As its Christmas, I’ve found myself listening to Erasure‘s 2013 seasonal collection Snow Globe more than anything else over the last few weeks. I truly think it is one of the best Christmas albums ever made.
Here is the small review of the album that I wrote for Clash upon its release.
(c) 2015 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence
I recently spoke to Erasure‘s Andy Bell about his role in Barney Ashworth’s musical theatre show Torsten – The Bareback Saint. The show ran during the 2014 Edinburgh Festival and was accompanied by an album of the songs from the production, released via Strike Force / Cherry Red.
Upon the release of Variance, a collection of remixes and new versions of songs from the album, and ahead of Bell treading the boards again next year for the follow-up instalment, Torsten – The Beautiful Libertine, I interviewed Andy for This Is Not Retro. The conversation can be found here.
Anyone who knows me remotely well will know that Erasure have always been, and always will be, my favourite band. To get the opportunity to talk to someone whose work you’ve literally grown up with is always a privileged moment, and I am continually grateful for such chances.
I had always intended to write up a review of the performance of Torsten that a friend and I watched in Edinburgh last year, but never did. In its place, these are the rough notes I took at the time, along with a text message to a friend, all of which would have become a review if I’d just bothered to finish it.
Andy Bell – Torsten The Bareback Saint, Edinburgh 13 August 2014
In the introduction to the programme that accompanied Andy Bell’s first Edinburgh Festival show, he described taking on the role of Torsten in this song cycle as a challenge. As he climbed up the stairs to the small stage in full top hat and tails while singing the song ‘Teacher Teacher’ it was pretty obvious to the twenty or so people in the lecture theatre-cum-studio that this came pretty naturally to Bell.
‘It was really good. He came on in hat and tails, at one point was in heels, a vest and a sparkly pair of pants and ended up killing himself in a dressing gown. Very dramatic, quite funny, stirring and emotional. Boy can he sing! Only about twenty of us there.’ – text to a friend immediately after watching Torsten The Bareback Saint on 13 August 2014.
Suicide. Robin Williams.
Sax
Showgirl headgear.
Snarl. Disgust. Rage.
Weston-Super-Mare.
(c) 2015 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence // interview (c) 2015 This Is Not Retro
mute records | stumm316 | 07/06/2010
Electric Blue, Andy Bell‘s debut solo album, was a hedonistic club-friendly affair (mostly) that signalled a significant departure from his day job as one half of Erasure. Recorded with Manhattan Clique, who had remixed tracks from Erasure’s return to form Other People’s Songs and supported them on that album’s tour, the album saw Bell collaborating with Propaganda’s Claudia Brucken and head Scissor Sister Jake Shears. It felt like Bell was getting something out of his system, scratching an itch if you will, and the chances of a second solo album seemed slim; though undoubtedly a good album, Electric Blue was at times a little inconsistent.
This is not a charge that could be levied at Non-Stop, Bell’s second album. Recorded with Pascal Gabriel, still affectionately remembered as producer of the string of hits by S’Express (although I love him best as a member of Peach and producer of Inspiral Carpets‘ Revenge Of The Goldfish), Non-Stop is a much more focussed dancefloor affair. I haven’t kept up with dance music trends since about the mid-Nineties, so I’ve no idea what particular sub-genres this would fit into, but what I do know is that this is a 4/4-fest that operates about a million miles away from the electronic pop of Erasure.
Across ten tracks (eleven if you buy the non-physical version from iTunes), the pace only drops with the delicate slow-mo electro of ‘Slow Release’. The rest is a slew of quality, thudding upbeat dance tracks, including the low-key two singles – ‘Running Out’ and ‘Will You Be There?’ – released under the alias MiMó.
What’s perhaps quite unusual is that given the genre’s obsession with euphoric themes, Non-Stop is altogether quite dark; there are few overtly love-themed tracks here. Since I Say, I Say, I Say, Bell’s lyrics for Erasure have – in the main – focussed on the trials and tribulations of finding, being in and falling out of, love; unless you count the edgy hotel rendezvous with a cigar-smoking, moustachioed character on the track ‘Subject / Object’, the vibe is in places much more overtly sexual than Erasure would dare. ‘Touch’, with its buzzing synths, is possibly sinister, until Bell’s lyrics about not wanting to be a ‘loser‘ kick in (delivered in Bell’s best ‘Mockney’ accent).
