Press Info:
The Third Chimpanzee Remixed sees Martin Gore’s recent five-track release reimagined by remixers including Rrose, JakoJako, Kangding Ray and artists from the Mute family including Chris Liebing and ANNA. Martin Gore, one of the founding members and primary songwriter of Depeche Mode, explores euphoric modular sounds and develops his career’s long relationship with electronic music through the primate-themed EP. The Third Chimpanzee follows his eponymous album MG in 2015 and SSSS, his collaboration with Erasure’s Vince Clarke for their VCMG project. The artwork was created by Pockets Warhol, a capuchin monkey based in Canada who paints for charity.
Format:
CD, CD (Japan), cassette, vinyl, download & streaming
Tracklist: 01. The Beat Goes On/Off
02. Moskow Diskow (New Mix)
03. Twist À Saint-Tropez (New Mix)
04. Euro-Vision (New Mix)
05. Dance To The Music (New Mix)
06. Drama Drama (New Mix)
07. Exercise Is Good For You (New Mix)
08. L’Amour Toujours (New Mix)
09. Radio-Radio (New Mix)
10. Rendez-Vous Dans L’Espace (New Mix)
11. Beautiful Li(F)E (New Mix)
12. The Number One Song In Heaven (New Mix)
13. La Bamba (New Mix)
14. Dear Prudence
Tracklist Japan Edition: 01. The Beat Goes On/Off
02. Moskow Diskow (New Mix)
03. Twist À Saint-Tropez (New Mix)
04. Euro-Vision (New Mix)
05. Dance To The Music (New Mix)
06. Drama Drama (New Mix)
07. Exercise Is Good For You (New Mix)
08. L’Amour Toujours (New Mix)
09. Radio-Radio (New Mix)
10. Rendez-Vous Dans L’Espace (New Mix)
11. Beautiful Li(F)E (New Mix)
12. The Number One Song In Heaven (New Mix)
13. La Bamba (New Mix)
14. Dear Prudence
15. Moskow Diskow (English Version)
16. Eurovision (English Version)
Press Info:
Telex announce New Compilation ‘This Is Telex’
“Belgian synthpop eminences…” – MOJO
Telex and Mute have announced a new partnership that launches with the release of This is Telex, a brand new 14-track compilation – out on 30 April 2021. This is Telex will be released on limited edition coloured vinyl (shrimp pink and fern green), cassette and CD, with sleeve notes by David Stubbs, as well as digitally and in a limited edition t-shirt bundle.
his is Telex features singles from across the Belgian synthpop trio’s career, from their debut single, ‘Twist à Saint Tropez’ in 1978 (coincidentally the year Mute was formed with the release of Daniel Miller’s 7”, The Normal ‘TVOD’ / ‘Warm Leatherette’) through to their final album release, How Do You Dance? in 2006. Tracks on the compilation are newly mixed and remastered from the original tapes by band members Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers, these new mixes often involved subtracting from, rather than adding to, the original multi-track recordings. “We simplify,” explains Lacksman. “We take away, to create something more efficient, more Telex.”
The newly mixed and remastered tracks on the compilation include their best known work, including ‘Moskow Diskow’ and ‘Euro-vision’, alongside two recently discovered and unreleased tracks, their take on The Beatles’ ‘Dear Prudence’ and Sonny & Cher’s ‘The Beat Goes On’, as well as their writing collaboration with Sparks and cover of the Sparks hit ‘The Number One Song In Heaven’.
Telex are Marc Moulin (1942- 2008), Dan Lacksman and Michel Moers. The band formed in 1978 in Brussels, just one of a handful of synthpop pioneers at a time when electronic pop was regarded as novelty, with suspicion, as a harbinger for future dystopia and alienation. Telex were concerned about the consequences of new technology for human communication, their name taken, ironically, from a now obsolete piece of communications technology, adding a retro-futurist air to their legend. And it was on their cover versions that they deliberately played up the disparity between the ice-cool electronic approach and the sweaty, fleshy, frenetic passion of pop. Their cover versions – from the Yé-yé of Les Chats Sauvages’ ‘Twist à Saint Tropez’ to the psychedelic soul of ‘Dance to the Music’ (Sly and the Family Stone) from the rock n roll of Bill Haley’s ‘Rock Around the Clock’ and ‘La Bamba’ to the disco of Sparks’ ‘The Number One Song in Heaven’ and beyond – see Telex embrace a wide history of musical genre.
The band famously entered the Eurovision Song Contest, representing Belgium with ‘Euro-vision’. Moers says he regarded their entry as “very Situationist International, the worm in the apple.” and they resolved either to come first or last. They didn’t achieve that goal, but became part of the Eurovision saga. Moers saw Johnny Logan (who went on to win the contest twice for Ireland) and told him, “you’re going to win”, Logan replied “Yeah. But if I win it’s good for me. If you win, it’s good for music.”
Telex announced their retirement in 2008, following Moulin’s death, this new partnership with Mute will see a comprehensive reissue series of the back catalogue, starting with This is Telex. “We’re so glad to have signed with Mute. We couldn’t have done better,” says Moers. “It’s like a dream, fantastic,” adds Lacksman.
