Today, Washington DC-based Darkwave band The Neuro Farm released its new album entitled “Voices”. “Voices” can be heard today through all digital and streaming platforms and is available on vinyl, CD and cassette.

The Neuro Farm is a darkwave and gothic rock band based in Washington, D.C., drawing inspiration from bands like Joy Division, Nine Inch Nails, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Sigur Ros. The band consists of four members: Brian Wolff (guitar, vocals), Rebekah Feng (violin, vocals), DreamrD (drums), and Tim Phillips (synth).

They have released three full-length albums:

• Ghosts (2014)
• The Descent (2019)
• Vampyre (2021)

You can check out the full release below.

The Neuro Farm will be on the road this fall with their ‘Voices Tour ’24’ in support of the new album. Read the review of ‘Voices’.

The Neuro Farm ‘Voices Tour ’24’

• Aug 30 – BROOKLYN, NY – A Murder of Crows
• Sep 21 – BLOOMINGTON, IN – Gallowdance
• Sep 22 – CHICAGO, IL – The Fallen Log
• Sep 26 – SOUTH BEND, IN – Cauldron
• Sep 28 – LOUISVILLE, KY – Dark Castle Fest
• Oct 11 – ROANOKE, VA – Beyond the Crypt
• Oct 19 – WASHINGTON, DC – 94.3FM Studio Live
• Oct 26 – LYNCHBURG, VA – Lynchburg Gothic League
• Nov 22 – SALEM, MA – DARQ Salem (with NØIR)
• Nov 23 – KINGSTON, NY – Hororteria Presents (with NØIR)

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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Post-punk comes in many forms and shapes. Here’s a good example. The new album “Mirror Mirror” by the New York based post-punk / no wave act OOF is coming out on August 30th on the label 20/20 Records and Tapes. One track is already up on Bandcamp and the band is already taking pre-orders for CDs and cassettes.

Note that OOF also features a baritone sax, setting them apart from the usual post-punk acts. “Mirror Mirror” is already the band’s fifth album to date and was recorded and mixed by Craig Bowen at Tempo House Recording in Baltimore. The release has Anna Hochhalter on vocals and baritone saxophone, Peter Joseph on vocals and guitar, and Linda Casey on drums.

The band formed in 2007 and has brought social commentary “about our mundane or political lives”.

The trio will be doing a mini-tour to support the album release kicking off in Brooklyn at Mama Tried on Aug 29, followed by Aug 30th at True Vine in Baltimore, and Aug 31st at Rhizome in D.C.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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(Interview by Janos Janurik) Ever since I got into online music journalism, I’ve always been interested in the background characters around my favourite musicians’ releases that add something important to the product we, the fans end up with.

With this in mind, over the years I have interviewed personalities such as Anton Corbijn (photographer of Depeche Mode and many other music greats), Gareth Jones and Mark Saunders (producers and mixmasters of Depeche Mode and Erasure amongst others).

About eight years ago I had the honour of helping to promote Vince Clarke’s then newly founded mini-record label (VeryRecords) and his releases. In addition to the artists whose albums have been released there in recent years, I also got in contact with Mat Smith, who, like me, is a freelancer – readers of Electronic Sound and Clash know him well – and works as a publicist for VeryRecords as well as being commissioned by Erasure and Mute for a number of press pieces. He also wrote the sleevenotes in the booklet of the new “Cowboy” Deluxe-Edition.

In addition to his journalistic work, he also has his own project “Mortality Tables”, which has just released a new mini-album on cassette and as a digital download. Last November, at the premiere of Vince Clarke’s solo album in London, I had the pleasure of meeting Mat in person and we had a lively chat about our shared passion for music. Knowing how important this project is to him, I approached him and asked him a few questions about it. 

But then life, or rather death, intervened. I didn’t mean this as a cheap shot, but it was indeed a sad event that forced me to make changes to the interview I had with my friend and colleague almost three weeks ago. Now that the aforementioned label is going on holiday, and before I do the same, I would like to bring this exciting musical venture (“The Engineer”) to your attention – and this interview with the man behind it.

SL: Tell us briefly about how you became interested in music. Have you had any musical training, have you learnt to play any instruments? Do you remember the first record you bought?

I grew up in a house where music seemed to always be playing, either on the radio or on my parent’s stereo. My mother listened to a lot of ABBA. Nothing about that was exceptional, particularly. When I used to go to friends’ houses, they always seemed to have the TV switched on, which felt strange to me. My family chose music, and I’ve surrounded myself with it ever since. 

I tried to play the recorder, which was the instrument that most of us learned as kids. My parents gave me a blue one for Christmas one year. I couldn’t play a single note. I briefly learned the basics of notation at school but very quickly forgot all of it. In early high school music classes I was more interested in recording real-life sounds into the Casio keyboard and using those to make compositions. Not long after that, I started making sample-based electronic music on my Amiga 500.

The first album I owned was Nik Kershaw’s ‘Human Racing’. I was given for my birthday the year it was released, along with a Sanyo portable cassette player. I played that album constantly. I wore out the cassette player after two weeks but I still have the ‘Human Racing’ tape and it still sounds incredible to me. 

SL: When did you discover electronic music? And who was the first electronic artist who introduced you to the world of electronic music?

My father is responsible for switching me on to electronic music. There were three pivotal events, and they all relate to times I was with my father.

