a ramble through some electronic music

I suppose, to be strictly accurate, that ALL music that appears on CD, or on magnetic tape, or even on old fashioned phonographic records is electronic in some form. The grooves on a gramophone record aren't smooth or even, there are minute textures that are registered by the movement of the stylus and these textures are then, electronically, translated back into audible sound. Likewise recording onto tape creates fluctuations in the magnetic field strength and these fluctuations can be converted, electronically, back into sound. 

Now, in the digital age, actual sound is sampled and converted into discrete binary numbers or pure data, the faster the sample rate, the higher the recording quality. It doesn't get more electronic than this.

But what I'm really talking about is music created by electronic means, not by striking a piano key, or hitting a snare drum or strumming a guitar string. The word synthesizer is often used as an umbrella to describe various electronic keyboards and gizmos, but synthesizers really just manipulate other sounds, and rarely create their own.

Brian Eno used a VCS3 on the early Roxy Music records. It was simply a box, carried in a medium sized suitcase that could change and distort any imput signal. Usually Phil Manzanera's guitar was fed into the VCS3 for Eno to play with. Frequently the guitar sound that emanated would be backwards, or treated to sound like a crashing plane. In the same way Andy Mackay's saxophone mic would be fed through Eno's synth to create the most other worldly sounds. The VCS3 had no keyboard and thus could not be 'played' as an instrument in it's own right, instead Eno had a series of knobs to twiddle to affect the sounds and would have to frantically switch the leads over when he wanted to switch from guitar to sax and from there to electric piano. One reviewer memorably compared him to a crazed telephone operator. 

Of course at the same time synths were being created that did have their own keyboards or joysticks, meaning that analogue input wasn't always needed. Bob Moog set his tonal manipulators into smart wooden surrounds creating a keyboard that was more akin to a piece of furniture. At least it was fully electronic. Mellotrons, a mainstay of prog rock from the mid sixties onwards relied on samples of sound recorded onto short loops of tape, which could then be played in the same way as a conventional keyboard. The sustained strings sounds thus created were usually beautiful, but Mellotrons were liable to drift out of tune due to fluctuations in the power supply, or tapes that frequently stretched. Robert Fripp coined a number of helpful maxims for the various members of King Crimson, one of which runs simply 'Tuning a Mellotron doesn't.' 

By the mid 1970s synths were portable enough, easier to control and genuinely play, and were capable of creating a huge variety of realistically musical sounds. Rock bands were generally wary of such new fangled devices, usually adopting the attitude that if you couldn't play guitar like Clapton, or drum like Bonham then you couldn't possibly be a 'real' musician. Even Pete Townshend was viewed with suspicion when he incorporated arpegiated synths into "Won't Get Fooled Again". Later in the mid 1970s Queen famously stated that their albums did not feature synthesiz, as if this was something to be admired.

So those who played electronic music started on the fringes. German bands loved the technological aspects of synths and fully utilised the wide range of sounds to found. Tangerine Dream initially created cosmic journies to the outer galaxies, before gradually switching to gently warm and inviting synth pop; NEU!, Cluster and Harmonia emphasized the rhythmic capabilities of the early percussion programmes, building complex melodies around an unwavering mechanised beat, and Kraftwerk took both aspects to create perhaps the most carefully crafted, ultra precise music ever heard, but somehow they were able to avoid their music sounding clinical and imbued it with a warmth and humanity that many other bands would struggle to achieve. For all their Man Machine pretensions the secret of Kraftwerk's success lay in the fact that the men fully controlled the machines. And men could make mistakes. And, for that matter, the machines were not 100% reliable either. These analogue machines had moving parts, valves, transistors, elements which could wear out, switches that could break or overheat, circuit boards that would change their performance depending on the humidity of the room, sounds that would fluctuate depending on the reliability of the electricity supply around the world. This was not cold, clinical unvarying music at all. The sounds created by the early synth musicians has all the vagaries of 'real' music, and thus it contains a genuine warmth and an emotional punch that later digital music cannot possess.

In the mid 1970s Brian Eno experimented with tape loops. He played a simple rising and falling motif on a keyboard and recorded on tape loops of varying length. When the loops were played back simultaneously, but at different speeds, the overlapping notes created a hypnotically calming effect. Eno would set this up and let it play for hours while he read, and then he decided to record a snapshot of this potentially endless music. Half an hour was released as Discreet Music in 1976. But what could have been very calculated and clinical is nothing of the sort, and perhaps surprisingly the whole piece has a strong emotional core. This is all down to movement. The tape loops physically move, and none can be absolutely precise. The combination of sounds they generate pushes the air around and this is captured on yet more tape, before being physically carved onto vinyl. Another potentially variable movement occurs when you play the record. This actual genuine movement surely contributes to what moves the listener emotionally. A digital version of this wouldn't have the same impact. In fact Eno once tried to digitally recreate Discreet Music. And he failed miserably. There was no way to recreate the effects of various tapes at different unstable speeds and pitches. The digital version wanted to correct all the wobbles and unevenness, although it's exactly these imperfections which that give the original it's power.

The differences between analogue and digital are clearly demonstrated by Jean-Michel Jarre. His pioneering albums Oxygene and Equinox are fabulous, with a warm buzzy sound to the analogue synths that is missing from most synth music once digital becomes the norm. By 1983 he'd converted to digital and sure enough all the warmth has gone. Zoolook still contains some cool tunes but it relies too heavily on technology which doesn't have the heart and soul of the old valve driven Moogs and ARPs that powered Oxygene.

One of the main problems with digital music is that it is generally so unwavering that it quickly becomes repetitive. Back in 1975 Brian Eno came up with some helpful aphorisms to overcome creative blocks. One of the most famous of these Oblique Strategies reads - "Repetition is a form of change". But this was coined before unwavering digital repetition which allows for no change at all. Repetition is only a form of change where there is a human and therefore unstable element in the equation. Which is why Kraftwerk continue to have such a large involvement in the controlling of their concerts. They don't simply turn up and press 'play' on their laptops; each concert is actually quite different as the four members take a very strong control over the programmes and samples that go to make up their music. And stuff often goes wrong. Without the human element the show would be very flat.

