REVIEW - ATOM TREE & MACHINES IN HEAVEN, CCA 19 OCTOBER 2013

As part of Document the International Human Rights Film Festival, Atom Tree and Machines In Heaven played a free show at the CCA on Sauchiehall Street last night. It was my first time seeing both bands live and they both played outstanding sets.

Atom Tree opened up and instantly caught the imagination. There's genuinely something special about this band and I'm convinced that they're going to be huge. Sometimes electronic music doesn't translate to the live arena and can sound a bit flat however Atom Tree showed what can be done and they did it bloody well. The set included a full play of recently released Tide of Thorns ep (review here) including a glorious Desired Effects with Fergus from Discopolis on vocals. My personal favourite PS sounded amazing live too.

Atom Tree live at CCA 19 October 2013

As the people I was texting and emailing post gig will attest, I was blown away by this set. It's hard to perhaps pin down comparisons or obvious influences to give you an idea of the Atom Tree sound as I hear so many different elements at play. My notes from Saturday night mention Radiohead's Kid A at several points and that's not a bad comparison. The atmospheric electronics certainly do bring that album to mind but that's really only part of the story. My best advice would be to check them out yourself as you will not be disappointed. Next up for them is a support with Ghostpoet at the CCA on 22 October, a gig at Cookies in Berlin on 30 November and a showcase show at Catch in London on 4 October .

Blog favourites Machines In Heaven were next up. I've contrived to miss most of their recent shows so it was great to finally get a chance to seem them live. The band gave us a 6 song set containing the three tracks from the Glasgow Jihad ep (links and review here ) and three others including a fantastic (and fantastically named) Parliament Is Made of Rice Paper

Machines In Heaven live CCA 19 October 2013

I've go on and on about Machines In Heaven before and having seen the live show I'm going to keep going on until everyone listens. As with Atom Tree the songs really work live and have an extra punch to them. the set closing bordersbreakdown was a perfect example of that. It's an ambitious track which sounds great on the ep and happily the band perform an excellent version live which seems to have a bit more kick to it. Highly recommended. The band are currently busy remixing for a few people and have just finished their debut album. There are also more gigs in the pipeline which I'll keep you informed about.

Overall then it was a great gig. It's so refreshing to see such vibrant live electronic scene and especially pleasing personally when two bands I keep banging on about sound so good. Thanks to Shaun, Graham, Greg, Connor and Clair for chatting on Saturday - look forward to doing it all again soon.

Atom Tree Facebook
Machines In Heaven Facebook

ELECTRONIC INSPIRATIONS PART 1: ERASURE - CHORUS

An occasional series where I review non Depeche Mode albums that have influenced me...

Chorus is Erasure's finest album. It contains ten near perfect tracks, all of which are stunning examples of synthpop, electronic pop or whatever you want to label it. Like most people who grew up when I grew up, I was a fan of Erasure thanks to their seemingly unstoppable run of fantastic singles in the mid to late 1980's. For me they went off the boil with Wild! which was just too mixed. There are some great songs there (Drama! , Piano Song) but overall it wasn't up to the standard of The Innocents and I lost a bit of interest in them. Chorus reignited that interest to the extent that I still believe it is one of the most important electronic music albums of all time.

Chorus was released on 14 October on LP, cassette, cd and limited cd boxset, having been preceded by two of the band's finest singles, the title track Chorus and Love To Hate You. Chorus opens the album and you're immediately struck by the purely analogue sound that Vince had spent the post Wild years creating. He actually avoided the use of MIDI throughout which gives the album its unique sound for me. Vince is the master of all things analogue. The song starts and synths whoosh and roar, bleeps bleep, there's the odd noise like radar on a submarine and Andy sings about fishes, birds, bones and much more. As with all the great Erasure singles it's over the top and fantastic for it. Even writing about track one now I'm taken back to my last year at school where my friend John Harrower and I would try out best to dominate the common room tape player with this album, Kraftwerk's The Mix and Doolittle by the Pixies. Odd mix but it worked.

