I discovered this track in one of your live sets, and I was really surprised by it. How did you get to this?
I actually heard this being played by Ron Hardy at the Music Box.
Ah, so it was Ron Hardy who inspired you then?
The people that have inspired me musically where I am now is Ron Hardy, Larry Levan, Larry Heard and fortunately but unfortunately Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain. Those are pretty much some of my strongest influences. Later on it became people like Farley Jack Master Funk when he was really bringing it to the table musically on the radio, and from that point on it’s like my whole world expanded, it expanded to unparalleled paradox.
In regards of “Diskomo,” though, when I heard Ron Hardy play it, it didn’t make sense to me because I wasn’t on drugs. But a lot of people that were in the party scene at that time were experimenting with drugs. Ron would spin records faster, because he was under the influence. So the thing is I probably heard “Diskomo” at a faster speed. You never knew what Ron was doing at this time, so when you hear “Diskomo” and you hear these sort of patterns and tone pads and kind of modular effects like wind and stuff in this manner, it was hard to tell what was what. If you were in that time period, would you think that was Ron Hardy, or would you think that was a record?
It has a really eerie atmosphere…
It’s the same thing with Ian Curtis, and what Joy Division did. The producer behind them gave that whole thing atmosphere, that sort of specialness. And that’s what “Discomo” did for me when I heard it.
This new wave post punk music is not necessarily something you would associate with early house, which is kind of peculiar, but you seem to be attracted to this kind of music…
This is house music. That’s the thing that nobody—and let’s make this clear, I am nobody to tell you what is and what isn’t the truth—but I can tell you what I know and what I saw. And it was the innovation that Larry and Ron undertook, and it’s the innovation that I have personally taken on myself. I am singlehandedly the ambassador of truth right now. I feel like I have singlehandedly taken on the roles of these artists in the way that they described their music and the way that they played their music, and I feel that I’m someone that can say that this music that has somehow been forgotten has a greater significance than people can imagine.
New Order – Video 5-8-6 (1982)
Let’s talk about New Order. This has a kind of long-jam approach to recording, but it is also kind of a blueprint, not only for later electronic developments, but also for their own developments. There are already shadings of “Blue Monday” in it, but it is much earlier, 1982.
I play “Video 586” in my sessions. I play every type of sound known, and I am probably the world’s biggest risk taker. There are probably three other people that I could say right now that are as risky as I am.
Who are they?
Mick Wills, from Stuttgart, Germany, James T. Cotton and myself. And, actually, someone who is on another level to also give full etiquette and education and experience is Jamal Moss. In my eyes, even though he doesn’t DJ, musically what he does with IBM and these other projects… it’s not the sort of stuff that you would usually hear.
But he does DJ, doesn’t he?
Jamal is one of my guys, and I have never seen him play wax. But what I have of him, the material that I have gotten from him, is still sick. It’s like another level of Ron Hardy through Jamal Moss. Without a doubt.
You seem to be quite like-minded in your approach…
Well, “Video 586” is an idea that I didn’t realize that was important until later, Jamal didn’t realize until later, that JTC didn’t realize was important later. It’s the idea of not following the law of 4/4 music, or the law of what it should be. This is what made music risky, and this is what made New Order risky.
Why do so few DJ’s take risks that way do you think?
Because they are scared. They’re scared to lose the crowd, they are scared to be risky, to do something that they have never done. That’s why you have something called the social chain, and it’s what everybody else follows. I am not on the social chain. Those people that I have mentioned, Mick Wills, James T. Cotton, Jamal are guys that I know do not play by the rules.
So is that your main agenda? To change the set of rules?
My main agenda is to change the rules to the way that they should be. The way that everybody is crying, “Why can’t it be like the days when I was growing up.” Because this is the point, think about it: Why do people play records from the old days? Because they wanna remember. Why do you always have to remember the past? Why can’t you deal with now? Read the rest of this entry »
In discussion with Philip Sherburne about “The Flat Earth” by Thomas Dolby (1984).
Why did you choose this album, and how did you come across Thomas Dolby in the first place?
