Herb Sundays in focus: Electro (complete) (1997-2005)
Playlist: Apple Music / Spotify
Art by Michael Cina. Detroit 2001 photos by Will Calcutt.
We’ve covered genres that were once, and still are, challenging fare: Trance, Smooth Jazz, New Age, IDM, and more. The shifting of canon is a forever interest.
Read part one of this genre study here:
What’s in a name? Well, a lot. Artists already take a lot of shit across the board, but the industry has a way of pigeonholing them too. ‘New Wave’ was apparently popularized by Sire Records’ Seymour Stein, whose roster, including Talking Heads, supposedly rejected it as a catch-all.
Electroclash was the name of a festival/event in October 2001, booked by Larry Tee, that brought together some of the leading lights of the electronic music moment, including Berlin’s Chicks on Speed and Detroit’s ADULT., putting an (often maligned) wrapper around a diverse sound that had been gaining steam since the mid-to-late ‘90s.
I asked a few folks who could “live to tell” from the era to share some stolen moments and favorite songs (which I’ve added to the playlist); the fun part is that the lists are so disparate apart from a few overlaps.
Ghostly has enjoyed a long friendship with DFA since the early ‘00s. I remember bringing Ghostly records with me to trade with them at their office on 13th St and sharing music with James Murphy, Jonathan Galkin, Justin Miller, Kris Peterson, Tim Sweeney, and more. We even threw some parties together (flyer below: Daniel Scales), expertly booked/promoted by legend Justine D. and hosted/MC’d by Andrew Roposo.
Jonathan Galkin — Co-Founder, DFA Records, now Label Manager & Producer at Red Hot Org (and has a great EVR show):
“This is all a personal take. Not meant to be definitive. I’m riffing here. For me, electroclash was always about women and gay men. The music at the time seemed carved out of the stagnant air of 90s club culture to create a new safe space. There is something quite amateur and punk about the tracks I first heard that I really loved.
Musicianship was not required. For this reason the integrity of the scene could only last so long before there were wolves at the door. Electroclash is crass, it’s funny, it’s catty and it’s overly sexed. It gives both new wave aesthetics + theater kid energy. It’s drunk and druggy and allows for role play and dress-up. It wasn’t about the DJ in the booth, it was about the brave weirdos on stage.
Musically the roots felt akin to early-era electro rap and disco, hip house & new wave. Egyptian Lover, Flying Lizards, Lizzie Mercier Descloux, Sexual Harassment. Larry Tee working with RuPaul’s Star Booty project in the late 80s creates a direct line from that era to 2000, where he presided over Club Luxx in Williamsburg.
DFA were definitely fans and the sounds of electroclash crept into so much of what was happening at the label early on. It was inspiring. We all loved the same records. Soft Cell, Kraftwerk, Cabaret Voltaire, the B-52s, Julie Ruin & Le Tigre. But we steered clear of signing a lot of it directly. It never seemed like a natural fit. It wasn’t our culture per se.
One of the first A&R meetings we had was with A.R.E., Weapons. Perhaps the straightest and most divisive of the new batch. Thomas Bullock of Rub N Tug was a member at this time and he arranged the meeting. The other 2 thought we were corny and maybe too ambitious. They walked and said hard pass. Thomas quit the group that day.
James was perhaps more smitten than the rest of us. He sang on a Felix Da Housecat song. He spun the shit out of Green Velvet, Tok Tok Vs. Soffy O, Miss Kittin, Felix, and dozens of others. I watched it all from the sidelines. He took what he needed to flesh out the sounds of LCD Soundsystem.”
JG’s tracks:
Felix Da Housecat – What Does It Feel Like (Röyksopp Return The Sun Remix) (2001)
Chilly Gonzales & Peaches – Red Leather (2000)
Sexual Harassment – If I Gave You A Party (1983)
Black Strobe – Me and Madonna (2002)
Golden Boy / Miss Kittin – Rippin Kittin (2001) [Ed note: the original, also notice the replacement of Kittin in the video]
The Juan Maclean
Song pick: ‘LUCIDA OBSCURA’ by Crossover. This was definitely a substantial influence as The Juan MacLean was beginning to coalesce more around working with Nancy [Whang]. The co-ed, cool and aloof vocal structures, minimal and dark synth arpeggios evocative of Italo Disco, the nod to Germany, it all definitely influenced my second DFA 12” ‘You Can’t Have It Both Ways.’ I would play this in DJ sets around the city in the early 2000’s, which took place mostly in broken down bars, definitely not in proper clubs.”
