Tag Archives: Mute Records

Andy Bell – Electric Blue (Sanctuary album, 2005)

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Andy Bell 'Electric Blue' artwork

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

Alan Burnham – Music To Save The World By (Cherry Red single, 1981)

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Alan Burnham 'Music To Save The World By' artwork

cherry red | cherry15 | 16/01/1981

Alan Burnham’s ‘Music To Save The World By’ was released by indie stalwart Cherry Red in 1981. As well as being something of an electropop obscurity, its interest to Mute fans is that it was produced by Daniel Miller and engineered by early Mute studio guy, Assembly member and Blackwing Studio owner Eric Radcliffe. The two tracks on this solitary release from Burnham were recorded at Blackwing, Mute’s studio basecamp for a good few years, which was based in All Hallows Church in South London. Hold on, apologies… I called this an electropop track didn’t I? Apparently we call that minimal wave these days, proof yet again that I’m not down with the kids these days at all.

Around this time, Miller was to be found producing the odd track here and there for non-Mute acts like Soft Cell, Missing Scientists and Alex Fergusson. I like to think that it was for aesthetic reasons or to help promote his nascent label, but the reality it was probably to make ends meet. Until Depeche Mode signed to Mute, the label nursed a small roster of acts and one-off singles that were unlikely to make Miller much money, so picking up the odd production job might well have helped pay some of the bills.

Could synth music save the world? Somewhat unlikely, but Alan Burnham’s single suggests it could. His vocal has a subtle, whispered quality that sits somewhere between completely captivated and slightly saddened, as if the observations catalogued on the lead track both intrigued and depressed him. Around his quiet delivery is wrapped a backdrop of ponderous bass synths, atmospheric whooshes and echoing bleeps that recall satellite signals being broadcast into space. In a blind listening test you might consider ‘Music To Save The World By’ to be a very early I Start Counting track. With distinct echoes of Miller and Radcliffe’s later work, this is a Mute record in all but name, aiming toward the radio-friendly pop that early Depeche Mode and later Yazoo would call their own, mixed in with a sci-fi sensibility that had inevitably surrounded music made with synths the decade before.

B-side ‘Science Fiction’ continues the spacey vibe with an enquiring bassline that gently nudges its way through the track. Hissing synths, bleeping melodies and live drums from Cam Findlay give this a more organic feel than ‘Music To Save The World By’, a throwback to a slightly proggier vibe with vaguely apocalyptic portents of a technologically-driven life on the horizon in Burnham’s lyrics. ‘Are we living at all?’ asks Burnham of a populous living in fibreglass domes. Maybe he hoped synth music would save us from that fate rather than being a contributing factor to the decline of mankind.

First published 2013; re-edited 2014.

(c) 2015 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Barry Adamson: Documentary Evidence Interview (2004)

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That Old Jazz Devil Called Love: The Barry Adamson interview

Barry Adamson

I completed this email interview with Barry Adamson back in 2004, just after he’d left Mute, released a new rough track called ‘Harlem’ as a free download, performed with Russell Maliphant at The Barbican and was experimenting with making music on Macs. It was only just over ten years ago, but releasing music as a download was still something pretty new, hence his comments on the ‘political’ nature of releasing music this way. Back in 2004 I was still pretty new to conducting interviews, hence why this appears as a question and answer-style feature.

Former Magazine bassist Barry Adamson was for over ten years the very essence of the quintessential Mute Records artist – eclectic, prolific and highly popular, just thankfully never a chart act. His work traversed many, many musical boundaries and genres from soul to hip-hop through to noir film scores. Parallel work as a remixer saw him reconfigure tracks by Recoil, The Wolfgang Press and Nitzer Ebb, drawing on his considerable skills as a sound designer. His work has received plaudits from the likes of Portishead and Nine Inch Nails‘ Trent Reznor, who picked Adamson to provide tracks for his Natural Born Killers soundtrack. Barry left Mute in 2003, and Mat Smith caught up with him the following year for a few questions.

MAT SMITH: I’ve just visited Manchester for the first time. I imagine that the city’s changed quite considerably, and now looks to be a carbon copy of the trendiest parts of London. Does the city still provide you with as much inspiration as it did for Moss-Side Story? What does inspire you?