Until I was 12 or 13, I got most of my pop music from Top 40 radio. There weren’t a lot of other options for kid living in suburban Portland, Oregon in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and I loved a lot of things that I’d probably cringe at now, simply because they were all that was available. This is not one of them, though. Thomas Dolby’s “The Flat Earth” has remained a personal favorite for a quarter century now, and within it I can find many of the seeds of my eventual love for electronic music. I don’t remember any first encounter with Thomas Dolby’s 1982 single “She Blinded Me With Science,” which was all over the radio that year. I’m sure it was the synths and samples that grabbed me. I had discovered synthesizers through the music shop where I bought piano sheet music – Bach, Czerny, Phil Collins – and was nuts about anything with synths in it (In 1983, I’d get one of my own, a Korg Poly-800). Curiously, I didn’t dig any further into Dolby’s music at the time, but then, the song was ubiquitous, and in retrospect, it was such an odd single it probably didn’t gesture towards a form bigger than itself, like an album. It was what it was, and that was plenty. In 1984 or 1985, I went through a brief period of checking out LPs from the Multnomah County Library. That’s where I came across „The Flat Earth“. It was the cover that got me. Around that time, I would latch onto anything that had the faintest hint of “new wave” to it, and the cover’s pseudoscientific markings and cryptic photo-montage seemed like the most modern thing I’d ever seen. In retrospect, the sleeve is hardly so dazzling — a slightly watered down version of Peter Saville. (In fact, it looks a little like a cross between the Durutti Column’s “Circuses & Bread” and Section 25’s “From the Hip”, but it lacks the elegance of either.) Still, it was good enough for a 14-year-old jonesing for the New. I remember sitting on the floor of my parents’ living room, hunched over the sleeve, trying to make sense of the whole package. Not to repeat myself, but “cryptic” is the only word that fits. Everything about the music seemed to hint at hidden meanings, from the sleeve to the lyrics: “Keith talked in alphanumerals,” after all. Who the hell was the guy panning for gold on the cover? Who were these mysterious Mulu, people of the rainforest? What was a drug cathedral, and why an octohedron? (I had so much to learn.) Etc., etc. I’ve long since stopped caring much about lyrics, much less concept albums, but I was young and impressionable then, and every flip of the record seemed to offer another clue as to some strange, grownup world I couldn’t begin to decipher. The same went for the music, of course. For starters, there was the stylistic range: “Dissidents” and “White City” were recognizable as pop music, after a fashion, but what was “Screen Kiss”? It presented a kind of liquidity I don’t remember having recognized in music before that – first in the fretless bass, the synthesizers and the stacked harmonies, and even the chord changes, but mainly it was the way it trailed off into the scratchy patter of L.A. traffic reports, multi-tracked and run through delay. I’d never heard the “real world” breaking into pop music before, and certainly not spun into such a purely “ambient” sound. “Mulu the Rain Forest” was another weird one – again, an approximation of ambient, long before I’d discover it. And “I Scare Myself” totally threw me for a loop. What was a Latin lounge jazz song doing here, especially sandwiched between the humid “Mulu” and the jagged, chromed funk of “Hyperactive”? There was no doubting the continuity of the album, but the pieces felt at odds, as fractured as the cut-up sleeve imagery; the sequencing seemed erratic and the two sides of the LP felt out of balance with each other, and yet you couldn’t have put it together any other way. Just like venturing to the edge of the (flat) earth, flipping the record had a weirdly vertiginous quality to it. (I was, you may note, an unusually impressionable adolescent, at least where music was concerned.)
At the time I got this it took some time to grow on me. Was it the same with you or was it love at first sight?
