When two of Canada’s first-generation electronic acts teamed up to cover the AC/DC stadium anthem, “Thunderstruck,” it riled up the long-haired greasers in their F150 trucks. They hated the idea of a progressive, gay-friendly version of their head-banging standard. And because of that, we love it.
Now out on Bandcamp with this added vocoder mix.
The 1980s were kind to some. If you had big hair, a double-breasted shirt, and a penchant for eye makeup, then there was every possibility that you could have rode the crest of the New Wave.
The Ottawa-based act, Design, almost had their moment. They had a run of bad luck with different record companies, despite the backing of their indie label. As a result, it took four decades for their eponymous debut album to be released.
Held in the vaults by Montreal’s YUL Records until Record Store Day 2025, the album is a lost classic. It has missed the end of the Cold War, the commercialisation of the internet, Crocs, and Covid-19. Produced by Dee Long (who also worked with another YUL act, Rational Youth), Design is a living artefact of Canada’s New Wave movement.
There is something of the Psychedelic Furs in the vocals, a little Strange Advance in the melodies, and maybe even some Spoons in the groove. Fans of the sound will find plenty to enjoy in tracks like “Half the Battle” and “The Act.” It is out now through Return to Analog.
Rational Youth, the Canadian poptronica pioneers, have announced a very special edition of their debut album, Cold War Night Life.
The 1982 release ranks with John Foxx’s Metamatic and Depeche Mode’s Speak & Spell among the classics of 1980s synthesizer music. Made with state of the art analogue equipment, including the Roland System 100, Moog Source, MC4 microcomposer and TR808 drum machine, Cold War Night Life was North America’s best response to the electronic sounds coming from Europe at the time.
The album has aged remarkably well. With melodic hits, such as “Saturdays in Silesia” and “Beware the Fly,” sounding as fresh in 2019 as when they were recorded, Cold War Night Life remains a triumph of pop songwriting. Nevertheless, Rational Youth have used this opportunity to have the album remastered in accordance with their original intentions.
There are both vinyl and CD deluxe, expanded editions on the way from Universal Music. The vinyl edition is in transparent material with added tracks from their first three singles. The CD version includes the same songs in a digipak.
Both versions are available for pre-order now for release on 30 August 2019.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Beatbox Live
Halmstad, SE
15 Oct 2016
Halmstad is half-way between Gothenburg and Malmo on Sweden’s west coast. A perfect meeting place, therefore, for the country’s most enthusiastic poptronica fans. A small venue on the edge of the water provides the setting for an amiable evening to host a mini-festival featuring Canada’s best-loved synthpop heroes, Rational Youth, a rare appearance by Italo legend Paul Rein, a tribute to the sorely missed Krister Petersson, and more.
Proving The Electricity Club’s dictum that “the best shows are the ones curated by fans,” Beatbox Live was an ambitious but carefully-organised event, combining nostalgia and novelty in equal measure. It began with Electric City Cowboys, a part-time act from Karlshamn, who warmed up the crowd with danceable songs, and Modiga Agenter [EN: Brave Agents], who provided evidence of the talent bubbling under the surface of the Swedish scene.
Then it was the turn of Candide, one of our favourite Swedish acts. The group consistently delivers a stylish, crafted form of poptronica, and they had hips and feet in motion throughout their set. They gave away one of their copies of the Heresy tribute to Rational Youth, which features their version of “City of Night,” delighting the winning fan at the front of the stage.
A special event took place in the middle of the programme to remember the sorely-missed Krister Petterson. Pettersson was the Swedish Italo scene’s most visible booster, and he was also a key part of the legendary Vision Talk. Richard Flow from Machinista, who co-founded Vision Talk with Pettersson, led proceedings with a short set of classic Vision Talk songs before being joined by vocalist John Lindqwister for an equally too-brief set of Machinista songs.