Chorus single cover

(Part of the point of these blogs is pure reminiscence on my part so you'll have to forgive the occasional sentimental diversion)

What follows Chorus are two of the great Erasure album tracks. As well as firing out perfect pop singles the band's albums were always full of great material - Love Is A Loser, Spiraling, My Heart So Blue, Heart of Stone, Piano Song and so on. Here, Waiting For The Day and Joan equal if not better those tracks. Killer choruses and music so perfect it's actually ridiculous. Every track on this album was a potential number one single with perhaps the exception, rather oddly, being one of the singles Breath of Life which follows at track 4. A decent song yes but the weakest on the album for me. If it's a great single you're after then the next track Am I Right? provides that. It's a heartbreakingly perfect analogue synthy ballad of Godlike proportions basically and that is no exaggeration. What a song. Am I Right? was released as a four track ep with three very good b-sides. I remember (here I go again....) seeing an advert in Melody Maker on a Saturday morning for the limited edition 12" of the single featuring mixes of the ep tracks by folk like Moby, getting up and getting the bus to Dumfries just to get it. Simpler times. Am I Right? is one of the great Erasure singles and if you like electronic pop music you should like this.

Am I Right? single cover

Chorus may have been a fairly over the top single but it was Leonard Cohen-esque compared to track 6 and the album's second single Love To Hate You. An entire factory of kitchen sinks was thrown in to give us a bewildering yet magical track. Despite Andy's clear influence here Vince is still quite rightly bleeping away throughout. Turns The Love To Anger and the spooky yet reassuringly bleepy Siren Song follow. The latter was the opening track on the band's spectacular Phantasmagorical Tour during which Andy would ride on in a mechanical swan whilst Vince sat in a sort of mini tank filled with synths. Seriously. The gigs at that time were great. Each was almost three hours long with all ten Chorus tracks played among many others punctuated by a break in which there was a bingo session. Reading that back even I think I made that up but I didn't.

Love To Hate You single cover

The album ends with two more classic Erasure album tracks. Firstly we have the could-easily-have been-number-1 Perfect Stranger before the album closes with the beautiful Home. 10 songs, no fillers, Vince going analogue daft and the whole thing working as an album from start to finish. Perfection.

It's not and probably never has been cool to like Erasure but sod that frankly. To dismiss them because they're too poppy or whatever is short sighted. They may have lost their way a bit recently but for a period they and the Pet Shop Boys WERE the charts with Erasure's own golden period peaking with with Chorus. The following Abba-Esque e.p. and albums I Say, I Say, I Say and Erasure must all be sought out too. There are many bands that you could like more than Erasure and there are many different types of electronic music to explore, but every so often you have to give in and just accept that perfect electronic pop music should have a place in your life. Erasure give you that and if you're picking one album to fill the place in your life they occupy, it has to be Chorus.

CHVRCHES - Live Review, Glasgow O2ABC 10 October

The first of CHVRCHES two sold out shows at the O2 ABC last Thursday night (10 October) was a show that, as a consequence of my excitement about the album, I had been looking forward to for some time and I am pleased to say it didn't disappoint. There was a real sense of anticipation in the venue and when the band kicked off with We Sink the whole place started jumping around as one. You could tell that the band could feel it too: Iain and Martin were immediately bouncing around behind the synths and frankly fantastic album art-like stands they were in and Lauren was immediately prowling between the two owning the stage. She was definitely nervous for the first couple of songs ( no wonder given the size of the show) but that soon passed.

The first five songs blasted by in a synthpop haze. We Sink was followed by Lungs, Gun, the sensational Now Is Not The Time whose absence from the album remains a mystery and Lies which sounded huge. Night Sky was up next sounding far stronger than it does on The Bones Of What You Believe. That strength was a common theme of the evening really. Some people have wrongly dismissed the band as too poppy or lightweight, a claim which looks daft when you see them live. They were as loud as any band I've seen recently and all the better for it.

Album bonus track Strong Hand followed leading us to a fantastic three song segment - a massive Science/Visions, Recover sung by everyone in the room and a stunning version of Tether. When the song reaches that part when the synths explode into life you can't help but jump around. Incredible. The main set closed with Under The Tide and The Mother We Share and we caught our breath. After a quick break the band were back on for the Glasgow meets R 'n' B take on Whitney's It's Not Right But It's Ok (which I seemed to know every word of - everyone seemed to come to think of it) and the closing By The Throat.

And that was that. It seemed that they were finished almost as soon as they began. The gig flew by at such a pace and that was because it was so good. I know I'm guilty of hyperbole when it comes to CHVRCHES but this really was a special show. Bring on the Barras gig next March.