A little of both. There was definitely something off-putting about the record at first, but I devoured it anyway. I’d go so far as to say that the parts that alienated me were precisely what sent me back into it. I wanted to figure it out. All this might sound a little silly now. Today, I can recognize that a lot of it is pretty overblown, beginning with the lyrics: “My writing/ is an iron fist/ in a glove full of Vaseline”? That’s… pretty awful. (Also, it may go some way towards explaining the purplish quality of my own youthful stabs at poesy.) But for all its excesses, it kept drawing me in. I still listen to the fade out from “Dissidents” into “The Flat Earth” and feel a thrill all over again, all those gangly licks and hard-edged FM tones giving way to hushed percussion and a yielding soundfield… It’s funny, too, to listen today to the title track and even hear the tiniest hint of disco and proto-house in the rolling conga rhythms, things I had absolutely no idea about then. Whatever its failures, this was the album that, more than any other up until that time, convinced me that records offered more than just a hook and a chorus, that they deserved to be puzzled through, analyzed, unpacked. That they offered up their own little worlds, worlds I would aspire to inhabit. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome to the final chapter of the Druffalo Rave Chronicles. In sharp contrast to the usual brouhaha surrounding the city’s contributions to club music history there is no particular reason why we conclude the series with Chicago. It’s just the one we still had left for release, and we wanted to stop before we were even tempted to invent rave scenes that don’t really exist (given that all of it was a very subjective D*ruffalo take on the rave phenomenon anyway). So, as sad as it may be, we would like to kiss the rave goodbye with some real Windy City classics, and this is the way we jack the house…
K.A. Posse – Dig This (Underground) Robert Armani – Circus Bells (Dance Mania) The Housefactors – Play It Loud (Black Market International) Armando – We’re On The Move (Warehouse) DJ Pierre- Drive Me In Your Car (Jive) M.D.3. – The Pressure Cooker (Underground) 326 – Falling (Muzique) Brian Harris – H2O (Chicago Underground) Lil’ Louis – Music Takes U away (Dance Mania) Qx-1 – On A Journey (Rhythm Beat) Pizarro – Suelta Mé (Gosa-Lo) Mix Masters – In The Mix (DJ International) Liz Torres – Payback Is A Bitch (Jive) Lil’ Louis – Frequency (Dance Mania) Steve Poindexter – Computer Madness (Muzique) Vitamin B – You Make Me Feel (Rhythm Beat) Two For Soul – The Music’s Taken Over Me (Future Sound) 2 Houss People – Baby Wants To Move You (Gherkin) Myoshi Morris – Muzik (Rockin’ House) Armando – 100% Of Dissin’ You (Warehouse) Steve Poindexter – Work That Motherfucker (Muzique) The Dance Kings – Climb The Walls (Dance Mania) Terry Hunter – Madness (Muzique) Risque 3 – Essence Of A Dream (Stride) Mike Dearborn – New Dimension (Muzique) Ron Trent – The Afterlife (Djax) Da Posse – In The Life (Republic) North/Clybourn – O Ban 1 (Gherkin) Fingers Inc. – Bye Bye (Jack Trax)
Auch wenn er vermutlich niemals aus dem Kollektivgedächtnis der House-Liebhaber verschwinden wird, es soll hier, aus zu immer gegebenen Anlass, abermals an den legendärsten Abtrünnigen in der Geschichte von House erinnert werden: Bobby Konders. Er mastermixte sich bis Anfang der 90er Jahre bei New Yorks Radiosender WBLS einen klangvollen Namen mit House, Reggae, Hip Hop und Disco-Klassikern, dann erschütterte er in einem überschaubaren Zeitraum von 1989 bis 1993 die Clubkultur mit Platten, in denen er die oben genannten Musikstile zu Produktionen verknüpfte, die immer noch ihresgleichen suchen. Seine Soundidee klingt in der Theorie simpel, war aber in der Ausführung zum Verzweifeln originär. Konders injizierte die Bassschwere und das Raum- und Zeitgefühl von Dub in den