These sorts of problems are being recognised and there is a gradual movement back to analogue synths and moving part technology. Actually recording the music digitally is fine and allows for all sorts of improvements in storage and transfer, but it's become widely accepted that creating music digitally can lead to dullness and a cold unfriendly end result. Many synths are starting to have random elements built in, to replicate at least some of the variables of using tape. This is surely a good thing. Our human ears are not machines and our brains can cope with sounds that are not absolutely perfect. In fact our brains make the tinye adjustments needed to compensate for a dropped beat or a slightly out of tune note. If the music is so perfect, with little or no human variation then our brains actually switch off, as there is nothing for them to do. What ought to be active listening becomes something passive and therefore a fairly pointless exercise.

Music exists to played, not repeated by a machine. Music is something that humans have created, something that inspires us and moves us and involves us. Music needs to played by people - it doesn't matter what instruments are used, or whether it's a triangle or a violin or a complex synthesizer, what matters is the human involvement and the physical movement of the sound through the air molecules. That is music.

To perhaps a lesser degree the same applies to Kraftwerk. The sequencers and buzzes of The Man Machine album give it an organic, rich feel, but the Boings and Tschaks of Electric Cafe, fun and brilliantly constructed though they are, are much colder and less welcoming. It's only with very recent advances in technology that digital synths can give off that much needed warmer feel. But digital still can't give you that actual physical movement of sound created by moving parts in the machinery and the stylus scratching away at the vinyl... 

lou reed - take no prisoners

In early 1977 Lou Reed witnessed a demonstration of a recording technique called Stereo Binaural, in which two microphones are used, arranged to create the same sort of 3D effect that your ears send to your brain. To facilitate this, the microphones were frequently placed above the ears of a dummy head. The result is a stunningly immediate sound which gives the impression that the listener is right in the middle of the action. As the full effect could only really be appreciated on headphones the technique was never of much interest beyond a small number of sound engineers, though today, with the ubiquitous use of headphones on iPods and the like, it's surprising that this method of recording hasn't had a resurgence. 

Lou Reed had always shown a strong interest in cutting edge sound and decided to experiment with the Stereo Binaural technique. He cut his new album Street Hassle at a small club in West Germany. The bemused audience were confronted with microphones everywhere and a set of almost entirely new songs, some of which were played a number of times to ensure a good recording. Their sporadic applause was carefully edited out and for many years no-one realised the Street Hassle was actually a live album. Some of these tracks such as “Leave Me Alone”, "Dirt" and the scabrously insulting, but subversively funny “I Wanna Be Black” had been knocking around for a few years, but once the live recordings had been overdubbed and and manipulated they changed enormously from the basic tracks that the German crowd would have heard. The weirdest of the lot was the totally out there version of “Real Good Time Together” which took just the throbbing guitar part as the basis for the whole song. Lou's wavery vocals were oddly overdubbed and then without warning the full band was harshly faded in half way through the song. However, throughout all the weirdness it sounds as if Lou is having great fun. Admittedly it’s a perverse sort of fun as the songs are sometimes unpleasant, one chord dirges, with some tuneless harsh singing plonked on top. “Leave Me Alone” is especially hard to get through. But then there is the title track, the only studio cut on the album. "Street Hassle" is a song of beauty and grace and delicacy. Totally out of place amongst the grime. One of Lou's most poetic lyrics, a story from the streets, and some unusually personal lines. Later live performances would significantly lose all the stuff about how 'she took the rings right off his fingers...' which, at the time, Lou candidly said was all true.

For such an experimental album it's perhaps strange that Street Hassle was so widely praised, especially as it was released at the height of punk. Lou declared himself happy with the new recording process but decided that he'd perhaps taken the audio manipulation too far, and that for his next album he wanted to capture his live band in all their glory with as little tweaking as possible. And what a great band it was too, able to twist and turn along with Lou's random deviations and flights of fancy. Reed was very fortunate that most of his band had been with him for some years and all were well honed in coping with any of Lou's frequent mood swings and on the hoof set changes. Lou chose his favourite New York club, the Bottom Line in the heart of Greenwich Village, to be the setting for his next record. This little club, all seated, with a capacity of only 400, also boasted an excellent sound system which pleased Lou no end.

He resumed touring in March 1978, playing a set which mixed the new Street Hassle songs, with obscurities from his back catalogue and a few Velvet Underground favourites for good measure. Fortunately a handful of these gigs from across the USA were recorded for radio broadcasts and all are equally strong shows. The band is superb following Lou's lead at every gig, stretching some songs to 20 minute epics, cutting short other tracks that aren't catching the audience's attention.

For the record the band was - 

Ellard "Moose" Boles - bass,

Marty Fogel - saxophone, 

Michael Fonfara - keyboards, 

Stuart Heinrich - guitar, vocals,

Michael Suchorsky - drums,  

with Chrissy Faith & Angela Howell on backing vocals.

Lou himself handled much of the guitarwork and also played his new discovery, a guitar synth.

The tour opened at the Bottom Line in early March 1978, but it was the shows booked there between 17th and 21st May that Lou had set up for recording. All the performances were captured on tape and the best songs were cherry picked for the double live album. The title Take No Prisoners originated at a Canadian gig early in the tour. A fan in the front row, who had perhaps overindulged, spent half the gig shouting 'Take no prisoners Lou, take no prisoners!!' over and over before he was eventually escorted from the theatre. Michael Fonfara was given the initial task of identifying the best performances - as the band was so consistent across all the gigs and the recording levels were set equally consistently for each show Fonfara proposed editing together the best bits from various performances to create the truly definitive version of each song. Everyone agreed that this would be great and the painstaking editing process was already underway before Lou changed his mind and declared that, as the original intention had been to capture the band exactly as they were on stage, he didn't want any studio trickery or clever editing after all.

