Mute

Lonelyklown – Everything I Try To Do Is Wrong

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Dave Baker has made some magnificent music in his time. Whether as part of I Start Counting, Fortran 5 or Komputer, Baker’s compositional skills and plaintive vocals have been melded to great effect. ISC should have been the next Depeche Mode, but the band’s commercial fortunes never measured up to their minor key expressionism. Like Fad Gadget, their influence is frustratingly greater than their sales records would suggest.

Thankfully, Baker is still making striking material. This track, which comes remixed by Roi from Mechanical Cabaret, is a touching, piano- and oscillator-led effort. It has all of the hallmarks of Baker’s best work, which–to borrow from Bananarama–is really saying something.

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I Start Counting Open Archives

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

I Start Counting should have been the next Depeche Mode. Recording for the same label (Mute), working with the same producer (Daniel Miller), and writing songs filled with melody and pathos (see: “Letters to a Friend“), they ought to have nestled easily into the slipstream of the Basildon boys. Instead, their brand of detuned synths and pained observations took a less commercial turn; and, like Fad Gadget before them, the band became more influential than successful. The fickleness of the music industry meant that they were more likely to have their sounds plundered than played on radio. It is a pity, because many of the tracks they recorded were stronger than the charts could bear.

Simon Leonard and Dave Baker met at Middlesex University (which, in 2014, awarded an honorary doctorate to Daniel Miller, but that is another story). They began DJing together before recording some demos, which Leonard presented to Miller, a fellow North Londoner and acquaintance from the underground electronic music scene. That led to two singles produced by Miller using his Synclavier, “Letters to a Friend” and “Still Smiling.”

An album followed with one of Mute’s in-house producers, Paul Kendall, that demonstrated the duo’s ability to cannily combine experimental, humorous and pop-oriented material. My Translucent Hands was followed two years later by a second album, Fused (with the amazing “Lose Him”), before the project folded. Leonard and Baker then relaunched as Fortran 5, joining the wave of club material issuing from the house movement, before becoming Komputer, an act drawing heavily on the sounds popularised by Kraftwerk. Throughout, they have maintained their slightly quirky but knowing approach to music.

This past summer, Mute released two limited edition cassettes of material from the I Start Counting archives. Ejected (the blue one) featured a selection of demos, including the original versions of “Million Headed Monster” and their cover of “Rawhide.” Re-fused (the red one) continued the theme with versions of “Lose Him” and the excellent “Million Headed Monster.” The hand-made releases were a treat for collectors, but now they are being made into commodities for distribution through record shops and digital platforms. If there is any justice in the world, that is where I Start Counting belong.

Ejected and Re-fused are released by Mute on 25 March 2022, and pre-orders are open now.

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Market Led: I Start Counting Return to the Stall

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

The I Start Counting duo were famed for their connections to London’s Spitalfields Market. The circle is completed, then, with the news that Mute Artists will be releasing two, limited edition, cassettes of demos from 1985 and 1986 at the 10th Anniversary Independent Label Market this weekend.

The event takes place on Sunday, 18 July 2021, on Carnaby Street in the West End of London. There are only 150 copies of the tapes, signed by the band, and if there are any left over they will be on Mute Bank and Bandcamp from 3 September 2021.

We were super proud that Dave Baker and Simon Leonard appeared on stage for Cold War Night Life in their last show as Komputer+, reprising many of their songs as I Start Counting, as well as material from their time as Fortran 5 and Komputer. They have been closely embedded in the Mute sound and ethos since the 1980s, when Daniel Miller took them under his wing. Their uniquely British sensibility and love of electronics combined to produce some of the most touching and dynamic songs of that period, and the demos they presented to Miller only hinted at their potential.

Here is the track listing for the cassettes.

Re-fused CSTUMM178    

Talk About The Weather
You And I
625
Grass Snake
Pretty Too
Birmingham
The I Can’t Express
Lose Him
Say Something

Ejected CSTUMM193     

Charlie
Modern Sunbathing
Is She On Her Own
Cooler Than Calcutta
Red Car
My Sister’s Friend
Million Headed Monster
I’m A Murderer
You Can’t Write That Down
Rawhide

And here is a sample. “Talk About the Weather” isn’t a Red Lorry Yellow Lorry cover, but a different take on a very British theme.

