This week saw the release of Russia’s ElectroPop/Dreamwave heroes Tesla Boy’s new single ‘Thinking Of You’, the second from their début album ‘Modern Thrills’.
We’ve been following Tesla Boy’s career for a while as, frankly, they are making some of the best SynthPop on the planet right now, and it’s good to see them with proper releases and proper videos (thanks to Mullett Records) ‘cos they really are a band that suits videos.
The prime example of that is the video for ‘Thinking Of You’ which was directed by Yoram Benz.
The single also features reMixes from Baxter, MAM and Casio Social Club but it’s the original version that is the real standout for me it’s a super slick melting pot of SynthPop, Nu-Disco, ElectroPop and Dreamwave that contains just the right amount of each.
Well, not really round 2, it’s the same track. We premiered Kurtis Mantronik of Mantronix’s awesome reMix of HURTS’ ‘Wonderful Life’ yesterday, and now we’ve had the go ahead to offer it to you lot as a download!
Read what we said about it here, and download it right here.
If you’ve been living under a musical and social awareness rock for the last six months, the PEACE project is an album containing over 150 brand new songs by artists from over 50 different countries. Check some of our previous posts (above) for the track listing. Suffice to say it’s a fantastic album which you can choose pay between €5 and €25 for with the collected money helping Amnesty International’s investigation and action campaigns aimed at preventing cases of Human Rights abuses around the world.
You have until 12th July to get your copy!
Five new tracks have been added to the album, specially recorded new songs by five well knows artists, including this cover of The Beatles ‘Hello, Goodbye’ by Swedish SynthPop songstress Sally Shapiro who makes the track fun, fun, fun!
Yesterday saw LexiconDon wrap up recording of their début long player. To celebrate the occasion they, and the good folks at Binary, are giving you a sneak peek at a new track.
‘December Sunset’ is a smoother and slicker song than we’ve heard from LexiconDon in the past and shows a maturing of their songwriting prowess. The guys have always seemed to write about everyday lives and loves rather than grand concepts and this track feels like the most genuine thing they’ve done to date. The music too, feels, somehow, more intimate and honest. Less distorted synths, more melody. SynthPop at it’s finest.
I’m sure the album will probably feature more of the raw, almost punky, Electro LexiconDon we are used to but if this is the way the band are evolving, the album could really be something special.
After months of teasing, studio videos and descriptions of what to expect we can finally wrap out ears round the first cut from Chromeo’s eagerly anticipated new album!
The first single from the bands forthcoming third album, ‘Business Casual’ is ‘Don’t Turn The Lights On’ and it’s just what we wanted from Chromeo. Smooth, sexy Electro with more than it’s fair share of Funk the track perfectly displays the fact that P-Thugg and Dave 1 have lost absolutely none of their skillz.
We first broke the news of a new Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark album last December with the demo version of new song ‘Sister Marie Says’. Now we have a brief chance to hear some more of what we can expect for the forthcoming ‘The History Of Modern’ in the form of this teaser that had been premiered by OMD.
Here a little of the new album and Andy McCluskey speaking about how it will sound.
‘The History Of Modern’ is slated to be released later this year.
Robots With Rayguns is Lucas Patrick Smith, a 80’s influenced dancey ElectroPop producer who has gained quite a few blog inches for himself in recent months with his awesome reMixes of Lady GaGa, Chromeo and NightWaves.
His latest output is ‘Sugarbaby’, an storming piece of retro Electro, skilfully straddling the line between ElectroPop and Nu-Disco, it’s like a poppier Grum (if you can imagine that!). TSTR provide a high octane Dreamwave mix that rocks it’s way through numerous 80’s musical references.
Last Saturday London’s awesome stargazing SynthPop act Monarchy, usually men shrouded in mystery, made a rare, and their début, live appearance.
And where was this gig? You might ask. Well, fittingly for the band it pretty much took place in space. Performed at the NASA Planetarium at Cape Canaveral, Florida in from of 20 witnesses the show gained the band the honour of being the first band to broadcast live into space!
Check the trailer below, it looks like it would have been quite an experience to attend. Monarchy are promising more video soon.
At least if there is life out there we’ve got our musical ambassadorship covered.
Also just premiered is the video for their forthcoming new single ‘Love Get Out Of My Way’ spanning a cosmic Disco fantasyland. Lots of space-ballet, a space-unicorn, a space-pillar and possibly a space-love story, can’t quite tell. Looks nice though!
‘Love Get Out Of My Way’ drops very soon with reMixes from Holy Ghost!, Sinden, and Treasure Fingers amongst others.
Jonteknik is an electronic Pop act based in Brighton, UK, who got in touch with us a while back and is long over due a featured post!
With quite a prolific career spanning back to 1988 when he discovered Kraftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre. Since his first release in 1994 Jonteknik has amassed an impressive list of conspirators including Pascal Gabriel (who has produced everyone from Erasure, New Order, S’Express, Kylie and Dido to Miss Kittin, Ladyhawke, Little Boots and Marina And The Diamonds), Claudia Brücken of Propaganda and both Claudia and OMD’s Paul Humphreys on their OneTwo project.