Probably my favourite tracks here are the title track, with its deep bass loops and ‘Lost In Music’-meets-Kraftwerk wide-eyed absorption, and ‘Cosmic Climb’ – the iTunes-only bonus track – which is a straightahead, no holds barred, club track. The lyrics on the latter are the only set I can hear that align with Bell’s claim that he was going for pure throwaway on this album – the rest of the album’s lyrics are very clever actually. I’m also a fan of ‘DHDQ’ (‘Debbie Harry Drag Queen’) which is gleefully observant of certain niche areas of clubland’s eclectic nightlife; imagine a dance-music version of Lou Reed’s ‘Walk On The Wild Side’ hitched to a disco rocket and relocated from Downtown Manhattan to London’s Soho on a Friday night.
Much has been made of the frankly bizarre collaboration with Jane’s Addiction’s Perry Farrell on ‘Honey If You Love Him (That’s All That Matters)’, and it’s a good track, just not up there with my personal favourites. Apparently Farrell, an avowed fan, suggested the collaboration and wrote the track; his contribution is certainly more significant than Shears’ almost absent contribution to Electric Blue.
Pre-orders of the CD album from Mute Bank came with a download of a Vince Clarke remix of ‘Non-Stop’; on recent mixes Vince has displayed a knowing ability to knock out sterling dance floor grooves, and his version of ‘Non-Stop’ is a perfectly minimal, sparse take on the more dense, robotic Pascal Gabriel version, with few of Clarke’s signature squiggles and sequences.
First published 2010; re-edited 2015
(c) 2015 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence
sanctuary records | sanxs425 | 29/06/2005
If anyone can explain the lengthy gap between first single, ‘Crazy’ and this, I’d really appreciate that. Just when it looked like Sanctuary had resigned themselves to the fact that Electric Blue, despite carrying a decent suite of (mostly) dance-oriented tracks – of which ‘I’ll Never Fall In Love Again’ is a strong example – was never going to shift in massive quantities outside of Andy Bell‘s Erasure fans, along came a second single.
‘I’ll Never Fall In Love Again’ is an excellent up-tempo number in its original guise which is given a more housey treatment by Goetz on his generally quite laissez faire single mix, but perhaps the biggest draw is an exclusive new track ‘Back Into The Old Routine’ which finds Andy softly celebrating the advent of autumn, although his pastoral lament for finding his usual place in the park does concern me that he’s referencing the sort of acts that some people get up to in such places. That aside, this gentle little song, with its soulful bridge and ‘Don’t Dance’-esque melody, is a fitting full stop to a good first solo album from Bell.
Two further mixes are available from various download sites, including iTunes – the Goetz Extended Mix, which is literally (and nothing more than) just that, and a remix by Mr Do which actually does try to do something slightly different by changing the melodies and augmenting the chorus with a tinkly refrain, but there is something not quite right about the way the vocals are mixed in, as if they were pasted in as an afterthought onto an existing track. In all, it’s worth getting the CD for the B-side, but the mixes are hardly essential.
First published 2005; re-edited 2015.
(c) 2015 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence
sanctuary records | san396 | 26/09/2005
If I was Erasure‘s Andy Bell upon listening to the top 40 on the Sunday after this came out in September 2005, I think I’d be pretty livid as my debut solo single entered the charts at 35. For a start I’d feel like my own fan base – loyal still after 20 years and responsible earlier this year for propelling Erasure’s ‘Breathe’ to number four in the UK charts earlier in the same year – had failed to support my first solo efforts. But I’m not Andy Bell, I just evidently appear to be one of the few Erasure fans who bothered to buy ‘Crazy’. On all three formats too, traitors.