As a result the ten tracks that spread across the four sides of vinyl (these are long songs, folks) consist not only of excellent musicianship, but also Lou's fast and furious stories, snappy put downs, jokes and one liners. In short there is as much talking as there is singing. Many tracks feature asides wherein Lou takes swipes at critics, club owners, fans, the audience, movies, the record business and even some of his contemporaries. (Perhaps surprisingly, even Patti Smith gets sniped at). No-one is safe from Lou's sarcasm and barbs. But, crucially, whatever he says is actually genuinely funny. These aren't simply insults as Lou gets his own back on the critics, but a severely witty commentary on the business he's found himself part of. Respected New York critic Robert Christgau took his dig in good humour, commenting that he didn't mind Lou having a go at him on record because Lou Reed had actually pronounced his surname correctly (something that was rarely done). At times Lou's onstage digressions took over the songs entirely. "Walk On The Wild Side" for instance features the band vamping the tune while Lou explains how he came to write "Walk On The Wild Side", potted histories of the various characters in the song plus his thoughts on such varied luminaries as Andy Warhol and Diana Ross. And the whole thing is so wonderfully entertaining that you don't realise that even though it runs for nearly 17 minutes they've only got as far as the first chorus.

But some songs are played straight. "Coney Island Baby" is the most powerful rendition of this classic that I've ever heard. There's a fantastically long drawn out ending as Lou and the girls repeat the 'glory of love' refrain over and over while Marty Fogel blows up a storm on his saxophone. It's incredibly emotional and exciting, and the Stereo Binaural recording is partly the reason, as you genuinely feel like you're part of the audience that night. The immediacy of the band, the clarity of the instruments, there's a palpable presence that leaps off the turntable and grabs you. The band are capable of playing oh so quietly and then, without breaking a sweat, suddenly charging like a locomotive at full speed. Listen to the gentle and delicate piano played by Michael Fonfara at the beginning of "Berlin" and then compare to the full on guitar, sax and pounding piano of just a few minutes later at the song's conclusion. This displays an amazingly strong grasp of the dynamics of the music. Playing these songs in a small club helped - a stadium sized PA doesn't allow for this sort of dynamic range, as everything has to be Spinal Tapped up to 11. But in a club, with a small audience, you can play quietly and tenderly and everyone will still hear. The version of "Pale Blue Eyes" clearly exhibits these quiet moments - guitar synth and keyboards take most of the tune as Lou tones down his vocal accordingly. But then a track such as "Leave Me Alone" opens up the throttle and the band are simply powering along for the whole piece, with no let up whatsoever.

Apart from my favourite, "Coney Island Baby", arguably the most impressive song on the album is "Street Hassle" which manages to keep the taut, elegant beauty of the original studio cut, whilst also adding an edgy unpredictable quality. The power of the bass and the guitar synth after Lou utters the words 'you know what it's called? Baaaaadd luck', is simply stunning. 

But it's the evergreen "Sweet Jane" that perhaps encapsulates the whole album. A sharp and clever mix of caustic one liners commenting obliquely on both the audience and the song itself, mesh seamlessly with the actual lyrics and the band keeps up with every word Lou is saying or singing. At one point Lou starts free associating and comes up with the phrase 'make believe love'. Quick as a flash he turns to Fonfara, 'Hey write that down Michael, Make Believe Love, that's an album title right there...' The band doesn't blink, the beat is solid and the riffs continue. Later a heckler shouts something fairly incomprehensible about writing a review and Lou immediately snaps back, 'if you write as good as you talk then no-one reads you'. This "Sweet Jane" also kicks harder than any other version I've heard. All the musicians are on such good form.

Released in November 1978 Take No Prisoners picked some pretty good reviews, with most commenting on the power of the band and the solidity of the music just as much as they focused on Lou's chatter. Reed himself later commented that perhaps the album should have been called Lou Reed Talks And Talks And Talks and later still he expressed the opinion that perhaps they should have gone with Fonfara's original idea of editing together excerpts from various performances after all, and cutting back on the patter. The initial plan was to showcase the band and perhaps the finished album doesn't quite let them roll as much as Lou would have wanted.

Considering that six or seven complete performances were recorded it's something of a shame that, apart from one unremarkable track on a box set, nothing else from these gigs has ever been issued. It seems to me that these Bottom Line shows marked something of a highpoint in Lou's live performances and to not issue a multi disc set comprising of the whole run of gigs is missing a marvellous opportunity to bring more of this fantastic music to the masses. But that's Lou Reed, an awkward old goat, a man who'll never do what's expected, or even what's sensible, sticking to his own stubborn path regardless of what anyone says. He may not have produced a decent album for over twenty years (and last year's team up with Metallica was quite possibly the most appalling recording he's ever been involved with), but there were twenty five years when he was bloody good (1965 - 1990), and as on Take No Prisoners he was frequently superbly brilliant and pretty much untouchable. 

harold budd

Harold Budd is a Californian pianist who creates some of the most gorgeous music ever made.

He began composing in the 1960s, working on decidedly avant-garde music, but by the end of that decade his work had become ever more minimal and he was experimenting with drones. After his lengthy gong solo piece "Lirio", Budd felt that he'd painted himself into a corner and decided to retire from composition (he memorably described this as "I'd minimalised myself out of a career").

Taking up teaching Budd rediscovered his love of lyrical piano music. By 1972 he'd begun a cycle of works under the title "The Pavilion Of Dreams". Parts of this were based on resolutely old fashioned madrigals, as far from contemporary avant-garde music as could be imagined. Delighted by the innate prettiness of his new work Budd was content to move further in that direction, embracing the beauty of the music above all else. It somehow seems entirely fitting that the "Madrigals Of The Rose Angel", full of angelic female voices, harps and gentle percussion, received their debut performance in a church.  

By 1976 he'd stepped down from teaching and was recording his new compositions for Brian Eno's newly formed Obscure Records. Released in early 1978 The Pavilion Of Dreams contains four lengthy tracks, two new linked songs, the aforementioned Madrigals, a meditation for piano and (very quiet) chorus entitled "Juno" and perhaps the most impressive track in Budd's whole career, "Bismillahi 'Rrahman 'Rrahim". This is a calming, gorgeous and surprisingly emotional collaboration with jazz saxophonist Marion Brown, whose muted sax is backed by gentle vibes and distant piano flourishes. The 18 minute piece is probably the most relaxing piece of music I've ever heard. It is transfixingly beautiful and I could, quite genuinely, listen to this piece all day long.  

