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Fredrik Strage’s new book begins with the line, “No one who has seen Fucking Åmal buys a pop-star perfume.”
If that was the only sentence in 242, it would easily sum up cultural observation in the twenty-first century. The reference to Lukas Moodysson’s uncomfortable tale of forbidden love in small town Sweden, set in opposition to the fetishisation of celebrities and the consumption of them through commodities, is not only about authenticity; it is about knowing.
Strage’s day job is to know what is going on. As a writer for the large Swedish daily, Dagens Nyheter (DN), Strage is wired to the underground and a keen observer of trends. He is a frequent guest on daily news programmes, where his role is to highlight the emergence of an EBM artist like Rein to an audience otherwise distracted by reality TV. His podcast, Hemma hos Strage [EN: At Strage’s House], gets close to artists in a more modern format.
242 collects as many articles from Strage’s regular column in DN. They start with a note on Britney Spears’ perfume from 2005 and end with a piece about a children’s tale read to his daughter from 2017. Although the title is suggestive of Front 242, the Belgian godfathers of electronic body music, the band is only referenced in an appended auto-interview – one-fifth as many times as Kate Bush is listed in the index.
Strage’s background is as a fan of bands like Depeche Mode and Liaisons Dangereuses, but his perspective is as broad as his style is light. That’s why Damon Albarn rubs shoulders in the collection with Dead or Alive; Ke$ha with Kraftwerk; and Madonna with Malaria.
We follow him to an underground club in Berlin, where Douglas McCarthy of Nitzer Ebb sprays him with saliva as he sings, and to the Mall of Scandinavia in search of records. At Stockholm’s Bodyfest event, he enters the mosh pit with Karin Bolin Derne. We hear about neo-Nazis invading the synthwave music scene and are offered thoughts on dying alone.
In article 230, we meet Andreas Noreen, presented to the readers of DN as Depeche-Andreas. A life-long Depeche Mode fan from Gothenburg, he brims with excitement at the opportunity to meet the band and have a photo taken during a Stockholm visit. What is omitted in print is that Strage is not only an observer at the meeting; he is a facilitator, having used his influence to open the band’s dressing room doors for Noreen. It’s an act of kindness that is blurred through remote viewing.
Several of the reviews for 242 in his native country have lamented that Strage’s book is not about the magic of the number 242 for followers of electronic music or a novel set in their world. Those would have been interesting ideas to pursue, but this collection is a fun and insightful commentary on popular culture over more than a decade, as seen through a very particular Nordic lens.
Strage’s significance for Swedish criticism is that he approaches culture from outside of the mainstream. In his writing, artists on independent music labels or from alternative subcultures are given their place without the fear of not fitting in. A trendspotter he might be, but the articles collected here succeed in conveying the joy of people making that culture their own.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Thomas Leer and Robert Rental accidentally made one of the most compelling and influential albums of the 1970s. While disco and punk faded around them, they locked themselves in an apartment in Battersea with some rudimentary equipment supplied by Throbbing Gristle and gave birth to The Bridge.
The history of The Bridge and the paths of both artists were displayed at the recent exhibition, From The Port To The Bridge, in Greenock. Organised by Simon Dell (right), it captured an enormous amount of detail that had been obscured by Rental’s retirement from public music activity. With care and precision, it laid out the creative flare that burned when Leer and Rental came together, as well as Rental’s notorious live collaboration with Daniel Miller of Mute Records.
The pair moved around, starting families and playing punk in Edinburgh, before finding themselves in London. Inspired to make their own singles, they pooled their resources so that Leer could make “Private Planes/International” and Rental could record “ACC/Paralysis.” Part of the DIY revolution that saw the early electronic music from The Normal and Human League emerging around the same time, the singles from Leer and Rental hinted at the gritty, alternative sounds that they would bring to The Bridge.
Following the tour, Throbbing Gristle re-entered the picture. The Industrial Records label, started to release their own music, had already issued a single from Monte Cazazza, and the “very friendly” quartet were looking for other artists to get involved with. A signing ceremony was organised at a Soho restaurant, just like they imagined major labels would do, and arrangements were made for an album to be recorded.
Rental was asked by Daniel Miller to record a single for his fledgling Mute Records imprint. “Double Heart/On Location” was recorded at Blackwing Studios, where Miller had first set up his equipment for Silicon Teens, and it involved Leer and the DAF drummer, Robert Goerl. Recorded by Miller with Eric Radcliffe and John Fryer, “Double Heart” was Rental’s last studio project. The pressure of recording with others and the technical challenges of getting the sound he wanted frustrated Rental, and he invested in making his own studio in Battersea. Although he produced music for The Comic Strip’s A Fistful of Traveller’s Cheques, his perfectionism got in the way of releasing additional material, and there were no further public recordings before his premature death in 2000.
You’d have to go a long way to find a singer classier than Dubstar‘s Sarah Blackwood. Or one who is as capable of summoning the minor key feelings of love in an English town.
Henrik Wittgren, the promoter and Lejonhjärta keyboard player, celebrates his 40th birthday by throwing a party for the Swedish alternative music scene.
Illness kept brother and founding member Stephen Huss from staying in Europe, but Darrin soldiered on with musicians recruited from the local scene. Today, he works with Stefan Rabura, who keeps up with dynamic set lists as Huss ad libs and shows off a vocal strength to rival Shirley Bassey.
It is reported that a new kind of material has been developed by British researchers, which can absorb 99.5% of visible light. Commercial applications for Vantablack must surely include stage design for Covenant, Sweden’s biggest EBM export.
The show opens with “Death of Identity” from the Psychonaut EP, setting an experimental tone. What follows is a tour through Covenant’s back catalogue, drawing in early compositions like ”Edge of Dawn” and ”Shelter” from 1994’s Dreams of a Cryotank.
