Kraftwerk

A New Proposal from Page

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

The Swedish poptronica leaders, Page, are back with a new EP. Ett förslag [EN: A Proposal] features five tracks – including a remake, a remix, and a cover version – to ensure that the act does not settle into the groove charted by its last album.

The title track is deliciously crafted pop with a curtain of strings rippling behind ersatz guitars. It’s a trick Bengtsson has pulled before (including with the album, Hur så? [EN: How So?]); mixing indie and electro influences without the burden of six-string lugs. We look forward to picking up ironic pick merchandise at the next show. In the meantime, this is a magnificent demonstration of Eddie Bengtsson’s capacity to produce emotive and melodic material like no one else.

Page (Photo: Simon Helm)

A new version of the Page classic, “Mia och Tom,” goes the opposite way and channels early Vince Clarke with bouncy, monophonic synths and handclaps. An enduring favourite in their live performances, the song retains its characteristic charm while benefitting from some recalibration to make it a little less Speak & Spell.

“Glitzerstrahl” hints at Kraftwerk with its reference to the “glittering rays” of the Sun in “Autobahn” and insistent beat. The synths are certainly bright and full of momentum. Someone should collect Bengtsson’s instrumentals into an album for Deutsche Grammophon – they deserve to be enjoyed as a set.

“Om ett tag” [EN: “In a While”], from the last Page album, Inget motstånd, gets a remix from Anymachine, a Scandi act connected to Bengtsson. Retooled from its 8-bit origins, the song breathes comfortably while being faithful to Bengtsson’s playful intentions.

Compute, the project of Bengtsson’s collaborator in The Volt, Ulrika Mild, contributes a cover of another Page song from the same album. In her hands, “Ingenting som betyder någonting” takes on a different palette.

With Ett förslag, Page introduce us to some of their friends and reunite us with an old one. It’s a summer party that can run all year.

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Symbols and Synthesis: Fragile Self

by Simon Helm
written by Simon Helm

It is sometimes said that, in psychology, everyone is an object; whereas, in the field of philosophy, everyone is a subject. So, what is position of an artist under the steady gaze of the music critic?

Fragile Self is a project that blurs the lines. Initiated by Anil Aykan and Jonathan Barnbrook as a sideline to their professional activity as designers, the study of the mind and personality is both an animating force and the content of the resulting work.

For many, Barnbrook’s name is popularly associated with his cover designs for David Bowie, John Foxx and Hannah Peel. Bowie’s final album, Blackstar, featured typography based upon fragments of the five-pointed star of the title. That minimalist approach translates into the instrumental side of the music that Barnbrook cooks up in his computer.

Anil is his partner in the design business and life. She is also a partner in Fragile Self.

Their self-titled album draws on themes from the professional and academic literature, but it isn’t dry. The dark, striking tones will connect with fans of the Fabrika Records or Minimal Wave sounds. Indeed, Veronika Vasicka has already declared herself a fan.

On a track like “Hour of the Wolf,” references to Ingmar Bergman—another artist known for his interest in the mind—signpost a descent into mad beats and frenetic vocals.

There are songs on the album that describe the trauma of existence and therapy. They build on minimalist structures as cold as a winter on Farö.

We spent some time at the Barnbrook studio, warmed by the flickering lights of modular synthesiser components, to see how Fragile Self is coming along.

You have a nice collection of synth modules and keyboards. What tools are you most comfortable with?

JB: For the album, most of it is done in software. That is not a very fashionable thing to say; but, because we are designers, working ‘in the box’ was something completely natural to us.

It partly felt like we were just designing in a different area. Now, that word, ‘design,’ sounds quite controlling, but most music can be seen as being ‘designed’ or ‘constructed.’

That doesn’t mean there is not space for chance and accidents—these are an important part, too. It is just that people work towards an emotional reaction in a structured way, with an end result in a similar way to design.

Since recording the songs for the album, we have moved very much onto using electronic instruments. This is because we realised there still is no replacement for ‘an instrument’—a physical object with an interface that you interact with—a bow, a mouthpiece. a keyboard. It is a different pathway to a sound you would not expect.

This is also the attraction of modular synthesis. It has amazing, unexpected, generative possibilities.

How did you fix on a sound for Fragile Self?

JB: It wasn’t a conscious decision, although we both loved electronic music. The sound comes from the subject matter—just what seemed to fit the lyrics Anil was writing.

AA: When we started the album, I was studying psychotherapy, and we were reading the same books together that were part of the course requirement.

There is a lot of what we were discovering in the subjects of the songs: how people deal with mental health; about extreme states of mind; about what it means to not be quite ‘right’ as a person.

It is a very interesting discussion, always, about what it is that makes creative people creative—so this is an issue, too. Some of the songs deal with specific people we came across in reading; some with emotional associations with what we were reading about. Also therapeutic relationships—I like the honesty in these.

The music is the most poetic expression of this, and the book is the most thorough synthesis of the philosophy of the album.

Jonathan, you have a successful career as a designer with some particularly high-profile album covers. What made you take the step into music?

JB: Music was the thing that brought me into graphic design; in particular, the almost spiritual relationship between the cover and the music.

In most commercial graphic design, there is reasoning for something looking the way it does—a logo for a bank will look a certain way for various logical tried and tested reasons; but, when you link music and graphics, there is some magic that happens that I don’t understand.

It really inspires people. It inspired me when I was young. For instance, the beauty of Vaughan Oliver’s work—in some way, it reinforced my love of my music and the way I saw the world.

So, I have always really wanted to explore that on a more personal level with my own content creating the graphics. This collaboration with Anil was part of that.

You have mentioned Vaughan Oliver, and the artwork that he made for 4AD in the 80s was more than just packaging. It had its own inherent value. For example, his box for Lonely Is an Eyesore would have sold, irrespective of the bands featured on the compilation.

AA: Music used to be a physical experience as much as an aural one. You would receive the package and open it, waiting to discover the wonderful, inspiring object inside.

I think we still need something tangible and tactile when it comes to things that inspire us. In the same way that people will buy a well designed book because of the quality of the binding, the texture of the paper. They can have the Kindle version, of course, but nothing can replace that feeling of authenticity and connection with the creator of the work.

There is an issue with streaming. We used to collect music with a 7 or 12 inch cardboard envelope, which people used to find information about the artist or the label. At the time, it was important, because you couldn’t get that information readily.

You hunted down symbols or liner notes or scratches on the run-off groove, searching for clues. If you tilt New Order’s ”Ceremony” single in the light, you can see that it says, “Watching forever,” in the matrix etching. That says something about Ian Curtis.

With digital, you lose the clues, but there is unlimited information on the net. You can find out everything you want about a band through Google. Yet, somehow, it matters that we have lost the ability to touch an artefact.

AA: There are advantages to the digital world, as well. You can listen to much more music and reach many more people, it is wonderful how you can be influenced and hear so much that wasn’t possible before.

JB: I remember, in the 80s, I was so desperate to listen to new electronic bands that I used to order records in the hope that it was electronic without hearing it—either just based on the band name or subject matter. I would also check the instruments in the credits page, and if there were too many guitars and not enough synthesisers then I wouldn’t buy it, because I just hated guitars.

The synthesiser really was a new way of looking at the world and wasn’t bogged down with the history of rock and roll—which, to me, at the time, was American and nothing to do with my experience of life.