His music owes a lot to Kraftwerk. Robotic beats and synthetic melodies, often arpeggiated, sit alongside otherworldly pads to create a futuristic dystopian soundtrack but, on his album of last year ‘Sounds From The Electronic Garden’, it’s the collaborations with featured vocalists that Jonteknik really shines. With proper vocals his tracks become RoboPop gems, the cold, mechanical, music suddenly becoming warm and emotive, and even catchy.
Not that their is anything wrong with android electro, it’s our bread and butter, but dancing ‘round your room in a shiny silver jumpsuit is so much more fun with lyrics and Jonteknik’s crisp production (which would rival the German robots themselves!) screams out to be sung along to.
This year he has teamed up with vocalist Martin Philip to release a pair of singles, ‘Omnidirectional’ and ‘Pride In Your Pocket’, both tracks are vocoder laden ElectroPop tracks that lean more toward the Mute side of the genre. Intricate rhythms and synthesizer lines wind in and out of each other to provide backing for Martin’s classic SynthPop vocals.
Well obviously, not all on their own, but they are one of a small handful of bands that, in the early 80’s, propelled electronic music (in a Pop format) into the UK charts and from there, throughout the world. Sure, there were pioneering electronic musicians who came before, the likes of Wendy Carlos then Giorgio Moroder followed by Daniel Miller’s lot and Kraftwerk, but they were viewed as experimental or avant-garde. Gary Numan’s happy accident aside, it took Heaven 17, The Human League and OMD to capture the nation’s hearts, minds, ears and feet and forever put the synthesizer at the centre of British Pop music.
The day that Martyn Ware and Ian Marsh parted company with (the then art-house) The Human League, Martyn was on the phone to Glenn Gregory, frontman in-waiting, and the rest is SynthPop history. Now, three decades years later, the band are celebrating the 30th anniversary of the release of their seminal, influential and highly critically acclaimed début album ‘Penthouse And Pavement’. Having already performed (for the first time) the whole album and produced an accompanying documentary detailing their history and the making of the album, both broadcast by the BBC, the guys are gearing up to take their ‘Penthouse And Pavement’ show on the road and release a special edition of the album.
Heaven 17 are busy right now, with radio, TV and live appearances almost weekly, so we are lucky that Glenn Gregory, the face of Heaven 17, took some time to fill the readers of electronic rumors in on all things ‘Penthouse And Pavement’:
ER: As you are celebrating the 30th anniversary of ‘Penthouse And Pavement’, how do you feel about those songs now? Could you ever have conceived of how acclaimed and, indeed, influential that album would turn out to be three decades later?
GG: I think ‘Penthouse And Pavement’ is the definitive Heaven 17 Album even though The Luxury Gap had more ‘hits’ P&P is the soul of Heaven 17. It was such an exciting album to make, the whole process of writing and recording at the same time and in the same studio as The Human League added a magical dimension to both albums. There was a lot to prove from both bands and I’m pleased to say 30 years later it seems we all did it. We produced a new exciting record that has stood the test of time. I honestly believe it sounds as fresh and new as it did the day it was made.
ER: When you went into the studio to begin with did you have a vision for Heaven 17? Did Martyn have things he wanted to do that he couldn’t have done in The Human League? Or did the Heaven 17 ‘sound’ just evolve
GG: We knew we wanted to be different from The Human League, even the new The Human League knew they needed to sound different… but it wasn’t something that was forced, we just started to write. There was so much energy around us at that moment in time, the whole split thing had electrified everyone involved and ideas were just flooding out. ‘Fascist Groove Thang’ was completed in about ten days and the direction of the album was pretty much sealed after that track. Martyn had the idea to have a bass guitar solo in the middle of the song (heaven knows why he thought of that) it was inspired… it led us to finding John Wilson which in turn led us to the key that unlocked the door to the new direction that we would take to finish the rest of the album. It was a really exciting period and I think you can get feeling that from the tracks on ‘P&P’.
ER: The BBC’s ban on ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’ seems odd as it is an anti-fascist anthem? Did they have a blanket ban on political songs at the time or did you feel singled out (or that they didn’t understand the meaning of the song)?
GG: It was a such a knock back for us to have the BBC refuse to play the track… the song meant a lot to us lyrically and to have had such success in the press and with fans we thought everyone had got the plot… but no, for a reason I still don’t really understand the BBC radio stations refused to play it… I believe there are still some BBC local stations that won’t play the track!
ER: Do you regret not touring with ‘Penthouse And Pavement’ first time around? What was the reasons for not really gigging these songs?
GG: I have no regrets . We didn’t play live for a few reasons… The League had toured for the previous 2 years and lost money. Martyn and Ian wanted to concentrate on B.E.F. and MTV had just started and we decided that that was a much more modern way of reaching an audience. Also we now have the added bonus of really enjoying playing live now and not feeling like it’s something we have to do… it’s new, exciting and we love it.
