Slowly senses leaving me Once the two are in 3D we play the game
I have a strange relationship with a lot of music. There are bands who are huge names, critically acclaimed cult favourites in the music literature; in many cases, these leave me cold. Or, I’ll find one or two of their songs – sometimes a single, sometimes an obscure track – which resonate with me, while the others fly completely over my head without leaving a mark. On the other hand, sometimes the only song I’ll like from a band will be the one which, in fact, was their chart hit, proving my tastes are solidly mainstream.
New Wave and Synthpop as genres are particularly fraught for me. There are giant names – Kraftwerk, Joy Division, Gary Numan, Siouxsie and the Banshees – to whom I have an almost physical allergy. Their sound is somehow too harsh for me, too bleak. There are plenty which are just too experimental: Art of Noise. Then there are ones which are too empty, too poppy: Duran Duran maybe. Then there are ones which are on the edge, but mostly too famous: Eurythmics, Rush, Thomas Dolby, Ultravox. (They may come up later).
The Buggles, sadly, fall for me mostly into a mix of ‘too experimental’ and yet ‘too famous’. There’s that one song which if you’re of a certain age you know by heart –
— you remember, of course you remember, you have to remember, it opened MTV in 1981–
But we cast aside the reck’ning
for stars they were a-beck’ning
Music is a strange odyssey sometimes. In searching ’80s synthpop I came across this little gem: Hiroshima by the German singer Sandra. It fit the early-80s anti-nuclear mood perfectly, but it was recorded in 1990 – too late for the period I’m capturing. Or so I thought.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiB8rjGcCE4
And the world remembers his name Remembers the flame was Hiroshima, Hiroshima, Hiroshima
Magnetically pulling my soul through the atmosphere
May the 4th…
Star Wars had a huge impact no not just cinema and TV, but pop culture in general in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and that of course includes music.
Carol Ann Holness, daughter of British TV presenter Bob Holness, had by 1978 become a minor planet in the sort of … British New Wave / Italian Disco scene, which needs a lot more elaboration but appears to have been totally a thing… under the wonderfully cyberpunk stage name of Nancy Nova. ( Nancy’s still around and has a website. )
Her first breakthrough hit, Akiri Non Stop, sounds like it ought to be something chrome and neon-rainy, but no… it’s a theme tune to an Italian music show. But points for mixing Japanese, English and Italian in one song:
I thought of home and times gone by And laughed aloud at the crimson sky
Modern English are a, well, English, yes, 80s New Wave band. In the usual pattern for these things, they hit their stride around 1982 with the album After The Snow, did some more work into the 90s, have stayed on the fringe of the music scene and reformed around 2010 with a new album (Soundtrack), about most of which I have very little to say. They have a decent website with some band history.
It’s the After The Snow album, though, which stays with me. Apparently it wasn’t a huge success; the single which did do well (I’ll Melt With You) I find okay, but nothing I’d otherwise cross the road for. A fairly generic love ballad with some world-weary apocalyptic overtones (and Flock of Seagulls hair/boilersuits in the video! and what is that keyboard?) Only at the edges are the shifting harmonies that show what they’re really capable of:
I’ll stop the world and melt with you You’ve seen the difference and it’s getting better all the time There’s nothing you and I won’t do I’ll stop the world and melt with you The future’s open wide
The opening track, Someone’s Calling, is a lot stronger. A dark vision of a fascist-feeling political rally that wouldn’t be out of place in a Pink Floyd album. A deeply felt anger at the Thatcher era with pure tones and complex keyboard/drum riffs in the background; this, to me, is the punk in cyberpunk, but both are here equally balanced.
The flames were dancing as the people shouted The streets they were alive as the stage was mounted A thousand cries of jubilation From the throes of this great people’s nation
And as our bridges burned to dust A useless feeling was quite enough I felt a chill run with the knives Someone’s calling in the night
I stop to think I stop to cry The choice is always mine But I’m too scared to judge
It’s the title track, though – After The Snow itself – which takes my breath away. The keyboard comes into its own. A deceptively simple repetitive ascending-scale motif while arpeggios unfurl like fractals of modem static. The melody and chord structure absorbs and resolves all the musical themes from the other songs on the album, building to its own climax of transformation. It feels sleek, ultramodern, cybernetic, and yet it’s also an uplifting anthem that finds itself centred in the beauty of the natural world. It’s not about sex, it’s not about violence, it’s not filled with ennui or dread or loathing. It’s just beautiful and hopeful. This song ought to stand proudly in history beside Martha and the Muffins’ Echo Beach, and yet…
Sometimes we just doesn’t notice the right things.
The rhythm of the rain gives an off beat on the window pane Like an angel crying from the sky
I can see its beauty After the snow I can see its beauty After the snow
The temperature’s dropping rapidly Normal service will shortly be resumed
I can see its beauty After the snow I can see its beauty After the snow (has gone away) After the snow
I stood and watched the dark sky rise With glaring sunlight in my eyes I thought of home and times gone by And laughed aloud at the crimson sky
After the snow After the snow After the snow After the snow
After the snow there’s something more After the snow there’s something more After the snow there’s something more After the snow there’s something more
After the snow After the snow
The rhythm of the rain gives an offbeat on the window pane Like an angel crying from the sky
I can see its beauty After the snow I can see its beauty
You think I live on the wild side
But it’s just a normal day
Mainframe were exactly one of those blink-and-you’ve-missed-it events that, looking back on the ’80s, I find hard to believe were real. Did I only imagine them? Fortunately, they’re also one of the exceptions to the rule of synthpop bittrot: in this case a fan site exists with copies of their an LP and singles.