AA: I would also say, today, for small bands there is a lot more freedom. You don’t need a record company or a distributor—you can directly communicate with people who are into your music. It has changed that whole relationship where a lot more interaction goes on between creatives and their audience—which I think is very positive.

JB: There is a lot less money around, of course, and I know most musicians are struggling—and this needs to be addressed by the companies that control income. But you always find in adversity that something very good can come. Music is still very healthy despite the lack of economics. There is so much music being made now, which is a good thing.

Some would say that there is too much.

AA: I wouldn’t say it for painting or any other creative profession, so I prefer not to judge music this way.

You really don’t know what is going to be important and what is not; what is going to signify the time; what is going to hold up as important to you. Nowadays, you are able to make the choice based on many information choices. So, that freedom, while it can be paralysing and it is often difficult to sift out the good and bad stuff, is also really liberating for musicians.

Going back to the early days of electronic music, if you pick out some of the iconic covers, a lot of them tend to be photographs, paintings—particularly if you think of Emil Schult, who did Kraftwerk’s artwork. It was specially commissioned, in a certain way and with a certain style, to create an impression. Artists had to go away and think about what to put together as part of the package. These days, do you think that is lost?

JB: I think that any kind of design always subverts what has happened just before. It is part of ‘Fashion.’ So, there are time cycles of illustration or photography being popular. Of course, technically nowadays it is still actually quite difficult to do a proper illustration compared to using a digital photograph, so that may be the reason—technology has a part to play in aesthetics as well.

I do think, though, that as much care is taken nowadays (or lack of care) as there has always been. The process is always the same of trying to do a record cover within the parameters of reflecting the music, speaking to the intended audience, attracting a new audience and the importance of the release—although this may have changed, as artists release much more than an album every couple of years now.

AA: It may sound strange; but, when we had the idea of releasing an album, we didn’t want to do the graphic design. Despite coming from that background. Now, though, we are releasing the album on vinyl, CD and a 500 page book with download. That is moving to the other extreme.

JB: We are so strongly identified with graphics that we felt we wanted this project to be something that stood on its own as music.

We didn’t just want to be seen as ‘graphic designers making music’— which we are of course, but there is a certain level of superficiality associated with that.

It was important that the music was the focus. So that is very much the origins of this project and everything comes from that.

AA: It is really difficult to be objective and be your own client. Also, the level we expect from ourselves is really high, so it was initially quite intimidating to think of ourselves as ‘musicians’.

However, we just decided to try and get over that—not worry about what we are or aren’t—and do a project that was natural to us. That was, firstly, music that was not separate from our interests, fears, love and emotions—so that the music has the risk of honesty about ourselves, which is something that generally doesn’t happen when someone else decides the content. Then, to produce visuals that had the same kind of honesty and intensity from these ideas.

So, in a way, you are an art school band that only came to together after art school. Were the seeds for this sown in art school? Were you making music while you were studying?

AA: Haha! Yes, but at high school, not university.

I used to play drums in a band. We were mainly doing covers, but we also made our own songs and represented our school in a competition. It was more progressive rock.

That interest in rhythm, from drumming in the band, has carried through to the music of Fragile Self.

Who are the women musicians you find interesting or inspiring?

AA: I really like Miss Kitten. I am not 100% into her music, but I like her spirit—she is a powerful, independent woman—and she didn’t have to act like ‘a guy’ to get where she is.

I think that the Ladytron style is fantastic. When Mira sings in her native language of Bulgarian, it really adds an interesting emotional dimension to their work. It’s a good example to me to be natural with my vocals and words.

Recently, I have been listening to Kate Tempest. She is very different from me, but I really like her presence and the strength in her voice and subject matter.

And, finally, Suzanne Ciani—a pioneer in the man’s world of early electronic music but very contemporary and with a great mind. Also, I am working with her soon in a project called InKolab.

Did you start your way in electronic music or find your way to it?

AA: I first started with black metal and then moved on to rock music. I only started listening to electronic music ten to fifteen years ago, but I realise it really has a common psychology of melancholy and darkness with those genres, which I can identify with.

For the past two years, I’ve been listening to dark wave, so I think I have this dark side in me that comes out; certainly on some of the songs, like ‘Deperson’—on the album, you can hear that.

JB: At eleven, in 1977, I became a punk. I am sure I looked ridiculous; but, even at that age, music had this capacity to be something quite emotional and full of ideology.

I eventually moved on to new wave and then onto Kraftwerk via David Bowie with his albums, Low and Heroes.

It was the cover of Man Machine that really made me understand that electronic music was something different. Kraftwerk were also a complete enigma—it was pre-internet, so nobody knew where they lived or where their studio was. There was a myth that, when you phoned them up, you had to call at a certain time—and they would pick up the phone to the second, as they didn’t want any telephone noise ‘disrupting’ the studio.

Kraftwerk were also European – you could see that from the multi-language cover of Man Machine. I understood that we had our own history and, even better, a positive future. This obsession with European music and synthesisers, led me to Ultravox! and John Foxx, who has been a huge influence on me.

So, you’ve got the Kraftwerk stuff in the back of your mind. Did you get into art early?

JB: I got into art purely because of record covers. I didn’t know I was going to be a graphic designer, but I really loved art.

In the fourth year of senior school, I wanted to know where the images that artists were using came from. With Foxx there are many, but one artist that seemed close to him was Magritte—and with Kraftwerk it was El Lissitzky.

Art really opened up a new universe for me of ways of thinking. I couldn’t breathe sometimes when I first looked at the work of Picasso or artists from the other -isms. It was a wonderful period of discovery for me.

Then art school?

JB: I studied at a local college for two years, then a year in Croydon, three years at St Martins and two years at the Royal College of art—trying not to ‘work’ for as long as possible!

I wasn’t doing album covers in this time, at all. I was translating music and the literature I had read into pure typography, as I saw it as an expressive medium in its own right. It wasn’t until Bowie contacted me that I really started doing album covers—which is a nice one to start with!

The other main artist I work with is John Foxx—his music and graphics have always been central to my creative life. It wasn’t until I had worked with Bowie, that I plucked up the courage to approach John Foxx—which probably sounds a bit strange!

There is something about the imagery of John Foxx’s music that really resonated with me. Kraftwerk were very European and John Foxx was very English – not Brexit English but just having a sense of your own place and being authentic to it without shouting about it or demeaning others.

John Foxx’s cover for ”Your Dress”

Foxx moved away from electronic music for a while. The Garden was his way of demonstrating that the robotic sound mattered less to him.

JB: And then The Golden Section, which was an album hugely ahead of its time. When it was released, people questioned why he was revisiting such an ‘unfashionable’ period—but he foresaw the rediscovery of British psychedelia well before Blur and Oasis. It hasn’t received the attention it deserves, because Foxx, to his credit, never wanted to play the big pop star.

What was it like designing for Bowie?

JB: I was always genuinely surprised at how nice an experience it was, because you always think that, at some point, good work has to painful; but he showed me there is a path where you can get the best from your collaborators without being nasty.

The first album I designed was Heathen, I was brought in when they’d already started working on ideas. He phoned me up and said, “We’re shooting tomorrow. Have you got any ideas for the photography?”

I said (sweating profusely at the time), “Er… Just do what you want to do and I will work with it.”

So, I had to work with what I had. Actually, I didn’t hear the album when I started on the design, as they were really worried about the music leaking. I had to compensate in some way, so I thought, “If someone gave you the perfect Bowie album, what would it sound like? And what graphics would you do for it?”