However, it was the more straightforwardly piano based "Juno" that really pointed the way forward. Budd's next albums were fully fledged collaborations as Budd's sparse but deeply atmospheric piano style was embellished by Brian Eno's equally sparse and atmospheric electronic backings. The Plateaux Of Mirror conjures up empty roads, wide open fields, frosty landscapes sparkling in the winter sun. Even without the stunningly evocative titles ("Wind In Lonely Fences", "Among Fields Of Crystal" etc) the music shivers in the snow and shimmers in the moonlight.

Mirror was followed by The Pearl which further refined the techniques used to create an even more delicate selection of music; at times the listener can scarcely breathe for fear of disturbing the ice covered spider webs of sound.

By the mid 1980's Budd was incorporating the fuller electronic textures of synths into his work. Occasionally this threatened to overbalance the always delicate piano work. Lovely though 1988's The White Arcades is, it's also perhaps too far from Budd's real strength of beauty through simplicity and thus the listener loses sight of Budd behind the layers of electronics.

1991's By The Dawn's Early Light found Budd collaborating with Bill Nelson who introduced subtle guitar textures. One of Budd's most overtly melancholy albums, many of the songs also feature a mournful violin, something which Budd had begun to develop on 1986's Lovely Thunder though with mixed results. Here however, the stark vistas of the Old West are conjured up as Budd draws on his childhood memories of the Mojave Desert. He would return to desert landscapes time and again in his work, and would physically move back to the edge of the Mojave during the 1990s. At the same time his love of old beat poetry found a home in a number of evocative poems recited by Budd in that dry old voice of his. They fit perfectly with the music on Early Light. A few years later and his collaboration with XTC's Andy Partridge was something of a continuation of this approach with another successful mix of minimalist guitar textures, piano and poetry.

Many of his subsequent records have been in conjunction with other artists. John Foxx played the Brian Eno role of electronics wizard on three stunning albums beginning with 2003's Translucence. Guitarist Clive Wright has recorded a series of gorgeous albums with Budd in recent years. And Robin Guthrie, the guitarist and sonic sculptor from Cocteau Twins has joined forces with Budd on a number of projects. Budd had first met Guthrie back in 1987 when they recorded The Moon And The Melodies with the rest of Cocteau Twins, but the recent work has included film soundtracks and a number of devastatingly lovely records including the linked pair from 2007 Before The Day Breaks and After The Night Falls.

Meanwhile Budd still finds time to release entirely solo records. The Room from 2000 created an album from a series of thematically linked variations of an old track from The White Arcades. 1996's Luxa successfully mixes electronics with acoustic piano to create Budd's most successful and accessible album in some years. Dripping with invention and appealingly upbeat melodies this was in many critics' top ten of the year. On a more sparse note, in 2003 Daniel Lanois surreptitiously set the tapes rolling without Budd realising as he improvised at the piano in his living room. The result was the delightful La Bella Vista - simple melodies, unencumbered by any production techniques, this was pure Harold Budd.  

A similarly improvised work was 2007's Perhaps, released only as a download via David Sylvian's Samhadi Sound label. The link with Sylvian had been made a couple of years before with the 2004 release of Avalon Sutra. This record, which mixed beautifully understated strings and woodwinds with some of Budd's most romantically lyrical piano work in years, was billed as Budd's last ever recording. When asked why, Budd simply replied that he felt he'd done enough and was quite happy to disappear back to the desert. There was a lull for perhaps a year, but since 2005 more than a dozen albums have been issued bearing his name. Far from disappearing into retirement, Harold Budd seems much busier than ever before.

He later relected on his spectacular failure to retire - "It was a time in my life when things weren't just falling together for me... I was sincere about it but if I had been more conscious of my real feelings I would've seen that it was a preposterous thing to do. I was living alone in the desert and had been for too long, really, and it's probably a version of self-pity, I'm sorry to say, to have publicly said something like that. But there it is, I said it, turns out I wasn't telling the truth - I didn't know it at the time."

Now in his mid 70's Harold Budd is still issuing an astonishing three or four records each year, and he shows no sign of stopping. His latest solo album In The Mist combines some of his sparsest piano work yet with some beautiful vignettes arranged for a string ensemble. In creating a totality of mood the silences between the tracks are as important as the music. Indeed at times the music seems to exist only at the very limits of human hearing. It's another record that has me holding my breath as I don't want even the slightest extraneous sound to disturb the fragility of the playing. 

There's a certain quality present in all of Budd's work - that of delicate beauty, infused with just a tinge of sadness. It makes you think of deserts, fields, long dusty roads, the Wild West, vast empty plains and solitary figures. His music conjures up feelings of things just remembered - people, events and especially places that exist on the edge of your memory. Memories that are dormant most of the time but are awakened, just a little, by Budd's evocative piano playing. No-one else plays like him, no-one else creates quite this sort of music.

I added up all the tracks on my iPod and I was a little surprised to discover that I have 24 hours worth of Budd's music. A whole day. I do occasionally wonder if I really need another Harold Budd album. After all doesn't one gentle piano abstraction sound much like another? Well, yes, sometimes they do. But when music is this lovely, and the outside world is in such a state, it seems churlish to turn down the opportunity of allowing a little more beauty and light and hope into your life. If only more people listened to Harold Budd's music, for even a few minutes, let alone a whole day, then the world might be a considerably calmer and happier place. 

black

iPod shuffling can come up with all sorts of almost forgotten songs. Today I heard "Ravel In The Rain" from the first album by Black.

Black was a vehicle for singer / songwriter Colin Vearncombe who possesses a fabulous voice. At times he sounds like 60s Scott Walker, especially on the louder numbers, at others he's more like Paul Buchanan from The Blue Nile in that he effortlessly conveys emotion and passion in his occasionally tremulous voice. It really is a superb instrument.

Most people only remember "Wonderful Life", which although a fine song has probably become a bit of a millstone for him (although I'm sure the royalties are welcome). Sadly, many of the songs on his first two albums - Wonderful Life (1987), and Comedy (1988) are seriously hampered by some terribly cheap production. Although history hasn't been kind to 1980s production techniques I can remember thinking at the time that these albums contained some very cool songs buried under the tinny drum machines and horridly trebly and shrill keyboards. Comedy must have had a slightly bigger budget as a real drummer was employed, but most of these songs could have done with a real string section instead of a cheap keyboard version, and many could have been improved if a small jazz band had been pressed into service. I can't help thinking that the sort of sound achieved by Mark Ronson on the Amy Winehouse albums would have been ideal here, but no - it's weedy digital keyboards pretending to be a full band instead.