The group Italove from Stockholm took the stage next, showing off a high energy passion for Italo Disco. While a lot of Italo can sound same-same, Italove managed to keep the audience’s interest with solid beats and danceable melodies.
Paul Rein is known to some as the father of Joanna Rein, our favourite EBM warrior. While Rein the Younger was waiting to go on stage at Stockholm’s Bodyfest, pere Rein was treating a crowd of nostalgic fans to a set of his hits, including “Communicate” and “Hold Back Your Love”. He’s lost some hair but none of his capacity to belt out a solid dance track.
Then it was the turn of Rational Youth. The Canadian legends were making their first Swedish appearances since releasing Future Past Tense, this year’s EP. Despite some technical problems that raised the possibility of the event going unplugged, they ploughed on with a set of classics and the newer material. Tracy and Gaenor Howe had just warmed up for Midge Ure (Ultravox, Visage, The Rich Kids) in Toronto, but were as happy as clams to be amongst the black-clad poptronica fans of Wallander country.
During “Everything Is Vapour,” Howe lost his microphone to a superfan in the crowd, but there were plenty of voices singing along to carry the chorus without amplification. None of the new material was lost in the set, and equal love was shown for classic and recent songs. The boisterous set ran late into the frigid Swedish night, keeping the darkness away for a hall filled with happy syntare.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Order at stormingthebase.com for North America and artoffact.com for Europe.
Little Britain might have decided they have had enough of the European project, but Tracy Howe’s heart still belongs to the continent. The Canadian synth legend’s musical heritage traces a direct line back to Kraftwerk, and his Kling Klang vibe hasn’t weakened since the days when he formed Rational Youth together with Bill Vorn in the early 1980s.
Back then, Montréal was a guitar and black leather jacket kind of place, but Rational Youth were a synthesiser and double-breasted shirt kind of band. They reflected the experience of the Cold War with electronics – at that time, a cultural heresy to match their status as political provocateurs. The gritty, grainy images of missiles, Solidarity’s flag and love inside the Warsaw Pact filled their artwork or lyrics, while Kraftwerkian sequences echoed the anxiety that spread from the fault line between two Germanies.
Their first album, Cold War Night Life, was a synthetic masterpiece. It sat neatly alongside contemporary classics like John Foxx’s Metamatic and Depeche Mode’s Speak & Spell, pioneering a new kind of pop music from electronic circuits. While Kraftwerk had opened the path, Rational Youth developed their own sound, which included Howe’s sing-speak vocal style and fizzing electronics that owed little to the disco template.
Three decades later, as things heat up for Cold War II, Rational Youth are back with a new set of original material. Future Past Tense (Artoffact) represents their first release of new songs since 1999’s To the Goddess Electricity. On the evidence of this EP, the intervening years as a languages specialist and donkey farmer have not cost Howe his deft touch at composing melodies and synthetic hooks. He has also kept a political slant in his lyrics, which have always been prescient rather than didactic – this is, after all, the writer who gave us “Dancing on the Berlin Wall” a decade before German reunification became possible.
The band has evolved over the years. It’s been pared down now to Howe and his partner, Gaenor, who delights with excellent vocals on ”This Side of the Border,” a clever track destined to be part of the classic RY repertoire. Howe is a keen observer of the differences between his own country and the superpower to his south, and it is not only the better standard of chocolate that has caught his attention.
Howe’s deft sense of humour comes through in ”Western Man.” Pointing his (special edition merch laser) finger at the arrogance of empire builders, Howe spies them trying to impose their failed systems on other countries and retorts with driving beats and synth lines in his classic style.
Howe’s style has always been closer to spoken word than power ballad belter, and that is the space he continues to occupy on “In the Future.” A smooth number that easily fits into the later RY canon, it’s another highlight of the EP. This is mature pop that couldn’t be written by Hoxton hipsters for love or money.