CHVRCHES - THE BONES OF WHAT YOU BELIEVE

To say that the debut album from Glasgow's CHVRCHES has been keenly anticipated would be something of an understatement. A large of amount of hype has been generated about the band via a number of already classic electronic pop singles, lengthy tours and high profile support slots with the likes of Depeche Mode and that hype is entirely justified. Look at it this way - we Depeche Mode fans are a notoriously hard to please bunch and a number of support bands have had some pretty rough treatment over the years. When CHVRCHES played on some European stadium shows this summer they went down a storm and gained a large number of new fans. Their fanbase was already ticking along nicely and had been steadily growing since the majestic Lies first popped up last year but the band really have taken off recently with the album hitting the top 10 in the UK and number 12 in America. I can't stop listening to it and am rather excited about seeing them live at the O2 ABC in Glasgow this Thursday. In advance of that gig then here's my track by track take on it:

1. The Mother We Share

This is simply a great electronic pop song and starts the album as it means to go on. We have a killer chorus at the centre of it all backed with superb music and the band's trademark vocal sample sounds. This was first issued in 2012 on very rare coloured vinyl which I don't have a copy of - all donations accepted

2. We Sink

Man alive, this song is breathtaking. I'm trying my best not to draw obvious comparisons but for some reason this puts me in mind of Violator which is as high a musical compliment as I can pay. In an album of great songs this is a standout. Honestly, it is a stone cold classic.

3. Gun

Another one of the pre album singles, Gun starts off nicely but turns nasty in the chorus with all sorts of threats bandied around. The song has a real early electronics feel to it which is ace and once again the chorus is just perfect.

4. Tether

A change of pace here and God help us all a guitar. The song again brings Depeche to mind but I can also hear the Cocteau Twins and the Cure here. When the synth line at 2 mins 41 seconds kicks in you'll be blown away. The songs shows that the band have a far bigger repertoire than catchy 3 and half minute songs and it's a real treat. I know of one Depeche veteran who is obsessed by this tune at the moment and you can see why. Again, the music is fantastic but here Lauren's voice really shines. The production on the album as a whole is fantastic and it's fairly brave of the band not to push Lauren's vocals to the fore throughout. They do here though and it's the right thing to do.

5. Lies

The version here is a slightly tidied up version of the 2012 song but it loses none of its' impact. It's as good an electronic song as you'll hear this year and once again - that chorus! 

6. Under The Tide

Another brooding electronic cracker in which Martin and Lauren share the vocals. 

7. Recover

I first wrote about Recover here when I heard the song for the first time. I still love it. Like I said at the time, any song that could distract me from Delta Machine was going to have to be something special and this is. 

8. Night Sky

This is the poppiest track on the album and does lack the strength of Recover or The Mother We Share but still works. 

9. Science/Visions

A really excellent track that brings to mind the sort of electronics Mute Records were putting out in the early years. The band have this magical knack of mixing older sounds with modern elements of electronic production without them sounding in any way dated. This is an outstanding track which Daniel Miller himself would have been proud to release (at least I think so anyway)

10. Lungs

I'm getting repetitive here but this is a brilliant take on modern electronic pop

11. By The Throat

Again, just pure electronic perfection. It takes all the elements I've mentioned above and uses them brilliantly again

12. You Caught The Light

The album ends on a moody almost gothic edge within which there are elements of Yazoo at their darkest. It's a perfect closing track for a nigh on perfect album

My review may seem a little over excited but I am genuinely blown away by this album. As I said in my Scottish Fiction review for me it's the most important debut electronic album since Speak & Spell. If CHVRHCES go on to have the sort of success whatever band released that album have had it will be entirely justified

See you at the ABC on Thursday!

ATOM TREE - TIDE OF THORNS EP

When I wrote about Glasgow's electronic scene recently I mentioned that another act to look out for was Atom Tree. At the time of writing that I'd heard a couple of tracks which had caught my attention and they certainly promised much for the future. The band are now set to release their first e.p. through new label to watch Hotgem and it really is something all electronic music fans should pick up.