About halfway through the project, I got to listen to it; and, of course, that affected the content and feeling of the design as I progressed.

That sounds a little like New Order, because Peter Saville never really cared what the record sounded like. He would go away and make something separately, and that became their relationship.

JB: Well, I can assure you I did care! I always say that the relationship between the artist and the designer is very important. With Peter Saville, he did care and New Order trusted him. Maybe not that he would do something directly about the specific meaning of the song, but he saw things in their music or he connected with it on a level that you couldn’t rationally explain.

I think it is always best when a designer knows the artist personally and is emotionally involved with the music. One of the reasons that so many covers were bad in the 90s, is that marketing departments got involved really heavily—they realised the advert value of a cover. Of course, there had always been nice pictures of artists, and bands want to sell records, but really they just blanded it out, to make the cover almost worthless.

It has been the return to vinyl and the fragmentation of the music industry that has seen much more diverse ways of creating record covers.

There was a point where labels stopped making investments in artwork. The same for video.

JB: With Bowie, if you wanted to do something, he would support it. I think his deal with the record company was that he gave them the finished music and cover—take it or leave it. That was how we got The Next Day cover through. I am pretty sure it wouldn’t have happened if it had been another artist who had the marketing people vetting it all the time.

I agree with you, though—there aren’t the budgets that were there before. There is a huge imbalance in the music industry, where the top artists make all of the money and it no longer feeds down to fund the emerging artists as it used to. Record companies have very little patience with artists compared to the past.

David Bowie’s Blackstar cover, designed by Jonathan Barnbrook.

Blackstar was very iconic for Bowie. It seemed very clear what the typography was doing, but some people struggled to work out that it spelled out his name.

JB: Some people really didn’t get it. Children got it immediately, which is interesting, but it was part of the whole concept of the album design of not telling people everything immediately.

What was it like working with John Foxx? He’s a very visual person, himself—a designer.

JB: John studied graphic design at college, like me, so I understand it is a lot for him to let go of. But, because I know every piece of visual work he has done, I hope I can understand his vision and he trusts me.

He was very influential with his design work. I think his collages are especially beautiful, such as the ones used on ‘Endlessly’ and ‘Your Dress,’ and he hasn’t quite been given his due credit for the visual work he did with Ultravox.

In terms of communication, he is, as you would imagine, a much more private person than Bowie, so a lot of the communication is not directly with him. It is only occasionally he will email me about something, but he’s always very generous and kind.

Like Bowie, I can see someone who has lived life and come out the other end as a positive person who is appreciative of his place in the world.

What were you trying to achieve with this project?

JB: Something which you can’t quite put your finger on—in the way you connect with other people, and understand your life and their lives better in some way.

I know that sounds kind of vague, but it really is that way of understanding somebody’s experience is the same as your own.

Also, on a personal level, it was important to finally say something with music. Having listened passionately all my life, to go through the decisions, the thinking and process, has been sometimes difficult, immensely satisfying, and really pushed me creatively—which is what I hope for every creative project I do.

AA: With this project, I feel I have the absolute freedom and ‘literally’ a voice. It creates a space where all parts of me can be accommodated. I can use myself to full capacity; my dreams, fears, vulnerability, instincts and fragility.It is very therapeutic.The experiences of others can also be mirrored. Of course, throwing yourself in front of people in this way is madness, but I really want to be in that space between alterity and similarity.

So what’s next after this album?

JB: For me, the most interesting things is the ‘collaboration.’ I know what we create with Fragile Self is very different to what we would create separately—something much more. That is a very exciting new area for me. Also, there is an honesty in the music and visuals which reminds me of when I first started art school—something very pure and unbothered by the commercial world.

AA: We plan to play live. It is central to what we want to do, but that is a whole new project in itself. Again, it has to be something that accurately reflects us. There needs to be a visual element—plus, of course, making the songs an enjoyable listening experience. It is daunting, but we are going to enjoy it.

Fragile Self is also a long term project, a project that is central to what we do, so we will be developing our music—exploring that mysterious connection between the visual and musical.

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Electronic Summer 2016

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

The festival trail leads, inevitably and inexorably, towards Gothenburg for Electronic Summer. In its five years, the annual event has acquired a reputation for mixing synth, poptronica, future pop and EBM in a cocktail as potent as the Jägerbombs consumed by attendees.

This year’s event was headlined by bitpop pioneers, Welle: Erdball, as well as dark wave favourites, Das Ich, which gave proceedings a Teutonic edge. Appearances by Solitary Experiments and Wolfgang Flür cemented the overall influence of German music.

The theme was initiated with a Q&A with Flür, who spoke about his experiences as Kraftwerk’s drummer before showing off his DJ set and video presentation.

Wolfgang Flür

Wolfgang Flür

In his book about that time, Flür laments that, although the band adopted the status of “music workers,” rather than musicians, only he and keyboardist Karl Bartos were actually treated as workers: Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider held management positions and treated the other half of the band as their employees. I Was a Robot is partly the painful story of a man who expected some level of humanity and respect from his colleagues, who turned out to have taken from Metropolis not only the combination of man and machine but also the gulf between the classes. He is said (by others – chill out, Ralf) to be under constant legal threat to maintain a distance between his current and past activity, which just reinforces the tragedy for fans who associate him with Kraftwerk’s classic line-up.

Flür had a life after Kraftwerk, and his DJ set is partly a trip through the highlights of his ever-expanding catalogue. It is also a travelogue drawn from his scrapbook, including photos of his time with Kraftwerk and home movies shot by his partner. Those who made it out for his talk and stage show were treated to a rare glimpse behind the veil that set the tone for the rest of the festival.

It has been a year since Sweden’s Ashbury Heights released The Looking Glass Society, so it was great to see them on stage in front of a Swedish audience. The exotic-electronic sound of Ashbury Heights is the most radio-friendly of the artists at Electronic Summer, and songs like “Glow” should be bang up-to-date for receptive progammers.

Anders Hagström’s long-running project has been through several iterations; and, while we still miss Kari Berg’s soaring voice, there is no doubting that alt-model Tea Thimé has settled in as the XX to Hagström’s XY in the line-up.

Leaether Strip are the gentlest, nicest Danes you could ever hope to meet – a couple of teddy bears from the other side of the Öresund Bridge – but once on stage they unleash the Furies. At Electronic Summer, Claus Larsen roamed the front of the stage while his husband, Kurt Hansen, manned the keyboards.

Larsen rolled out a crowd-pleasing set, opening with 1993’s “Don’t Tame Your Soul” and wrapping eleven songs later with another early favourite, “Antius.” In between, the black-clad Swedish audience received a master-class in hard electronics, taking in classic tracks like “Strap Me Down” and The Klinik’s “Black Leather.”

You would never know from the stage show that Larsen was first inspired to dabble with synthesizers by attending a performance of Sweden’s Twice a Man(!).

From Norway, Chinese Detectives entertained the crowds with covers of hits by Divine, Men Without Hats and Pet Shop Boys, among others. Besides Dr Marten’s boots, the one thing that unites the Electronic Summer crowd is a love of classic poptronica, and Desirée Grandahl and Karin Marie Ulvestad-Grandahl held together fashion’s factions with some belting vocals while Per Aksel Lundgreen ran the machines in his tennis kit.

Saft divided some of the audience. The Swedish act dissolved at the beginning of the century, but they reappeared last year with a new single. The reception for the new material and a smattering of live shows encouraged Carl Steinmarck sufficiently to return with a new album in the can. Norrbacka, which came out earlier this year, is a fine set of pop material, and Steinmarck clearly has not lost his touch.