“Here It Comes Again” brings Gaenor back into the frame, as the Howes duet in a track that bounces with an 80s pop feel, while “Prison of Flesh” finds Howe developing territory first explored in “Merry Christmas Mary Ann,” a track he dedicated to Gaenor when they were just a couple outside of the studio.
The EP closes with a revamped version of Psyche’s alternative Eurodance hit, “Unveiling the Secret.” Written by the original lineup of Darrin and Stephen Huss, it is signature Psyche, but the song gains a distinctive RY makeover here. It’s a tribute, not only to Canada’s other innovative synth band, but also to the black-clad fans who have kept the flame flickering for electronic music in the years since Cold War Night Life.
Rational Youth still write melodic electronic music with infectious hooks. That makes the legendary Canadian band something of a rarity, in a world where wannabe DJs and flesh-baring attention-seekers get all the airtime.
Their latest offering is a 12” EP, loaded with new songs and a cover of Psyche’s “Unveiling the Secret.” There’s not a nipple in sight and no Boiler Room shenanigans – just catchy poptronica. There aren’t many other songwriters who can turn them out like Tracy Howe, and the arrival of Future Past Tense is more of a distraction than the latest selfie from Jeezus’ wife.
The track we can share today is “Western Man,” a politically-charged piece for the end of the empire. Howe’s never compromised on either the music or the message, and he’s in top form here.
LINKS:
Buy the EP at Storming the Base
Cold War Night Life (www.coldwarnightlife.com), the online magazine of electronic music and culture, has announced the planned release of a tribute to Rational Youth. Called Heresy, the vinyl and CD package features many of the Canadian synth pioneers’ best-known songs, interpreted by contemporary artists from the UK, Sweden, Australia, Norway, Germany and Canada.
Included in the release will be the premiere of a new track from Rational Youth. “This Side of the Border” is in the classic Rational Youth style and is certain to please existing fans and win new admirers.
Spanning two vinyl LPs and a 12” EP, with two accompanying CDs mirroring the vinyl, all contained in a triple-gatefold sleeve, Heresy will be issued only in physical form – no Spotify, no iTunes, no Google Play. This reflects Cold War Night Life’s philosophy that albums are to be touched, read and heard.
The album is expected to be released close to the New Year.
The featured artists and tracks are:
Ordering information will be available soon.
Gothenburg’s Electronic Summer event is the highlight of the music calendar in Northern Europe. The annual festival, which began in 2012, lines up international acts and local synthpop heroes for two days of dynamic performances and non-stop ecstatic dancing.
This year’s programme was headlined by futurepoppers VNV Nation and dark electro veterans Project Pitchfork, but shows by Marsheaux and Karin Park balanced proceedings with world-class melodic poptronica. Home-grown acts, like Me the Tiger, Presence of Mind and Destin Fragil, drew large and supportive crowds. With a regular rhythm throughout the weekend, DJs from the scene’s most influential clubs emerged from a sea of black-clad Vikings to share mixes before returning to immerse themselves in successive waves of EBM and poptronica. The forecast for Sweden’s second city had been for thundershowers, but the electricity in the air all came from a Tesla coil of expectations that was charged by the crowds gathered at the Brewhouse venue.
Sweden’s electronic music scene has held steady, over the years, against encroachments by EDM, Dubstep and Jungle. The country certainly produces world-famous DJs (Avicci, Andreas Tilliander) and pop producers (Max Martin), but it also nurtures classic synthpop acts and opens its arms to new ones. Visiting artists are welcomed with curiosity, while competing DJs and promoters from across the country are shown hospitality rather than hostility. The only aggro on display is a stylistic offshoot of industrial dance music, and the festival atmosphere is inclusive and celebratory.
Cold War Night Life participated in this year’s festival by conducting pre-event interviews with artists and performing a DJ set that included the world premiere of a new Rational Youth track. We also had writers and photographers on the scene. Our selected festival highlights are set out below, but also look for a review by our friends at The Electricity Club, who travelled to Gothenburg to find out what it is that makes the Swedish scene so special.