Mainframe were the duo of John Molloy and Murray Munro. They were active in England only from 1983 to 1985, producing one album, a handful of singles, some 8-bit micro software… and a digital synthesiser/sampler board for the Apple II, the DS:3.
In other words, these guys were right at the epicentre of the British microcomputing scene – probably the only serious musicians to have been so deeply hobbyist-geeky at the time. At least, they were the only ones who hit so close to my sphere of interests. I remember reading an article in a British computing magazine (which I still haven’t tracked down, but is likely up on the Internet Archive somewhere) describing the band, their synthesiser, and their magnum opus: the 1983 LP, Tenants of the Lattice-Work.
And Tenants – in its entirety – is up on the mainframe-music.info site so go download it. (I’m not sure about the track titles; an earlier MP3 version that I downloaded had no track titles, and forum comments suggests that the album tracks were originally untitled).
It’s a science-fiction concept album – with a concept that is never quite spelled out, but as far as I can tell is a Matrix-like story about a corporate employee who discovers that the world he knows is a computer simulation, and escapes.
The album forms a seamless whole and is part instrumental, so it really needs to be heard as a whole, But (since the MP3s have been released for free) I’ve put my favourite track up on Youtube so you can listen:
From the random lines a room began to form So much stranger than before All around I saw machine beside machine And I fear there could be more
Hold on, we must explain Changes are all around Hold on, this world’s not true Changes surrounding you
And in the silent room the air began to glow Shadows cast a human form Someone turned to me, someone called my name Then they told me I was wrong
Hold on…
And all they whispered to me I could not believe I had to shout to hold my course The truth they talked about I could not receive This must be a dream
Hold on…
This is 1983, remember. A year before William Gibson released Neuromancer (though a year after Burning Chrome, his first Matrix story, had been published). Though I haven’t found a written citation, the term ‘latticework of computers’ was, I’m sure, already out in the popular computing press (alongside ‘matrix’ and ‘grid’) to describe the early ARPANET and what it might evolve into. But it’s worth reiterating that the idea of living inside virtual worlds wasn’t by any means original even at this point. It was ‘in the air’ to anyone in the computing community in the early 80s with a science fiction imagination (which was all of us). And, to a large degree, the music community, at least those discovering samplers and sequencers. Mainframe and Tenants gives us one more data point of how these three communities overlapped.
I remember – and at least one Discogs commenter agrees – that the album was released as part of a competition, advertised in the 8-bit computer magaznes. (This being 1983 in the UK, almost everything was a competition – the 1982 adventure game Pimania had accelerated the trend).
Talk To Me, also in 1983, was a cross-media project that involved programs for 8-bit micros of the time, and was – I’m sure – advertised in the same magazines. I never managed to buy/play it, but at least the single survives. It remixes many of the themes of Track 6 of Tenants:
Blinding illusion So much stranger than before It’s feeding my confusion And I feel there could be more
Can you talk to me Or do I stand here alone?
In 1985, Mainframe literally had their five minutes of fame with ‘5 Minutes’, a sample-heavy single that doesn’t really do anything for me, but got far more commercial airplay than the beautiful Tenants. Which I find sad, but that’s showbiz for you. In any case, here it is. And this time do read the Youtube comments!
You stole my five minutes of fame You told me time would heal the pain This world would bring me something new And like a child I trusted you
The other two singles from 1983 – The Room Part 2 and Radio (Will Bring Me Home) also feel like they’re part of the same universe as Tenants. Radio could be a replacement for Take The Road, and The Room Part 2 seems to be along the same lines as Machine Beside Machine / Talk To Me.
But I’ve picked Radio as the defining track for this band for two reasons: one, it’s radio-friendly when Tenants isn’t; and two, I remember actually hearing it on the radio in the 1980s. (New Zealand’s National Program had a total thing for British synthpop at the time). It left me with a deep sense of confusion… and that’s what makes the memory strong.
After computers and nuclear holocaust, ‘radio’ is a third theme that winds deeply through a lot of 80s synthpop. It was, after all, what we had back then instead of the Internet.
Out of München the traffic hunts me All the eyes switch to green Staring out, the pylon haunts me And the moment fills my screen
You think I live on the wild side But it’s just a normal day I’m trying to make some miles Over this land of motorways
He said, when the clearing shows (Hotel – Oscar – Mike – Echo) Radio will bring me home (Hotel – Oscar – Mike – Echo)
And I’m switching from town to country All the pressure’s left behind Corporation’s power haunts me A wave of guilt fills my mind
You think I live on the wild side But it’s just a normal day I’m trying to make some miles Over this land of motorways
He said, when the clearing shows (Hotel – Oscar – Mike – Echo) Radio will bring me home (Hotel – Oscar – Mike – Echo)