BARRY ADAMSON: Well. I left Manchester some time ago, before the Happy Mondays and all of that era, but the city as I knew it then provided me with a historical noir backdrop of crime and decay, which I was completely drawn to. I guess my youth was impressed like a thumb into clay by the spirit of people living the way they did, when they did and how. How they relieved poverty through a whole myriad of entertainment; how the influence of black culture affected this and how movies might mirror these events. This model dominated my work for some time and perhaps other versions in other towns offer me similar yet different interest. I’m writing a screenplay which is clothed by London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, and New York. So this kind of inspiration continues.

MS: Manchester is an important part of the history of the UK music scene – like London and Liverpool – and you were a player in that nascent scene with Howard Devoto in Magazine. Are you able to look back on those times now happily, or are you glad they’re behind you?

BA: Magazine was an incredibly happy time for me. It was like going to a school where you had a laugh all the time and the girls fancied you and the boys thought you were cool as a fuck. A bit like the juniors where it’s OK to fall over and cry at the blood spilling down your leg and then to get running again, laughing your ass of. None of which could have ever prepared me for the psychological, physical and spiritual slaughter of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds!

MS: Mute Records was your UK home for many years, and I was somewhat surprised that you have jumped ship. What prompted the move from the label? Your (presumably tongue-in-cheek) press release on the website states that you were given a gold watch, and I kind of got the impression that you were glad to be free?

BA : Well. There comes a point in everyone’s life… This was my point. I’d been here before: a kind of giddiness at the possible betrayal but knowing that the car you’re driving needs to go and a newer model (plus the fear of the possible cost) has to become the next avenue to walk/run down. As Joy Division once said – ‘A change of scene / A change of style / With no regrets.‘

MS: The new track, ‘Harlem’, is absolutely superb – obviously Adamson in an instantly-recognisable way, but a progession of sorts. Does the fact that this was made available as a download indicate a shift in the way that your music will be marketed? Are you in favour of downloads, or do you fall into the camp that would be against the widespread development of this?

BA: Without getting into this question too much from a political standing, yes absolutely on the idea that BA will now be a download purchase affair with ideas about having a specific photo info section available for each project. I guess for a while some hard copies will be available but it won’t be long before you can download your whole day! ‘Harlem’ was a tiny experiment. the standards were just above demo as far as I was concerned. I did it in a day but thought it good enough to give away I wanted to give something to the people who bother to sign up and they say such incredibly supportive things. In the future the songs and music will be mastered and obsessively detailed as usual.

MS: Many of your songs have an improvised tone to them, but you are credited as the sole author. How do your songs come about – what’s the process of getting them from an idea to being fully recorded? How do you decide which instruments / players will be used?

BA: Wow. The secrets of the BA? Let me see. Starts in the head. That fool was me was in a dream I had in Australia. The lot. Words, music, melody. Boom. I woke up and copied it up in 15 mins. That’s rare. Normally? You hear it and then the job is to arrange it so folk can dig it. Starts with me. Do I dig it? Do I get off on you diggin’ it? Instruments are tried and tested. Some come without effort, others you must wait for further inspiration. There are players who are so connected to themselves that they understand even my crudest of languages that rely on feeling and movie image. Those are the cats you keep in your book. It’s all a process.

MS: At the Barbican Only Connect concert in April, I noticed you were making use of a Mac. How has this changed the way you compose / perform?

BA: It’s amazing to sit with that thing and make very colourful sketches of ideas, some of which remain in the final mix. I remember recording Real Life with Magazine and after everybody went to bed, getting up again and making tracks into a cassette of sequences and stuff, using the keyboards and effects units. The G4 is kinda the same theory to me. I love the modern world of technology for the G4 alone!

MS: And finally, what’s next for Barry Adamson? New album? Tour? A totally different way of presenting your music? More soundtracks?

BA: I’m writing music everyday. Some for projects and some for myself. I’m gagging to make film. I’m preparing the way for this to happen. I would like to bring out some work online and then play live. The world is mine. Plus three weeks ago I had another son. Edmondo Lucas George Adamson. That’s my latest release!

First published 2004; re-edited 2015.

(c) 2015 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Barry Adamson, Anita Lane & The Thought System Of Love – These Boots Were Made For Walking (Mute Records single, 1991)

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Barry Adamsn, Anita Lane and The Thought System Of Love 'These Boots Were Made For Walking' artwork

mute records | mute119 | 1991

This version of Lee Hazlewood’s hit – made famous by Nancy Sinatra – is an absolute stone cold classic, as they may have said in the 1970s. On Terry Donovan’s 7″ mix, those immediately-recognisable descending bass notes that herald the original are here complimented by piano and a deep dub-inflected hip hop beat. Barry Adamson adds a string section and a funk guitar where the Sinatra version quickened the pace with a rather cheesy horn section. Anita Lane‘s vocal is typically excellent, archly naïve and seductive all at once, somehow colouring the sparse arrangement perfectly.