Welle: Erdball wrapped proceedings on the first night. Known for their slightly eccentric appearances and videos, W:E’s music clearly traces its lineage back to the classic Kraftwerk sound, mangled through C64 chips. They had the crowd popping throughout a twenty song performance, which was capped with an encore of “Monoton & Minimal” and “Es Geht Voran.”

The next night, it was Das Ich’s turn to close the live shows, and they did not disappoint their fans with inspired theatrics and heavy-duty beats. Even though their lyrics are in German, there were plenty of voices helping to lift Stefan Ackermann on a comradely cushion.

If anything was missing from this year’s festival, it was a dose of classic Swedish poptronica. Acts like Page and Sista mannen på jorden have been favourites at previous Electronic <Insert season here> events, and their presence offers a foil to the more aggressive EBM flavours on the menu. Consider this an early vote for next year’s programme.

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Kraftwerk – Die Mensch Maschine

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

A TV presentation from 1981, this footage reveals Kraftwerk on stage to have a slightly kooky sense of humour. Robot dancing with smiles; audience participation in the use of the keypad controllers used in Pocket Calculator – it’s an easy-going Kraftwerk that appears to show off its accumulated body of music-work.

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Shine On: Conny Plank

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

When the RocknPop Museum in Gronau, Germany, incorporated Can’s studio into a working exhibit, they acquired a mixing desk made for the band by the legendary producer and engineer, Conny Plank. They also made an exhibit of part of Plank’s kitchen. Another mixing board might have provided the functionality of Conny’s Studio, but its heart was where the engineer gathered with musicians to talk about music and life. Its significance is clear in the story that Plank’s son, Stephan, told The Quietus about the recording of Die Kleinen und die Bosen, the first album on Mute Records:

[…] when they did the first D.A.F. album on MUTE [Editor: This was in 1980.] Daniel Miller made a deal with my father to record the album in four days. So my father spent the first day talking to Robert Görl and Gabi Delgado [of D.A.F.] discussing music. Daniel said, ‘Well, they’re going to record for the next three days.’ And the next day, they spent talking about music, eating good food and being very philosophical about it and didn’t record anything. Daniel was getting very nervous at that point. On the third day, when they were really supposed to start the album, they talked some more about music and went for a long walk and nothing was recorded. Now, Daniel was really afraid of losing his money. On the fourth day, in the morning, they had a really nice breakfast, went to the studio and recorded the album.

Plank’s appearance in photos is of a slightly unkempt, bearded and amiable man, often clad in a woolly jumper; perhaps a little like Michael Caine’s character in Children of Men. The former Stockhausen technician was famed for living and working in a cloud of smoke and taking his artists to unexpected places, sonically and otherwise. Brian Eno, who borrowed Plank’s sound for Bowie’s Berlin albums and worked with Plank on his first overtly ambient album, Music for Airports, has his own anecdote that he told to the art magazine, Frieze:

‘I recall one evening, after we’d been working all day, [Conny] said “Do you feel like a ride into the forest?”’ says Eno. ‘That seemed like a nice idea on a warm autumn evening, so we jumped into his lovely old Merc and set off. We were in the forest after about 20 minutes, sitting in the car in a sort of clearing, just birds and breeze around us. We sat talking for a few minutes. “Do you want to hear something on the radio?” he asked. I said “Why not” – though I thought it was a bit odd that he’d want to put the radio on in this bucolic place. He switched on the radio – and it suddenly broadcast the piece we’d been working on all day!’ ‘It turned out that Conny,’ Eno continues, ‘in another brilliant technological stroke, had rigged up a transmitter at the studio so that he could hear the day’s work in his car – he thought, and was right, that that gave a different perspective to the music. I was impressed, not only by the idea, but by the fact that he must have secretly synchronized watches with somebody at the studio so they started playback at exactly the right moment – That was very Conny!’

It was Plank’s unassuming but technically forward style that attracted a number of experimental artists to his studios outside of Cologne. He was at the center of the Krautrock universe, helping to shape the sound of Neu!, Can and Cluster, and the producer of choice for Ultravox, Killing Joke and Eurythmics. Moebius and Roedelius saw him as an unofficial member of Cluster, and he played and toured with the band. Not all of his artists were as willing to recognise his contributions: having pushed Kraftwerk in the direction of synthesizers and added the vital delay to “Autobahn” while the band were out of the studio, they in-sourced their production work and froze him out of future albums. Plank’s reputation was undiminished, and the story is told that Brian Eno suggested him as the producer of U2’s Joshua Tree album – an idea that Plank himself rejected with characteristic directness, simply saying, “I cannot work with that singer.”

Plank once explained his approach in these terms:

The job of the producer – beyond the technological aspect – is, as I understand it, to create an atmosphere that is completely free of fear and reservation, to find that utterly naïve moment of ‘innocence’ and to hit the button at just the right time to capture it. That’s it. Everything else can be learned and is mere craft.

Plank passed away in 1987, after the cloud of smoke that he lived in had caught up with him. Conny’s Studio continued to be run by his partner, Christa Fast, until her own passing in 2006. The kitchen is on display in Gronau.

 

10. Organisation – Tone Float

Before there was Kraftwerk, there was Organisation – or, if you prefer, Organisation zur Verwirklichung gemeinsamer Musikkonzepte. Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider were the group’s core, and it was in this guise that they first worked with Plank. Like AMM in the UK, Organisation were influenced by the improvisational practices of jazz artists and the indeterminacy of experimental composers like La Monte Young. Under Plank’s guidance, they created an album, Tone Float, in 1970, that was loosely structured and by today’s standards sounds a little naïve. At Plank’s urging, RCA released it in the UK, where it failed to make much of an impression, but a ball had started to roll for Hutter and Schneider, who quickly refocussed their efforts on Kraftwerk.

 

9. Neu! – Hallogallo

Klaus Dinger had been recruited to play drums on Kraftwerk’s debut album. Michael Rother joined the band as guitarist after completion of the record. For a short time, Kraftwerk was the trio of Dinger, Rother and Florian Schneider, following the departure of Ralf Hutter. An attempt to record an album together failed, however, and Hutter rejoined Schneider while Dinger and Rother split off to start Neu! Both Neu! and Kraftwerk worked separately with Plank, creating uniquely influential recordings.

The first album from Neu! contained this track, which embodies the Motorik rhythm that became one of the most influential elements of Krautrock, as well as soaring guitar lines. The opening riff still echoes in the work of dance acts like System 7.

 

8. Cluster – Für die Katz’

Cluster was the project of Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. The pair enjoyed a close creative and personal bond with Plank, who was identified as a member of the group on their first album and provided them with material support. Plank is credited as a producer and composer on 1972’s Cluster II, from which this track is drawn. A cosmic swirl of noise and electronics, it is 2,000 light years from any recognisable song structure, but both anticipates industrial music and makes use of the studio as an instrument.

 

7. Brian Eno – 2/2

Roxy Music’s former keyboard player had already recorded much of Ambient 1 – Music for Airports in the UK before he arrived in Germany to work with Plank. Eno’s ambition was to write music for public spaces, which could be interrupted, wouldn’t interfere with conversations, and was sufficiently long that changes would not be jarring. He had already created several albums of ambient music, but this was the first time that he consciously applied the label to a release. With Plank, he recorded “2/2” using loops of tape that were wound around chairs and were layered together.