Atom Tree are a two piece band from Glasgow fronted by Shaun Canning. If you're a fan of the likes of Jon Hopkins then this is certainly for you though for me there's more to the band than that - I hear echoes of Sigur Ros, Music For Airports era Eno and there are even poppy melodies at play which (I guess as usual) take me to Vince Clarke's early works. So what of the e.p. then? Opener Die For Your Love ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6JW7C329HA ) is a fantastic of woozy electronics and treated piano sounds that really grabs you from he off. It'll stay in your head for days once you hear it. Desired Effects is track 2 and features vocals from Fergus Cook of Discopolis. Starting off like an electronic version of Frightened Rabbit at their most laid back,  the song blossoms into a marvellously laid back almost poppy sound with the beautiful vocal from Fergus interplaying perfectly with the music. This track is the standout for me and it deserves a lot of attention. Title track Tide of Thorns is up next and this is the one that brought to mind Music For Airports with it's vocal samples and general feel. It's a track you can lost in. Finally we have the perfectly positioned PS which in the same way it closes the e.p. should be the song Atom Tree finish each live set on, as it is perfect for that role - a great end to the e.p.

Overall then it's hard not to get excited by Atom Tree and once you hear this e.p. you'll see what I mean. The band have a few live shows lined up at the moment (19 October CCA, Glasgow being the next one) with more to come in the near future.Excitingly, the band have today announced a show in Berlin at Cookies on 30 November. Given that city's love of electronic music they are bound to go down well. Check out the Facebook etc links below and make sure you investigate this band further

Soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/atomtree

Facebook http://www.facebook.com/atomtreemusic?directed_target_id=0

Twitter https://twitter.com/AtomTreeMusic

DEPECHE MODE'S SPEAK & SPELL - A DEFENCE

It's easy to write off Speak & Spell as a poor album and to view Depeche Mode as only really coming into being with Construction Time Again. The band do so why shouldn't the fans? To many it's viewed as an anomaly; a throwaway synthpop album with lightweight tunes featuring pretty boys, boys saying go and no discos. To those people I say listen again - there is far far much more to Speak & Spell than that

Look at the musical landscape of 1981 when Speak & Spell came out. We had people dressed like Revolutionary France nobleman, Dandy Highwayman or sporting in crap suits and poorly applied make-up Much, much worse, we had tartan clad buffoons like Spandau Ballet. Ok, nobody is going to suggest that Depeche Mode weren't dressed poorly. Anyone with eyes can see that Dave needed a different hairdresser in 1981, and the suits/trilby combo from the Just Can't Get Enough video really is a something we all want to forget about. As the "live" section of the video shows, Depeche stood apart from their peers with their leather and military style clothing, despite how incongruous that seemed when you consider the poppy song they were miming to. Anyway, my point is that in comparison to the clothes horse bands knocking out substandard rubbish, Depeche get wrongly lumped in with, Depeche stood out. They were different to these other bands. That's point number one.

The next and most important thing to consider is the music. From the very off, Depeche Mode offered something different,  a point entirely emphasised by the Some Bizarre version of Photographic which released before Speak & Spell itself. They mixed pop sensibilities with an electronic sound far harder than any of their contemporaries, drawing much influence from Kraftwerk, The Normal and so on, but retaining an ear catching melody. Whilst other "synth classics" of the time offer some promise (for example the opening 8 bars of To Cut A Long Story Short which is the only 8 bars of worthwhile music Spandau Ballet produced) they are very few, if any albums from that era that are firstly purely electronic and, secondly have stood the test of time. Speak & Spell satisfies both those criteria.

Let's start with the opening track New Life. By the the album was released, New Life was already well known. The song having charted high as a single, leading to the band's first Top of The Pops performance. As with the majority of Vince's lyrics there's not a lot of sense to be had bar the odd line, but that really doesn't matter with a song of such undeniable quality. It could almost be termed dance music given the speed it flies along at, and it ends beautifully on a Beatles-esque 4 part harmony. It's a perfect start to the album. I Sometimes Wish I Was Dead (early signs of the fun Vince was having in the band perhaps) pops up next and again mixes electronics, a fairly hefty bass line and beautiful harmonies ( "Never say goodbye........but I don't know why") to fantastic effect. Track 3 is Puppets which could easily have been another top ten single, and was in fact performed on UK television at the time (below), so perhaps that was the intention. Again for an album that is on the face of it a synthpop album this is fairly dark stuff, both musically and lyrically with Vince's lyrics influenced by his or a friend's drug experiences. Puppets is a perfect example of why this album should not be idly written off as, even though the band grew and developed in many different ways over the next few years, Puppets is template for early Depeche Mode work up to 1986.