On the other remix front, Renegade Soundwave departee Karl Bonnie‘s ‘Bonnie Floats On Airwair’ mix – aided superbly by Holger Hiller with additional noises from then-Orb member and onetime Fortran 5 accomplice Kris ‘Thrash’ Weston – ratchets up the bass levels and adds some pulsating electro percussion, pushing this into heavy digital dub territory, with all the aplomb expected from the assembled trio. The mix also makes full use of some sterling slide guitar work from ex-Birthday Party man Rowland S. Howard. John Waddell adds all manner of new elements – a fragile synth melody and soulful sax – and in so doing turns the track into a blissed out groove somewhat reminiscent of The Beloved, recalling the chilled-out Balearic vibe of the time.

Adamson’s own ‘Go Johnny’ blends two strands of his distinctive style – spiralling orchestration and jazzy bop laced through with samples and abrasive noises. The track kicks off with some meditative organ lines before diving headlong into a Bernard Herrmann-esque chase theme with a beat that doesn’t know if it’s bop or rockers reggae. Both ‘Go Johnny’ and the original cover of ‘These Boots…’ feature on the celebrated Fine Line soundtrack to Delusion.

First published 2004; re-edited 2015.

(c) 2015 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Barry Adamson – Soul Murder (Mute Records album, 1992)

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Barry Adamson 'Soul Murder' artwork

mute records | stumm105 | 1992

Released in 1992, Barry Adamson‘s second Mute Records album proper is also perhaps his darkest, most cinematic to date. Beginning as all stories should with a ‘Preface’, Adamson sets the scene of murder and crime with a sample of a convicted brother detailing his list of crimes and misdemeanours, before Adamson kicks in a short burst of dramatic strings; the track concludes with either a vintage movie sample, or a heavily-aged new one – ‘Sorry to disturb you Mr Adamson.’

The album begins in earnest with a classic Adamson spoken word monologue on ‘Split’, referring to himself as El Deludo, Mr Moss Side Gory and Harry Pendulum, all over a lush jazz backdrop dripping with pianos, brshed cymbals and rousing horns. ‘There’s a light at the end of the tunnel,’ concludes Pendle. ‘When you see it that means that you’re dead.’ ‘The Violation Of Expectation’ is mysterious and beautiful – simple piano clusters over synth chords and a characteristic pallette of juxtaposed sounds. The introduction of a watery, distorted voice humming away to some unrecognisable tune runs a chill through this track that is partially leavened by the isolated sounds of crashing waves that conclude the track. ‘Suspicion’ features some solid Public Enemy-style gritty, industrial hip-hop beats, over which high octave keyboard melodies are layered.

‘A Gentle Man Of Colour’ is a truly disturbing story of prejudice in the vein of Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird – a black man is wrongly accused of a crime against a white woman, leading a mob of men to torture and ultimately burn him to death. The story is delivered as a news report by Marcia Schofield, while Adamson provides the narrative with a backdrop of incidental sounds. This is followed by ‘Trance Of Hatred’, an outwardly gentle piece for vibes and strings, counterweighted by a sample of what could be an armed gang robbery scene from a movie.

The frantic pace of the six minute ‘Checkpoint Charlie’, with its layers of keyboards and swirling, tense melodies reminds me very much of the opening music by Ennio Morricone for Oliver Stones The Untouchables. ‘Reverie’, in contrast, is a piano and xylophone work of melancholy beauty rendered in waltz time. The addition of some serene synth pads give this a soaring, moving quality, and it is hard not to to be touched by its serenity. ‘Un Petit Miracle’ in contrast is throwaway twee Gallic pop, featuring innumerable Casio presets, whistling and a innocent vocal from Pascale Fuillée-Kendall.

‘007, A Fantasy Bond Theme’, in contrast, is one of Adamson’s most humour-filled pieces. Setting the scene, Adamson drops in a narration by Arthur Nicholls detailing a Jamaican – James Bond – who believes he is Ian Fleming’s spy hero; ‘Bond…is black!‘ he tells us, in a stroke of genius wordplay. Monty Norman’s famous theme is here delivered with a skanking rockers beat and ska vibe – ludicrous and marvellous in the same breath. ‘The Adamson Family’ features vibes and some very sixties organ, the jazzy tones and cinematic strings, while ‘Cool Green World’ – with its MOR keyboards – could have been lifted from the soundtrack to an Eighties romantic comedy; it has a wholesome, family feel – imagine tree-lined wide pavements in some US suburb, immaculate front gardens, the leaves collecting in the gutter as summer turns to autumn – until the final minute and a half, where the key changes subtly, casting a darkening shadow over the track.