So it's to the songs' real credit that that they sound so good in spite of the truly terrible production. And frequently it's the most understated songs which really shine - "Ravel In The Rain" has a lovely loping piano, a jazzy rimshot drum sound and a delightfully sad melody. But, easily the best, is "The Sweetest Smile" with it's wonderfully self pitying lyrics - "so I sit on the floor / with my head in my hands". This track isn't overdone and conjures up smoky late night bars full of sad and lonely people who've all been unlucky in love. The gentle backing vocals and the soft shuffling rhythm are perfect, but the icing on the cake is yet another bit of proof to my theory that almost any sad song can be improved enormously with the addition of an oboe or soprano sax. Here the mournful sax recalls the best of Andy Mackay's quality contributions to many Roxy Music songs and it transforms "The Sweetest Smile" into one of the best songs of the 1980s.

I lost touch with Vearncombe after Comedy, but I've heard that he's still going strong and continues to create excellent music. Might have to check it out...

zombie birdhouse - iggy pop

By early 1982 Iggy Pop’s commercial stock had sunk so low that he was without a record deal. His last album Party had been another smash flop despite the record label investing heavily in a last ditch attempt to sweeten Iggy’s sound. Unsurprisingly, grafting a chirpy horn section onto Iggy’s low-life tales of groupies and drugs failed miserably and Arista promptly dropped him. As his recent record sales were poor at best, touring had been his only viable source of regular income. But with no record company to bankroll gigs, Iggy’s funds dried up very quickly. By 1982 he had assumed responsibility for his eleven-year-old son Eric who was dividing his time between Iggy’s small apartment in an Italian area of Manhattan and a relatively expensive private school.

In the spring of 1982 Iggy knuckled down to writing a bunch of new songs with his guitarist Rob Duprey. Most of the tunes came from Duprey’s left-field homemade experiments. These instrumental fragments would be twisted and poked and prodded into something approaching a song for Iggy to finish. Iggy wanted the new music to show him in the best possible light and later commented, ‘I felt that, particularly on my last two albums, I was losing the articulation of what I wanted to be saying.’ With sparse backing tracks many of these songs would stand or fall on their lyrics and top line melodies. Fortunately these were some of the strongest Iggy had written in years.

In late 1981 Blondie’s Chris Stein had set up Animal Records to release low-key albums by underground New York artists. As soon as the company was formed Clem Burke (Blondie’s drummer, but touring with Iggy at the time) suggested signing Iggy. When Iggy was dropped by Arista Stein jumped in, telling Iggy, ‘I’d like to record you. It’s a rumour now anyway, we might as well go ahead.’ Keen to record Duprey’s quirky songs, but desperate to avoid the major label hassles he’d had with Arista, Iggy was delighted to sign with Animal for a one-off album deal. The recording process became a family affair in order to keep the costs low – Stein played occasional bass and produced the album, Clem Burke played drums and Rob Duprey is credited with ‘all else.’ From the two weeks of sessions in June 1982 at Blank Tapes studio in New York, to the final production of the record, the costs were kept to a very reasonable $30,000.

Iggy’s old girlfriend, photographer Esther Friedmann, took the cover photo, showing Iggy seated at a café table with a Coke and a 7-Up, during a holiday in Hawaii. Iggy spent a fraught few weeks there during the summer of 1982 ostensibly completing work on his collection of reminiscences (though he seemed to become accidentally involved with voodoo curses and other bizzare happenings too). Over the previous year Iggy had intermittently got together with journalist Anne Wehrer as she taped his autobiographical recollections. Often hysterically funny, and full of absurd road stories, the finished book, I Need More, was published by Karz-Cohl shortly after the release of Zombie Birdhouse in September 1982. It was a smart bit of marketing synchronicity as the book and the album complemented and promoted each other. With its wealth of pictures, an introduction by Andy Warhol, song lyrics and previously unpublished poems, I Need More was much more than just a book of stories about the ‘Stooges and other guys.’ Strangely, Iggy has all but disowned the book in recent years, blaming alcohol for some of the wilder accounts. If you can find the original with all the pictures, then do so, as the more recent reprinting by Henry Rollins’ 2.13.61 Publications sadly omits the photos.

“Run Like A Villain” opens the record with a barrage of growling guitars, a lopsided semi tribal beat and some of Iggy’s most committed singing. Chris Stein’s production captures Iggy’s vocals up close - every nuance of his delivery is clear and precise. But pushing the vocals so far to the forefront occasionally reveals Iggy’s limitations as a singer.

“The Villagers” features Iggy at the edge of his usual register and sometimes beyond, hitting some slightly cracked notes at times. The solidly pounding rhythm of the song is superb however.

Conversely “Angry Hills” finds Iggy’s opening line winding it’s way from an almost subterranean depth to the top end of his register, in one breath. This impressive trick is repeated a couple of times. Oddly, the melody is partly stolen from the hymn “Oh Come All Ye Faithful.”

Although the sleeve of Zombie Birdhouse announces, ‘There are no synthesizers on this record,’ an ominously dragging electronic drone introduces “Life Of Work” and proceeds to waver uncertainly throughout the song, as the lyrics are sung/chanted. It’s an impressive piece of writing, commenting obliquely on the daily grind – an unusual subject for someone who’s barely done a regular days work in his life.

On first hearing “The Ballad Of Cookie McBride” is a cheerful and goofy piece, with its twisted tale of a trapper complete with twangy guitar. Yet the somewhat disturbing lyrics talk of how the trapper is headed for an ‘unmarked grave’ and later still a ‘rain filled grave’ - images which are starkly at odds with the upbeat and faintly daft music.

Short and sweet, deftly sung and gently performed, “Ordinary Bummer” ends side one. Of course, as it’s Iggy, the girl of his affections swears like a sailor, but that, he claims, was when he knew he had to love her…

Side two kicks off with squealing keyboards, some frantically sharp drumming and a manic Iggy whining ‘It’s nervy, that's what it is…’ Sounding like Talking Heads on speed “Eat Or Be Eaten” is one of the catchiest tracks on Zombie Birdhouse, and once heard, the ants in your pants rhythm lodges itself firmly in your brain. There are further references to tribes and hunters, giving the album an air of uniformity.