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Totally Wired: Sunroof’s Modular Improv

by Simon Helm
written by Simon Helm

Before you break the plastic seal around Electronic Improvisations Vol. 1, you are already back in the 1970s. The golden age of modular music saw sleeves that imparted important information about the sound and artist. They might have featured signposts in the form of waveforms or patches. The records were as often found in libraries than in shops, because they were clearly made by intellectuals who worked as engineers as much as musicians. The sleeves told a story of earnest modernity, just by their layout grid, but they also explained the method.

So, here we have the first vinyl collection of modular improvisations by Gareth Jones and Daniel Miller. Working together as Sunroof, they have issued material online and contributed covers to compilations of Krautrock classics, but until now they have held back from releasing an album. That it comes packaged as a delayed message from 1976 only makes things more interesting.

Both artists took significant steps as the 1970s ran out: Miller with The Normal’s “TVOD/Warm Leatherette” single, and Jones as the engineer on John Foxx’s immortal Metamatic. They were brought together by Foxx, who suggested Jones to work with Depeche Mode, and formed a working and personal relationship that has outlived the Cold War, Britpop and the fax machine.

Miller, of course, turned his hobby release into one of the mightiest independent record labels, Mute. Jones built a career producing and engineering many of the label’s acts, before settling into a remixing role. They worked in close quarters in the studio, particularly for Depeche Mode’s Hansa recordings, but also applied their skills together for The House of Love. They came together as Sunroof to remake “Hero” by Neu! and “Oh Yeah” by Can, as well as to remix Goldfrapp and To Rococo Rot.

The revival of interest in modular synthesis captured the imaginations of both men. As new manufacturers created tools for those who dream of wires, they filled a black hole with money to create novel configurations. Their shared love of circuitry led them from occasional noodling to a programme of recordings made in a spirit of free experimentation; subject to self-imposed limitations on time, interaction and channels. Electronic Improvisations Vol. 1 is, therefore, less Stockhausen than AMM; an album in the English tradition described by Cornelius Cardew in Towards an Ethic of Improvisation:

We are searching for sounds and for the responses that attach to them, rather than thinking them up, preparing them and producing them. The search is conducted in the medium of sound and the musician himself is at the heart of the experiment.

One of the features of modular synths is that they have their own character and are capable of producing unexpected sounds. Musicians working with traditional instruments have more control over the results, and their technical ability is a key to the manipulation of sound. Modular synths have flexible signal paths that can escape the grasp of even the most skilled operator. The sounds that come through the speakers might be heard for the first time and never be recreated again. They are the ephemera of electricity.

Good for us, then, that Sunroof pressed record on their sessions. As a result, we find within the old school sleeve a set of recordings that explore the interactions of waveforms over the course of eight tracks. With an emphasis on curiosity over composition, the results are less Jarre than Eno: in places, sounding like incoming signals at Jodrell Bank; in others, the visceral hum of subatomic particles; and then Brion Gysin’s Moroccan memories absorbed by an IBM mainframe. The pieces are surprising and playful, and they succeed most when the duo play with resonances. You can’t dance to them, but you will have fun trying.

(Main photo: Diane Zillmer)

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A Patch Above: Sunroof Reveal Album

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

(Via Mute)

Sunroof [Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones] have announced, after four decades of friendship and collaboration, the release of their debut album. Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1, a collection of eight improvised modular pieces recorded as live in various studio spaces across London in the spring and summer of 2019, will be released on the newly revived Parallel Series of Mute on 21 May 2021.

Daniel Miller (founder of Mute, the “accidental label” that began with the release of his own 7” single The Normal’s T.V.O.D / Warm Leatherette) met Gareth Jones, (the innovative and influential producer, engineer and artist) back when Miller asked Jones to work with him in late 1982 on what became Depeche Mode’s Construction Time Again. After the band had gone home for the day, they would stay on to work on their own sessions, a practise that continued and, by the mid-nineties Sunroof had emerged as remix project, reworking the likes of Can, MGMT, To Rococo Rot, Kreidler and Goldfrapp, and appeared on a compilation paying tribute to Neu!.

