I well recall at school walking past the sixth form centre and hearing a completely new sound (to me) from the other side of the netball court. It was ‘Are Friends Electric?’ and I was entranced by the vibe. Chilly, yet compelling. Hypnotic, yet unsettling. Alienating, yet enticing.
I enthused about this odd sound to my friend, Stuart. He was a year older than me, more confident ordering drinks and talking to women. He also gave me lifts to the pub in his own car. So I respected his opinion on musical matters. His view was that this was cartoony, gimmicky stuff and nothing Bowie hadn’t covered off more authentically on ‘Low’.
Now, I liked ‘Low’ (I had it on a TDK C90 tape) but distrusted this hagiographical view. In short order, I was further drawn to early OMD, early Human League and the odd synth bands that started cropping up on John Peel, like The Normal.
Fast forward to today and to some degree this distrust of synthesiser authenticity hasn’t gone away. That it’s not real in some way – perhaps ‘testcard’ music as my friend Adrian might put it. It rather depends on how much authenticity you demand from musicians. For me, not much. In some ways, I suppose, I distrust musical proficiency, but then I’m a child of the original DIY post-punk spirit.
So, here’s a short tour round some, possibly inauthentic, synth sounds of the 21st century. As ever, we’ve taken some stopovers round the globe in places such as Belgium and Canada. There’s a debt of influence to the past, of course, with a splendid brand new track from Working Men’s Club genuflecting towards New Order.
But we also stop off in Russia, Yekaterinberg to be precise, where we get to hear what Sovietwave sounds like in the shape of Elektrodepo’s ‘Sequence’. Sovietwave is a movement concerned with “dreams for space and progress, which have disappeared with the USSR, together with positive childhood reminiscences and utopic philanthropy hopes”. Problematic, possibly. Intriguing, nonetheless. And the synthesiser is the perfect tool for the transmission of this paradox.
Tracklist:
Valleys, Working Men’s Club
Look like that, Sneaks
Drugs in my body, Thieves Like Us
Missing wires, Soulwax
The look, Metronomy
Feral love, Chelsea Wolfe
Birthday, Junior Boys (Caribou Mix)
Sequence, Elektrodepo
Boy from school, Hot Chip
Chimeras, Tim Hecker
Under the sun, Spellling