What’s not to like? ‘Crazy’ is an infectious, anthemic track that would sound excellent in certain clubs, with a throbbing beat and bassline overlaid by masterful synths. Does it sound like Erasure? Well, yes and no – Andy delivers one of his most euphoric vocals while Other People’s Songs collaborators Manhattan Clique dip their toes in Vince Clarke-like synth progressions, giving the feel of a one of the better of Erasure remixes from over the years. And yet the lyrics are somehow more direct, and in some respects not so ‘literal’, giving the feel of a proper dancefloor-oriented style; and Vince had never been able to lay down such a tightly pulsing 4/4 beat by this point in his own career (sorry Vince). What can I say? It should have been far bigger.
The two-track CD1 comes with a radio edit of ‘Crazy’ (which was mixed by occasional Erasure assistant Bob Kraushaar) and the playful B-side ‘Little Girl Lies’, wherein Manhattan Clique’s Philip Larsen and Chris Smith are joined by Adrian Revell, Winston Rollins and Martin Shaw on horns. This has a soulful pop style, reminding me most of ‘Paradise’, the B-side to Erasure’s ‘Drama!’.
CD2 has remixes from Cicada and King Roc which intensify the clubby sound of ‘Crazy’, while Manhattan Clique offer what seems to be an extended mix. Vince Clarke lends his support (unlike you, you know who you are) with what was then his first remix in ages, and it’s distinctive Clarke material – a quirky synth hook and odd percussion. Surely this alone was worth buying this for? The DVD features the apparently expensive video which features masked cops with truncheons, angel wings and folk with flames instead of faces, and Andy Bell looking as confused by this garish Dali meets Bosch vision of hell as I am. If you want close-ups of Andy’s silver-painted nipple (come on, for some of you this must have made you want to buy this), you will be gratified by the photo gallery that accompanies the audio of the pleasant acoustic version of ‘Crazy’ and the B-side ‘Names Change’.
First published 2005; re-edited 2015.
(c) 2015 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence
sanctuary records | san382 | 03/10/2005
Andy Bell‘s debut solo album was produced with Manhattan Clique (Philip Larsen and Chris Smith), who had remixed tracks from Erasure‘s Other People’s Songs and who supported the duo on that album’s tour. That Electric Blue ever got released is something of a surprise – Andy had said in an interview I heard years ago that every time he was asked to do something solo he would panic and invite Vince Clarke along to help (I think he was specifically talking about ‘Rage’, which turned out to be an Erasure collaboration with Lene Lovich for PETA). Other People’s Songs itself apparently started life as an Andy solo project of cover versions, but became a standout Erasure album instead. Electric Blue was released on Sanctuary; presumably the EMI-backed Mute balked at the idea of a solo project from an artist they didn’t deem bankable, despite Bell’s twenty-year tenure with Daniel Miller‘s label.
The principal problem with Electric Blue is that it’s about four tracks too long, giving rise to some torrid filler like ‘Shaking My Soul’ and ‘Delicious’. At times there’s a sense of Andy Bell operating outside of his comfort zone, which is fine, but the results seem to have a reliance on fluffy, inconsequential lyrics on some of the more upbeat tracks. A long time ago, I remember Bell being interviewed on TV and saying how much he admired the way a track like Blondie’s ‘Atomic’ deliberately avoided substance in its lyrics; well, some of the results here are definitely throwaway, but in Bell’s case it’s not necessarily the best example of his lyric writing by a long stretch, though the genre he was operating in here – music for dancing in neon-lit Soho clubs I guess – wouldn’t necessarily tend toward lyrical depth particularly.
After a brief introduction consisting of vocal loops and building synths like clouds gathering on a sunny day, Electric Blue kicks into gear with ‘Caught In A Spin’, a Latin-house sequence of odd couplets and throwaway lines, flamenco flourishes and a chorus spiced with something dark and dangerous, a bit like dancing on a hot summer’s night. One of the best of the upbeat tracks here, ‘Caught In A Spin’ is relentless, urgent and hypnotic. Another of the best songs here is the title track, which includes some very Vince synths, dark, murmuring bass line and detuned beat. Andy here goes for robotic singing about S&M gear and buying uniforms, delivering a pre-chorus that references dancing to ‘Supernature’ (which Erasure covered) and opts for a darkly euphoric chorus which straddles a high energy style with more elastic techno sounds. ‘See The Lights Go Out’ also includes lots of nice electronic noises that Vince would approve of, and actually is not dissimilar to something Erasure would produce today. The track includes a retro disco element to the rhythm and Andy’s vocals have a pained, anguished element which gives the song some welcome depth.