The first was one evening when my mother was at her restaurant job, and my father was looking after me. I was playing with Lego in the lounge and Gary Numan was performing ‘Cars’ on TV. That performance completely captivated me.

The next was driving around in my father’s car while he did his second job as a debt collector. A friend at work had recorded two tracks from OMD’s ‘Architecture & Morality’ album onto a cassette for him. The songs were ‘Joan Of Arc’ and ‘Maid Of Orleans’, and we’d listen to them over and over.

The third was Soft Cell’s ‘Non-Stop Erotic Videotape’, which he brought home from work one day. That was pretty mind-blowing for a five-year old, and I can only imagine he didn’t realise what it was. It was definitely not suitable for a kid of my age, but, looking back, I don’t remember the imagery – I only recall the music. 

So I owe my father a huge debt for how he shaped my music tastes at a very early age. He was also the one who brought home a cassette copy of ‘The Innocents’ by Erasure and gave it to me. He had no idea quite what he started that day. 

SL: When did you start writing journalistic texts for Mute Records and its artists? What was your first article for Mute and about which artist, which release?

I began a blog called Documentary Evidence in 2003, which was focused on my personal Mute Records collection. I’d just write about the releases from a mostly non-musical perspective, explaining how they made me feel. I still write reviews like that today for Electronic Sound. I also got really interested in telling the stories of specific releases or artists, and that led me to interview people who released music through Mute, or were somehow connected to the label. I have a natural curiosity and inquisitiveness, and that seems to mean people like talking to me and opening up. 

From there I started writing for Clash, and then Electronic Sound and some other places. In 2017 I got asked to chair a panel discussion with Anton Corbijn, Daniel Miller, Paul A. Taylor and Steve Claydon (Add N To (X)) at Rough Trade East in London, about the visual identity of Mute. The first written Mute commission I got was to write a press biography for Chris Carter’s ‘Chemistry Lessons Vol. 1’. I couldn’t believe they asked me to do that, and I couldn’t believe I was being paid to write for the label I loved so much. The team at Mute liked what I did and I’ve been given a few more things to do since then, as well as with the team at BMG who look after the Erasure reissue programme, and Erasure themselves. 

SL: Did Vince Clarke’s VeryRecords label and the associated promotion give you any impetus for your own project, which you called “Mortality Tables”?

Indirectly, yes, but perhaps not in the way you might expect.

My task with VeryRecords was to assemble the press releases. It was the first time I’d worked behind the scenes of a release, where I’d often get involved before the album was even mastered, or before the artwork had even been considered. So I’d be talking to the artists – Reed & Caroline, Alka and Brook – at a very early stage, generally when Vince felt that the album was finished enough for me to listen and for me to start engaging the artists.

It took a while for me to realise this, but the process of working with the artists to write a press release became a collaboration – between all of us, and between my words and their music. I wasn’t just a writer but part of the collective effort to put this music out into the world. I did the same with Nick Hook’s Calm + Collect label, working on releases by Gareth Jones, Spiritual Friendship and others.

In 2019, when I began forming Mortality Tables, I envisaged it as a creative community of collaborators. You can definitely draw a line between that and the ideas that began to form as I worked with VeryRecords and its artists. I also took a lot of inspiration from Vince, who didn’t feel that he needed to only focus on the music that people would expect him to release. That sense of freedom, which Daniel Miller also brought to Mute, directly fed into what Mortality Tables has become. I wanted something where I could work with people making sound art as well as people making images. It had to have artistic breadth. 

I wanted Mortality Tables to be like a gallery, with a portfolio of artists in vastly different disciplines. That’s why Neil Coe deigned the first sleeve image to look like the description of an artwork on the wall of a gallery.

SL: The name of the project refers to the work of actuaries who measure the statistical probability of life insurance payouts. You do something like this in your everyday working life, don’t you?

That’s right. I work with insurance companies all around the world, and have done for over twenty years. I find lots of parallels between the worlds of insurance and electronic music, and the kinds of people I engage with in both of my jobs.

The story goes that I was meeting a friend in a café in Bloomsbury in London one morning. He runs a record label, which is another big inspiration for Mortality Tables. He wishes to remain anonymous, but he is actively involved, in the sense that he must approve anything we decide to do. I call him the Creative Consultant.

So I was meeting him and he had an LP of one of his releases to give me. He asked me if I had a bag to put it in, and I reached into rucksack and retrieved a tote bag. It was from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and had been given to me by an actuary a few years before. The Creative Consultant saw the bag with its logo and Latin inscription (‘e peritia ratio’ – ‘reason from experience’) and asked what it meant. I replied, “It’s all mortality tables and shit like that.” The name stuck.

We created our first Mortality Tables Product that morning. It’s called FORKTALK and is a conversation between two friends. We do not publish the details of our conversations. Its entry in the Mortality Tables Catalogue is MTP0.

SL: Dave Clarkson, who is mostly active in electronic and experimental music and Wonderful Beasts, a sound art/electronic music duo consisting of the anonymous Xqui and Carl Knott (boycalledcrow, Spacelab) were your first artists, right? How did you get in touch with them?

The release that moved Mortality Tables from something conceptual to something ‘real’ was ‘Two Meditations For Freya’ by Goodparley (whose name has now changed to Please Close Your Eyes). That was in 2022. It signalled what I wanted Mortality Tables to be: I would come up with ideas and hand them to someone to ‘respond’ to.