Set to a pounding riff, which genuinely does conjure up images of big machinery, “Bulldozer” finds Iggy seemingly making the lyrics up as he goes along. The opening cry of ‘Bulldozer’ is fabulous – a massive roar from within that is, unbelievably, topped by an even longer and more absurdly drawn out ‘Bullllldozzzeerrrrr’ toward the end. It’s performed with far more passion than the stupid lyrics really demand, but it all adds to the absurdist feel. There’s even a bit in the middle where Iggy breaks off to giggle infectiously at the ridiculousness of it all.

“Platonic” by contrast is very understated, with some surprisingly tender lyrics – ‘but then I turn around and she’s very delicate’ - matched by shimmering synthetic strings and assured guitar from Duprey. Iggy’s singing is a revelation – a commandingly deep croon, tender and passionate.

“The Horse Song” is characterised by Rob Duprey’s constantly neighing guitar as Iggy is left tongue-tied and embarrassed, staring at his shoes - as a study of nervousness it is exemplary. The verses buzz with multitracked guitars over Clem Burke’s delightful clip-clop drumming. It also contains the album’s most revealing line as, with a burst of passion, Iggy declares - ‘I think you noticed, that I don’t wanna be the bad guy anymore.’

The album concludes with two of the oddest tracks ever recorded by Iggy Pop. First up is “Watching The News”, a truly bizarre, improvised piece of paranoid nonsense. Over a backing of sound effects, random dialogue and chattering percussion Iggy spits out an off key monologue, climaxing with a weird line about the President pushing all the buttons ‘in a giggling fit.’

“Street Crazies” is based around a loose African influenced rhythm as Iggy aligns himself once again with those who’ve been pushed out of society. It’s a gruff chant, underpinned by bongos and whistling, whining keyboards as other instruments fade up and down, seemingly at random. Somehow it hangs together.

Added to nearly all the CD issues of Zombie Birdhouse is “Pain And Suffering” from the 1983 Canadian animated film Rock and Rule. Directed by Clive Smith, this bizarre film tells the story of Angel, a member of a punk band from an apocalyptic future and features a stellar soundtrack from Iggy, Debbie Harry, Lou Reed, Cheap Trick and perhaps surprisingly, disco legends Earth Wind And Fire. Iggy narrates much of the song as a hugely echoed monster, before singing the title in his exaggerated bulldozer voice. It makes for a slightly unsatisfying postscript to the album.

Although the years of hard drugs were behind him Iggy was still using coke and drinking heavily. As a result he had real problems sleeping and his general health was suffering. Nevertheless he embarked on a lengthy tour, which was seen as something of a last chance for Iggy. The 1983 leg was dubbed “The Breaking Point” as Iggy seriously began to wonder if he’d make it through another year.

The tour band consisted of old hands Rob Duprey (guitar / keyboards) and Mike Page (bass), joined by yet another ex-Blondie member, guitarist Frank Infante, plus drummer Larry Mysliewicz. Iggy was determined to push Zombie Birdhouse as best he could with the result that on many nights every song from the album would be performed – even the loopy “Watching The News.” After travelling all over the States between October and December, the tour jumped the Atlantic to play Paris and London. On 17th December Iggy made a memorable appearance on a new TV music show called The Tube performing a fiery “Run Like A Villain” and “Eat Or Be Eaten” plus a superbly sleazy “Sixteen.”

Touring continued into 1983 with further US dates, Iggy’s first concerts in Japan and concluded with a jaunt through Australia in July. Then, for the first time in years Iggy took some time off. David Bowie had recently released his massive hit album Let’s Dance, which contained a cover of a song that he’d co-written with Iggy in 1976. Also issued as a single the success of Bowie’s version of “China Girl” brought in enough income for Iggy to retire for nearly three years. He was able to pay off his debts, buy an apartment, successfully detox, and even get married. Iggy re-emerged with the Bowie produced Blah-Blah-Blah in 1986 and nothing from the Zombie Birdhouse period was ever performed again.

When Zombie Birdhouse was issued in September 1982, it was pretty much ignored by reviewers and record buyers alike. The album seemed baffling - trappers and bulldozers and street crazies were not popular song topics in 1982. However those who persevered found that Zombie Birdhouse contained not only some of Iggy’s most imaginative songs in ages, but also some of his most impassioned and impressive singing.

Nearly thirty years on Zombie Birdhouse stands alone amongst Iggy’s many albums. It is an album that required time to get used to, and has stood the test of time remarkably well, primarily by being so resolutely out of step, commercially and artistically, with anything else that 1982 had to offer. Intriguingly Zombie Birdhouse also has no obvious antecedents or descendents in Iggy’s canon which gives it a charm and fascination all of it’s own. The deal with Animal records was for a one-off album, and that’s exactly what we got.

a random start to the new year

Put my iPod onto Shuffle and today this is what you get -

"The Cutter" – a cracking Echo and the Bunnymen classic to get things started. So much energy and youthful arrogance. What a song!

"Fighter Pilot" – not such a cracking John Cale track, from his 1981 album Honi Soit. Lots of incongruous female backing vocals and a rock band that doesn’t seem suited to Cale’s paranoid ramblings about the military. Really not one of JC’s finest moments.

"Remote Viewing" – the final track on Tangerine Dream’s Exit, and very good it is too. The opening, flute-y synth is very like the excellent music that Paddy Kingsland did for The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy and a number of Doctor Who’s in 1981 and 1982. Then it turns into a more familiar gently rhythmic Tang piece. Good stuff.

"Deform To Form A Star" – from Steven Wilson’s monumental Grace For Drowning. It’s mellotrons ahoy on this truly beautiful ballad, the kind that Wilson does so very well. One of my favourite tracks of last year.

"Alice In Blunderland" – a great title for this Captain Beefheart instrumental from the 1972 album Clear Spot. Unusually it’s a quite a straightforward tune, and it allows the guitarist play a pretty straightforward solo too. Perhaps this is why I really like this one…

"Loaded" – arguably Primal Scream’s finest moment, though listening to it today I was surprised at how slow it is. I remembered it being more overtly ‘dancey’ but it’s terribly laid back - slightly disappointing to be honest.