 

6. The Meteors – Together Too Long

The Meteors were one of the new wave of artists who made their way to Conny’s Studio, seeking a touch of his magic, following the success of his Krautrock projects. Plank is credited both as producer and as a composer for this track, taken from the Dutch band’s 1980 album, Hunger. Plank’s commercial successes enabled him to continue working on less financially viable projects, but the story goes that he kept his awards in the studio’s bathroom.

 

5. Rita Mitsouko – Marcia Baïla

One of the most popular French pop songs of the 1980s, “Marcia Baïla” was Rita Mitsouko’s tribute to their dancer, Marcia Moretto, who had died from breast cancer. The sound was shaped by Plank into a squelchy, synthetic hit.

 

4. Phew – Signal

Take Can’s Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit, throw in a Japanese vocalist who sounds like an art-punk refugee, mix with Plank’s studio skills, and you get this rare release from 1981. It’s a great example of Plank’s experimental side, but it also owes something to the sound he was shaping for DAF at the time. Phew is musical Marmite, but it’s certain that he had moved past his early work for Marlene Dietrich or Duke Ellington.

 

3. Ultravox – Quiet Men

Ultravox recorded 1978’s Systems of Romance with Plank, lured by the prospect of working with Kraftwerk’s former producer. On “Quiet Men,” the Roland TR-77 rhythm box mimics the Motorik drum style of Neu!, while synthesizers play string and lead roles. John Foxx was impressed by Plank’s use of the studio as an instrument, including his creation of an analogue sampling system that allowed the mixing desk to be played like a polyphonic keyboard. Foxx later summed up Plank’s significance this way:

He’d ditched all the boundaries between engineer, producer, artist and equipment, and reinvented the whole environment into something human, organic and intelligent, rather than received or conventional. The best operators do this – George Martin to Lee Perry. Conny was equally important. He’d discovered and recorded an entirely new genre of music – allowed it to retain complete integrity and made it available to the world. Without him, most of that might have remained undiscovered – may have been disregarded, misconceived, or lost completely.

 

2. Kraftwerk – Autobahn

Autobahn was the album that took Kraftwerk global. It marks their transition from electro-acoustic experimentation to electronic pop music, and Plank’s influence can be heard by comparing demo recordings to the final studio versions. This was the last Kraftwerk album to incorporate flutes and violins, as their new EMS, Moog and ARP synthesizers became the key to their sound. Plank is credited with pushing the band in this direction, but it was the last recording they made with him.

 

1. DAF – Ich und die Wirklichkeit

Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft made three and a half albums with Plank: the studio side of Die Kleinen und die Bosen for Mute and Alles Ist Gut, Gold und Liebe and Für Immer for Virgin. The last three were released in a burst of creative energy over a short period, between the beginning of 1981 and the summer of 1982, after the duo of Gabi Delgado and Robert Görl had reduced the band to its minimalist core. With Görl’s tight drumming and concise synthesizer programming providing a framework for Delgado’s vocals – now menacing, now purring – the sound of DAF became taut and angular, while drawing rich emotions from simple waveforms.

“Ich und die Wirklichkeit” [EN: “Me and Reality”] is from 1981’s Alles Ist Gut album. The background sound, rumbling like a radio astronomer’s tape archive, gives the track a sense of space a million miles from the bombast of a Trevor Horn production, but the final bars lift the track into the stratosphere.

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iEuropean feat. Wolfgang Flür – Activity of Sound (Movement Mix)

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

From what we can tell, Sean Barron of Empire State Human has a new project called iEuropean, into which he has pulled Wolfgang Flür (ex-Kraftwerk, Yamo), while tapping Clive Pierce and Rob Doran (both of hard CORPS notoriety) with Phen for remix support. “Activity of Sound” sounds a little bit like Torch Song borrowing the voice-over from a Juno Reactor track in places, which is no bad thing, and it has been more than competently repurposed for the dancefloor in this mix. Flür, of course, was a robot once, but there is an organic warmth in this song that suggests the machines are evolving.

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Komputer – Intercom

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Way back in 2007, London-based duo, Komputer, released this track as part of an online-only EP release. A different version appeared on the Mute sampler, 14 Irregular Files. It’s the kind of Kraftwerk-inspired material that Komputer successfully took up after shedding their I Start Counting skin, and it’s as sleek as a black panther in the rain.

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At Home with Page, Sweden’s Original Synthers

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

To viewers of Nordic Noir detective stories, the south of Sweden is a place occupied by disillusioned and lonely policemen, living in houses filled with wooden furniture, surrounded by endless fields of yellow rapeseed. To listeners of Swedish alternative music, it is a region brimming with creative artists, carrying forward the spirit of early European synthesizer bands like Kraftwerk, The Human League and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark; a place where the flow of electricity from the country’s power-stations keeps analogue keyboards and drum machines humming. Now that a British audience has embraced Wallander on television, through the original Swedish films, surely the time has also come to discover that Skåne’s finest songwriters and musicians don’t just live in the collective shadow of Agnetha, Benny, Björn and Anni-Frid.

page - back in the dayTake Page, the original Swedish synthpop act. Founded in the suburbs of Malmö in 1980, Page were inspired to take up keyboards by Silicon Teens, the alter-ego of Mute Records’ founder, Daniel Miller. The back-story is that, before he discovered Depeche Mode, Miller had dreamed of a teenaged pop group based entirely around the synthesizers that were starting to become more compact and affordable at the end of the 1970s. He set out his vision through a series of singles and an album of rock standards re-conceived using analogue synths, which were attributed to a fictitious quartet of youthful musicians. When these records reached Sweden, Miller’s idea was turned into reality by 18-year old skateboarder Eddie Bengtsson, who was inspired to sell his drum set and buy two Korg synthesizers: one for himself and one for 15-year old Marina Schiptjenko, a classically-trained pianist who had fallen in love with electronic music when she saw Gary Numan playing on Swedish television. Together, Bengtsson and Schiptjenko created a new template for electronic pop, and Page became the house band for a growing audience of dedicated syntare (synthers).

Page’s first recording was the single for which they are best known within Sweden. Dansande man (Dancing Man) was written by Bengtsson and Anders Eliasson, who had joined the band shortly after it was founded. Released on the band’s own label in 1983, the record featured a distinctive hook, which was impressed with the feeling of Slavic folk music. Up-tempo and catchy, Dansande Man caught the attention of the Swedish media as a home-grown version of the synthpop wave then being led by Depeche Mode and Yazoo. Sung entirely in Swedish and released in a limited edition with quaintly hand-painted artwork, the record didn’t reach a wide public outside of Scandinavia, initially, but it has become a synthpop classic for the Minimal Wave generation. If you can find a copy for sale, it won’t be cheap: rare Page records are held onto tightly by collectors.

page2010

The departure of Eliasson for other projects reduced Page to the original duo of Bengtsson and Schiptjenko. Page continued as a live act, frequently appearing on-stage at the Stadt Hamburg venue in Malmö, which was the regional ground-zero for synth music and culture. Because the club lacked a liquor licence, teens were able to attend Page shows, which meant that the growing and youthful base of Swedish synthpop fans had a band to call their own. Even if Page would find commercial success at the level of Depeche Mode or the Pet Shop Boys elusive, within Sweden they shared much of the same audience – and are as highly regarded by many.