That concept has stayed consistent through the first two years of Mortality Tables. I’ll come up with an idea and pick someone to get involved. At the last count, there are at least fifty people who are collaborators. And it isn’t just sound projects – Mortality Tables encompasses sound, art, and words. And insurance. 

However, all rules in creativity are there to be broken, and I broke my own rules in 2023 with the release of Dave Clarkson’s ‘Ghosts Of Christmas Past (Music From Vintage Toys)’. I had nothing to do with the concept of that album, so I guess that’s a bit like Mortality Tables acting like a traditional record label, which is a description I never want to use. The same is true of Andrew Brenza and Alka’s ‘pod’ and boycalledcrow’s ‘Kullu’. However, all these releases only existed because of an earlier collaboration, and that’s how I got myself comfortable with releasing these projects. You’ll see a few more of those types of projects from Mortality Tables over the next few years. 

In answer to your question about how I find artist, it’s actually really straightforward. Anyone involved with Mortality Tables is someone whose music I’ve written about. As for how I choose an artist for a particular project, that’s mostly a case of matching a collaborator to an idea that feels aligned to what they would usually do. However, some of the most enjoyable projects are where the artist is working a long way outside of what they might normally do.

SL: After artists like Andrew Spackman, Rupert Lally, Simon Fisher Turner and Veryan, two years ago you released a strange and experimental piece called “On Mortality, Immortality & Charles Ives”. The piece is a spoken word piece in which you read out the Mortality Tables’ manifesto: “In life, our one true certainty is death.” This narration, recorded by Gareth Jones, was then sent to Vince Clarke who recorded a musical response to the text, which forms the soundtrack to the release. How did you come up with this, somewhat absurd, idea?

I had bought a copy of a book by Alex Danchev called ‘100 Artists’ Manifestos – From The Futurists To The Stuckists’ at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2021. I read each of the manifestos from groups like the Surrealists, Dadaists and Situationists as if they were short stories, and it became a really profound experience. On the back of ‘Two Meditations For Freya’, people had started to ask me what Mortality Tables was all about, so it seemed completely natural (and not absurd at all) to write a manifesto.

Mostly it was designed to help me understand why I was doing this, and then I decided to explain it to everyone else. That’s when I asked Gareth to record my narration. At the same time I approached Vince and an anonymous sound artist called venoztks to create sound pieces to accompany it.

The listener can judge whether it successfully explains what this is all about, or not. It does explain why the composer and actuary Charles Ives is so critical to the evolution of Mortality Tables. In fact, the second Mortality Tables Product to be made available was a postcard containing an illustration of Ives in front of a mortality table from 1874, the year of Ives’s birth. That piece was a collaboration with Savage Pencil who had illustrated a lot of the Blast First sleeves.

SL: Released on June 16th, the 40-copy limited edition cassette “The Engineer” is a charity project for Alzheimer’s disease featuring Vince Clarke, Penelope Trappes, Chris Illingworth, Barney Ashton-Bullock, Lara Jones, Simon Fisher Turner, Hattie Cooke, Gareth Jones, Veryan and others. The title character is your father, isn’t he? Is that why you chose Father’s Day as the release date? Tell us a bit about this project!

The title character, the engineer, is based on my father. This project dates back ten years, probably longer, a long time before Mortality Tables was an idea.

I wrote a short story that tried to deal with my feelings about my father as he approached retirement. He lived for work, had no hobbies or friends, and I envisaged him struggling to cope with the concept of stopping work. I was angry when I wrote it, but I was also scared for him. It’s fiction, but it’s rooted in his reality. His actual retirement was very different to what happens in the story. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2018, and that’s why we’ll donate all profits from ‘The Engineer’ to the Alzheimer’s Society. Sadly he passed away shortly after ‘The Engineer’ was released. 

When I published the story on my blog, an electronic musician called Laica (Dave Fleet) offered to create some music inspired by the story. He composed a beautiful piece but the project never got completed. A few years later, I came up with a different idea, which involved someone narrating the story with a piece of music behind it. That version also never got off the ground at all, but I liked the idea of asking someone to narrate the story. That’s when I asked Barney Ashton-Bullock if he would do it. He has a brilliant speaking voice, and it was perfect for this story.

It was Gareth Jones who suggested the idea of having different artists respond to different sections of narration. He said it was a bit like the Surrealist game ‘Exquisite Corpse’. I think of Gareth as my spiritual guru. He has a way of unlocking ideas, and freeing you from obstacles that are only there because you’ve put them there. ‘The Engineer’ wouldn’t exist in this form if it wasn’t for Gareth. 

From there, it was a case of picking the collaborators and asking them to respond to a specific 30-second section of narration. No one heard the full story, and no one asked to hear the whole thing. The order the artists agreed to say yes determined which section they got. The only rule I gave them was that their sound response needed to last exactly thirty seconds. 

There are two editions of ‘The Engineer’. One is a digital file that combines the narration and sound responses. The other is a cassette that splits the narration and responses apart. That means the only place you can hear Vince Clarke’s sound response without Barney’s narration is on the cassette, which has now sold out. 

SL: Barney Ashton-Bullock (the creator of Andy Bell’s “Torsten” projects), Vince Clarke, as well as Reed Hays, Alka and Gareth Jones will be familiar to most of our readers, but who are the other contributors? 