There was a buzz building about Me the Tiger well before Electronic Summer. In pre-event interviews, several artists cited the Falun-based band as one they wanted to check out for themselves, and it was a promising sign that they share DAF’s management. The soaring sounds blasting through the speaker stacks at the event validated the chatter about the indietronica three-piece: Me the Tiger easily bear comparison to Crystal Castles or The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Fronted by the charismatic and confident vocalist, Gabriella Åström, Me the Tiger rock the room with power chords and synth lines kicked out by Tobias Andersson, while drummer Jonas Martinsson hammers out solidly danceable rhythms. Their set opens with “Pocket Sized Edition Ending” and “Ariana,” two energetic tracks lifted from their first, self-titled album. They are followed by “What Promises Are Worth,” the uncompromising first single from their new album, Vitriolic (Repo). It’s been a crowd favourite in their live show for a couple of years, and its slow build into an anthemic stormer gets even the jaded aggrotech warriors in the back to move their feet.
After “Headlines,” Me the Tiger completely smash it with “As We Really Are,” the stand-out track from Vitriolic. With a little push from Herr Sprick, expect this song to crash its way up the indie charts. It’s testimony to Andersson’s exceptional songwriting skills, but Åström’s nitro-fuelled delivery is also one of the highlights of the festival. They return to “All We Had” to close the set, basking in the after-glow and leaving the audience needing more.
Vitriolic is released on RepoRecords on 4 September 2015.
Official Web site: methetiger.com
Newly married and fresh from a honeymoon tour of North America with Norwegian noise merchants Årabrot, Karin Park‘s appearance at Electronic Summer is cause for excitement. It’s her first major show in Sweden since a mini-tour for the release of her fifth studio album, Apocalypse Pop, way back in March, and the crowd has missed her.
The act is named for Karin, but she’s not alone. At the back of the stage, brother David Park, clad in his usual Slayer t-shirt, knocks out rhythms and strikes MIDI triggers. On his right, the most recent addition to the team, Kine Sandbæk Jensen (Pieces of Juno), works the keyboards and provides striking backing vocals. The performance is breezily powerful; taut with a touch of wildness. It feels like someone’s been working to refine the stage show, and in doing so they’ve expanded its possibilities while relieving some of the pressure on the Park siblings – not that they work any less hard, it must be said.
The set begins with “Restless” from Park’s previous album, Highwire Poetry, before reaching back to 2009 for “Ashes.” A cover of “Everything” by Maya Jane Coles, which Park sang on in 2013, is a side-trip into deep house territory; a reminder that Park’s own material often hovers between Beatport playlists and dark poptronica. “Stick to the Lie” from the new album, Apocalypse Pop, is a test of Park’s vocal range, which she passes emphatically.
“New Era” from Highwire Poetry follows, and it’s hard to think of another current performer who invests so much genuine emotion into her songs. “Hard Liquor Man” and “Look What You’ve Done” from Apocalypse Pop raise the pressure – the former seeming to invite references to Vladimir Putin with a slight change to “Hard Little Man,” if we heard it right. “Can’t Stop Now” from Ashes to Gold is escstatic poptronica, and “Thousand Loaded Guns” from Highwire provides a thunderous conclusion.
Karin Park’s performance is primal in all the right places, and as shiny as Brigitte Helm’s robot from Metropolis in others. It bears noting that the new album features writing contributions from Jim Eliot, who co-wrote most of Ellie Goulding’s Halcyon album and has provided songs for Olly Murs, Will Young, Ladyhawke and Kylie Minogue. Other contributors to Apocalypse Pop include Dan Brown, who has worked with Massive Attack, The The and Mark Stewart, and Dave McCracken, who is responsible for much of Ian Brown’s solo output and has recorded with Depeche Mode. The songwriting team behind Park is talented, but standing in front of a thousand Swedes it is her voice that makes hearts pause. It is her face that makes the lenses turn in sync. It is her pain that cuts through the air. And it is her smile that rises with the house lights, as if to say, “We made it.”