After Dansande man, the band released three singles on the Accelerating Blue Fish label. These were collected and updated for their first album, the eponymous Page, together with new tracks and a previously unreleased demo. Put out by Energy Rekords in 1991, Page represents a decade’s work, showing off the rapid and skilful development of the band’s songwriting. Although Eliasson’s legacy is also present, through Dansande man and the delightful Hus av glas (House of Glass), the album is really a showcase for Bengtsson’s pop sensibility. With strong tracks like Mia och Tom (Mia and Tom) and En dag på zoo (A Day at the Zoo), Page were firmly established in the premier league of Scandinavian synthpop. However, by the time the album came out, a credible songbook was no guarantee of commercial success. Without radio support or video play on MTV, Page wasn’t going to be able to compete with U2 and Genesis in the charts. For the band’s syntare fan-base, however, the release of a full album, collecting their favourite songs, was a major event.

Critics greeted the album warmly. Backlash magazine gave it a 4/5 rating, noting:

The style of music is easily danceable synth pop which has its roots in the beginning of the 80s. It’s hard to find any comparators, because Page’s music is its own. Moreover, Eddie Bengtsson sings in Swedish, which is not very common among the Swedish synth bands. He doesn’t just sing well; he also writes great lyrics.

Writing in Zero Magazine, Alexander Elofsson later recalled seeing the release celebrated on home turf:

Stadt Hamburg was totally packed on the evening of the show, and the atmosphere was boiling when Page stood behind their synths and gave one of the most highly-acclaimed concerts in Stadt Hamburg’s history. […] Page were kings of the Skåne synth scene.

They might have been electronic royalty, but Page didn’t rest on their laurels. It took another three years to put the follow-up album together, but Hallå!  (Hey!) was a step change from Page in both the quality and consistency of production. With songs like Fredag för dig (Friday for You) and Nr:12 (Number 12), the band showed that it could keep ahead of the pack stylistically, while maintaining its integrity.

The lead track on the album, Bilmusik (Car Music), was released as a CD-single, and it quickly found a groove with Swedish radio. The single paired the album recording with a dub version, as well as a new dance track called Acid Skate. The latter married the bubbling basslines of acid house to samples from a documentary on skateboarding, which had enjoyed a revival in the 1990s. Bengtsson’s love for boarding is no secret: when he lifts his arms during concerts, he reveals a tattoo showing the evolution of man from ape into a free-style skater. However, he is less committed to making what in America is now known as “electronic dance music,” seeing it as “too easy” and too far removed from the pop aesthetic that interests him. Acid Skate therefore remains a lonely example of 1990s dance music’s influence on Bengtsson’s output.

That’s not to say that the dancefloor wasn’t in Page’s sights. The next proper album, Glad (Happy), followed quickly (by Page standards) in 1995. The opening, electrifying chords of Står i din väg (Stand in Your Way) signalled that, despite the title, the band wasn’t standing still – and neither would the feet of its listeners. Songs like Tiden går (Time Flies) and Jag väntar (I’m Waiting) were dazzling pop tracks, flecked with glam and space disco influences. A close listening to Jag väntar reveals phrasing that owes a debt to the Sex Pistols, put through a set of Korg and Yamaha filters. There just wasn’t (and, arguably, still isn’t) another band making pop music that is so sophisticated in its stylings.

A creative triumph but commercial disappointment, Glad marked a fork in the road for Page. Schiptjenko left to join the philosopher (and future Swedish Idol judge) Alexander Bard in his new band, Vacuum, while Bengtsson’s attention also turned to other projects.

Vacuum was born for radio play, and the group achieved rapid success. Their first single, I Breathe, was released at the end of 1996 and reached number 2 in the Swedish charts within weeks. The album that followed climbed into the Top 20, with Europe-wide airplay and tour dates, including several former Soviet republics. For Schiptjenko, a modest “syntare från Malmö” (“synther from Malmö”) whose relatives emigrated from Ukraine to Sweden after the Second World War, the experience must have been other-worldly. Bard was playing by different rules than the synthpop fans that she had grown up with musically: Schiptjenko describes his style of writing as collaborative but with “hyper-commercial” ambitions.

When Bard started a new band, Bodies Without Organs, in 2003, Schiptjenko was invited on-board. Backed by a major label from the beginning, BWO was wildly popular by Swedish and European standards, reaching pole position in the charts with the single, Temple of Love. The style was amped-up commercial pop, treading ground previously broken by other Scandinavian acts, like Aqua and Dr Alban, but with a knowing wink and a heavy dose of humour. The band achieved heady success, but its members kept their feet on the ground: while Bard had his day job as an academic, Schiptjenko was already established as a dealer of contemporary art through the gallery she owns in Stockholm with Ciléne Andréhn. At the peak of BWO’s popularity, when they narrowly missed out on representing Sweden at the Eurovision Song Contest, she recalls overwhelmed fans coming into the gallery to seek her autograph (“It was cute!” says Schiptjenko).

Meanwhile, back in Skåne, Bengtsson was continuing to build on his reputation as a first-rate songwriter, juggling music with his day job as a teacher. While still in Page, he had started a side project, called Sista Mannen på Jorden (The Last Man on Earth), initially with collaborator Mats Wiberg. The name was taken from the Swedish translation of I Am Legend, the post-apocalyptic novel from Richard Matheson, and its songs reflected Bengtsson’s interest in science-fiction themes. Between 1998 and 2007, SMPJ released four albums of advanced pop music, with futuristic sounds teased from Bengtsson’s collection of analogue synthesizers. While the influences of Giorgio Moroder and Space can be happily detected in many songs, the music of SMPJ is strikingly original and often moving. Bengtsson is creatively fearless: he comfortably sings in a higher register, enhancing the emotional vulnerability expressed in his lyrics, which touch on themes of love and longing; and there aren’t many pop artists who would set the first song of their first release in waltz time with a theremin backing, as he did for En blå planet (A Blue Planet) on Först i rymden (First in Space).

Another channel for Bengtsson’s output was S.P.O.C.K, a science-fiction themed party band that had been put together in 1988 for a friend’s birthday celebration. The original plan had been only to write some songs to be enjoyed by friends, but the concept was hugely popular in the local scene. Live dates and foreign tours followed, with Alexander Hoffman on voal duty. Bengtsson’s involvement was originally limited to writing songs for the band, but by 1993 he had joined the group as “Captain Eddie B. Kirk” and took part in live shows. S.P.O.C.K’s touring schedule became more demanding, and in 1997 Bengtsson gave up his place on stage in order to spend time with his young family and focus on both Page and SMPJ.

In 2004, Bengtsson launched another project, This Fish Needs a Bike. Musically, it was consistent with the SMPJ line of albums, with the difference that the lyrics were in English for an international audience. One popular SMPJ song, Luft (Air), was rewritten, and songs like Putting My Suit On were unmistakably in the SMPJ style. After one album, From A to B, This Fish Needs a Bike ceased trading, and in 2007 Bengtsson returned to SMPJ for Tredje våningen (Third Floor). With a number of different balls in the air at any one time, how did he know whether a new song belonged to one project or another? Bengtsson explains:

It was always hard to know what I was doing – is this a Page song or a Sista Mannen song? Is this a S.P.O.C.K song? But I really tried, every time I was going to do a song – like, with Sista Mannen, I was trying to get into a certain mood for that. When I was doing a Page song, I was trying to get into a certain mood for that. Just to try to make some order for what was what. Sometimes it was hard, but I think, when I look back, that I managed it. If it was Sista Mannen, I tried to do a more spacey sound and the lyrics were about space, but also the style of the sound of the music was more dreamy and space-ish. For Page, it was more pop with a bit of punk and rock influence. And with S.P.O.C.K, there were more Euro and more Star Trek influences.

