A cover of the Skeeter Davis country classic, written by Arthur Kent and Sylvia Dee in 1962 and brought up to date by Lonelyklown’s Dave Baker.
Rendered in a synthesised style, the track takes on a slow-tempo space-disco feel that is trippy and magical.
Dave Baker’s LonelyKlown project impressed with the first album, Funny Sunday Morning. The I Start Counting/Fortran 5/Komputer man’s solo effort fused the essential vibe of chilled 70s pop with his trademark deadpan vocals. A year later, we have an album of remixes from North London that amps up the electronics and puts a new spin on the LonelyKlown ouevre.
This track, lifted from Day Jar View, gives a bit of spice to “The Ghosts of Good Times,” adding torn fishnets to the fuzzy impressions of party-goers after the event. You can still see them taking the trail home sometimes, but were they ever really there?
(Via Mute)
Mute have announced the release of John Came’s Rhythmicon album, out on 8 September 2023. The album – a concept album using computer software and synthesisers – was shrouded in mystery on its original release in July 1995. Who was John Came (theories included Alan Wilder, Vince Clarke and Daniel Miller), and what exactly was the Radiophonic wizardry concealed in the Rhythmicon? At a time before the world wide web would proport to answer any question we could possibly think of, and in a world before fake news would become so every day, listeners could only guess…
John Came’s detailed biography pointed to an artist born in London, one of the “ten-pound pommies” who emigrated to Australia in search of a better life, returning to the UK, then seeking inspiration in the islands of Northern Scotland before cycling from Skye to London.
And what of the mysterious rhythmicon? Came was introduced to the instrument by Nick Cope of the electronic group Pnin. The Rhythmicon was a machine co-designed by the American composer Henry Dixon Cowell (1897-1965) and Leon Theremin (inventor of the Theremin). The instrument aimed to realise one of Cowell’s musical theories, in which intervallic and rhythmic relationships could be reduced to common mathematical ratios; in effect, a “harmonic” approach to rhythmic organisation. Having the Rhythmicon as a ‘given’, Nick decided to invert the logic and derive harmonic and melodic information from rhythmic information, and vice versa.
Using sound and theory, John Came introduced their ideas to the world via a series of instructive films showing Came playing his compositions (arhythmically) into a simulacrum of the Rhythmicon thereby generating the rhythmic data of the pieces. From there the rhythmic information of the pieces was turned into notes; and then the two separate strands of transformed data are overlaid and entered into a music notating/playing computer.
The wild theory and deadpan delivery gave rise to a suspicion that John Came was a pseudonym and his rhythmicon the result of the fertile imagination of an artist knowledgeable in the fields of electronic experimentation. Happily we can now answer: ‘yes’ and ‘sorry, we still don’t know’. John Came was indeed a pseudonym, the masterminds behind the concept were Simon Leonard and David Baker (aka Komputer / Fortran 5 / I Start Counting), but the exact details of the instrumentation and how this unusual album came about is still the subject of some conjecture.
Listen for yourself to a long-lost album of classic electronic experimentation. Its composer’s deep immersion in the worlds of electronic pop are evident, as is their long history with Mute. The artists, who started working together in 1982, released their first music on Mute in 1984 [I Start Counting’s ‘Letter to a Friend’, produced by Daniel Miller], before segueing into the more dance / techno focussed Fortran 5 [notable tracks include the Midnight Cowboy sampling ‘Time To Dream’ and the club hit of ‘Heart on the Line’]. The John Came album arrived at a time when Leonard and Baker were transitioning from Fortran 5 to Komputer, who would go on to record their wonderful paean to Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space [‘Valentina’, 1997]. David Baker is currently working on his solo project, lonelyklown.
Dave Baker is preparing to take his Lonelyklown project live in London. The I Start Counting/Fortran 5/Komputer front man has been lined up to play the Black Heart in Camden on Saturday, the 24th of September. Also on the bill are Mechanical Cabaret and DeadAudioSaints.
Baker recently released the debut Lonelyklown album, Funny Sunday Morning. One of the first-wave of Mute artists, Baker knows his way around eclectic electronics and infectious melodies, which he has wrapped in a 1970s finish. We caught up with him with a few questions about this new work.
What is the inspiration for the Lonelyklown project?
Lockdowns, long walks, nature, swans, pigeons, cats, skies, dusk, in-between times, relaxation, vintage analogue synths, the 1970s. Everything in the lyrics to “My Favourite Letter is You.”
You have mostly worked solo on these songs. Is it very different after all the years with your musical partner, Simon Leonard?
