electronic

There’s usually a fairly clear correlation for me between the duration of an album and the amount of listening required before i feel i’ve begun to make sense of it. Not quite so simple as ‘short albums = shorter time, long albums = longer’, though that’s perhaps basically true. But …

i’ve previously suggested that, for a while at least, use of the flute jet whistle in contemporary music ought to be subject to a lengthy moratorium, due to its excessive overuse. During some of the concerts at this year’s Estonian Music Days, i found myself wondering whether this should also …

For my third and final evening at Tallinn Music Week i was occupied with just a single event, hosted by the Glitch Please label. Rushing across town after an Estonian Music Days concert (words about that coming soon), i made it in time for the performance given by V4R1, the …

My second evening at Tallinn Music Week was occupied with two events. The first was Tier Kollektiv, located in the cosy bar space of Fonoteek, to grab a rare opportunity to hear Icelandic singer Lúpína in action. It feels like Lúpína has been around for a long time; she started …

Despite the fact I’ve been coming to Estonia every year for the past decade, this was my first time attending Tallinn Music Week. It didn’t take long for me to start wishing it was my tenth. Festivals are usually like restaurants with prix fixe offerings, where you turn up and …

Something i haven’t drawn attention to in this Lent Series is the fact that almost every album i’ve explored has been a debut. It’s the case with Suicide, Sakamoto, P-Model, Human League, Leer & Rental, Der Plan and Fad Gadget. John Foxx and Bill Nelson’s Red Noise clearly pick up …

During the critical period i’m exploring in this Lent Series, 1977–81, alongside the assorted group divisions, schisms and reformations i’ve mentioned previously, another recurring problem was artists finding it difficult to get their music heard. San Francisco synthpunk band Units – led by husband and wife Scott Ryser and Rachel …

i’m not sure anyone in 1977, listening to Ultravox’s spectacular album Ha! Ha! Ha!, could have imagined what the band’s lead singer, John Foxx, would be doing in just three years’ time. One of the most pumped-up albums of the late ’70s, Ha! Ha! Ha! was partly fuelled by the …

Liminal times be liminal. If there’s one thing that typifies the period i’m focusing on in this Lent Series, 1977–81, it’s the extent to which, with the proliferation of electronics, more than usually strange and wonderful things suddenly seemed to be possible. As i’ve explored previously, this led to some …

For the next album in the Lent Series – and this won’t be the only time – the chronology becomes more fluid. Cabaret Voltaire, comprising Richard Kirk, Stephen Mallinder and Chris Watson, formed in Sheffield in 1973, but it would be five more years before their music would start to …

Many of the albums i’m featuring in this year’s Lent Series feel as if they came out of nowhere, less part of a process of evolution than a sudden, out-of-the-blue flash of something fully-formed and entirely new. That’s very much the case with The Bridge, a remarkable one-off creation resulting …

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To view this content, you must be a member of Simon Cummings’s Patreon at £5 or more

To view this content, you must be a member of Simon Cummings’s Patreon at £5 or more

To view this content, you must be a member of Simon Cummings’s Patreon at £5 or more

To view this content, you must be a member of Simon Cummings’s Patreon at £5 or more

To view this content, you must be a member of Simon Cummings’s Patreon at £5 or more

To view this content, you must be a member of Simon Cummings’s Patreon at £5 or more

To view this content, you must be a member of Simon Cummings’s Patreon at £5 or more