Edvard Graham Lewis has appeared in a variety of guises since his first days with Wire. As one half of Dome, he erected a tent inside a recording studio. As one-third of Duet Emmo, he voiced the most achingly beautiful single ever written. As four-quarters of He Said, Lewis reimagined pop as an intellectual pursuit. The list of fractions and factions takes us through P’o, 27#11, Halo, Hox, Ocsid – a fluid combination of characters, both musical and typographic, dissolving and reforming. The unifying thread is a shifting tension between the lyrical and experimental; music that sometimes approaches commercial pop but draws away just in time. You can’t always dance to it, but you’ll have fun trying.
Two albums have just been released under Lewis’ own name by Editions Mego, but that doesn’t make them any more straight-forward. All Under starts with a film score and installation piece of the same title: the former seemingly a series of intercepted radio signals, processed into a sequence of overlapping tonal waves; the latter a strikingly delicate and haunting drone set against more visceral electronics. Lewis acts as narrator on “The Eel Wheeled,” a short story somewhere between Kafka and Conrad, set in the dystopia that is the Homeland. “No Show Godot” is a slow-burning, restrained conclusion. With the most sparing manipulation of electrical current, Lewis has taken large strides along the experimental path that he first explored in the early 1980s, and All Under is an exemplary transmission from his Uppsala base.
The companion album, All Over, serves up a dozen tracks that walk on the knife-edge between pop and experimentalism. “Straight into the Corner” could easily fit into the Wire/Wir canon, with an easy-going sensibility, but it is a singular example – other tracks might appropriate familiar conventions, but only so that they can be deconstructed and repurposed. This is unmistakably a Lewis album, with his signature wordplay and playful subversion. The stand-out track, “We’ve Lost Your Mind,” is the closest thing to a single, but in a fairer world “Passport to International Travel” would be all over the radio. Take that, white van man.
No one is staffing the merchandise table at Karin Park’s Hoxton show. A folded t-shirt sits next to a CD – abandoned, perhaps, so that the merch rep can take in the gig from a position closer to the stage. Spaces at the front are at a premium, taken up by photographers pointing lenses at Karin and girls pressing forward for a closer look at her brother, David.
The set feels like it is over in a heart-beat, but the hour-long show covers a lot of terrain: from current Beatport favourite, “Shine,” to the dueling drums of “Thousand Loaded Guns.” A new song, “Look What You’ve Done Now,” is darkness and magic. “New Era,” from the Tiger Dreams EP, rubs shoulders with “Wildchild” from Highwire Poetry and a version of Maya Jane Coles’ “Everything.” Recalled to the stage by enthusiastic applause, the Parks reach back to 2009’s Ashes to Gold for “Desire” with just the slightest hesitation – it hasn’t been played live recently, but it’s a reminder of how far their sound has traveled and how vital it remains.
Hannah Peel took the third position in CWNL’s Top 10 Songs of 2013, as we highlighted an excellent song from her Nailhouse EP. With the release of Fabricstate, a four-track EP, Peel is early off the mark to chart again this year. 
Tildeh has been making her own music for years, and with their different backgrounds they make a pretty good team – especially since they met and got to know each other at the Pustervik venue only a year ago. I was there, too, going to one of Timo Räisänen’s concerts (the connection for Hans is that he plays the keyboards in Timo’s band and has produced him). Oh, what a night. 
DJ knows his thing. I’m moving my hips to EBM music. The place is full of interesting people who are waiting for the sold-out gig to start. Men with beards. Girls with cut arms. Most of them dressed in black. I wasn’t expecting anything else. At events like these it’s taboo to wear anything but black. Wear red, green or yellow: People will stare at you like you should be locked up at a mental hospital. Wear white: You’re dead. I’m having a hard time fitting in. I feel misplaced. But I can’t help but love it. 
They use a huge Swedish flag as a backdrop as usual. Goes well with their critical songs about the society. Feels a bit patriotic but also, knowing what they sing about, both comforting and fair. FINALLY someone is able to see this present age as exactly what it is. I love how they put something so important into music and rhythms that make people dance. Yeah, let’s dance it all away. That’ll be enough for now. 
A live performance by Page is a high-voltage affair. Energy and expectations fill the air before a note has been played – like the moment before lightning strikes. When the electricity starts to flow to Marina Schiptjenko’s keyboard and singer Eddie Bengtsson takes his microphone in hand, then the pop sparks really begin to fly. If you add a new album-worth of material to the mix, then both oscillators and dancing shoes are in for a serious work-out.
A rousing version of Förlåt (Sorry) showed why Page have such staying power: with its insistent rhythm track and a powerful vocal from Bengtsson, delivered in part on his knees, it pulls at the heart-strings while compelling movement. Back on his feet, Bengtsson then led the crowd through a frenetic and extended performance of Dansande man (Dancing Man), Page’s first single. Schiptjenko, resplendent in a sleeveless black dress and boots, dances between phrases, transported with the chanting crowd to the days when this was the in-house anthem of Sweden’s synth community.
Julian is Mr Brandt, latterly the bass player for Lustans Lakejer. Marina is Ms Schiptjenko, still of Page and formerly with Vacuum and BWO. They were brought together by their shared love of old-school Pet Shop Boys and Duran Duran, and it is these influences which come out most strongly. The ghost of a younger Neil Tennant is present in songs like Count the Stars, and the smooth sounds of The Moon and the Stars do a lot to restore romance to electronic music.