‘On The Edge Of Atonement’, a slowed-down pairing of jazz and gentle strings to the same theme as ‘Reverie’, with gospel vocals from Sarah Bower, Deloray Campbell, Peter Francis, Patricia Knight and Caron Richards, has a drifting, romantic tone and a capacity to uplift. ‘Epilogue’ closes with the same angry brother and strings as ‘Preface’, closing off a dark and mysterious addition to Barry Adamson’s catalogue.

First published 2004; re-edited 2014.

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Barry Adamson & Russell Maliphant – Only Connect, The Barbican, London 08/04/2004

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Barry Adamson & Russell Maliphant - Only Connect ticket

The orchestra assemble themselves on a platform to the right of the stage; Barry Adamson casually walks to a podium of laptops and keyboards on the left of the platform – the glow of the Apple logo, with the house lights still on and the audience still finding their seats, glints every bit as brightly as the glare from his wraparound shades. He settles himself to the left of the stage, flanked by Tom Robinson Band keyboardist and veteran Adamson collaborator Nick Plytas and drummer Simon Pearson. He rocks back and forth, seemingly testing the hip injury that has plagued him in recent times. His head is clean-shaven, his suit tailored to perfection, offset by a red shirt and matching pocket handkerchief; he simply exudes cool.

But, at least for the show’s first thirty minute segment, Adamson is just one of the talented players here, and as the lights dim and the Russell Maliphant dance troupe – Maliphant himself, plus Flora Bourderon, Maria Goudot, Miquel de Jong, Michael Pomero and Anna Williams – he begins to conjure noises, loops and speech samples from his Mac on the opening piece (Moss Side Story‘s ‘On The Wrong Side Of Relaxation’. After five minutes, the BBC Concert Orchestra (conducted by Robert Ziegler) kick in with some initially soft orchestration. The dancers are formed in pairs, looking something like an alt.Gap commercial, angular movements seeming to evoke the agony and violence of love, twisting and contorting with seemingly impossible ease. For the second track – ‘Dance With A Stranger’ – Adamson switches to bass, sitting in a chair among his musicians. He provides a mellow bass counterpart to a moody version of ‘Mr Eddie’s Theme’ from his soundtrack for The Lost Highway, before frantically working the frets as the momentum of the song, and the jerky dance movements, gather pace.

For the middle section, Adamson gathers his band down on the lower part of the stage (‘We’ve come down from our soul food kitchen,’) and urges us to ‘feel free’. The band then rip into a soul-jazz jam session (‘Space Spiritual’) which Adamson dedicates to the recently-deceased Magazine guitarist John McGeoch, with solos from Pearson, Plytas, Pete Whyman (sax and clarinet), Mike Kearsey (trombone) and Ben Edwards (trumpet), with some stunning wah-wah bass from Adamson himself. He hangs up his bass for a faithful rendition of ‘Jazz Devil’, refering to himself as Barry Hellafonte and Telly Savalas during the track. He stalks and prowls the stage like a wolf, grooving along with the jazzy vibes, supported by Dudley Phillips on double bass. For ‘The Vibes Ain’t Nothin’ But The Vibes’, Adamson takes a seat among the musicians, tapping his foot in time to Anthony Kerr’s vibes, lazily recounting the story’s tale ‘of lives and lovers‘, while toward the end of the piece the BBC Concert Orchestra soak the track with serene strings. A totally different variant of ‘Cinematic Soul’ (entitled ‘Cinematic (California) Soul’) closes this section, with Adamson losing power to his earphone just before starting. He grooves off the stage toward the end of the number, leaving the musicians to earnestly play out the song to rapturous applause.

After another interval, Adamson and the band once again move to the upper deck, and the dancers – now reduced to five – return to the centre stage. The band play a stunning version of ‘Le Matin Des Noire’ from The King Of Nothing Hill, with Adamson gesticulating and motioning as he half sings, half speaks the lines in French and English. The elongated version allows the mood to be teased out further compared to its recorded sibling, with the string section applying the Parisian atmosphere perfectly. They play two more tracks (‘Holy Thursday’ and The Taming Of The Shrewd‘s ‘From Rusholme With Love’) the latter featuring a solitary dancer bouncing, rolling and creating shapes in the centre of the dimly-lit lower stage. Adamson remains seated for these tracks, again coaxing sultry lines from his bass, while the gloriously atmospheric orchestra swells up around him.