House-Sound, reicherte dies mit der Tiefe und Virtuosität von Peter Daous Keyboards an, dem wohl klassischsten aller New Yorker Studiomusiker der dortigen Szene, und erzeugte so eine Musik, die gleichzeitig drücken und schweben konnte, und bei aller rohen Unmittelbarkeit stets erhaben und überlegen schien. Selbst bei einer etwas wirr anmutenden Abfolge von Remix-Auftragsarbeiten zwischen den Associates, Foremost Poets bis hin zu Herb Alpert, ließ sich dieses Patentrezept problemlos übersetzen, stets war das Ergebnis der pure Bobby Konders-Zauber, in bestechend konsistenter Qualität. Diese EP von 1990 ist das Manifest dieser Schaffensperiode. Egal ob dubbiger Acid („Nervous Acid“), deeper Flöten-House (“The Poem“), technoider Freestyle (“Let There Be House“), oder rootsiger Hypno-House (“Massai Women”), mit den dazugehörigen Versions, jeder der sechs Tracks wurde zu einem Klassiker, fortwährendes Zeugnis vom immensen Talent eines Produzenten, seine Vorlieben und Ideen scheinbar mühelos in einen Trademark-Sound zu transferieren, der stets gültig bleibt, und an dem sich bis in alle Zeiten die Epigonen die Zähne ausbeißen werden. Und was macht das Genie, das viel besungene? Es pfeift auf die bedingungslose Verehrung seiner Anhängerschar, legt sich auf seine erste, größere Liebe zu Reggae und Dancehall fest, und produziert nie wieder einen House-Track. Keine Retrospektiven, Überredungskünste oder Gagenangebote, die sich zu Clubkultur verhalten wie Abba zu Pop, haben daran etwas ändern können. Es hat natürlich auch nicht geholfen, dass seine Karriere in diesem… anderen… Betätigungsfeld seiner Wahl ähnlich legendär und einflussreich verlief, und wesentlich mehr Geld einbrachte. Was bleibt ist ein Werk von erdrückendem Ausnahmestatus, und die Erkenntnis, dass es niemals wieder vorkommen sollte, dass jemand von solchen Gaben einfach abspringt. Von noch so einer Verschmähung, solch einem tiefen Schock, würde sich House wohl nicht mehr erholen können.
Im Gespräch mit Maurice Summen über “No Tears” von Tuxedomoon (1978).
In meiner frühen Jugend war “No Tears” einer dieser Songs, die in Clubs, in denen alles zwischen Italo Disco und New Wave gespielt wurde, quasi automatisch die Tanzfläche füllten. Bist Du in einem ähnlichen Kontext auf den Song gestoßen? Was ist Deine persönliche Geschichte mit “No Tears”?
Es gab im Münsterland in den 80er Jahren einen schönen Laden namens “Fabrik” in der Kleinstadt Coesfeld. Ein Treffpunkt für Wave, Punk, EBM, Psychobilly und Cure-Fans. Ein fantastischer Ort: Tolle Frisuren, Domestos-Jeans, Ratten auf den Schultern und ein wirklich bizarrer Musikmix. “No Tears” war ähnlich wie “Surfin’ Bird” von den Trashmen eine Art Schnittmengenstück für nahezu alle subkulturellen Lager.
Der Song hat ja diesen sehr charismatischen Text. “No tears for the creatures of the night”. Jeder konnte das für sich auslegen, und so wurde das von der New Wave- bzw. Grufti-Szene bis heute zu Electroclash und Nachfolgendem immer weitergetragen und neu eingesetzt. Aber wie hast Du diesen Text für Dich persönlich ausgelegt? Einsamkeit in der Menge? Entfremdung in der nächtlichen Stadt? Es bieten sich ja viele Deutungsmöglichkeiten…
Meine Eltern haben damals eine schwere Beziehungskrise durchlebt, Schule habe ich nicht bzw. hat mich nicht verstanden, Mädchen waren für mich auch ein großes Mysterium. Sie hingen mit den etwas älteren Dorfprolls herum, nur weil die schon ein Auto hatten! Na ja, so in etwa habe ich mir das damals in zusammengereimt… Ich war folgerichtig gegen alles! Die „Creatures“ waren eben all “die anderen”! Und für die hatte ich einfach kein Mitleid! Read the rest of this entry »