There is a reasonable case for comparing Bengtsson to Vince Clarke, who had launched Depeche Mode, made two albums with Yazoo and attempted a number of projects, before settling into a long-term relationship with Erasure. Like Clarke, Bengtsson has an instinctive ear for a pop song, as well as the technical skills to draw sounds from analogue circuits with emotional qualities of their own. Their careers in music began at approximately the same time, and they have each spent more than thirty years writing danceable pop without compromising to chase the trends of the day. Both are in demand as remixers – indeed, both have produced mixes for Robert Marlow’s forthcoming remix album – and are known for working alone in their studios to shape electricity into distinctive and catchy rhythms and melodies. Further comparison is perhaps unfair to both artists, because they have followed their own trajectories, but Sweden has not produced another songwriter or musician who comes as close to the influential role played by Clarke in British electronic music.

This much was recognised when, in 2010, designer Johan Wejedel released Tiden går – En hylnning till Page (Time Flies – A Tribute to Page). To the surprise of a humble Bengtsson, a cross-section of Swedish electronic artists recorded enough covers of their favourite Page songs to fill two CDs. Contributors included Candide, PA Tronic, Vision Talk, Norator, New Modern Angels and Diskodiktator. Bengtsson had previously made his own covers for tribute albums, but those were versions of songs by Depeche Mode and OMD – bands whose influence on the synthpop scene was universally acknowledged. With the tribute album, artists wanted to show their love and respect for Page’s music and the band’s place beside those internationally-known bands for the Swedish scene. Maybe Page wasn’t going to crash the file-sharing networks, but it continued to reach and touch music lovers and creators in disproportion to its performance in the charts.

The departure of Schiptjenko had not meant the end for Page. In 1996, Bengtsson made the first album without Schiptjenko, bringing in a drummer and another keyboard player to round out the band. Hur så? (How So? or How’s That?) came out only a year after Glad, but with a shift in its sonic structure that disoriented the public. While the integrity of his songs was firmly maintained, Bengtsson started to introduce fuzzy feedback sounds that replicated the tones of electric guitars. A follow-up, 1998’s Helt nära (So Close), moved even further along that path. Bengtsson explains that the listening public didn’t know what to make of the shift, even though mixing synths and guitars was by then a common pop practice:

I feel like, on those two albums without Marina, I was trying to do something different. I was trying to make more guitar-influenced music, but using only electronics. On the first of those albums, we used no guitars, but people thought it was guitar. So, for the album after that, I thought I might as well use guitars in the music, too. But, for that album, those who liked synthesizers said, “Too much guitar!” The other audience, which liked pop music, said, “Too much synthesizer!” We didn’t reach anyone, really, which was very, very sad because it was good music. It feels like everybody can mix guitars – look at Depeche Mode and other bands – but when we do it, it is very, very naughty, and that is a shame.

The situation was essentially the reverse of Neil Young’s experience with Trans. While the Canadian axe hero had bravely experimented with synthesizers, a large part of his existing fan base was implacably hostile, as they associated synths with sequenced disco music. On the other side, followers of Kraftwerk and Jarre didn’t know what to make of Young’s adoption of their favourite tools.

While there wasn’t a Dylanesque “Judas!” moment, Bengtsson had underestimated the wall separating the subcultures of syntare and hårdrockare (hard rockers). Though there was never any danger of Page turning into Rush or Cheap Trick, neither side was ready for Page to broaden its sonic palette so radically. In fact, both Hur så? and Helt nära contain exceptionally strong songs – like Trans, they are just waiting for their audience, and will in due course be recognised for their exceptional content.

The experience with those two albums convinced Bengtsson to focus on his other projects. Page went quiet, until a live performance at the Swedish Alternative Music Awards in 2000 reunited Bengtsson, Schiptjenko and Eliasson. Intended as a farewell wave to their fans, the show was recorded and issued as a limited-edition CD. With a final “Cha, cha, cha!” and the cheers of dedicated syntare filling their ears, Page had left the stage for good.

Or so the story would have ended, had Schiptjenko not looked at the calendar in 2010 and felt the pull of her roots. BWO was coming to an end. It had been fifteen years since she worked together with Bengtsson, and thirty since two teens in a suburb of Malmö plugged in a pair of Korgs and learned to make music using oscillators and keyboards. Wasn’t it time to make another album? Bengtsson happened to have one in him, and the result was a collection of grown-up pop, made without any pretences or pressure.

Nu (Now) was unashamedly electronic, and this time the album didn’t fall between two cultural stools. The synth scene paid attention again, and TV appearances and live dates followed. Radio, however, struggled to find a place for Nu between the latest Lady Gaga and Coldplay songs, despite the album climbing its way into the Top 40. Schiptjenko explains that this was not a new challenge:

We had a little peak in Sweden in the 90s with some radio hits, but it’s never been super-big. We had always been very popular on the alternative scene, and always among the fans, but we’ve never been a band played a lot on Swedish radio.

It doesn’t bother her a great deal:

I think the reason we are loved so much by the scene is that we were among the first, and we have stayed true to our roots, even if we have developed. We sing in Swedish, we have a certain sound. A big part of it is nostalgia. We created the scene, in a way. We were the first. The syntare and hårdrockare are really loyal to their bands. I also think that the fact that we are not played on Swedish radio is down to two things: it is a little bit prejudice – they don’t really listen – and I also think it is our age. I know for a fact, because I have been talking to those who decide what is going to be played, we are too old. We are not new. They want to find the young audience all the time.

hemma - cover

In September 2013, Page are releasing a new album, called Hemma (At Home). If anything, the sound is more mature than Nu, with songs achieving yet another level of development from the days of Glad. Teasers that have been released on the group’s Facebook page reveal pronounced glam-rock stomping – a trend that began with Page’s cover of Slade’s Coz I Love You for The Seventies Revisited, a charity compilation that came out last year, and continued with the “Glamtronica” remix prepared by Bengtsson of a new Robert Marlow song. New promotional pictures show the duo posed next to a classic synthesizer in an early-20th century drawing room – a synthesis of the modern and the vintage. Bengtsson describes Hemma in these terms:

I think it is even more mature [than Nu], because I am maturing as an individual and a person, so the music is doing that, too – especially the lyrics. The music is actually the kind of electronic music I like. I can’t really say that I like electronic music, because electronic music is such a big genre, and my interest in electronic music is so very, very small. That small piece, that small bit, that’s like what I am doing. I am doing what I like, really, so there is no need for me to take a different direction. I am doing just exactly what I like. Electronic pop music stuff – that is what I like.

Hemma doesn’t completely shy away from the sounds of previous albums, but the guitars have been put back in their cases. Bengtsson again:

This album is purely electronic – like Nu, which was purely electronic, too. I tried to make it even more electronic and some of the songs are very electronic-sounding. Some of the songs are more guitar feeling, because I like that punk attitude and trying to make synthesizers sound like guitars – the arrangement of it. Instead of using Popcorn-ish sounds, I tried to do more grungy electronic sounds that sound like guitars. The way you play a guitar – I try to do that on synthesizers. I think it is very, very funny to do that, really, and nice. There are songs that sound like that, and songs that sound more like Giorgio Moroder – sequencer-oriented songs. All the songs seem to fit together in a way. They really make a whole body.