Electric Blue features collaborations with Propaganda’s Claudia Brücken (‘Love Oneself’ and ‘Delicious’) and head Scissor Sister Jake Shears (‘Thought It Was You’ and ‘Shaking My Soul’). ‘Love Oneself’, despite its dubious, onanistic title finds Brücken’s breathy vocal totally dominating proceedings, almost rendering Bell surplus to requirements, a bit like the person who sets up a threesome and finds himself on the sidelines of the bedroom. Fortunately, the music – high energy sounds with a rolling bassline, 303-esque synth ripples and whooshing noises – is interesting enough. The second Brücken collaboration, ‘Delicious’, features some nice Vince-style synths but falls short in the lyrics department; Bell and Brücken deliver a stream of bland clichés that make for a pretty dull song overall. The only saving grace is a riff that reminds me of that Alex Party track from years ago which in turn reminds me of some good nights out. Otherwise ‘Delicious’ is reasonably needless.
If the tracks with Brücken were patchy, the collaborations with Jake Shears are still harder to listen to. ‘Thought It Was You’, something of a battle of the falsettos, is a very Seventies disco number, straight out of Ian Schrager’s Studio 54. The song is very classically disco, with lots of handclaps and wah-wah guitar, but something about Shears’ vocal is ridiculous and way too high, much like pretty much everything Scissor Sisters have ever done. Meanwhile, on ‘Shaking My Soul’ you’d be forgiven for missing Shears’ contribution to this upbeat, soulful but generally throwaway piece of summery pop since it’s all but inaudible. The track features lyrics dealing with jealousy and promiscuity, a theme that is also mined on the far better ‘Jealous’.
The album includes a couple of ballads, both of which are good even if they sit somewhat uncomfortably next to the more upbeat dance tracks. ‘Fantasy’ is a plaintive, Erasure-esque ballad, with lots of jangly acoustic guitar, a big trademark chorus and more articulate lyrics from Andy. There’s a soulful piano and string section that sounds a little like a Barry White ballad; there are also occasional Latin flourishes and plenty of trademark ‘woahs’ from Andy, while a melodic line not dissimilar from ‘Rock Me Gently’ sometimes creeps in. The album’s closer, ‘The Rest Of Our Lives’ is another big ballad, being a gentle love song and a typically Erasure-esque closer, at least lyrically. Musically it’s not a patch on anything Vince and Andy could achieve together, being a bit wet and flimsy (the last two bars are the most interesting). Still, it nevertheless retains a nice, emotional dimension even if it sounds too ‘organic’ and traditional-sounding for Andy’s vocal. The ballads, oddly placed though they might be, perhaps suggests this is what Andy is best at rather than flogging the disco horse elsewhere on Electric Blue.
Electric Blue was clearly a departure for Andy Bell, a brave move after years as Erasure’s frontman, and any issues with the songs generally stem from the production which doesn’t stand up terribly well today. Mercifully, Bell was undeterred by Electric Blue‘s limited commercial success, with 2010’s Non-Stop with Pascal Gabriel being a much more solid, accomplished business.
First published 2005; re-edited 2015.
(c) 2015 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence
2014 was a year where I probably wrote more than any other year, but hardly any of it was for the Documentary Evidence site that began my journey into music writing over a decade ago. The year saw me start what turned out to be a slow and not exactly fun process of moving content from my original site to a new WordPress home, a process which will have to accelerate soon given that all of my archive writing for DocEv is now offline.
Most of my writing this year was for Clash, where I continue to contribute three of four short album reviews each month. This year I made a conscious effort to diversify who I write for, and lucked out when Electronic Sound gave me a last-minute opportunity to cover Jonteknik‘s debut Apt album for the innovative iPad magazine (I know Jon hates end of year round-ups, but Jon, I owe you a beer for that album and the door it opened for me with Electronic Sound – thanks.)