Back in 2019, Miller and Jones were heading to a György Ligeti concert at the Barbican and beforehand – as they often do when together in the same city – the pair spent a couple of hours improvising with modular systems. Unusually, this time they decided to record the session and over a pre-concert meal, Gareth asked a question that seems logical after all these years: “Are we actually going to make a record together before we die?”

The following day, they set themselves some rules: “We decided to get together to do a bunch of improvisations,” explains Gareth. “We said we’d work in a number of different physical spaces but always together, in the same room. We were keen to do shorter pieces because we were both very inspired by Chris Carter and Martin Gore’s electronic music projects, where the pieces were very concise and compact.”

Key to their manifesto was a distinction between an improvisation and a jam session. “With modular systems, you can just go on and on forever and never actually complete anything. Sometimes that’s okay – part of the joy of a modular is that you can just keep going indefinitely. But with this we were keen to actually finish something, so setting that timeframe became a really important rule for us.” adds Daniel.

Nothing was pre-planned, they didn’t rehearse, and the pieces were recorded as live performances using a limited number of channels. What they accumulated during the course of those 2019 sessions was a suite of evolving, restless pieces, each one containing layers of pulsing, atmospheric sounds.

The pieces on Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1 have a timelessness evoking the classic sound of some of the earliest electronic experiments. They also  sound resolutely modern. Even for the two players, their individual contributions are no longer obvious to them, nor is it actually necessary to separate who did what – the whole journey is what’s important, not the individual twists, turns and tweaks that happened along the way.

The album possesses a spirit, energy and discipline of improvisation and in these pieces, you can hear the almost symbiotic connection that they share, and the new sonic pathways and different, unexplored ways of working opening up in front of them.

Pre-order the album: https://mute.ffm.to/sunroof.opr

https://www.facebook.com/garethjonesnoisemaker/

http://wwww.garethjones.com

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Yazoo – Live at Short Circuit

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

The Short Circuit festival dedicated to Mute was a celebration of the label’s diverse but talented roster.

One of the artists to perform was Yazoo, who had toured during a break that Vince Clarke was able to take from Erasure work.

There were many cameras out at the event, including many from Mute, who were archiving it. This footage seems to have crept out without anyone noticing, however.

For cooler and shorter days, we offer this rare footage showing the full Yazoo performance.

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Shine On: Adrian Sherwood

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Adrian Sherwood launched his On-U Sound label in 1979, but he was already a fixture on the London roots and dub scene. Selling imported dub plates from his van across the city, a teenaged Sherwood had absorbed the transplanted sounds of the Caribbean with the air he breathed. Living in a Battersea squat with Neneh Cherry and Ari Upp, he was also close to the city’s post-punk explosion.

It didn’t take long for Sherwood to start putting out music himself. He soon learned to play with the studio controls in the spirit of dub pioneers like Lee “Scratch” Perry. Tearing sounds apart and reconstructing them through radical combinations of delays and distortion became the On-U Sound signature.

Sherwood’s ability to drive beats for projects like Dub Syndicate and New Age Steppers, while maintaining hypnotic grooves, brought him to the attention of electronic and industrial artists like Cabaret Voltaire, Skinny Puppy and Depeche Mode. Ministry’s Al Jourgensen used him to make the Twitch album, “borrowing” Sherwood’s studio techniques for later use in Ministry and Revolting Cocks.

Surrounded by talent from the roots and dub scenes, Sherwood took on industrial remix projects but also put out music with incredible sensitivity. The ultimate combination of these strands came on Mark Stewart’s “Stranger than Love,” which combined Erik Satie’s piano exercises with Bristol’s most powerful voice. It was proof positive that, in a master’s hands, the most delicate emotions can still be found in the red zone of the VU meter.

10. Bim Sherman – Slummy Ghetto

A key part of the On-U Sound ensemble, Bim Sherman was an uncompromising talent. He recorded solo, as well as with Dub Syndicate, New Age Steppers and Singers & Players – On-U projects that drew from the collective of artists surrounding Sherwood.

This take shows the mainstream version of Sherwood’s production work. In his hands, the material is classy but subversive.

9. Robert Wyatt – Biko

The British communist activist and composer, Robert Wyatt, engaged Sherwood to shape his cover of Peter Gabriel’s tribute to the South African anti-apartheid leader, Steve Biko. Recorded in London’s legendary Blackwing Studios, with John Fryer engineering, the track still raises goose-bumps with its haunting and spacious mix.