1988, im Blütejahr von Acid House, war die Sachlage eigentlich klar. In den USA war Acid roh und funky und entschieden billig-analog, die Chicago Originators allerdings schon auf dem Sprung zum nächsten Ding (Hip House vorerst, da lässt sich die Geschichte nicht klittern), und Detroits Brüder im Geiste machten etwas ganz Anderes aus der Vorlage. In England hingegen griffen die traditionellen Mechanismen der Hype-Presse und Acid wurde zur Bewegung. Und diese war in Klang und Mode überwiegend Pop. Im Gegensatz zu den amerikanischen Ur-Tracks, die voll in ihrer Funktionalität aufgingen, kam man auf der Insel nicht ohne den stilistischen Mehrwert aus. Also wurde alles day-glo, Smileys, Acid Ted und Space Cadet, und man hielt Radlerhosen und Bandanas für ein unbedenkliches Outfit. Man brauchte erneut Gesichter, und im Rückenwind von Yazz, Baby Ford, D-Mob quietschten und blubberten Varianten in die Charts und Clubs, die mit der experimentellen Ausprägung des Ausgangsmaterials nicht mehr viel zu tun hatten. Und dann kamen 808 State aus Manchester mit ihrem Debütalbum ”Newbuild“, einer komplett anderen Interpretation all der Zufallsklänge, die sich mit einer 303 erzielen ließen. Graham Massey, vormalig Mitglied der Post Punk-Veteranen Biting Tongues, Martin Price, Besitzer des legendären Plattenladens Eastern Bloc und Gerald Simpson, das Voodoo Ray-Wunderkind, hatten offensichtlich weder Interesse daran, den Sound aus Chicago zu kopieren, noch ihn mit käsigen Samples zu Top of the Pops-Material umzubiegen. Ihr Entwurf war kalt und irre, ein einziges manisches Flirren, das bereits von den komplexen Rhythmen vorangehetzt wurde, die Markenzeichen der Band blieben. Wo die Boulevardpresse sich mit Drogenvorwürfen gegen die vergleichsweise charmanten aber eher harmlosen Hits der Szene warm schoss, war eigentlich hier der wahre Feind. Musik, die gleichermaßen klang wie ein weitäugiger Rausch im Strobonebel der Clubs, sowie eben auch ein weitäugiger Rausch inmitten der grauen Fiesheit mancher Gegenden nordenglischer Städte, dessen Stumpfheit die Kids im Strobonebel der Clubs bekämpfen wollten. Der komplexe Irrsinn von ”Flow Coma“ oder ”Sync/Swim“ hat nichts von seinem Schockpotential eingebüßt, und ebnete den Weg derer, für die die Clubmusik der folgenden Jahre nicht mit Behaglichkeit einherzugehen hatte, also in etwa das Bindeglied der Hinterhältigkeit und Radikalität von Cabaret Voltaire und Konsorten und Aphex Twin und Konsorten, und dann wieder zurück nach Chicago zu Traxx und Jamal Moss. Wie so oft ließ sich der Intensitätslevel des Erstlings nicht halten, wie so oft probierte man sich danach mit anderen Ideen aus, man überwarf sich, man ging getrennte Wege, und man produzierte das nächste Meisterwerk, in anders aber mindestens ebenso bedeutend, ”Automanikk“ hier, und ”Ninety“ da. Der Stoff, aus dem die Träume sind.
In discussion with Philip Marshall about the album “Introspective” by the Pet Shop Boys (1988).
There is plenty to choose from in the history of the Pet Shop Boys, why did you pick this album? It’s all about time, and my personal trajectory. In late 88 I was 16, going on 17… And life was unfurling before me. No longer trapped in suburbia, I was spending increasing times in London Town, growing up, and learning all about myself – clubbing and all that entails included. I dug deep into London’s rich vein of “equity culture”, and quickly discovered my late teenage was perfectly in sync with the most exciting of explosions in music culture since post-punk. At this time, lines were blurred. I made a commitment to myself, and sold off hundreds of indie vinyl down the Notting Hill record & tape exchange in order to fund my new-found love of nightlife and the music coupled to it. No mop-headed moaning guitar drivel would ever sully my collection again (or, so I thought back then…). An end to teenage angst, sold by the crate-load. Out with the gloom. In with 808 State, Electribe 101 and never ending weekends… But, the electronic pop I had loved when young stayed with me…
I think it is safe to say that they wanted to do something different from their first two albums. How do you place this in the output of the Pet Shop Boys?