It’s two hours, with breaks, but it feels so much shorter, all too brief. There’s an abundance of soul, atmosphere and emotion here – it’s moving, maudlin and murky all at once. But overall, like the man Adamson himself, it’s impossibly cool.

Thanks to Clem Buckmiester for the set list.

First published 2004; re-edited 2014.

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Barry Adamson – Black Amour (Mute Records single, 2002)

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Barry Adamson 'Black Amour' artwork

mute records | mute223 | 19/08/2002

If Marvin Gaye was still alive and collaborating with Massive Attack, this dark and sensual track could well be the outcome. ‘The deeper you go, the funkier it gets’ intones a honey-throated Barry Adamson, over a fantastically dark soul backdrop which deploys some extremely stirring strings and a bunch of What’s Going On-style female vocal harmonies.

Adamson’s own ‘Trojan Extended Pleasure’ remix (credited to The Pimp Floyd just to increase the Carry On vibe) kicks out the soul groove in favour of a dub-style makeover, seeing elements faded in and out sharply, echoes and all manner of King Tubby homages riding over a thick and filthy reggae beat. CD B-side ‘First Light’ is a fast-paced rock meets jazz surprise – fuzzy guitars, saxophone and horns that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Bruce Forsyth Saturday evening show theme. It’s a joyous, uplifting track featuring a spoken word sample from The Foundation For Inner Peace and Foundation for a Course in Miracles.

First published 2003 / re-edited 2014.

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Barry Adamson – Whispering Streets (Mute Records single, 2002)

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Barry Adamson 'Whispering Streets' artwork

mute records | mute283 | 04/11/2002

Oddly enough, this was the first thing I ever bought from eBay. What’s more, just like I always used to at record fairs, I paid well over the odds. Still, despite feeling out of pocket, I have to say it was well worth it.

Isolated from their position within an album, Barry Adamson‘s early singles felt a bit lost. Not so with this track, which works well on its own despite being an integral part of The King Of Nothing Hill‘s narrative. It’s sleazy, funky in a maudlin seventies soundtrack stylee, features a stunning Cypress Hill sample and guitars which could have been culled from Portishead’s Dummy. Here Adamson is a unwilling assassin driven to kill by love, deploying some decent word-play on the chorus – ‘five bullets, five names / and a contract worth five hundred grand‘. With some soaring strings and chilling organ lines from Adamson collaborator stalwart Nick Plytas, this is among Adamson’s most atmospheric work, while his vocal was his most assured to date.

Mixes come from AIM, who strip out some of the soul and atmosphere to create a spindly groove, and Funkstörung. The latter is a electronic cut-up, deploying small vocal snippets over a quirky beat; it also teatures an organ groove reminiscent of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’.

First published 2003; re-edited 2014.

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Barry Adamson – The King Of Nothing Hill (Mute Records album, 2002)

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Barry Adamson 'The King Of Nothing Hill' artwork

mute records | stumm176 | 02/09/2002

The King Of Nothing Hill comes with a title bearing Barry Adamson‘s hallmark sense of humour, and was his most accomplished and complete work by this point. Draped regally in a red, black and gold digipack robe, Adamson is here cast as the king of an absent kingdom, although the photo on the inside of the sleeve seems to be more Isaac Hayes than anything else.

In fact, Isaac Hayes is not a bad initial reference point for this album, which finds Adamson more soulful than before while still drawing together the beloved subjects of his soundworld kingdom – jazz, spooky soundtrack melodrama and electronic textures, and overall the sound is more dense and deep than on previous albums.

The King Of Nothing Hill is an impressive ten-track album that perfectly complements its creator’s earlier works, but somehow takes things further. If an artist working with electronic composition tools can have their influences identified by the samples he chooses, the Adamson’s preferences are crystal clear – a sample of jazz legends John Coltrane and Archie Shepp appears on ‘Le Matin Des Noire’, while a clever Cypress Hill section is to be found on ‘Whispering Streets’.