Since then I’ve delivered a number of pieces for the magazine, culminating in a major feature on Simian Mobile Disco in the summer. It’s an absolute honour and privilege to be working for Electronic Sound. The magazine’s team includes two people who undoubtedly shaped my interest in music writing back when I read Muzik as a teenager, back when I had no aspirations toward writing at all. Through their guidance I’ve become a better writer. I’ve also learned the value of full stops again.
I also started going to concerts and writing live reviews again this year. I reviewed Laibach, Nik Kershaw and Erasure for This is Not Retro (all with typically brilliant photos by Andy Sturmey), as well as a clutch of gigs at my closest music venue, The Stables, for a local Milton Keynes site (TotalMK) – Dylan Howe (my first jazz piece), Tom Baxter and Martha Wainwright.
2014 saw me write the least I ever have in the last five years about Mute releases. I covered the latest Cabaret Voltaire compilation, Erasure’s The Violet Flame and the Plastikman live album for Electronic Sound, Liars‘ Mess for Feeder and a couple of albums for my own Documentary Evidence site, but on the whole I’ve largely ignored Mute releases this year. Partly this is because I’ve been busy with other music writing, and partly it’s because I have struggled to keep up with the sheer volume of albums that the label have issued this year.
Critics are afforded the opportunity at the year end to come up with their favourite album of the year and so I feel justified in doing the same. Head and shoulders above everything else, for this writer it was Stay Gold by First Aid Kit. As is so often the case with the albums that capture your imagination the most, this was an album that I was hardly interested in when I read the press release.
I came back from a three and a half week vacation in New York and Florida in May and immediately found myself being asked to review a clutch of new albums by bands I’d mostly never really heard of before with hardly any time between them being commissioned and the print deadline. One of those records was Stay Gold. First Aid Kit are two sisters from Sweden and the press release seemed to lump them in with a folk scene that I am not always comfortable with, so I wasn’t exactly excited about covering this one.
Sitting on the train on a sunny, May morning, still feeling jet lagged and wondering why I ever signed up to write the reviews when I was so jaded and missing America, I decided to start with the First Aid Kit album and within seconds – the slide guitar sweep that quickly ushers in the opening track, ‘My Silver Lining’ – I was hooked and alert. Something about the music just talked to me in a way that lots of music never has before and I still can’t put my finger on precisely why; it’s possibly the combination of youthful innocence mixed with a sort of mature worldliness with which First Aid Kit approach their songs that got me, possibly the close harmonies of the two sisters, possibly the stirring quality of the title track ‘Stay Gold’ – I still don’t know, really.
What I do know is that a pair of lines on ‘Master Pretender’ – ‘Oh the streets of New York City / Look so pretty from way up here‘ – seemed to capture everything that I missed about New York and tapped into the way I was feeling as I closed the door on an incredible family holiday and went back into an uncertain work life.
Toward the end of the year I found myself listening to a lot more female singers – Martha Wainwright, Addie Brownlee and a singer called Natalie Prass, who I was introduced to by the same PR chap that sent me First Aid Kit (thanks Nathan), and whose debut album is really, really impressive; the sort of sound that might see this young singer scale the same heights as one Amy Winehouse did, all soulful sensuality of a style that has – criminally – more or less fallen out of favour. Check out ‘Why Don’t You Believe In Me’ below.
Oh, and in the last few days I’ve been playing a Canadian band called Viet Cong whose self-titled debut (out January) made me get all nostalgic for classic Interpol again, even if their debut knocks spots off my beloved New York band’s 2014 El Pintor effort.
Wishing all the readers of this blog a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Favourite sounds: First Aid Kit Stay Gold, Conor Oberst Upside-down Mountain, Ryan Adams Ryan Adams, Fats Waller, jazz, ‘Rhapsody In Blue’ by Gershwin, soundtracks to Woody Allen films, The Residents ‘Santa Dog’, Ghostly International, Front and Follow, my eldest daughter playing Latin guitar, my youngest daughter whistling or practicing her keyboard
Least favourite sounds: the announcer on X Factor, ‘What Does The Fox Say?’, arguments and shouting, alarm clocks
Record shops visited: Resident (Brighton), Rough Trade (New York)
I haven’t updated Documentary Evidence for a while but that’s not because I haven’t been busy with other writings.