Yay!!! It’s only "Fish Heads" by Barnes And Barnes!!!! What can I say? They don’t play baseball, you know? If you've never heard "Fish Heads" then you need to - right now!

"Public Image" – by, guess who..? John Lydon at his sneery best over nasty scratchy guitars and a stomping beat. Brilliant.

Then it was the theme from the original sixties series of Star Trek. I’ve got a weird selection of stuff on this here pod…

"I’m In Love With A German Filmstar" by the Passions. One hit wonders... but what a hit. The video was all arc lamps and cameras and European glamour which perfectly matched the New Romantic synthy pretentious nonsense sung by an ice queen vocalist wrapped in a fur coat wearing uber bright lipstick. How much more 1981 can you get!!

 

"Manifesto" – one of the truly great but almost always overlooked Roxy Music songs. That long and slightly dissonant intro is fabulous, all swirly and mysterious, then Ferry steps up with his declamatory vocal. There's no other song like it.

"In This World" – one of Charley’s recent songs and a darned fine one it is too. A strange see-sawing guitar riff, which to my ears sounds slightly Crimson, gives way to a very strong verse and an even better chorus. It's tough when you’re nearly 13 – sample lyric ‘you don’t understand me, I’m the only one who does…’ It’s almost absurdly catchy too, and I’ve been humming this for weeks as it’s really stuck inside my brain now, and today’s burst will just reinforce that even more. I love it!

Anything after that would be a disappointment though Jona Lewie’s "You’ll Always Find Me In The Kitchen At Parties" did it’s best. Lugubrious is the best word for this song.

"Baal’s Hymn" is no-one’s favourite Bowie song, but it has much to recommend. The vocals are brilliant for a start, sung in a leery, boozy voice, midway between Bowie’s best mockney and his commanding "Wild Is The Wind" style croon. Recorded at Hansa in late 1981 (the last time DB worked there) with Tony Visconti at the controls (the last time DB and TV worked together until 1999) it’s deliberately old fashioned to fit with the 1920s setting of Brecht’s play. Bowie was excellent in this BBCtv production, but for some reason it’s never been repeated, nor is it available on DVD.

"Sister Midnight" – Blondie recorded live in 1979 with guest guitarist Robert Fripp. Interesting, but not altogether successful cover. Fripp doesn’t really join in, instead he simply plays his own thing which only occasionally corresponds with the tune. Most of what he plays seems to be the majestic rising lines from his own "Sailor’s Tale" while Blondie don’t appear to have rehearsed "Sister Midnight" terribly well. Debbie Harry is unsure of most of the words and the band seems rather unsure of how to stop the piece. You probably had to be there.

"The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea" – one the stand out tracks from Brendan Perry’s 2010 album Ark. The whole album is excellent, but this one is superb. It throbs and pulses and the percussion effects drift from side to side. BP is on fine form vocally.

"The Midwife’s Dilemma" from Jan Bang’s excellent And Poppies From Kandahar. This is an album that has really grown on me. I liked it initially, but didn’t return to it for a while, but when I did I really loved it. Great moods and atmospheres.

And finally – "Panic" – perhaps The Smiths finest two and a bit minutes – the wonderfully acerbic chorus of ‘hang the DJ, hang the DJ’ always used to make me laugh as we danced to this at University discos, all arms outstretched and shirts unbuttoned like Morrissey... We generally avoided the gladioli stuffed in the back pocket of our jeans however… I was never a huge Smiths fan but this is such a wonderful song (along with the pretty much unbeatable "Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now").

Another day and the shuffling iPod would play something entirely different. We'll see...

o m g it's o m d

Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - great band, great name, but fortunately for anyone writing about them OMD works just as well.

Founded by Wirral schoolfriends Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys OMD originally grew from the duo's first band, The Id.  But whilst The Id were at least trying to create vaguely commercial sounds, McCluskey and Humphreys also had a side project named VCL X1 which interested them more. Inspired by their love of Kraftwerk and Eno's experimental music Andy and Paul threw themselves into VCL X1 when the Id split in the summer of 1978.

Renaming the band Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark they set about working on new tunes and a new way of presenting the music. Backed only by tape loops of industrial rhythm tracks they played their new music on primitive synths - to emphasise the importance of the backing tapes to the band as a whole, the machine was even given a name, Winston. Across the Pennines the Human League were doing much the same thing, incorporating synthetic sounds into fragmentary pop songs, although OMD were arguably better at marrying the experimental with the commercial (the Human League only had success when they dropped the wilfully obscure sounds and went all out for pop stardom).

In late 1979 OMD prepared their self titled first album, an intriguing mixture of chirpy upbeat tunes with oddly downbeat lyrics, and a series of industrial inspired soundscapes overlaid with opaque, haunting vocals.

The opening two songs set the scene very well with "Bunker Soldiers" showing off OMD's trademark wonky keyboards and hissing rhythm tracks (plus some bizarre lyics) followed by the warmly buzzing synths and tender vocals of "Almost". As with most of the tracks on this album the percussion sounds seem to be taken from factory machinery, all hissing and clanking as if steam powered. It's like the vast machinery of Metropolis has been utilised for music. As well as the very successful moodier pieces there are a number of unlikely pop songs such as "Red Frame White Light" all about the 'phone box outside the studio and the frankly bizarre "Dancing", a woozy instrumental with extremely drunk sounding synths. Although "Mystereality" breaks up the mechanised sounds with a cheery saxophone it's the synth pop songs that are the most successful.

Both "Messages" and "Electricity" were re-recorded for single release but it's the album versions that are perhaps the most impressive. "Messages" is an unlikely song of lost love sung over a very Kraftwerkian melody (the single boosted the drums and beefed up the synths but it made the song less unique) and "Electricity" is a tribute to... well... electricity. Another very Kraftwerkian concept. 

Each side ends with atmospheric laments - "The Messerschmitt Twins" is a nickname that Andy and Paul once gave themselves and "Pretending To See The Future" is an ironic view of how their career might progress.