Again, everyone involved is someone I’ve written about. When I came up with my collaborator list for this, it was important to me to achieve some sort of diversity. So a lot of the artists here are electronic, but you have artists covering everything from pop to sound art. That was deliberate.

I also wanted diversity of textures. That’s why I included Charlotte Keeffe, Chris Illingworth from GoGo Penguin and Luce Mawdsley. When you put all 29 sound responses together as a single piece, it sounds like a right fucking mess. As the responses were coming in over a 30-month period, I realised that the sprawling, messy quality was a lot like my father’s Alzheimer’s – ideas form, are quickly forgotten before they develop, and are then replaced by something else. That wasn’t planned, at all, but now I can see it was a subconscious idea that must have been there from the moment that Gareth suggested involving lots of artists. 

SL: What plans and ideas are currently circulating in your head? Will it be something journalistic or another Mortality Tables release?

I’m always writing, and I’ve got a few big things underway right now, including something for a label I’ve done a few pieces for before.

In terms of Mortality Tables, now that ‘The Engineer’ has been released, all activities will he paused until later in the summer. We’ve released a huge number of Products in just over two years and I need a break. We’ll return later in the summer with Season 03 of LIFEFILES, which is an ongoing project where artists respond to my really basic field recordings.

We’ll also release a single from Please Close Your Eyes, an album from Andrew Spackman and the full version of Andrew Brenza and Alka’s ‘pod’ collaboration. I’ve been working on one of several projects inspired by Charles Ives, ‘Central Park: A Picture-In-Sounds’, which will be issued as a ‘score’ in October, along with some additional performances of the piece. We’ll begin work on another large-scale collaboration called ‘The Impermanence Project’.

Other things will happen. Other things will not.

More information on Mortality Tables releases.

Use code janos for a 10% discount off anything in the Mortality Tables Catalogue. 

I would like to end this article with a personal message from Mat Smith, who asks the readers and the music listeners to support, if they can, the Alzheimer’s Society, which has received the proceeds of the tape release mentioned in the interview. If you feel able to, please donate to alzheimers.org.uk directly.

János Janurik

I began my career in online music journalism in 2001, writing about artists I had followed since the late ’80s and early ’90s, including Depeche Mode, Erasure and The Cure. I later edited the Hungarian Mute microsite for EMI Music Hungary. This led to interviews with Erasure, Nitzer Ebb and Alan Wilder, and some of those collaborations developed into lasting friendships. Since 2014, I have been part of the editorial team of depechemode.de. I also contribute interviews to Reflections of Darkness, Peek-A-Boo Magazine and Kaput Mag. I maintain a close connection to Mute Records artists and have also supported releases on Very Records. I am proud to collaborate with Side-Line Magazine, where I regularly publish interviews and features.

(Photo by Helen Kincaid) Out on 30 September via London Records is Blancmange’s upcoming album “Private View”. Benge returns as a key collaborator, and David Rhodes (Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Scott Walker) returns as the guitarist, having previously performed with the band on 1982’s debut “Happy Families” (as well as several other Blancmange albums). The new album will be followed by an extensive UK tour that runs from 1 October through to a London Assembly Hall appearance on 10 December, with Stephen Mallinder, Bernholz, Oblong, Rodney Cromwell and Alice Hubble as special guests across the tour.

But first they release a new single, “Reduced Voltage”, alongside a John Grant remix of the track. You can view the accompanying video, created by Harvey Wise, right below.

The new single is accompanied by a remix from long-time collaborator, John Grant who adds: “I have loved Blancmange for close to four decades, so it’s such an honor to be asked to remix a track off the new record. It was a blast and it’s my first. Hope you enjoy.”

You can listen to the John Grant remix below.

Blancmange formed in Harrow, London, in 1979. The band were a duo for much of their career, composed of Neil Arthur (vocals) and Stephen Luscombe (keyboards). Their first real exposure came via the track “Sad Day” on the “Some Bizzare Album” compilation, alongside acts such as Soft Cell and Depeche Mode. This led to them signing a recording contract with London Records. In December 1981 they supported Japan on their “Visions of China” UK tour. What followed were five UK top-20 singles: “Living on the Ceiling”, “Waves”, “Blind Vision”, “Don’t Tell Me” (their best single we would say) and of course also their excellent cover of ABBA’s “The Day Before You Came”. They released three albums during that decade: “Happy Families” (1982), “Mange Tout” (1984) and “Believe You Me” (1985).

The duo parted in 1986 but reformed in the late 2000s, and in 2011 released their fourth album, “Blanc Burn”. Luscombe left following the release due to ill health, and since then Arthur alone has continued to perform under the Blancmange name, releasing nine new studio albums along with a re-recording of the band’s debut album, titled “Happy Families Too…”. He has also been involved in a further three collaborative albums as Fader (with Benge) and Near Future (with Jez Bernholz).

An instrumental album by Blancmange, “Nil by Mouth II”, was released on 22 November 2019 as a limited-edition run of 1000 copies. The album was released on a larger scale on cd in June 2020. A new album, titled “Mindset”, preceded by a single with the same title in February, was released in June 2020.

Extensive UK tour throughout October, November and December

Here are the upcoming UK dates.

