Dave “The Keys” Baker returns with another track from his lonelyklown project. “It’s just another love song,” intones the vocodered voice, but when Baker creates one it doesn’t just end up on the pile. Classic electronic sounds layer with intent, while the minor key lines stroke your nerves like melodic AMSR.
To some people, Dave Baker is that pub pianist who accompanies them on Carpenters and soul sing-alongs at North London venues. To others, he is that DJ with the eclectic collection and the wild hair. Those who read the credits on their record sleeves recognise him as a creator of some of the most elegant and emotionally-resonant synthpop and dance music ever recorded.
Baker is a cofounder of four acts that appeared on Daniel Miller’s Mute imprint. The first, I Start Counting, joined the label the same year that it released “People Are People” by Depeche Mode and “Collapsing New People” by Fad Gadget. Mute was riding a wave of international success and looking for the Next Big Thing. Baker and his musical partner, Simon Leonard, had been in Miller’s orbit for some time – Leonard was an early electronic music artist who, famously, broke up an on-stage fight between Miller and Robert Rental at a Paris show – and they arrived with a clutch of demos that combined pathos and minor key melodies in a way that suggested they could be it.
Miller took them into the studio with his trusty Synclavier. What emerged didn’t change pop chart history, but it was a remarkably creative product. “Letters to a Friend” had the same London creative team that worked on the “People Are People” releases – Trigger at Aosis Studios in NW1, John Fryer at Blackwing, TimTom mastering at CBS. It was a simple love song with a melancholy melody, layers of FM synthesis and sampling, and a quality that ought to have changed the world.
That was an important step for the former keyboard player with the otherwise obscure Sons of Cain. It marked the beginning of a long career with Mute that would see a supporting tour with Erasure, a shift into club territory as Fortran 5, the reinvention of Kraftwerk’s sound palette for Komputer, and various solo and collaborative projects under the names John Came (Ed: Allegedly.), OOO EEE OOO, and LonelyKlown. Through it all, Baker has maintained grounded and engaged. During the Covid lockdowns, he kept the pub singalongs going on Zoom from his base close to the landmarks described in “Looking Down on London.” He also uses special releases of his music to raise funds for stray cats (no, not Jennie Vee’s husband).
Baker and Leonard might not have hit the big time, commercially, but the work that they created has a reach and effect unmatched by many of the interlopers in the charts. Baker’s solo work continues to leave marks that reflect life on the 43 bus, leaving central London clubs, and feeling sentimental about old friends. It’s a growing legacy that can only be measured artistically.
10. I Start Counting – Letters to a Friend
Programmed on Daniel Miller’s Synclavier at his mother’s house in Decoy Avenue, the debut Mute single from I Start Counting announced a duo who were equally at home with pop hooks and experimental texture. Baker has said it was musically inspired by a Culture Club song and lyrically autobiographical – a combination that tells you something about the way the act always held pop and personal reflection in the same hand.
Miller’s production is clean and precise, giving Baker’s understated vocals room to breathe against a backdrop of sequenced synths and measured rhythm. It’s a modest record in the best sense: it doesn’t oversell itself, and it has lasted because of that restraint. Forty years on, it sounds like the confident beginning it was.
9. I Start Counting – Still Smiling
The follow-up single, also produced by and described by Baker as a sequel, deepened the I Start Counting template while sharpening the edges. The extended remix by Miller and Flood – a collaboration Baker has cited with evident pride – stretched the song into something more atmospheric and considered. On-U Sound’s Adrian Sherwood, then at the peak of his remixing powers, contributed a version that pushed the dub influences already latent in the original toward something stranger and more physical. The B-side, “There Is Always the Unexpected,” pointed toward the duo’s future experimentation. It is a rich artefact from an underappreciated moment in Mute’s history.
8. I Start Counting – Million Headed Monster
From the debut album My Translucent Hands, coproduced with Paul Kendall, this track captures I Start Counting at their most compellingly strange. The production layers Baker’s characteristic deadpan delivery against a bed of interlocking sequencer lines that manage to sound both clinical and warm. Like much of Baker and Leonard’s early work, it rewards closer listening than its pop surface initially suggests: the arrangements are intricate; the lyrical observations sharp; and it is excellent played LOUD.
7. Fortran 5 – Time to Dream
“Time to Dream” is constructed around a sample from John Barry’s theme to the film, Midnight Cowboy. Although samples from soundtracks were not original, Fortran 5 married melancholy and momentum in a way that felt genuinely novel. Baker and Leonard always seemed more interested in the emotional charge of a piece of music than in just another 12″ for the clubs, and “Time to Dream” is one of the clearest demonstrations of that tendency. It is cinematic in the best sense: it makes you see something while you listen.
6. Fortran 5 – Heart on the Line
Originally demoed with a sample lifted from the opening of Blondie’s “X Offender,” Heart on the Line went through a significant transformation before release, with vocals provided by members of Miranda Sex Garden. The latter were originally engaged as backing dancers for a Fortran 5 tour; but, when the tour plans came apart, Baker discovered they could sing. He went on to produce the first MSG single in return.