One song that wasn't quite complete at the time of recording the OMD album was "Enola Gay", perhaps the only pop song about the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Named after the aircraft that carried the bomb, the poetically grim lyrics reflect on the decision to use it and ask the listener to consider whether the bombings were necessary - "It shouldn't ever have to end this way" sings McCluskey. "It's 8:15, and that's the time that it's always been" refers to the precise time of the detonation of the Little Boy bomb over Hiroshima. For such a weighty subject it's perhaps odd that "Enola Gay" had perhaps the catchiest melody of any OMD song to date, and odder still when it became a top ten single. Surely the radio stations that continually played it during the autumn of 1980 can't have really understood what the song was about.

"Enola Gay" preceded OMD's second album, which was released in late October 1980. Named Organisation (after the collective of musicians that eventually became Kraftwerk ten years earlier) this was a much darker affair than the debut. Andy and Paul had also been influenced by Joy Division during the recording of this record and Ian Curtis' suicide had greatly upset McCluskey, leading to a much more sombre mood. The palette of instrumentation was widened too; the success of the debut album had enabled the duo to increase the scale of their synths and utilise ex Id drummer Malcolm Holmes (who now fully replaced the creaking Winston) and Martin Cooper who played additional keyboards. For the first time Paul Humphreys felt confident enough to take lead vocals on his self penned "Promise", his clear vocals contrasting with McCluskey's more exuberant style. The greater range of this album is apparent on nearly every track, but perhaps no more obvious than on the final piece "Stanlow". Once again celebrating the industrial, this track is named after a massive oil refinery at nearby Ellesmere Port and the harshly metallic sounds of the intro reinforce this - it sounds like heavy chains being dragged laboriously, as pistons gasp and whoosh. The grand epic scale of the rest of the track is magnificent.

Ending side one is smaller scale, minor epic."Statues" was written as a tribute to the late Ian Curtis and McCluskey wonders what went wrong - "I can't imagine, how this ever came to be" he sings. It is haunting, intensely moving and quite magical, and is arguably the finest song in OMD's catalogue.

After the success of Organisation OMD toured extensively, cementing their reputation as a fine live act. Then they headed straight back to studios for their third, and perhaps their best album. Architecture And Morality is the most consistent OMD album, with every track of a uniformly high standard. The complex sleeve, with geometrical patterns and photos glimpsed through cut-outs in the outer cardboard seems excessively fussy today, as does the tongue twisting title. But album titles made of deliberately contrasting words seemed all the rage in 1981 (see also Heaven 17's Penthouse And Pavement or Simple Minds' Empires And Dance amongst many others). The title for the OMD album was actually taken from a book, and was suggested to Paul Humphreys by Martha Ladly, one of two Martha's in Martha And The Muffins who shared the same record company as OMD.

The first track recorded for A&M was the beautiful "Souvenir". Constructed from a series of tape loops and supplemented with Mellotron choral effects "Souvenir" showcased Paul Humphreys' angelic voice as he sung the prettiest melody yet recorded by OMD. It was, deservedly, a massive hit single in the late summer of 1981. Although, as with "Enola Gay" it wasn't really representative of the album. When A&M was released a few months later in November listeners were surprised by the harshness of the opening song. "The New Stone Age" begins with hissing and scratching before launching into a fiercely strummed guitar part which is overlaid with discordant synths and McCluskey's hoarse vocal. It really is a stunning and totally unexpected track.

Things return to normal with "She's Leaving", which is certainly derived in spirit from "She's Leaving Home" by fellow Scousers, the Beatles. "Souvenir" follows and side one ends with "Sealand". The longest OMD track thus far, it begins gently and builds gradually for a couple of minutes until the most majestic tune bursts forth. Warm synths unfold slowly and lazily as they play for a truly beautiful couple of minutes. I could listen to this section all day. A short couple of verses follow before the music fades away leaving only an insistent drum beat which, after a short burst of incongruous metallic hammering, takes the song to its conclusion on gentle keyboards which drift the song away as imperceptibly as it arrived. One of the absolute essential OMD tunes. 

Side two begins with two songs called "Joan Of Arc". Both were issued as singles but the record company insisted on the second one being subtitled "Maid Of Orleans" to avoid totally confusing the public. The first is more conventional being yet another pretty song complete with mellotron samples and what sounds like a child's music box, but the second is frankly bizarre. Strange backwards tapes and unearthly noises give way to synths that sound like bagpipes playing a strident tune, accompanied by military drumming giving the whole song a very martial feel. And if that wasn't odd enough, it's in waltz time. 

The avant garde soundscapes of the title track make for an interesting interlude before we hit the home straight - "Georgia" shows OMD's commercial side once more but "The Beginning and the End" brings it down again with some choral loops creating a heavenly circular melody.    

OMD were at a crossroads. One the one hand they were scoring substantial chart success, but both Paul and Andy wanted to further the experimental side of the band, so they determined to see how far they could go whilst still retaining a commercial edge. The results became apparent on their fourth album Dazzle Ships. Produced by the band in collaboration with Roxy Music producer Rhett Davies, the album failed on almost every count.

To begin with the sleeve was horridly busy and off putting, and the clever die cut cardboard that worked on A&M seemed way too contrived here. Musically it seemed like Paul and Andy had not really taken on board what had worked on previous records, or perhaps they had but were determined not to repeat it. Either way the album contained far too much musique concrete, annoying clips of radio call signs and pointless sound effects. And these took up half the twelve tracks. The rest of the album featured "Radio Waves" (a song that the Id used to play) and "Telegraph", "Of All The Things We've Made" and the "Romance of the Telescope" which all dated from the A&M sessions leaving only two actual new songs - Dazzle Ships took over a year to complete, prompting the question - had OMD run out of ideas?

In both "Of All The Things..." and "Romance..." OMD had two of their finest songs ever, the former taking the repetitively strummed guitar of "The New Stone Age" but slowing and calming it down, adding a perfectly poised one finger piano motif, and the latter being all mellotron beauty and wistful vocals. Both had been issued in early draft forms as b-sides to A&M singles, but it is telling that these are by far the best songs on this album.

Dazzle Ships was a major disappointment, both critically and commercially. Andy and Paul had a rethink and when OMD returned a year later Junk Culture was simply a strong collection of 1984 pop songs. Although the album did contain a little of the previous experimentation it was clear which way OMD had decided to head. Me, I headed a different way...