It’s all about timing – “Introspective” was released that November, when my introspection first ended. A thread – from a pop past, to a future life. For them, it was a definite embrace of the then fresh house culture that Europe had plunged into – a relatively brave move for an established pop act and before others, such as ABC, jumped that train… As far as placing in their personal timeline, well one of the things I love about this album is its single-minded stance. Although the songwriting and lyricism is as strong as what went before and what was to come, its formatting, arrangement and structure was wilfully, almost arrogantly, other. Here was a group having number one hits in Europe and the USA, coming off the back of two consecutive number ones, and returning with a release that 1.) was six tracks long, 2.) comprised of extended mixes, 3.) didn’t have their image on the cover, 4.) was oblique, lyrically, in parts… The confidence and, presumably, freedom from EMI’s meddling that their earlier success lent them, afforded them the space to make an other statement. A few weeks ago, I was tearing through the English countryside with Jon Wozencroft , on our way to a Suffolk performance. His car had a cassette player, and we were rifling through his old tape collection. “Introspective” was played. We agreed; it is the “Sgt. Pepper” of house – the sound of a band at the peak of its popularity stretching and flexing its remit without fear of a crash. Read the rest of this entry »
Die Faszination der Labels Prescription und Balance ist weiterhin ungebrochen. Erfolgreiche Reissues, irrsinnige Online-Marketplace-Preise und zahllose Versuche des internationalen Nachwuchses in unterschiedlicher Fallhöhe, die Magie der klassischen Veröffentlichungen für das eigene Profil abzuwaschen, künden immer aufs Neue davon und selbst das lange Schweigen von Chez Damier und Ron Trents fortwährende Abstecher ins jazzig-spirituelle Dudel-Muckertum ließen den Glanz ihrer Großtaten nie verblassen. Es erscheint mir etwas sinnlos aus dem Katalog eines der klassischsten Deep-House-Labels den definitiven Klassiker zu bestimmen, da hat jeder seine eigene Geschichte (wen es dennoch interessiert, bei mir wäre es “Forever Monna“, aus verschiedensten Gründen). Also soll es hier um “The Nature Of Retribution“ gehen, aus dem einfachen Grund, dass diese Platte zum Zeitpunkt ihres Erscheinens 1995 eine Art Rückschau auf die eigenen Karrieren war, und gleichzeitig alles aufwies, was diese zumindest im Kanon von Deep House für immer andauern lassen wird. Alles was des Afficionados Kultdetektor fuchsig macht, ist hier vertreten: Die Platte verzichtet vollkommen auf Credits. Keine Titel, keine Autoren, nix. Wozu auch, es ist offensichtlich wer und was hier dahinter steckt. In neuen Versionen schaut Chez Damier noch mal bei seiner legendären 49 auf KMS und Chuggles vorbei, und Ron Trent bei Nagual. Dazu gibt es noch einen für sie typischen, luftigen House-Gospel, der vermutlich eine Gemeinschaftsproduktion ist. Was sich hier wie eine relativ profane Vorgehensweise einer überschaubaren Werkschau liest, versammelt jedoch eine Ansammlung von Tracks, die bis heute alles in den Staub schmettern was ihren Weg kreuzt, in Neuversionen, die mindestens in der Lage sind das Gleiche anzurichten. A1 ist eine geradezu frustrierende Lehrstunde darin, mit wie wenig man wie viel erreichen kann. Ein Beat, ein paar Akkorde, ein versprengtes Vocal-Sample. Fertig ist das Meisterstück, auch wenn es, wie auch schon bei früheren Tracks der Labels der Fall, hier in einer Kürze zum Verzweifeln fast nur skizziert wird. A2 ist der wilde Ritt zur Disco-Himmelspforte, bis zur Atemlosigkeit vorangetrieben, de- und rekonstruiert aus Sample-Versatzstücken des klassischen Disco-Erbes und den Insignien des eigenen Stils. Auch eine Lehrstunde, nur mit anderem Inhalt. Wo tue ich was hin, damit es wie funktioniert? Im Ergebnis wieder ein Meisterstück. B2 ist dann schließlich die noch eine geniale Lektion, und zwar in Sachen hypnotischer Eindringlichkeit. Wild Pitch trifft auf Dub trifft auf Chicago-Bounce, keiner der drei war danach wie er vorher war, und der Hörer, glücklich verloren im Sog, schon gar nicht. All das veröffentlichten Damier und Trent in einem ausgesprochenen House-Krisenjahr mit wenig Konkurrenz auf Augenhöhe, was die Wirkung und Verehrung folglich noch erheblich potenzierte. Und so rechtfertigen sich auch mindestens die nächsten 14 Jahre Kult- und Legendenstatus.