In some ways it is harder, as I have to be my own quality control. But also it is easier, as there are no expectations or blueprints.
Every project we have worked on was different, and we worked in different ways, so it just followed on from that.
“Everything I Try to do is Wrong” was put forward as a Komputer song, initially, but rejected by Simon. He said that I could have it.
In terms of instrumentation, what equipment did you use to make this album?
Composed in my head, then on piano, then mostly old school gear: Korg MS20, Yamaha CS30, Roland 100m, Roland VP 330, Roland SH101, Korg Poly 800, EMU E5000 sampler, Doepfer Dark Energy, Microkorg, Yamaha P60 Digital Piano, Gibson Epiphone guitar, Ableton Live.
What has been the reaction to the new material?
“Follow THIS ARTIST! A modern day Burt Bacharach!”
“We’re still bathing in the awesome sounds of the Lonelyklown album, Funny Sunny Evening. Beautiful sounds with a voice like a bar of Galaxy Chocolate!”
“A one-man Mike Oldfield!”
What should the audience expect at your live show?
A nervous clown.
Ticket information: https://camden-live.com/gig-listing/the-black-heart/mechanical-cabaret-2022-09-24-2000
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Dave Baker has worn many hats. As one-half of I Start Counting, he was responsible for some of the most enigmatically beautiful songs on the Mute imprint. When acid house took over the UK, he and collaborator Simon Leonard reinvented themselves as Fortran 5, commanding dancefloor action with a string of brilliant 12″ singles. The duo reorganised again as Komputer, a Kraftwerk-inspired project. During the lockdown days, Baker ran weekly online sing-alongs, to keep up his skills as the pianist, Dave the Keys. In his new guise, Lonelyklown, we find him with a new project, mixing his quirky sense of humour with a jazzy, relaxed set of songs.
Funny Sunday Morning sounds like the album Robert Wyatt would have made if he had teamed up with Die Doraus und Die Marinas. Baker’s plaintive vocals, minor key melodies and raw electronics provide a connection to his previous work, while the introduction of references to Karen Carpenter and 70s synth sounds deliver an on-point retro vibe.
Unlike the beard-stroking men who fill I Dream of Wires, Baker eschews the complexity of modular kit for a playful pop approach. He also sings to and about his cats. One of Baker’s constant strengths, whichever hat he is wearing, is to communicate loss and longing, while mirroring the emotions with chords and keyboard patches that avoid cheap sentimentality – and it makes little difference whether the subject is female or feline.
The album opens with “The Ghosts of Good Times,” a strong candidate for a single release. A Buddhist raver’s observations on the entertainments that have come before, it leads with haunting sounds straight from the Morricone school before bleeding into a funky rhythmic loop. Baker’s spoken verses call to mind Malcolm McLaren’s Paris interventions; romanticising the pub in the way the ginger impresario talked up La Ville Lumière. What takes shape is distinct from the ringtones of Komputer and the bass drums of Fortran 5 but no less infectious.
Toes then get tapping with “Just Like Karen Carpenter.” Did you know that Carpenter dated Tony Danza and Steve Martin? Funny men didn’t save her from her demons, but a light, piano-led arrangement does avoid the darkness of the subject matter here. The result is something as surreal as a tear-sheet from the Legendary Pink Dots songbook.
“Everything I Try to Do Is Wrong” is the only track on the album cowritten by Baker and Leonard. Already released as a single, it has exquisitely-wrought electronics mixed with Baker’s piano work. In a time of universal quantisation, messing around with oscillators is a revolutionary act.
There are further gems to be mined from Funny Sunday Morning. St Francis of Archway has a soft spot for furry creatures, and there are several tracks dedicated to Baker’s current and former companions. There are also songs saturated with the spirit of the 70s, including “Lonely Night Tonight,” that will have you sitting in soft focus while drinking white wine on your leather(ette) sofa. It is an unexpected and delightful set.
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Dave Baker has made some magnificent music in his time. Whether as part of I Start Counting, Fortran 5 or Komputer, Baker’s compositional skills and plaintive vocals have been melded to great effect. ISC should have been the next Depeche Mode, but the band’s commercial fortunes never measured up to their minor key expressionism. Like Fad Gadget, their influence is frustratingly greater than their sales records would suggest.
Thankfully, Baker is still making striking material. This track, which comes remixed by Roi from Mechanical Cabaret, is a touching, piano- and oscillator-led effort. It has all of the hallmarks of Baker’s best work, which–to borrow from Bananarama–is really saying something.
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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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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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