Psyche arrive at Electronic Summer to mark the thirtieth anniversary of their influential first album, Insomnia Theatre. Tragically, shortly before the festival, news emerged of the death of one of the band’s founders, keyboardist and composer Stephen Huss. Although Huss had been prevented by health issues from performing with the band for many years, he had left a legacy of pioneering dark wave songs, and the shows quickly become a celebration of Psyche’s roots. Singer Darrin Huss and keyboardist Stefan Rabura have reworked a number of early tracks and added additional classics to their sets, which gives their performances an air of both respect and renewal.
The godfathers of dark wave, Psyche were one of Canada’s original synth acts. Inspired by the pantomime and politics of Fad Gadget, as well as the gothic influences of the UK post-punk scene, they sang about the consequences of teenage experimentation (“The Brain Collapses”), made suits from shaving foam and wrote soundtracks for imaginary horror films (“Eating Violins”). By the time they escaped Edmonton and started recording Insomnia Theatre, early keyboardist Dwayne Goettel had departed, leaving the Huss brothers as a duo.
Insomnia Theatre was the first step in a path that took Psyche to Europe, where their darker style was embraced by the alternative music scene. New Rose, a French label, licensed the album and released two more, which showed off the band’s ability to command the dancefloor. “Unveiling the Secret,” “Thundershowers,” “The Saint Became a Lush” and “Eternal” rapidly became electro classics and Psyche’s roots in the European scene grew deeper. More recordings followed, with labels and line-ups changing as business and personal circumstances moved on, and Stephen Huss’ retirement left brother Darrin to carry on the Psyche tradition.
The first of two Psyche shows at Electronic Summer draws on older material, starting with “Unbreakable” from 2001’s “Sanctuary” EP. “The Brain Collapses” rouses the crowd to sing along, a sea of hands reaching out towards Huss and Rabura. A series of other tracks written with Stephen Huss follow, including “The Saint Became a Lush,” “Eternal,” “Angel Lies Sleeping,” “Uncivilized” and “The Outsider.” Darrin Huss’ voice has the strength of a male Shirley Bassey, and he uses it to full effect on a set that ends with “Unveiling the Secret” and “Gods and Monsters.”
A secret show, held at the outdoor stage named after Psyche’s “The Outsider,” follows on the second day of the festival. An enthusiastic crowd, still buoyant from the previous day’s proceedings, cheers on “The Crawler,” “Mr. Eyeball Ooze,” “Krieg” (a track written by the Huss brothers with Dwayne Goettel in the band’s early days), “Thundershowers,” “Taking Chances” and “Insatiable.” The Swedish audience show their appreciation for the Psyche songbook by packing the stage area and singing along to even the lesser-known tracks. It’s all over too quickly, but it’s clear that the DNA of these songs can be traced into many of the other acts performing at the festival.
Official Psyche Web site: psyche-hq.de
There was a time when Depeche Mode were adopted by left-leaning music journalists for their critical lyrics and Soviet-/Maoist-influenced graphics. That culminated with the release of Construction Time Again and the single, “Everything Counts,” in 1983, but more sensitive semioticians had already registered the symbolism of A Broken Frame the previous year. Brian Griffin’s striking cover photograph for the album showed a peasant working in a field with a sickle; Martyn Atkins’ graphics followed the theme with wheat-sheaf and sickle symbols; and Martin Gore’s lyrics for “The Sun and the Rainfall” seemed to channel the anti-Thatcher mood of UK youth with the repeated line, “Things must change!”