Boys Say Go! is the next track. Ostensibly a song about going out with the lads for a few drinks, it is a fairly rowdy track and there's nothing wrong with that. The band kept it in the set until the Black Celebration tour, which says a lot for how well it went down live. I know of people now (or perhaps a person - hi Niggels) who'd love to see it return to the set and why not? You know you'd jump around to it - you do. The next two songs are for me the album's weakest tracks. Nodisco is interesting musically, but the lyrics let it down. As with the whole album, it is impeccably produced by the band and Daniel Miller with the able assistance of John Fryer and Eric Radcliffe. The sounds that were sculpted and created in the studio are majestic, and, bar a few, do not sound dated at all.

The album's most controversial moment for Depeche Mode fans comes next with What's Your Name. For a blog defending the album and indeed begging you to give it another go, I've got to say that this is a bad track. Compared to the moody almost experimental music we find elsewhere, this is a slice of generic synthpop that sits alongside the other rubbish of the time. The album would not miss this track if it wasn't there put it that way. Saving us spectacularly is track 7, Photographic. The song's first appearance was on the Some Bizarre album, and, there, it was a driving electronic track which was pretty much perfect. The album version is different however, as it is longer and darker, but it is still something very special. It certainly fits with the futurist tag of the time and, lyrically, it almost sounds like it's written from say the 1930's imagining an electronic world of the future. That said, you could also argue that it's written from the perspective of a stalker talking illicit pictures, but I prefer the former version. It's a stunning song and again ensures that Depeche stand well above their peers.

Not to be outdone by Vince, Martin contributes the next two tracks. Tora! Tora! Tora! is a slab of electro goodness far spikier than any of Vince's tracks, with lyrics about skeletons and Americans, all creating a unique track which sounds like nothing else mainstream at the time. Big Muff follows, an instrumental and a belter of a track. The promo sheets issued by Sire, the band's US record company at the time, talked of Big Muff as being a "Eurodisco" track . That  isn't quite how I'd describe it but, fair enough, it was all new to them at the time. Try and track down some early bootlegs to hear how good Big Muff sounds live - it's raw and fantastic. Vince reclaims the song-writing pen for Any Second Now (Voices), but Martin takes over the vocals. This is a beautiful beautiful song which puts one in mind of standing on lonely European railway station platforms surrounded by smoke mourning the end of a cherished relationship. Something like that anyway. The music perfectly suits the lyrics and melody and it all just works perfectly. If you don't like this song then you really aren't trying hard enough.



We end, of course, on Just Can't Get Enough which is where Depeche Mode said "Ok we'll do a synthpop song but it's going to be far better than anything you'll do" and they weren't wrong. It's VERY easy to dislike this song only because every time you tell someone you're a Depeche fan they either say "Oh yeah...Tainted Love right?" or "The 80's band? I remember them -  'And I just don't seem to get enough of DO DO DO DO DO DO DO DO" etc". Ignore that feeling. Swallow it deep down. Just Can't Get Enough is synthpop at its finest. That is all you should ever need to know.

The criticism of Speak & Spell is genuinely baffling. Ok, it's not Violator, Songs of Faith And Devotion or Black Celebration,  but it's the sound of a band trying something new whilst trying to be different and you have to appreciate the sheer quality of what they produce. So many people are rightly quick to praise Dreaming of Me and Ice Machine but they then disregard Speak & Spell. They are all part of the same thing and, together, they all show why Depeche Mode were by far and away the finest band from that era.

Remember this - without Speak & Spell we wouldn't have the Depeche Mode we do now.

And that really wouldn't do would it?

Independent Label Market, Glasgow Saturday 12 October

I was excited to learn this morning that the Independent Label Market  is coming to Glasgow on Saturday 12 October. Set up as a Farmer's Market style affair you can browse the wares of a large number of Scottish independent labels and shops (such as the fantastic Love Music Glasgow ) and frankly go mad buying as much music as you possibly can. The event is held in conjunction with The Vinyl Factory and you can read more about it here. There's also a Facebook page which contains more info.

There will be dj's, live performances and much more. The event is held at the Barras Art and Design Centre and will run from 10am until 6pm. See you there!