Will this be the time that Swedish radio finally grasps that they are sitting on a rich vein of home-grown pop music, just waiting for them to mine? Schiptjenko is stoic:

You never know – with this material, perhaps it will come through on Swedish radio, but I don’t think so. We do it for the love of the music and the scene, and it is so much fun, but it is not our main career.

A full tour is not planned, but a video is in the works and live dates are being lined up, starting with a performance at Gothenburg’s Electronic Summer festival. Schiptjenko will also be there with her “pet project”, an “electro-crooner” act called Julian & Marina, which is planning to release its own album shortly. Bengtsson is busy preparing another compilation of cover songs – this time, with a focus on punk rock done in an electronic style – together with artists from the south of Sweden. Page might not be the main career of its members, but only because their creative work is so broad and takes so many forms. It is a wonder that they are ever hemma at all!

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Our Daughter’s Wedding – Lawnchairs

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

The US is sometimes overlooked as a centre for electronic music, as it never produced a Kraftwerk or Jarre, but bands like Devo and Our Daughter’s Wedding were there making catchy and radically different pop in lock-step with Silicon Teens and Ultravox. ODW made waves internationally with the simple arpeggiation of Lawnchairs, which was an original and influential single – here performed live in New York at a 1982 show.

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Johan Tronestam: Towards the Stars

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Looking up at celestial bodies from the ground, Man has always been struck by their mystery and complexity. He has imagined patterns among the stars, as projections of his terrestrial surroundings, and patiently tracked their movements through the night sky. In music, their influence extends from primitive folk songs and classical concepts of harmonic spheres to cosmic space-rock. As technology has developed, so has the range of possible interpretations expanded: Holst’s astrological musings on the influence of the planets are now matched by tonal renderings of the signals received by radio telescopes.

On the islands of Åland, in the Baltic Sea, a cloudless night reveals the stars in their full intensity. The light from cities obscures the heavens, but the inhabitants of this rocky archipelago are far from the halogen beacons of urban centers. For composer and musician Johan Tronestam, the sense of openness and distance afforded by Åland extends in two directions: horizontally, across the sea; and vertically, towards the stars. From his home studio, he describes the feelings produced by his environment through electronic pulses, pads and leads generated using an array of hardware and software synthesizers. His music is fluid, harmonious and complex, taking listeners on a journey across the expanse through diverse waveforms.

tronestam2
Influenced by the early synth masters, such as Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis and Tangerine Dream, as well as the progressive rock of Pink Floyd and Yes, Tronestam draws sounds from his synths that sweep like plasma fields projecting from the Sun or shift like the barely perceptible light of fading suns. The effect is neither entirely naturalistic nor abstract, but his music conveys the feeling of moving through four dimensions in proximity to almost nothing else.

The Island, released in 2008, was Tronestam’s first release. Inspired by his move to Åland from Sweden two years previously, it is an ambient tour of his environment and emotional responses to it. Tronestam says that his intention was to bring the listener closer to the subject of the music. The album opens with The Sea, reflecting the barrier that separates the island from the mainland but is also the simplest medium for reaching it. In contrast to Strindberg’s paintings of the sea as a violent partner to the stormy sky, Tronestam sets it as alluring and pacific; a feeling that is returned to for The Moon and the Sea. The pace picks up with A Walk in the Sand and Roots of Secrets, before a classical church organ enters the frame, which is in turn displaced by an arpeggiator as the album fades out. In those last moments, The Island concentrates Tronestam’s core themes by combining fascination for the ancient and the futuristic, the mystical and the methodical, in one setting.

Tronestam’s sophomore album was Planet X, released in 2010. It was inspired by the possibility of contact with extraterrestrial life, and the album neatly pulls the template set by The Island in a more cosmic direction. The opening track, Contact, fizzes with energy and would not be out of place in a modern dance performance. They Have Been Here Earlier follows in the footsteps of Vangelis’ soundtrack for Blade Runner and the dancier moments of Jarre’s Oxygene. The closing track, Closer to Knowledge, makes use of harsher sounds, which bounce between channels like electricity passing through the hemispheres of the brain. The stand-out track, however, is The Star Arpeggiator, which uses filters to modulate a simple pattern as the backbone of the song, while layers of pads and leads provide dynamism.

Far Away, released in July 2012, takes as its starting point the writings of Arthur C. Clarke; particularly 2001 and 2010. As Tronestam notes on his Bandcamp page, he is attracted by “the idea of how the extraterrestrial super-intelligence is traveling at the speed of thought; being able to move around and admire the endless universe fireworks.”

The album begins with A Wider Perspective, which layers crystalline tones, an old-school rhythm track and simmering arpeggiators into a song evocative of the 1970s French and German schools. In Discovering the Unknown Space, the feeling is successfully developed of wonder at new sights; tension building through patterns signalling momentum, which give way to woodwind-like leads and a celestial choir. Nebula has echoes of early Kraftwerk and Jarre, without ever aping them. For those without an undisturbed view of the stars outside their windows, the album is best listened to in its entirety, on quality headphones with the lights turned off.

Stories from the Dawn was released in 2012. The inspiration behind this CD and online release is the experience of primitive man, learning to live in Northern Europe. Here, the sense of distance arises from the movement into frontier lands, the challenges of communications and transportation, and the sparse Nordic population. Life in the Forest Wakes conveys the power of life amongst the pines. Knowledge of the Dawn evokes the rising of the Sun; its energy flowing from the horizon and stimulating life. Lake Vostok, named for the subglacial lake in Antarctica, is a sonic panorama for an icy and snow-blown landscape. The human dimension becomes more prominent in the course of the album, with Order in Chaos (The Warrior) adopting a rhythm that might reflect the fashioning of tools before evolving into choral sounds.

The most recent album, released in 2013, is Roots and Legends from the North. Like Stories from the Dawn, it also focuses on early Nordic history, imagining the harsh environment and early man’s mystical response to it. Traces of a Forgotten Time has pads that sweep like the flow of wind through trees, arousing primal feelings of peace and danger. Closer to the Ancient Truth and Nordic Legends both incorporate processed vocals that call to mind Jarre’s Zoolook.

Tronestam’s interest in music began at an early age. He resisted the promptings of his parents to study the violin, preferring the organ. As synthesizers became reasonably sized and priced, making the move from studios to basements, he started to experiment with early analogue equipment. A Siel Opera 6 was his first synth, followed by a Korg Trident. The addition of a Korg sequencer, with an included drum section, gave him the possibility to make complete tracks, while playing as the keyboardist in a rock group helped to learn song structure. Today, his studio includes a Roland JX8P, Roland XP80, Roland D50, Roland Gaia, Korg Kronos and Alesis equipment.

On the software side, Tronestam uses applications like the Omnisphere virtual synth from Spectrasonics and the Arturia collection. A Steinberg HALion 4 software sampler takes the place of previous hardware tools. Recording and mixing is all done in his studio, but mastering for CD production is done by an engineer in Helsinki.

Tronestam’s influences are proudly displayed and quoted to good effect, but his use of sounds associated with space travel and the future to imagine the past is unique. His songs reflect a deep connection with the land he inhabits and its history, but also the feeling of travelling in places that Man has not yet visited. Neither prehistory nor deep space can be entirely understood from our own perspectives; but, as Tronestam shows, the connections that can be made through art can be compelling.

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