Tracks like the opener, ‘Cinematic Soul’ are good examples of how Adamson is able to draw together disparate musical strands without appearing crass or creating some sort of kitsch, disposable fusion; ‘Cinematic Soul’ begins with a developing bed of electronic sounds, bleeps, beats and wah-wah guitar before launching into a loud, Stax-inspired funk soul anthem that reinforces the Hayes comparison. ‘Can I sing along to ‘Cinematic Soul’?‘ his young heir Theo asks. ‘Of course you can, son…What is a song if you can’t sing along?‘ the King replies, and the two duet humorously on the final chorus. ‘This is the stone groove I’ve been dying to rock with all my life,‘ sings the King, and his decree may well be right – it really does sound like the work of a musical monarch at the height of his supremacy.

Skipping past the singles ‘Whispering Streets’ and ‘Black Amour’, the divinely-appointed Ruler of Moss-side, that most impossible of kingdoms, leads us to ‘When Darkness Calls’, which begins with some heavy dub beats and double-tracked vocals; sludgy guitar riffs and intense atmospheres create a dark sub-rock take on Nitzer Ebb‘s final utterances. ‘Down, down, down…‘ our leader intones, taking us to whichever black hinterland he chooses. ‘The Second Stain’ is a carefully-honed and programmed avant-jazz epic, built upon subtle layers of electronic percussion, droning basstones, piano and organ. Constantly-shifting atmospheres move this instrumental work into desolate sonic wastelands, evoking the dream sequences of Brad Pitt in Tom di Cillo’s Johnny Suede.

The Pimp King’s vocal abilities are most prevalent on ‘Twisted Smile’, with a sixties-style chorus nearly whispered over an incredibly-detailed musical accompaniment that is almost not there at all, coming as it does from the distance. Woeful regret and longing themes show our ruler to be weary, deposed, forgotten; his empire shrinking like the departing echoes of the final chorus; becoming transparent, making his way to the top of Nothing Hill.

‘Le Matin Des Noire’ finds Adamson wandering the sodden streets of Paris at three in the morning, the memories of vibes and brushed cymbals playing around his head. At over ten minutes, the track is the most soundtrack-esque of this collection, and if you think hard enough you can almost see the rain, the raincoats and the trilby hats of a Len Deighton novel as conceived by Alfred Hitchcock.

Euphoric horns and lazy beats herald ‘That Fool Was Me’, for all intents and purposes a classic love song dealing with regret and loss. The strolling brass section sounds like a New Orleans funeral procession, while Adamson reveals a hidden, treacly warmth to his vocals. ‘The Crime Scene’ lifts the pace, throwing together spiralling Bernard Herrmann-esque discordant improvised strings and a rolling drum and bass rhythm, to which Adamson’s brand of sub-bass is surprisingly well-suited; some John Barry guitar and a palette of sirens, gunshots and a general clamorous sonic bed gives this an air of criminal menace. An instrumental, our King – now less than a figurehead – rides around the streets of his shrinking kingdom and watches the disarray the democracy that deposed him has created.

The album closes with ‘Cold Comfort’, an acoustic ballad over tinkly keys and subtle metronomic percussion, that shows Adamson’s tender side, returning once again to themes of loss and longing. Memories of earlier glories, the mistakes that contributed to his downfall, the track closes with some horn lines that are truly uplifting.

The King is dead. Long live the King.

First published 2003; re-edited 2014.

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence

Barry Adamson – What It Means (Mute Records single, 1998)

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Barry Adamson 'What It Means' artwork

mute records | mute219 | 10/08/1998

‘What It Means’ is a perfect Barry Adamson track, and certainly one of the most complete of his tracks to have been released in the single format. It’s quite a thrilling ride, a suite of electronically-enhanced high-speed verses over which Adamson delivers a harsh and harmonious vocal, backed by springy synth noises and a bold, stalking bassline. The vibe is cast in a jazz mould, and on the chorus the track opens out into a horn and organ groove blessed by a great drum section from Andrew Crisp, with some ebulliant, Andy Williams crooning by Barry.

Skylab exploit the jazzy vibe and create a loose arrangement across their two mixes. They break the track apart to create what could pass as a live improv jam, introducing Adamson’s vocal on their second, amusingly-titled ‘Skylab A Smokin’ Japanese We’re Chicken in Moss Side’ mix. Renegade Soundwave survivor Danny Briottet returns to the fold to team up with stalwart Mute producer Paul ‘PK’ Kendall on his ‘Subsonic Legacy Master’ mix. A jazzy two-step variant, Briottet adds some dub echoes and a killer sub-bassline to create a superb electro-dub counterweight to the bebop sounds elsewhere on the disc.

First published 2004; re-edited 2014

(c) 2014 Mat Smith / Documentary Evidence