5. Komputer – Valentina Tereshkova
When Baker and Leonard completed their transformation into Komputer in 1996, their stated mission was gleefully straightforward: if Oasis could spend a decade ripping off the Beatles, someone ought to rip off Kraftwerk. The song that announced them most completely was this hymn to Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman in space. They reframed her story through lyrics written in the biographical style of Boney M’s “Rasputin.”
The track went through an extraordinary early development: an original demo was made with Claudia Brücken, with an entirely different melody and lyric. What emerged on The World of Tomorrow album is pristine and unhurried; cycling through Tereshkova’s achievements with a reverence that feels entirely unironic. Tereshkova’s nationalism and support for Putin during the war with Ukraine has made her a controversial figure outside of Russia, but there was a time when her face appeared on stamps as an image of the future.
4. Erasure – Victim of Love (Komputer Mix)
Released on the Pop! Remixed compilation, this remix is an act of confident reinvention: Baker has recalled listening back to it for the first time in years and finding it “very good,” with the stated aim of making it “sound more Erasure than Erasure.” It’s a characteristically Baker-ish formulation: deadpan; self-deprecating; and also entirely accurate.
The Komputer treatment brings the song into tighter, more mechanical alignment. It reshapes Vince Clarke‘s original production through the Kraftwerkian templates that Baker developed with Leonard. It also closes a circle: Erasure had featured on Baker’s dancefloor radar since the Fortran 5 years, when Clarke provided a “Heart on the Line” remix. Mute is a small world.
3. OMD – The Right Side?
The most unexpected entry on this list comes via Liverpool’s favourite electronic act. When Komputer released a track titled “Looking Down From London,” Andy McCluskey of OMD encountered the recording and heard something in it that he wanted to build on. He contacted Baker to ask permission to use the piece as the foundation for a new OMD song, adding new vocals, lyrics, and melody. The result was “The Right Side?,” from OMD’s History of Modern album. The band kept the Komputer original essentially intact beneath the additions. Baker told ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK that he was “very surprised and pleased” by what arrived.
2. LonelyKlown – Everything I Try to Do Is Wrong
During the Covid lockdowns (Ed: Thank you, Boris), Baker would walk from his home to Leonard’s flat in Crouch End to trade ideas. The song that emerged from one of those exchanges was put forward to Leonard as a Komputer track. Leonard disagreed. It was nice, but it just wasn’t Komputer. Baker asked if he could have it. The result became the most explicit statement of what Baker’s LonelyKlown project could be: exquisitely-wrought electronics over Baker’s own piano work, with a lyric that reads like a report from the funnier end of existential crisis. The deadpan voice that once sung about space stations could now be found contemplating, with serene resignation, the full sweep of man’s inadequacy.
1. Greenhaus feat. Dave Baker – I Can’t Escape Saturday
Greenhaus’ collaboration with Dave Baker on “I Can’t Escape Saturday” shows how comfortably he inhabits a more atmospheric, synth‑driven setting while keeping his songwriting fingerprints intact. The track plays as a story about being trapped in a looped weekend that never quite delivers its promised release. Baker leans on small inflections; turning the refrain into a subtle earworm and giving the song a late‑night intimacy. It’s another sign that the bloke on the piano leading a crowd on “Jungle Love,” down at The Winchester, has his own – and, at that, a remarkable – voice.
Dave Baker’s Lonelyklown project returns with an 8-bit vibe. Were you expecting a future filled with robot maids and flying cars? Sorry, the best we can offer is a ten-step password reset. Did you think your relationship was going to last? Check the empty space in your bed. Holding out for the afterlife? Ummm… Fortran 5 suggested we look to the future; Lonelyklown offers a more measured focus on the present.
Greenhaus return with a new album this weekend. Weightless, which features five songs written with Dave Baker (I Start Counting, Komputer, Lonelyklown), gets it release at the band’s show on Sunday, 7 September 2025.
Greenhaus support Devision Redux (Steffen Keith and Daniel Myer) at the Dome in Tufnell Park, London. Tickets are still available here.
For a taster of Greenhaus’ new material, check out Colin Spencer #170 at 5 minutes in. Baker’s influence and voice are unmistakable on “I Can’t Escape Saturday.”
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.
Rhythmicon tracklisting
Root
Heavenly Clean
Yellow
Transit Authority
Hapsburg Chin
Mosaic
Coffin Filler
On The Reef
Nitrogen Narcosis
Dave Baker’s Lonelyklown project takes its name from a line in The Carpenters’ song, “Rainy Days and Mondays.” Fitting, then, that the latest release is a version of “Like Karen Carpenter.”
As one-half of I Start Counting, Fortran 5 and Komputer, Baker has shared responsibility for some of the best songs to emerge from the Mute label. With Lonelyklown, he takes a solo journey through the 1970s, exploring soft rock with the benefit of hindsight and a set of modern synthesizers. It’s futuristic nostalgia, but don’t colour it beige: as this track shows, Lonelyklown’s take is as colourful as a Bob Ross landscape.
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
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.
Send in the Lonelyklown? He’s already here.
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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