Telex singer Michel Moers returns with a new project: Ex+Guests. This new venture centres around Michel with a revolving casts of, well, guests, including ex-Propaganda singer Claudia Bruecken.
The first fruits of this new labour is a cover, in glorious Moers style, of Timbuk 3's 1987 hit The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades.
For more info on this exciting new endeavour go to www.explusguests.net and for more from Michel here's our exclusive interview with the man himself.
Missed this a few weeks back but we can only echo The Guardian's sentiments regarding Telex's seminal and criminally overlooked debut, Looking For St Tropez.
We were lucky enough to speak to Michel Moers from the band last year in a very rare exclusive interview. If you would like to find out more have a read here.
Very sad to hear of the passing this week of one of NYC's legendary DJ's and producers Mark Kamins.
In the early 80s, Mark was a resident at the Danceteria, one of the most important New York clubs of the era and a huge influence stylistically and musically on the development of Manchester's Haçienda.
The Big Apple at the time was exploding with creativity, not only in music (Hip Hop, Mutant Disco, No Wave etc) but also in art and dance both down and uptown. Mark tapped into this with his daring DJ sets combining effects, scratching and dubs over a wildly eclectic selection of genres and styles.
Kamins' was a master of the 'NYC style' Dub mix which had such a powerful effect on early to mid 80s dancefloors but remains relatively undiscovered (Dimitri From Paris fantastic Nightdubbin' comp aside). His dub mix of Madonna's first single Everybody was instrumental in breaking the record and indeed it was Mark who first championed Ms Ciccone, handing her demo to Sire Records' supremo Seymour Stein. The rest is history...
Mark is interviewed behind the decks at the Danceteria in this fantastic 1983 documentary for UK music TV show the Tube alongside other NY luminaries including Arthur Baker, Peech Boys and Nona Hendryx. It also includes great footage of the Paradise Garage and the Roxy and a very young Mike Pickering (a Haçienda legend himself) with his band Quando Quango who Mark remixed on several occasions. Both MK and Jellybean remixed Factory Records artists with Mike and Mark being bridges between the Danceteria and the Haç.
And here are a few of those fantastic Kamins productions...
Snowy Red are one in a long line of great lost early 80's artists from Belgium and the Netherlands that had a HUGE influence on the EBM, New Beat and ultimately Techno scenes. Their track Euroshimais featured on Elektro Diskow but here we put the spotlight on another great SR single release- The Long Run from '84. Nitzer Ebb were clearly big fans!!
Fantastic electropop oddity from '84 with a suitably weird and wonderful video.
Jon St James is a US guitarist, songwriter–composer, producer and engineer who formed the electronic group Q and SSQ in the early 80s and later produced Stacey Q (who had a huge dance hit in the States with Two Of Hearts) from the group's early work.
Japan's Yellow Magic Orchestra are often overlooked when the histories of electronic music are drawn up but they remain one of the genre's most influential artists having inspired artists as diverse as Michael Jackson, Detroit Techno legend Carl Craig and Duran Duran while their music has been sampled by the likes of Jennifer Lopez, De La Soul and Justice. Afrika Bambaataa has cited YMO's Computer Games as a huge influence on his seminal Planet Rock.
A career retrospective/reappraisal is long overdue!!
