Electronic Sound – Issue 30 – Kraftwerk / Alison Moyet

Issue 30 of Electronic Sound has hit the newstands with everyone’s favourite Düsseldorf electronic pioneers (and onetime Mute act) Kraftwerk gracing the cover and the subject of a major feature to coincide with their UK tour. The special edition version of the magazine includes a 7″ with Orbital covering ‘Numbers’ from Computer World, backed with a new track from Der Plan.

This month I had the pleasure of interviewing Alison Moyet over drinks in Chelsea about her sensational new album Other, her second collaboration with multi-instrumentalist producer Guy Sigsworth. I also wrote pieces on clever techno producer Daniel Ruane, electronic legend Ragnar Grippe, IX Tab, the wonderfully-named Deathcount In Silicon Valley, ex-Coil / Psychic TV member Drew McDowall and the latest album from Ghostly Records Brooklynites Xeno & Oaklander.

Rounding out all of that, I wrote a long review of the second Floating Points album; Sam Shepherd’s first album, 2015’s Elaenia was my favourite album of that year and Shepherd has somehow managed to sidestep the typical difficult-second-album issues with a thrilling electronically-inflected jazz rock epic influenced by the environs in which it was recorded, the mysterious Joshua Tree National Park.

A big congratulations to the team at Electronic Sound who just completed an extremely successful funding round on Crowdcube.

The special edition issue of the issue 30 can be purchased here.

(c) 2017 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Fader – First Light (Blanc Check Records album, 2017)

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Fader is a duo of Blancmange’s Neil Arthur – whose collaboration with Mute stalwarts Fortran 5 on ‘Persian Blues’ remains, in my humble opinion, an overlooked classic – and Benge from John Foxx & The Maths.

First Light is their first album and is released by Blanc Check next week. Here you’ll find Arthur at his elliptical best, backed by some varied and truly ingenious electronic backdrops.

I reviewed the album for This Is Not Reto. My thoughts can be read here.

(c) 2017 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence for This Is Not Retro

Can – The Singles (Spoon / Mute compilation, 2017)

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Last week Spoon / Mute released The Singles, a collection of all of Can‘s singles and selected B-sides, which serves as a great entry point into the musical genius of this band.

I reviewed the compilation for Clash – read my thoughts here.

(c) 2017 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence for Clash