8. Cabaret Voltaire – Here To Go (Live Drum Jacknife Mix)

Cabaret Voltaire had already found their way to the alternative dancefloor when they recorded Code. Years of listening to James Brown in Sheffield had influenced the industrial pioneers; but, as this single showed, they were just as moved by Brion Gysin’s art and writing.

Sherwood was brought in for the production of part of the album, but he took the tapes apart for this remix.

7. Skinny Puppy – Deep Down Trauma Hounds (Remix)

Canada’s dark electro pioneers called on Sherwood for the 1987 release of “Addiction,” which featured this version of “Deep Down Trauma Hounds” on the flip side.

6. Depeche Mode – Master and Servant (An On-U Sound Science Fiction Dancehall Classic)

Many Depeche Mode fans were mystified by the limited edition remixes that Mute released with Sherwood at the controls. Stripped back melodically (and given what sounds like a thorough going-over with Keith LeBlanc’s drums), the retooling of “Master and Servant” and “People Are People” was unexpected and – for the less forgiving – unwelcome.

Today, the remix of “Master and Servant” isn’t as jarring. Sherwood’s signature is still engraved in the rhythm – carved by hammer and chisel across the master tapes – but the world has caught up to the idea.

5. Dub Syndicate – Wadada (Means Love)

Of Sherwood’s many projects, his collaboration with “Style” Scott as Dub Syndicate was the most successful. Infused with the possibility of space travel in the mind, and hidden in a cloud of sweet-scented smoke, it represented the avant-garde end of the roots spectrum.

Scott was murdered in Jamaica, which brought this project to an end. Its legacy is an incomparable body of reggae with experimental flair.

4. Mark Stewart – Hypnotized

The dissolution of The Pop Group freed singer Mark Stewart to mix his love of noise, funk and reggae together in a flammable cocktail.

“Hypnotized” is a savage cut-up of beats, breaks and scratches that completely dismantles conventional song structures.

Sherwood worked with Stewart to mangle tapes, splice beats and throw faders, created the most subversive 12″ single of all time. People still quote the statistics cited in the song.

3. Ministry – The Angel

Al Jourgensen claims to dislike Twitch, but Ministry’s last album before they let metal in was an alternative dancefloor classic. With tracks like “Over the Shoulder” pummelling clubbers like a backhoe shattering asphalt, it set a new bar for hard beats.

Jourgensen managed to sound menacing throughout, and nowhere more than on this track. When he returned to Chicago, he took samples of Keith LeBlanc’s drum sounds with him, fuelling the Wax Trax sound for years to come.

2. Einstürzende Neubauten – Yü Gung

German metal-bashers, Einstürzende Neubauten, recorded “Yü Gung” with Gareth Jones at Hansa in Berlin before Adrian Sherwood was let loose on the tapes. Blixa Bargeld screams “Feed my ego!” with the intensity of a drug-addicted chemistry grad starved of narcissistic supply – which is fitting, as the song was inspired by the chopping and snorting of methamphetamine.

1. Tackhead – Mind at the End of the Tether

In 1984, Sherwood was in New York on a studio assignment when he met up with Keith LeBlanc, the drummer in the Sugar Hill Records house band. Within short order, LeBlanc was in London with two other members of the band, Doug Wimbish and Skip McDonald, making magic with Sherwood as Fats Comet.

Wimbish – who went on to play with Living Colour and the Rolling Stones – suggested using the name, Tackhead – New York slang for a homeboy – for the group’s less commercial work.

For this powerful 12″, LeBlanc’s beats create a furious racket, while a voice laments the decline and fall of civilisation. Citing H.G. Wells, the narrator asks, “Is there a way out?” The only way is across the dancefloor.

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Silence Is Sexy: Mute Update STUMM433

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

Daniel Miller (Photo: Diane Zillmer)

It is common knowledge that Daniel Miller was inspired by the writings of J.G. Ballard when he came up with the lyrics for “Warm Leatherette.” It is less well known that his imagination was fuelled by the sounds of actual car crashes taking place at Henlys Corner, just a short distance from the house where he lived with his mother in North London. As Miller lay in his room at night, he could hear the vibrations of violent collisions drifting through his open window.