In discussion with Terre Thaemlitz about the album “Dazzle Ships” by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (1983).
A lot of interesting electronic music was produced in 1983, the year “Dazzle Ships” was released. What drew you to Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, and this album in particular?
To be honest, I don’t recall exactly how I came to own this record. I think it was probably the usual budgetary situation where I had heard about OMD, I wanted to buy a record to check them out, and “Dazzle Ships” was the cheapest album to buy. As a teen, my record collection was built on unpopular records from the $1.00 bin. This was economically unavoidable. It also meant my point of entry for a lot of bands was through their “commercial flops”. And as an “outsider” who did not fit in with others and was therefore a flop of sorts myself, I found resonance with these failures at assimilation. Gary Numan’s “Dance” is a brilliant example – thinking back, to be 13 years old in Springfield, Missouri, and really into that album, it really signifies a kind of social isolation. A “normal” or “healthy” 13 year old could not be into that album. Impossible. So I believe this entire process of arriving at an album like “Dazzle Ships” must never be reduced to a simple matter of taste. It’s tied to issues of economics, class, socialization… in the US it is also tied to race and the divide between “black music” and “white music,” etc.
With this album, OMD experimented with elements beyond their Pop abilities, like shortwave recordings, sound collages and cold war/eastern bloc imagery. How would you describe the concept of this album?
I think “Architecture & Morality” already introduced a lot of those elements. I don’t know for sure, but as a producer myself I imagine this is partly related to the emergence of better sampling technology. They could use samplers to play back all kinds of sound elements, rather than being limited to synths and multi-track recording. I also imagine, drawing from my own experiences, that “Dazzle Ships” (like Numan’s “Dance”) represents a crisis in their relationships to their record labels and Pop music generally. A crisis with capitalism, the demand for sales, demand for audio conformity… and in this way the socialist imagery of the album is perhaps a reflection of their struggling against these processes. I remember reading some article – which I have no idea if it was trustworthy or not, but – it talked about the tremendous pressure labels put on OMD to become more Pop. I believe they were asked to finally decide if they wanted to be the new “Abba” or not, and if so, to change their style accordingly. This was a brutal trend in UK new wave. It destroyed the Eurythmics, The Human League, Gary Numan, OMD, Depeche Mode, and on and on… These are all UK bands, all extremely influential, and all totally boring in the end. Very few groups came out of these struggles for the better – one exception being Talk Talk, who did abandon their synth sound but became something marvelously unmarketable in another way. All of these New Wave bands had to become Rock bands capable of penetrating the US market, blah, blah – dumb American Dreams. Techno-Pop was dismissed as a fad by industry, and the artists seem to have gotten swept up in the hype of possible “success”. Ironically, of course, even if they got a brief flash of super-Pop success they alienated their core fans who had been drawn to them as other than Pop. I know I felt extremely betrayed. I still do, at age 41. When I was young, it was a personal betrayal, now it strikes me as a cultural betrayal. I could be totally wrong, but I guess for me, all of this feeds into the concept of “Dazzle Ships”, the title being a reference to massive battle ships. The idea of sending this album afloat in the marketplace, poised to attack and conquer as the label wants – but stylistically it also clearly sabotages any prospect of popularity. I think it was OMD’s attack on the labels that released it – a final kick in resistance before transforming into the Pop band that produced “Junk Culture” (although it could have also been a tremendous extension of A&R pampering in which the label let their artists run amuck – but that is so much less inspiring to me). And you have to forgive me, coming from the US, I have no idea how these records operated in Europe. I can imagine they got radio play. But not in the US. So my view is slanted by this. In the US these were all anti-Pop albums with no airplay, except in a few major cities. They had to be hunted down. And this camouflaged cover, in a way, also carried this metaphor of a product hidden in the marketplace, hard to find, elusive. But present. I like this metaphor – it predates the queer motto “We are everywhere” by a good number of years. Read the rest of this entry »
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