• 1 Oct – Rough Trade East, London
• 6 Oct – The HMV Empire, Coventry – w/ Bernholz
• 7 Oct – The Junction, Cambridge – w/ Oblong
• 8 Oct – Subscription Rooms, Stroud – w/ Oblong
• 13 Oct – Arts Centre, Colchester – w/ Oblong
• 14 Oct – University Y Plas, Cardiff – w/ Oblong
• 15 Oct – Cheese and Grain, Frome – w/ Oblong
• 20 Oct – Sub 89, Reading – w/ Oblong
• 21 Oct – The Level, Nottingham – w/ Oblong
• 22 Oct – Glassbox Theatre, Gillingham – w/ Oblong
• 27 Oct – The Fleece, Bristol – w/ Alice Hubble
• 28 Oct – The Boilerroom, Guildford – w/ Alice Hubble
• 29 Oct – Tivoli Theatre, Wimborne – w/ Alice Hubble
• 4 Nov – Exeter Theatre, Exeter – w/ Rodney Cromwell
• 5 Nov – The Brook, Southampton – w/ Rodney Cromwell
• 10 Nov – The Mill, Birmingham – w/ Alice Hubble
• 11 Nov – Kanteena, Lancaster – w/ Alice Hubble
• 12 Nov – The Forum Theatre, Barrow-in-Furness – w/ Alice Hubble
• 17 Nov – Corn Hall, Diss – w/ Rodney Cromwell
• 18 Nov – Gorilla, Manchester – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 19 Nov – Hangar 34, Liverpool – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 24 Nov – The Wardrobe, Leeds – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 25 Nov – The Leadmill, Sheffield – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 26 Nov – The Riverside, Newcastle – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 1 Dec – The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 2 Dec – The Liquid Room, Edinburgh – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 3 Dec – Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 9 Dec – Concorde 2, Brighton – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 10 Dec – Islington Assembly Hall, London – w/ Stephen Mallinder

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

(Photo by Helen Kincaid) Blancmange have announced details of a new album, “Private View”, and a return to London Records that released the band’s debut album. “Private View” will be out on vinyl, cassette, CD and digitally on 30 September 2022. The album launches today with the release of the first single “Some Times These”.

Watch the video for “Some Times These”, with art direction and production by Harvey Wise right below.

For this release Benge returns as a key collaborator, and David Rhodes (Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Scott Walker) returns as the guitarist, having previously performed with the band on 1982’s “Happy Families” as well as several other Blancmange albums.

Here are the various formats.

Blancmange are an English synth-pop band formed in Harrow, London, in 1979. The band were a duo for much of their career, composed of Neil Arthur (vocals) and Stephen Luscombe (keyboards). They came to prominence in the early 1980s, releasing four UK top-20 singles: “Living on the Ceiling”, “Waves”, “Blind Vision” and “Don’t Tell Me”. They released three albums during that decade: “Happy Families” (1982), “Mange Tout” (1984) and “Believe You Me” (1985).

The duo amicably parted in 1986 but reformed in the late 2000s, and in 2011 released their fourth album, “Blanc Burn”. Luscombe left following the release due to ill health, and since then Arthur alone has continued to perform under the Blancmange name, releasing nine new studio albums along with a re-recording of the band’s debut album, titled “Happy Families Too”. He has also been involved in a further three collaborative albums as Fader (with Benge) and Near Future (with Jez Bernholz).

Private View Tour

• 17 June – Grace Jones’ Meltdown – Southbank Centre, London
• 6 Oct – The HMV Empire, Coventry – w/ Bernholz
• 7 Oct – The Junction, Cambridge – w/ Oblong
• 8 Oct – Subscription Rooms, Stroud – w/ Oblong
• 13 Oct – Arts Centre, Colchester – w/ Oblong
• 14 Oct – University Y Plas, Cardiff – w/ Oblong
• 15 Oct – Cheese and Grain, Frome – w/ Oblong
• 20 Oct – Sub 89, Reading – w/ Oblong
• 21 Oct – The Level, Nottingham – w/ Oblong
• 22 Oct – Glassbox Theatre, Gillingham – w/ Oblong
• 27 Oct – The Fleece, Bristol – w/ Alice Hubble
• 28 Oct – The Boilerroom, Guildford – w/ Alice Hubble
• 29 Oct – Tivoli Theatre, Wimborne – w/ Alice Hubble
• 4 Nov – Exeter Theatre, Exeter
• 5 Nov – The Brook, Southampton
• 10 Nov – The Mill, Birmingham – w/ Alice Hubble
• 11 Nov – Kanteena, Lancaster – w/ Alice Hubble
• 12 Nov – The Forum Theatre, Barrow-in-Furness – w/ Alice Hubble
• 17 Nov – Corn Hall, Diss
• 18 Nov – Gorilla, Manchester – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 19 Nov – Hangar 34, Liverpool – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 24 Nov – The Wardrobe, Leeds – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 25 Nov – The Leadmill, Sheffield – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 26 Nov – The Riverside, Newcastle – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 1 Dec – The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 2 Dec – The Liquid Room, Edinburgh – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 3 Dec – Queen Margaret Union, Glasgow – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 9 Dec – Concorde 2, Brighton – w/ Stephen Mallinder
• 10 Dec – Islington Assembly Hall, London – w/ Stephen Mallinder

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

(Text by Janos Janurik / Photo by Erika Tele) Vince Clarke has not only worked diligently on the current Erasure album “The Neon”, but he has also taken care of the artists of his own label, VeryRecords. After Brook’s debut album from 2019, he is going to release the second LP by Alka („Regarding The Auguries”) on 9^th October. The mysterious young musician named Bryan Michael, who is behind the pseudonym Alka, was briefly interviewed by our co-editor, Janos Janurik on the occasion of his upcoming album release.