The latest edition of Electronic Sound for iPad is now available. This issue features my reviews of Erasure‘s excellent album The Violet Flame, Olivia Louvel‘s mesmerising Beauty Sleep (featuring one track based around a sample of Recoil‘s ‘Stone’) and a major interview with Simian Mobile Disco about their new ambient album Whorl.
Issue 8 also includes a feature on the fortieth anniversary of Kraftwerk‘s ‘Autobahn’, which includes input from Mute‘s own Daniel Miller.
To read more go to the Electronic Sound website.
Just lately I’ve found myself spending some time at the Milton Keynes concert venue that’s literally on the doorstep of the village in which I live (The Stables) and in the last month I’ve reviewed three gigs at the venue. This marks something of a tentative return to reviewing gigs after a long break. The first was something pretty special for me – Nik Kershaw, whose solo acoustic show I reviewed for This Is Not Retro. Kershaw’s music was what I grew up with and Human Racing, his first album, was the first album I ever owned. My review for that concert, with photos from the Worthing gig on the same tour by my good friend and talented photographer Andy Sturmey can be found here.
I’ve also written two pieces for a local Milton Keynes site – TotalMK – of my other two recent Stables gigs. Dylan Howe’s Subterraneans found the jazz drummer performing pieces from Subterraneans, which sees his band work through jazz versions of tracks from David Bowie’s Berlin period. Howe is a hugely talented drummer who has worked with many different acts in the jazz and rock world, including Nick Cave, for whom he drummed on songs to the soundtrack for I Am Sam with The Blockheads. The other Stables gig was Tom Baxter, well known for getting picked by movie and TV producers when a stirring song is ever required for a soundtrack.
As well as that little lot, you’ll continue to find my reviews in Clash each month – the latest issue includes a piece of mine on the latest Thurston Moore album, which is more than likely the closest we’re going to get to a classic Sonic Youth LP anytime soon.
(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence
I was recording some bits and pieces from old VHS tapes last night. On one tape, in amongst a bunch of Erasure performances, I came upon an edition of The Chart Show, the long-defunct ITV show that was the broadcaster’s alternative to the satellite-only MTV.
On this edition was the promo video for Erasure‘s ‘Am I Right?’. I was about to skip straight past it to the ‘live’ performance of the track on the Des O’Connor show that I’d recorded after this on the tape, but then I remembered that The Chart Show always included some pretty random ‘gossip’, usually within the middle eight of any track they were showing the video for. So I fast forwarded to that point and the photo above shows what they had to say about Erasure at this point – namely a small reveal of the venues for The Phantasmagorical Entertainment tour that would hit the road in 1992 and a weird list of animals that Andy Bell would like to keep as pets. I’m not sure, but I’m pretty sure pandas don’t make great pets.
Seeing this in turn reminded me that during a promo for ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’ the following year, The Chart Show gossip was – and this now clearly seems ridiculous – that Andy Bell and Debbie Harry were due to marry. And so you can take Andy’s animal list above with a sufficiently large pinch of salt.
(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence
I’m continuing my trawl through the Snow Globe cocktail box that came with last year’s boxset and this past weekend I turned my hand to this one, named crudely after the ABBA track that rounded off Vince Clarke and Andy Bell‘s only UK number one single, 1992’s ABBA-Esque EP.
The Woo-Woo is a terribly named drink – definitely one for the alcopop generation, I would say – but it is elegant in its simplicity, both in ingredients and the fact that any amateur mixologist could manage to make this without messing it up. A mix of vodka, peach schnapps and cranberry juice generally served as a highball, the peach counteracts the tartness of the cranberry juice and the sweetness of the peach is neatly offset by the cranberry. So if you can look past the abysmal triteness of the name, this is a pleasant long drink that could probably lead to many blurry nights.
(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence
Documentary Evidence 