If the music press had high hopes for Depeche Mode’s political direction at the time of A Broken Frame, they were less impressed by their musical turn. Following the departure of Vince Clarke, who had penned most of the songs on their chart-baiting debut, Speak & Spell, the band had struggled to come up with equally commercial material. A couple of singles, “See You” and “The Meaning of Love,” rode the momentum generated by their early hits and hinted at Martin Gore’s emergence as a songwriter, but A Broken Frame was a transitional release, showing the band at its most experimental. With time, the band came to turn their back on the album, dropping even the singles from live shows. Looking back, Dave Gahan called it the band’s “weakest album by far.”
Many fans had a less harsh assessment of A Broken Frame, appreciating its off-beat but clever, purely synthesized, songs. While “Leave in Silence” was a peculiarly doom-laced song for a 12″ single, which couldn’t really be danced to comfortably, it fit with the darker musical atmosphere prevailing in 1982. Other songs, such as the instrumental “Nothing to Fear” or the moody “My Secret Garden,” were magnificent departures from the twee synthpop sounds that had dominated the charts a year earlier. The closing track, “The Sun and the Rainfall,” despite its critical-realist lyrics, was invested with as much optimism as could be wrung from a PPG Wave.
The gap between Depeche Mode’s assessment of the album and their fans’ enthusiasm has only recently been bridged by Marsheaux. The Athens-based band caused some controversy when it released a track-for-track cover of A Broken Frame on the Undo label, earlier this year. Dissenters grumbled about the potential similarity in styles, but Marsheaux’s interpretations turned out to be respectful and thoughtful. While the production of the original songs had disappointed Depeche Mode, they hadn’t revisited them. It was left to Marsheaux to deconstruct and reimagine the tracks, which they did true to the poptronica style developed over their previous four albums.
The genius of the project is revealed most fully in a live setting. Depeche Mode are never going to play “My Secret Garden” for their current audience, but fans who know the songs want to hear them played at high volume. The crowd at Electronic Summer is one of the best informed, so they know all of the tracks and have taken Marsheaux’s versions to heart. The Greeks oblige with performances of “My Secret Garden,” “The Sun and the Rainfall,” “Monument” and “Leave in Silence,” interwoven with Marsheaux originals, “Exit,” “To the End,” “Can You Stop Me?,” “Hanging On,” “Dream of a Disco,” “Breakthrough” and “Inhale.”
At the front of the stage, singers Marianthi Melitsi and Sophia Sarigiannidou manipulate microKORG keyboards and show off their vocals, while men in wolf heads work on the live mix. A video projection runs behind them, but all eyes are on Marianthi and Sophia and all ears are tuned to what Andy McCluskey of OMD called the duo’s “wispy, melancholic charm.” On “The Sun and the Rainfall,” Sophia’s breathy vocals transform the song into something more sophisticated than the original. Things must change, certainly, and sometimes they come out better for it.
Through the post comes a four-track 7″ single that plays at 33 1/3 rpm. On it are tracks recorded at The Bombshelter, the studio set up in St. Catharines, Canada by Andreas Gregor and Dave Rout (ex-Rational Youth). Each track is supplied by a different band with which Gregor or Rout has been involved. Techniques Berlin involved both of them, and so they put forward “And You” – the first time that the track has been released anywhere. Methods of Dance, one of Rout’s projects, offers “Dancing in Berlin,” recorded in 1986 and held in the vaults until now. The Beautiful Spies, the duo of Rout and Dina Naskos, are represented by “Bright Light” from their album, Just Fascination. Agents in Infrared, Gregor’s current project, weigh in with “Asleep from Years,” lifted from last year’s album, Tomorrow’s World.
The package is a carefully-assembled set of stunning minimal wave poptronica. As the needle vibrates in the groove, crisp snares and bubbling bass lines reveal the lineage of the current projects coming from The Bombshelter. The ordering information tells us that The Future Past EP is “ready for mail order. Numbered edition of 300 copies. $10 for the EP. Shipping and Handling: $4.50 for Canada, $6.00 for the US and $11.00 for the rest of the world. Paypal: dark.retro@gmail.com.”