SL: Three years after your first release on Vince Clarke’s Very Records label, you`re dropping a new album this October. If we include your previous releases too, this is already the fourth Alka album since 2007. When was the first time you started making music? Who were the musical heroes in your youth? For example, I saw some old photos of you wearing Nitzer Ebb T-shirts. Or was it just a coincidence?

BM: Very observant. I started with music production as soon as I got my first CASIO SK-1 and later SK-5 and loaded them up with Art Of Noise samples. I have always been a fan of diverse music in general but growing up there was something about the electronic sound that intrigued me and I was definitely drawn to obscure acts (for the states at least) such those on Nettwerk, Wax Trax!, Play it Again Sam, and Mute.

SL: After his musical cooperation with Paul Hartnoll and the release of Reed & Caroline’s debut album, Vince Clarke took you under his wing. I remember well when he told me in the late summer of 2017 with a smile in his eyes that the next Very Records release will come from a gifted librarian. How did you get in touch with him? Were you a fan of his works? What was he like as a mentor?

BM: I was just telling him how, when his Lucky Bastard sample CD was released, it was like a gateway to an off-limit universe of analogue synth heaven for me. His work was profoundly rooted in my love of electronic music. It wasn’t merely that he was an amazing tunesmith and producer but I really valued his love and appreciation for synthesisers great and small. Working with Vince has been an absolutely amazing experience and completely inspiring. 

SL: I think your new work will make the heart of all electro fans beat faster. It captivates the listener from the very first minute and unites many different styles of electronic music: ambient, industrial, synth-pop and so on. Who else was involved in the experimentation, who else was working on the production?

BM: For a bit now I’ve been rethinking Alka as a solo project and more of a collaborative unit. I had been working closely with fellow electronic music artist Todd Steponick but it wasn’t until we found Erika Tele, who we initially signed on for live video performance, that things really clicked. When she started contributing vocals and other elements we were excited about this progression in sound. We like to avoid beat-based genre prisons and favour diversity in our sound. 

SL: The first single, “Faito” (“Fight!” in English) is perhaps the craziest song from your new album and the Japanese voice samples make it even more mysterious. The minimalist, computer-animated video also perfectly fits with the mood of the song and Vince Clarke has created an excellent mix of it too. Do you have a special affinity for Asia, or is that some kind of homage to Kraftwerks “Dentaku”, or did your fellow musician, Erika Tele (artist and vocalist of Japanese origin), just influence you?

BM: At risk of being labelled a weeb 😉 my other love growing up, alongside synths and electronic music, was mecha design, anime in general, and a healthy dose of tokusatsu. I think that influence never really left me. Working with Erika was a coincidence but I value her multicultural input to Alka and we definitely bond with our mutual love of anime and Japanese culture. ‘Faito’ was one of those tracks that developed organically out of layers of EMS Synthi recordings and a discarded Japanese vocal take from another track through the magic of Todd’s sleek production. 

SL: The album title “Regarding The Auguries” can be explained in different ways. Some think that what is happening in the world at the moment has already been prophesied by the wise men, while others think that it is almost impossible at this time to plan even for a week. And what do you think? How do you see our current life? What did you want to teach the listeners with your music?

BM: One of the things that kept reoccurring during the production was the theme of birds and in particular the Japanese Tengu mythology, where a sort of demon is thought to transform into a bird. An augury was an ancient Roman form of interpreting omens or divination through the observation of birds. ‘Regarding The Auguries’ is just a poetical take on this process often referred to as “taking the auspices”. Had we all being paying closer attention to the auguries, however, we would’ve foreseen the woes of the current world. In retrospect, the album can be seen as a sort of real-time interpretation of how we got where we are today.

SL: And what do you do when you are not actually making a new album? Do you still make remixes for other artists? Or do you put together DJ sets? I know it’s almost impossible to talk about tours right now, but would you like to do live sets with the new album? Are there at least any plans to do something like this in the (hopefully) near future?

BM: I’ve recently finished up some remixes with my mate Roger O’Donnell, the keyboardist for the Cure, along with some other projects. I’m currently working on a DJ set for air in November but mostly I’m always working on new music along with my various synth building and repair projects. We had been working up our live set and playing out a few select shows before the pandemic and would love to continue that in the future, but for now we must heed the auguries and all be safe. 

Track list:

1. Fractured Time
2. Widthchild
3. Faito
4. Earth Crisis
5. Scrapple
6. Sourcery
7. My Heart
8. Solfège
9. Doubt
10. Dead Like Me
11. King Card
12. Solfège (Fujiya & Miyagi Remix)
13. Faito (Vince Clarke Remix)
14. Fractured Time (DJ Jekyll of Shelter Remix)

Regarding The Auguries will be released as a limited-edition CD, download and stream through VeryRecords on 9th October 2020.

Or check here on Spotify.

János Janurik

I began my career in online music journalism in 2001, writing about artists I had followed since the late ’80s and early ’90s, including Depeche Mode, Erasure and The Cure. I later edited the Hungarian Mute microsite for EMI Music Hungary. This led to interviews with Erasure, Nitzer Ebb and Alan Wilder, and some of those collaborations developed into lasting friendships. Since 2014, I have been part of the editorial team of depechemode.de. I also contribute interviews to Reflections of Darkness, Peek-A-Boo Magazine and Kaput Mag. I maintain a close connection to Mute Records artists and have also supported releases on Very Records. I am proud to collaborate with Side-Line Magazine, where I regularly publish interviews and features.