Press Info:
Sunroof [Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones] have announced, after four decades of friendship and collaboration, the release of their debut album. Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1, a collection of eight improvised modular pieces recorded as live in various studio spaces across London in the spring and summer of 2019, will be released on the newly revived Parallel Series of Mute on 21 May 2021.
Daniel Miller (founder of Mute, the “accidental label” that began with the release of his own 7” single The Normal’s T.V.O.D / Warm Leatherette) met Gareth Jones, (the innovative and influential producer, engineer and artist) back when Miller asked Jones to work with him in late 1982 on what became Depeche Mode’s Construction Time Again. After the band had gone home for the day, they would stay on to work on their own sessions, a practise that continued and, by the mid-nineties Sunroof had emerged as remix project, reworking the likes of Can, MGMT, To Rococo Rot, Kreidler and Goldfrapp, and appeared on a compilation paying tribute to Neu!.
Back in 2019, Miller and Jones were heading to a György Ligeti concert at the Barbican and beforehand – as they often do when together in the same city – the pair spent a couple of hours improvising with modular systems. Unusually, this time they decided to record the session and over a pre-concert meal, Gareth asked a question that seems logical after all these years: “Are we actually going to make a record together before we die?”
The following day, they set themselves some rules: “We decided to get together to do a bunch of improvisations,” explains Gareth. “We said we’d work in a number of different physical spaces but always together, in the same room. We were keen to do shorter pieces because we were both very inspired by Chris Carter and Martin Gore’s electronic music projects, where the pieces were very concise and compact.”
Key to their manifesto was a distinction between an improvisation and a jam session. “With modular systems, you can just go on and on forever and never actually complete anything. Sometimes that’s okay – part of the joy of a modular is that you can just keep going indefinitely. But with this we were keen to actually finish something, so setting that timeframe became a really important rule for us.” adds Daniel.
Nothing was pre-planned, they didn’t rehearse, and the pieces were recorded as live performances using a limited number of channels. What they accumulated during the course of those 2019 sessions was a suite of evolving, restless pieces, each one containing layers of pulsing, atmospheric sounds.
The pieces on Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1 have a timelessness evoking the classic sound of some of the earliest electronic experiments. They also sound resolutely modern. Even for the two players, their individual contributions are no longer obvious to them, nor is it actually necessary to separate who did what – the whole journey is what’s important, not the individual twists, turns and tweaks that happened along the way.
The album possesses a spirit, energy and discipline of improvisation and in these pieces, you can hear the almost symbiotic connection that they share, and the new sonic pathways and different, unexplored ways of working opening up in front of them.
Press Info:
Sunroof [Daniel Miller and Gareth Jones] have announced, after four decades of friendship and collaboration, the release of their debut album. Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1, a collection of eight improvised modular pieces recorded as live in various studio spaces across London in the spring and summer of 2019, will be released on the newly revived Parallel Series of Mute on 21 May 2021.
Daniel Miller (founder of Mute, the “accidental label” that began with the release of his own 7” single The Normal’s T.V.O.D / Warm Leatherette) met Gareth Jones, (the innovative and influential producer, engineer and artist) back when Miller asked Jones to work with him in late 1982 on what became Depeche Mode’s Construction Time Again. After the band had gone home for the day, they would stay on to work on their own sessions, a practise that continued and, by the mid-nineties Sunroof had emerged as remix project, reworking the likes of Can, MGMT, To Rococo Rot, Kreidler and Goldfrapp, and appeared on a compilation paying tribute to Neu!.
Back in 2019, Miller and Jones were heading to a György Ligeti concert at the Barbican and beforehand – as they often do when together in the same city – the pair spent a couple of hours improvising with modular systems. Unusually, this time they decided to record the session and over a pre-concert meal, Gareth asked a question that seems logical after all these years: “Are we actually going to make a record together before we die?”
The following day, they set themselves some rules: “We decided to get together to do a bunch of improvisations,” explains Gareth. “We said we’d work in a number of different physical spaces but always together, in the same room. We were keen to do shorter pieces because we were both very inspired by Chris Carter and Martin Gore’s electronic music projects, where the pieces were very concise and compact.”
Key to their manifesto was a distinction between an improvisation and a jam session. “With modular systems, you can just go on and on forever and never actually complete anything. Sometimes that’s okay – part of the joy of a modular is that you can just keep going indefinitely. But with this we were keen to actually finish something, so setting that timeframe became a really important rule for us.” adds Daniel.
Nothing was pre-planned, they didn’t rehearse, and the pieces were recorded as live performances using a limited number of channels. What they accumulated during the course of those 2019 sessions was a suite of evolving, restless pieces, each one containing layers of pulsing, atmospheric sounds.
The pieces on Electronic Music Improvisations Volume 1 have a timelessness evoking the classic sound of some of the earliest electronic experiments. They also sound resolutely modern. Even for the two players, their individual contributions are no longer obvious to them, nor is it actually necessary to separate who did what – the whole journey is what’s important, not the individual twists, turns and tweaks that happened along the way.
The album possesses a spirit, energy and discipline of improvisation and in these pieces, you can hear the almost symbiotic connection that they share, and the new sonic pathways and different, unexplored ways of working opening up in front of them.
