involved subtracting from, rather than adding to, the original multi-track recordings. “We simplify,” explains Lacksman. “We take away, to create something more efficient, more Telex.”

The newly mixed and remastered tracks on the compilation include singles such as ‘Twist à Saint Tropez’, ‘Moskow Diskow’ and ‘Euro-vision’, alongside two recently discovered and unreleased tracks, Sonny & Cher’s ‘The Beat Goes On’ and ‘Dear Prudence’ plus tracks from their writing collaboration with Sparks, ‘Drama Drama’ and ‘Exercise Is Good For You’ and their cover of the Sparks hit, ‘The Number One Song In Heaven’.

Telex are Marc Moulin (1942- 2008), Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers. The band formed in 1978 in Brussels, just one of a handful of synthpop pioneers at a time when electronic pop was regarded as novelty, with suspicion, as a harbinger for future dystopia and alienation. Telex were concerned about the consequences of new technology for human communication, their name taken, ironically, from a now obsolete piece of communications technology, adding a retro-futurist air to their legend.

The band famously entered the Eurovision Song Contest, representing Belgium with ‘Euro-vision’. Moers says he regarded their entry as “very Situationist International, the worm in the apple.” and they resolved either to come first or last. They didn’t achieve that goal, but became part of the Eurovision saga. Moers saw Johnny Logan (who went on to win the contest twice for Ireland) and told him, “you’re going to win”, Logan replied “Yeah. But if I win it’s good for me. If you win, it’s good for music.”

Telex announced their retirement in 2008, following Moulin’s death, This new partnership with Mute will see a comprehensive reissue series of the back catalogue, starting with the new compilation. “We’re so glad to have signed with Mute. We couldn’t have done better,” says Moers. “It’s like a dream, fantastic,” adds Lacksman.

This is Telex will be released on limited edition coloured vinyl (shrimp pink and fern green), cassette and CD, with sleeve notes by David Stubbs, as well as digitally and in a limited edition t-shirt bundle.

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