OMD have announced a brand new 40th anniversary career-spanning boxset and comprehensive singles collections. “Souvenir – The Singles 1979-2019” will be released on October 4th on 2CD and 3LP formats. It is a comprehensive collection of all 39 OMD singles from “Electricity” to “What Have We Done”, plus a brand new 40th single, “Don’t Go” which you can listen to below.

A limited edition 5CD+2DVD career spanning boxset will also be released. Discs 1 and 2 are the same as the 2CD format – the 40 singles in chronological order. Disc 3 is a collection of 22 unheard and unreleased tracks from the OMD archive, newly mixed by Paul Humphreys. Some of these are unfinished ideas, others are full unreleased songs. Disc 4 is a full live recording from the Mermaid Theatre in London, February 2011. The show was for BBC Radio 2 in support of the “History of Modern” album. Disc 5 is a newly discovered full live recording from the Hammersmith Odeon in May 1983 in support of the “Dazzle Ships” album. Disc 6 is a DVD featuring 23 OMD performances on the BBC spanning from ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ in April 1980 to ‘Later With Jools Holland’ in May 2013. Disc 7 is a DVD featuring a live recording from the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in December 1981 in support of the “Architecture & Morality” album. It also includes a live recording from Sheffield City Hall, June 1985 in support of the “Crush” album and the long-awaited DVD debut of “Crush – The Movie”.

The boxset also contains a book and artwork prints; the book itself contains unseen photos, single sleeve artwork, an introduction by Paul Morley and sleeve notes to accompany the archive material by Andy McCluskey.

UK + EUROPE TOUR

OMD is also preparing a huge (and we really mean HUGE) tour. Below are the concert dates.

2019

• 15 Oct – PT – Lisbon – Aula Magna
• 16 Oct – PT – Porto – Casa da Musica
• 19 Oct – ES – Madrid – Riviera
• 21 Oct – ES – Barcelona – Apolo
• 23 Oct – UK – Belfast – Ulster Hall
• 24 Oct – IE – Dublin – Olympia
• 26 Oct – UK – Nottingham – Royal Concert Hall
• 27 Oct – UK – York – Barbican
• 28 Oct – UK – Hull – Arena
• 30 Oct – UK – Gateshead – Sage
• 31 Oct – UK – Glasgow – Royal Concert Hall
• 1 Nov – UK – Manchester – Apollo
• 3 Nov – UK – Sheffield – City Hall
• 4 Nov – UK – Liverpool – Empire
• 5 Nov – UK – Birmingham – Symphony Hall
• 7 Nov – UK – Leicester – De Montford Hall
• 8 Nov – UK – Bath – Pavilion
• 9 Nov – UK – Oxford – New Theatre
• 11 Nov – UK – Guildford – G Live
• 12 Nov – UK – Portsmouth – Guildhall
• 13 Nov – UK – Watford – Colosseum
• 15 Nov – UK – Cambridge – Corn Exchange
• 16 Nov – UK – Ipswich – Regent
• 17 Nov – UK – Bexhill – De La Warr Pavilion
• 19 Nov – UK – Bournemouth – Pavilion
• 20 Nov – UK – London – Hammersmith Apollo
• 25 Nov – DE – Rostock – Stadthalle
• 26 Nov – DE – Dresden – Kulturpalast
• 28 Nov – DE – Leipzig – Haus Auensee
• 29 Nov – DE – Berlin – Tempodrom
• 30 Nov – DE – Hamburg – Große Freiheit 36
• 2 Dec – DE – Berlin – Tempodrom
• 3 Dec – DE – Stuttgart – Leiderhalle
• 5 Dec – DE – Düsseldorf – Mitsubishi Electric-Halle
• 6 Dec – DE – Frankfurt – Jahrhunderthalle

2020

• 30 Jan – EE – Tallinn – Alexela Concert Halls
• 31 Jan – LT – Vilnius – Compensa Concert Hall
• 3 Feb – PL – Krakow – Studio
• 4 Feb – PL – Warsaw – Progresja
• 7 Feb – NO – Oslo – Rockefeller Musichall
• 9 Feb – SE – Stockholm – Berns
• 10 Feb – SE – Malmo – KB
• 12 Feb – DK – Copenhagen – Vega
• 14 Feb – BE – Brussels – Ancienne Belgique
• 15 Feb – NL – Utrecht – Tivoli
• 16 Feb – FR – Paris – La Cigale

North American Tour

The band will also be joining that other great band, The B-52s, as very special guests for their North American tour. Completing the lineup is Berlin. They will also be playing 4 headline shows during the break of the B-52s tour around Labor Day.