One of Miller’s contributions to STUMM433, the forthcoming release from his Mute label, is an ambient recording of the sound outside his former residence at 16 Decoy Avenue. His performance of John Cage’s 4′ 33″ is only the third time that he has recorded as The Normal, and it forms part of a compilation issued to raise funds for mental health and tinnitus charities.

Cage’s infamous work requires performers to avoid playing instruments for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Instead, they play with the audience by upsetting their expectations and drawing attention to the sounds they are making themselves. Coughs, rustling of programmes and the sounds of breathing are common elements in concert settings.

STUMM433, a play on the catalogue number for the album and the title of Cage’s composition, sees more than fifty Mute artists turning in recordings of their own performances. So, one shouldn’t expect to hear Dave Gahan’s sleazy crooning on Depeche Mode’s contribution; nor should Erasure fans hope for melodic work from Vince Clarke’s New York studios. Rather, each interpretation will reflect the sounds around the artists as they staged the work.

Miller, himself, appears several times on the album, as The Normal, Silicon Teens and part of Duet Emmo (his collaboration with Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis). We will have to wait to see if the Fad Gadget contribution is from Miller’s studio time with Frank Tovey. Other featured artists include:

A Certain Ratio, A.C. Marias, ADULT., The Afghan Whigs, Alexander Balanescu, Barry Adamson, Ben Frost, Bruce Gilbert, Cabaret Voltaire, Carter Tutti Void, Chris Carter, Chris Liebing, Cold Specks, Daniel Blumberg, Danny Briottet, Depeche Mode, Duet Emmo, Echoboy, Einstürzende Neubauten, Erasure, Fad Gadget, Goldfrapp, He Said, Irmin Schmidt, Josh T. Pearson, K Á R Y Y N, Komputer, Laibach, Land Observations, Lee Ranaldo, Liars, Looper, Lost Under Heaven, Maps, Mark Stewart / Sonskrif / The New Banalist Orchestra, Michael Gira, Mick Harvey, Miranda Sex Garden, Moby, Modey Lemon, Mountaineers, New Order, Nitzer Ebb, NON / Boyd Rice, Nonpareils, The Normal, onDeadWaves, Phew, Pink Grease, Pole, Polly Scattergood, Richard Hawley, ShadowParty, Silicon Teens, Simon Fisher Turner and Edmund de Waal, The Warlocks, Wire, Yann Tiersen and Gareth Jones.

If that wasn’t enough, the vinyl version of the release will be spread across five LPs in a box set with designs from Anton Corbijn and Malcolm Garrett, among others. As Mute note:

Each artist has created a visual to accompany their performance and a selection of 28 designers associated with Mute have contributed artwork inspired by 4’33”, including Simone Grant, who worked with Miller on a lot of the early Mute artwork (The Normal, Fad Gadget and Depeche Mode); Steve Claydon, a member of Add N To (X) who designed for Goldfrapp; Slim Smith, who worked with Mute through the 1980s and 1990s; Malcolm Garrett, who designed the House of Illustrious box set for Vince Clarke and Martyn Ware; Tom Hingston, who has worked with Erasure and created the majority of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Grinderman artwork since the early 2000s and Anton Corbjin, who has worked closely with Mute on many campaigns since the early 1980s, including Depeche Mode, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Fad Gadget.

Box set purchasers will also receive a set of candles infused with the scent of silence, as imagined by Joseph Quartana of Six Scents Parfums.

A CD version will be available, but it doesn’t come with candles or a certificate of authenticity signed by Daniel Miller.
Part of the proceeds from the sale of the album will go to the British Tinnitus Society and Music Minds Matter. These charities were chosen in memory of Craig Gill of Inspiral Carpets, who took his own life as a consequence of anxiety and depression brought on by his tinnitus.
STUMM433 ships on 4 October 2019, but the strictly limited edition box set is available for pre-ordering now.
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Wire – Live at Bloomsbury Theatre (1985)

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

A live Wire performance is always an exciting prospect. In this video, taken in London in 1985, the band is in one of its transitional phases; recreating itself on stage like a snake shedding its skin.

At this time, Wire were part of Mute Records, and their recordings were made with the help of the same producers who worked with acts like Depeche Mode. On stage, however, they were free to make their own sound, and they subverted pop conventions at every turn.

