JaM Session VI – 16 September 2023

On September 17, 2023October 1, 2023 By 429harrowroadIn PlaylistsLeave a comment

My monthly musical meetings with my friend Jon continued in September with albums from OMD, Van Morrison, The Mamas And The Papas and Huey Lewis & The News. The vintage RCA Victor centre labels on my mum’s copy of Deliver by The Mamas And The Papas were regarded as classic, whereas the sleeve for Fore! by Huey Lewis was definitely not.

Conversation topics included RAAC, our respective Californian driving experiences and a return to the topic of the ineffectiveness of Keynesian economics in 2023.

The wine was Waitrose’s cheapest red, which we concluded was not as good as Tesco’s cheapest red, despite being double the price.

Olives, breadsticks and houmous were September’s snack selections.

Words: Mat Smith

Further. : Quarterly Report Q1 2019 & Playlist

On March 31, 2019 By 429harrowroadIn Album reviews, EP reviews, Interviews, Single reviewsLeave a comment

Further. launched in January 2019. Its objective was to create a place where I could review things that caught my attention but which didn’t ‘fit’ Documentary Evidence, or where I didn’t get to cover that particular release for Electronic Sound.

During the first quarter of the year I reviewed 15 albums or singles, published one interview, and included a guest review written by Erasure’s Vince Clarke. It was a modest start to the blog, a testing of the water if you will. I will try harder during the second quarter.

Below is the full list of content published during the first quarter. There’s also an accompanying Spotify playlist including tracks from each record (where available on that platform), along with ‘Gallery’ by Californian electronic pop artist Dresage which completely passed me by at the time.

Reviews

Kaada – ZombieLars (Soundtrack) (Mirakel Recordings)
Kamaal Williams – New Heights / Snitches Brew (Black Focus Records)
The Silver Field – Rooms (O Genesis)
TOTM – Bliss / Blurred (Flickering Lights)
Karolina Rose – Invicta (Violet Sunset Records)
Neu Gestalt – Controlled Substances (Alex Tronic Records)
Lucy Mason – Flashback Romance (self-released)
Hugh Marsh – Violinvocations (Western Vinyl)
Bayonne – Drastic Measures (City Slang)
Modular Project – 1981 (hfn music)
Evelyn Glennie/ Roly Porter – One Day Band 17 (Trestle Records)
Maja S. K. Ratkje – Sult (Rune Grammofon)
d’Voxx- Télégraphe (DiN) – reviewed by Vince Clarke
Kilchhofer / Anklin – Moto Perpetuo (Marionette)
Jonteknik – Electricity (The People’s Electric)

Interview
The Silver Field

Playlist
Spotify

Words: Mat Smith

Jonteknik – Electricity

On March 25, 2019 By 429harrowroadIn Single reviews1 Comment

To mark the fortieth anniversary of Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Jonteknik (Jon Russell) has recorded a tribute in the form of a cover version of the band’s first single, ‘Electricity’, which was originally released by Factory in May 1979.

Russell is no stranger to the work of OMD, having worked with the band’s Paul Humphreys, remixing their 2013 ‘Metroland’ single and covering ‘Of All The Things We’ve Made’ on last year’s Alternative Arrangements LP. In Jokteknik’s hands, the track’s distinctive melody is slowed down a notch, shimmering its path across a bed of rich and detailed electronics instead of the original’s post-punk framework.

Andy McCluskey from OMD has often recounted a story that OMD nabbed the idea (and melody) for ‘Electricity’ from Kraftwerk’s ‘Radioactivity’, and in Russell’s new arrangement at its more languid pace you can hear that umbilical link between the two tracks, deploying vocodered vocals and the vocal chord loops that both bands used to different degrees as hallmarks of their sound. That Russell has also worked with Kraftwerk’s Wolfgang Flür in the past is no surprise.

‘Electricity’ by Jonteknik will be released on March 26 2019 by The People’s Electric. The track will be exclusively available here.

Words: Mat Smith