^ = with The B-52s & Berlin
~ = OMD headline show

• 21 Aug – US – San Antonio, TX – The Majestic Theater ^
• 22 Aug – US – Austin, TX – Bass Concert Hall ^
• 24 Aug – US – Houston, TX – Smart Financial Centre ^
• 25 Aug – US – New Orleans, LA – Saenger Theatre ^
• 28 Aug – US – Tampa, FL – Ruth Eckerd Hall ^
• 29 Aug – US – Fort Lauderdale, FL – Broward Center ^
• 30 Aug – US – Ponte Vedra, FL – Ponte Vedra Concert Hall ~
• 31 Aug – US – Charlotte, NC – The Fillmore ~
• 3 Sep – US – Nashville, TN – Cannery Ballroom ~
• 4 Sep – US – Cincinnati, OH – Bogart’s ~
• 6 Sep – US – Greensboro, NC – White Oak Amphitheatre ^
• 7 Sep – US – Atlanta, GA – Cadence Bak Amphitheatre ^
• 8 Sep – US – Dayton, OH – Rose Music Centre at the Heights ^
• 11 Sep – US – Grand Rapids, MI – Meijer Gardens ^
• 13 Sep – CA – Toronto, ON – Sony Centre for the Performing Arts ^
• 14 Sep – US – Detroit, MI – Meadow Brook Amphitheatre ^
• 17 Sep – US – Washington, DC – The Anthem ^
• 19 Sep – US – Philadelphia, PA – Mann Center ^
• 20 Sep – US – Mashantucket, CT – Foxwoods Resort Casino ^
• 24 Sep – US – New York, NY – Central Park SummerStage ^

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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In 2016 Erasure’s Vince Clarke founded the Brooklyn based record label VeryRecords, which he describes as being “a very small record label dedicated to releasing very fine electronic music”.

The label has been releasing some material in the past, including for instance a fifty-track download bundle of exclusive digital sounds from his various projects, next to albums by Reed & Caroline, Alka and Vince Clarke & Paul Hartnoll. As it looks now, they are aiming at one release per year.

The label now announces the release of “Built You For Thought”, the debut album by UK electronic duo Brook (consisting of Vocalist Beth Brooks and musician Howard Rider). The album will be released on 20th September 2019 and you can check out a teaser for the album’s sound via the video for “Diamond Days”.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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“Add Violence” is the newest EP by Nine Inch Nails to be released in September. It was released digitally on July 19, 2017, two days ahead of its scheduled release date, under Trent Reznor’s label The Null Corporation.

You can order the MCD right here.

This marks the second EP in a proposed trilogy following the 2016 release of “Not the Actual Events”. The final EP of the series is expected to be released before the end of 2017. The album itself was announced on July 13, 2017, and the lead single “Less Than” and an accompanying music video directed by Brook Linder followed immediately after. On July 18, “This Isn’t the Place” was released with an accompanying music video directed by Alex Lieu.

Note that the artwork which you can see above is clue-filled.

The tracks on this EP are:

1. Less Than
2. The Lovers
3. This Isn’t The Place
4. Not Anymore
5. The Background World

Listen to the 2 previous singles below.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

side-line.com

Yesterday Nine Inch Nails posted a video for the track “Less Than” taken from the new EP “Add Violence” coming July 21st. The track itself refers back to the band’s first career years and will probably also attract the fans that maybe have left over the years.

The EP will be out as a limited digital download, and a physical component version on vinyl and CD out on September 1st. The video below was directed by Brook Linder.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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“Artificial Man” is the newest single from The Peter Ulrich Collaboration. The track immediately also got the video treatment and you can view it below. The track features industrial, dark folk, gothic, post-rock and symphonic elements. The lead vocals are by David Steele who collaborated with the project for this recording.

You can download the track right here on iTunes.

The Peter Ulrich Collaboration is headed by Peter Ulrich, former percussionist for the iconic Dead Can Dance. The group has released two albums so far as part of a planned trilogy: “The Painted Caravan” (2013) and “Tempus Fugitives” (2015). “Artificial Man” is the first single release from “Final Reflections”, the final album in The Painted Caravan Trilogy

Peter Ulrich has already had a very rich career as a musician. After playing in a blues-soul band, Mischief, on the East London pub and club circuit in the early 1980s, Peter Ulrich joined Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard in London on drums and percussion and in 1983 was one of the members of Dead Can Dance to sign with the 4AD label. He played on Dead Can Dance’s first album, the “Garden of the Arcane Delights” EP, the albums “Within the Realm of a Dying Sun” and “Spiritchaser” as well as several live sessions and virtually on all live dates with Dead Can Dance from 1983 to 1990.

During the 1980s Ulrich also contributed a percussion piece called “At First, and Then” to the This Mortal Coil album “Filigree & Shadow” and made cameo appearances on albums by Wolfgang Press and Pieter Nooten & Michael Brook. In 1990 he released his first solo recording – a double A-sided 12″ vinyl single featuring his songs “Taqaharu’s Leaving” and “Evocation” which has since become a rare collector’s item.

His first solo album, the excellent “Pathways and Dawns”, was largely arranged, recorded and produced by Brendan Perry and was released on the fine Projekt label in 1999. His second solo album, “Enter The Mysterium”, was released in 2005 on City Canyons Records. In 2009 Ulrich made a guest appearance, together with Brendan Perry, on the Piano Magic album “Ovations” playing percussion and hammered dulcimer.

In his current project – The Peter Ulrich Collaboration – he has worked closely with City Canyons CEO Trebor Lloyd and a wide ranging group of artists including Sara Wendt, David Steele, Jen Elliott, Kingsley Sage of Anemo and Saskia Dommisse of Poets to their Beloved.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil. Besides music I’m also an SEO and AI content flow specialist and have an interest in everything finance from stocks to crypto. There is music in everything!

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