ER: How did the BBC television performance of ‘Penthouse And Pavement’ in Sheffield, and it’s sister documentary on the making of the album (amazing TV, by the way!) come about? Were you going to make the documentary anyway or did the BBC ask you to do it?
GG: It was our idea to make the documentary the BBC only became involved at the very end, they had heard that we were almost finished and asked if they could show both the doc and the gig. It worked out very well.
James Strong the director have done a lot of work together and had talked about telling the story of the beginning of Heaven 17 for some time and when we decided to play ‘P&P’ live for the very first time it was the perfect time to do it.
ER: We can’t really mention the documentary without speaking about Phil Oakey’s appearance and both his and Martyn’s acceptance that it was record label and Bob Last’s involvement that led to their split. Did you ask Phil to talk about this or did he just open up about it and had they both come to the same conclusions separately?
GG: It was something that kind of evolved as the film was being made… Martyn talked about the split and voiced his opinions and when Phil agreed to chat to us we just had to ask him the question (it wasn’t staged) Phil gave the same answer… so then we just had to contact Bob Last and get him in the film, which we did (without telling him the reason) and eventually he did finally admit that he did pretty much engineer the split of the band. It was the first time in 30 years this question had been asked and indeed answered.
ER: From your point of view, had Martyn never parted company with The Human League, what would Glenn Gregory be doing now?
GG: Don’t know really. I suppose I might still be taking pictures. Or running a small café in Cornwall on a surfing beach, or accepting my 3rd Oscar for best actor… or a….. blah blah blah
ER: You were recoding in the same studio as The Human League, I’ve heard you both heard snippets of the other’s work, were you trying to hide your ‘trade secrets’ from Phil and the gang at the time?
GG: It was fun really, Martyn and Phil were not really speaking but it didn’t stop a bit of industrial espionage from both parties… we did get to hear what they were doing and I’m sure they were getting a sneaky listen to how we were getting on.
ER: Speaking of studios, what’s in Heaven 17’s studio these days? Are you using many soft synths or is it still all about the big analog synths?
GG: I’m all soft synths but Martyn is both. He has lots of the original synths and still uses them. I don’t have the space and I like my studio to be sparse.
ER: Do you prefer the raw, hands on nature of analogy synths and tape based recording or the convenience and quality of a modern digital studio?
GG: We have always been at the forefront of recording techniques we have always been modernists… that wont change.
ER: ElectroPop has made something of a resurgence in recent years, is there any of the new crop of electronic Pop artists you rate?
GG: La Roux, MGMT, The Faint, Chromeo and electrono
ER: Earlier in the year you performed with La Roux at Maida Vale for BBC 6 Music. How did that come about? Did you pick them or did they pick you?
GG: It was put together by the BBC 6 team really and didn’t they do well…
ER: It was awesome!
GG: It was a great success I loved performing with Elly and Ben Langmaid is a really great guy and a great producer. She is a star and she’s the real deal, I along with my 7 year old boy am a fan.
ER: It seemed fun, both you and Elly were grinning the whole way through and she did really well on ‘Temptation’, which must be hard. Were you pleased with the end result?
GG: She did really well with Temptation… it’s not easy. She pulled out all the stops for the performance it was an honour to sing with her.
ER: Going back a couple of years, you and Martyn released ‘Naked As Advertised (Versions ’08)’, what made you want to rework those older songs? Was it unhappiness with the older recordings or just an experiment?
GG: We just wanted to put down some of the versions of tracks that we had been playing live. It was never a case of wanting to improve on old tracks we just thought it would be a nice idea to let people hear how we had changed some tracks for our live work… it was going to be the first in a kind of oddities and rarities edition… we may do more.
ER: What can we expect from the special edition anniversary edition of Penthouse And Pavement?
GG: Lots of good stuff…
ER: Is there and current artists you’d like to see remixing your songs?
GG: Not really
ER: And beyond that, is there a new studio album in the pipeline?
GG: We are starting to have a tinker and talk about it …. But do people really want a new album?
ER: Are Heaven 17 more of cereal or full English breakfast kinda’ guys? Would you answer change the morning after a show?
GG: Well on the German tour a couple of months ago I only made it down to breakfast once… but I think the rest of the band ate well. A slice of toast and a cup of tea will do for me ta.
ER: Cheers Glenn! Many thanks for speaking with us!
♫ Heaven 17 – Play To Win
The ‘30th anniversary ‘Penthouse And Pavement’ tour’ takes in the following cities:
22nd Nov – Edinburgh @ Edinburgh Picture House
23rd Nov – Glasgow @ Glasgow ABC
25th Nov – Manchester @ Manchester Ritz
26th Nov – Birmingham @ Birmingham Institute
28th Nov – London @ London Forum
29th Nov – Oxford – Oxford Academy
30th Nov – Brighton @ Brighton Corn Exchange
01st Dec – Bristol @ Bristol Academy
Tickets available from www.seetickets.com (Ticket Hotline: 08700 603 777), check www.heaven17.com for more details and keep an eye out for news of the special 30th anniversary reissue of ‘Penthouse And Pavement’, full of extras!
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