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Laibach: From Mount Paektu to Shepherds Bush

by coldwarnightlife
written by coldwarnightlife

LAIBACH
02 SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE
LONDON, 1 MARCH 2019

Photo: Marija Buljeta / AltVenger

Laibach might seem bonkers. They might even be bonkers. But there is a lot of method behind their staging of The Sound of Music.

To start with, it is in accordance with their plan that you will be seated. The band are playing theatres on this tour, so don’t get any funny ideas about moving your hips.

The evening will start with a film: in this case, a documentary about Laibach’s visit to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on the 70th anniversary of its liberation from Japanese militarism.

Liberation Day tracks the band as they prepare to present The Sound of Music in Pyongyang. It is the most internationalist thing in the world: a Slovenian art collective, travelling with some curious fans and their British label boss, putting on an American musical, written by the children of German Jews and set in Austria, for a film co-directed by a Latvian and Norwegian and financed by the Norwegian arts council, in the capital of North Korea.

Their visit in 2015 was not without controversy, either inside or outside of the DPRK. The right-wing press went nuts in the US and Europe. At their welcoming dinner, the representative of the official culture committee read the group some of the criticism received from his comrades. There were many, it seems, who couldn’t cope with the invitation given to Laibach to stage the country’s first Western “rock” show. Philistines raised the same arguments from both sides of the DMZ: Laibach make use of totalitarian imagery and styling; their music doesn’t fit into conventional “rock” forms; and no one can control them.

The culture committee representative, to his credit, appeared to understand that Laibach is like a fairground mirror – reflecting the viewer in ways that confound their expectations. Born in a pseudo-socialist environment, which collaborated with and confronted foreign systems in accordance with the whims of Marshall Tito, Laibach well understand how to select and position images to provoke a response.

Photo: Marija Buljeta / AltVenger

Even so, before it can be put on, the show has to be run through a number of filters: images from Korean culture that are insufficiently reverent have to go; translations have to be cleansed of South Korean idioms; the arrangement for “Arirang” must be normalised; and Nazi space ships have to give up their Maltese crosses.

The group accept these changes with good grace: the show must go on, so long as the power lines can be jerry-rigged and local busybodies can be pushed away. The collaboration works, and a sizeable but bemused audience takes in the performance politely.

The choice of the musical was to overcome the difficulty of selecting Western material that the North Korean audience would find acceptable. On paper, as one side of a cultural exchange, it makes sense. In the hands of Laibach, a band known for the low growl of Milan Fras’ vocals and martial rhythms, it sounds bonkers. In fact, it is brilliantly subversive.

The Sound of Music is one of the best known and loved musicals of all time. The film version, starring Julie Andrews, is one of the most viewed films globally. For Laibach to tackle the material makes sense on a number of grounds: they are more theatrical than “rock,” even if they make albums and appear with guitars and drums; the U-rated material invites repurposing just as readily as images from Christianity or Western political traditions; and the universal reach of the 1965 film means that the songs will be familiar wherever they go.

In fact, a careful balance is achieved between corruption and conformity: the performance is largely faithful to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s songs, while the use of propaganda graphics and Fras’ distinctive voice mine at the foundations of standard expectations. Idealisation of states, they seem to say, isn’t much different than idealisation of states of mind.

Photo: Marija Buljeta / AltVenger

The most significant change to the material is a tweak to ask, “How do you solve a problem like Korea?” Fras hasn’t changed his typical head-dress; but, in the context of this performance, it takes on the resemblance of a nun’s veil.

The band are joined for this performance by Boris Benko and Marina Mårtensson, who both performed on the album version of the show. They add striking vocals that contrast with and complement Fras’ own.

After the intermission (this is theatre and not a standard “rock” show, remember), the band returns to play a number of songs from the back catalogue. Mårtensson leads them onto the stage for a belting version of “Sympathy for the Devil,” her hair seemingly expanding as the song goes on.

There are some songs from their early days, which make good sense in the confines of a theatre. You can’t dance to them, but you would have fun trying.

The show comes to an end with some material from the Iron Sky movies, completing the conceptual arc from a film about music to music from films. Fras exchanges his head-gear for a cowboy hat, which he tips to hoots and hollers from the audience: for certain, subverting music genres is one of their favourite things.

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