The real heroes of the era, apart from the promoters (also often women), were the women who sang the songs, notably ADULT.’s Nicola Kuperus and Miss Kittin. Neither artist asked to be lumped in with this name, having already established a unique sound, but the similarities and affected deadpan, Kittin’s sardonic Euro drawl and Kuperus’ assertive bark gave whatever song they graced authority and mystery, which the era mostly lacked.
Both art school kids, the look and feel of ADULT. Was also their creation; their sleeves feature Kuperus’ photos, which act as film stills of an unspoken narrative. While playing with female archetypes, victims or provocateurs, there's a stiltedness at work. If the imagery or lyrics are at all sexual, it is uncomfortable, bodies stiff and strained, more Ballard than a pulp paperback. In Kittin’s lyrics, any sense of romance is either a put-on or a ruse, fooling businessmen, a game of cat and mouse.
One of my favorite Kuperus guest spots is Death in Vegas’ “Hands Around My Throat.” (2002)
I asked RICHARD FEARLESS of Death in Vegas what scene the Scorpio Rising album and the song came from:
“A separate scene to the one I was DJing in, for sure. Scorpio Rising was a reactionary record to The Contino Sessions—while The Contino Sessions was full of angst, Scorpio Rising was meant to be an album expressing more love.
Both Tim and myself loved ADULT. Tracks like “Nausea,” “Hand to Phone” were on rotation. Nicola had the right energy, a unique power. Earlier on I’d got really into the work of Ian Clark, Le Car, Perspects, and that had led me to ADULT. as Adam (ADULT.) was in Le Car.”
SV: Any key memories (good or bad) about “electroclash” as a moment?
Not really. I thought it was all pretty shite, to be honest. Le Car, Like a Tim, Legowelt, Ectomorph, UR — these were the records I was hunting, playing when all that was kicking off, really. I didn’t really like or play the later ‘electroclash’ records.
[Q: Any fave UK moments/parties/DJs?]
The Haywire parties — one of Andrew Weatherall and Amanda Burton’s shindigs was the wildest. Definitely wasn’t electroclash, but they’d get over people like ADULT. and great artists like Si Begg. Then there was the Heavenly Social where I was resident with The Chemical Brothers and Jon Carter. Though as DJs we couldn’t have been more different — Jon into his ragga and hip-hop, Chems being the selectors they were, and myself who was into electro, techno.”
RF song pick:
The odd Gigolo record. Mick Wills’ ‘Kill Kill Kill’ still hasn’t left my record bag.”
I Was an Electro Malcontent: my electro story
A lot of our early moments at Ghostly were electro-adjacent, including the compilation that Philip Sherburne kindly mentioned in his electroclash post last week, Tangent 2002: Disco Nouveau.
The origins of this record were that it was to be a curatorial exercise. I was loving the electro revival since I-F’s “Space Invaders…” and Mixed Up In The Hague mix had put everything back in play. I had become friendly with Brendan Gillen of Ectomorph, whose From Beyond compilation was recently one of the seminal moments at that time, fusing electro, ghettotech, Detroit techno, and more into a seamless whole. And just down the road in Detroit, husband-and-wife duo Adam Lee Miller and Nicola Kuperus were performing as ADULT. and running the Ersatz Audio label, featuring hand-stamped designs on their sleeves. These labels, along with the classic Detroit techno labels, made making records seem possible and were a major influence on the founding of Ghostly.
Philip Sherburne: When I look back on the music that became canonized as electroclash, as well as all the music happening in the margins around it, I’m mainly struck by how porous the lines were. Ghostly’s prescient Tangent 2002: Disco Nouveau is a great example, kicking off with a spangled robo-disco track from Daniel Wang before veering through cuts from ADULT. (textbook electroclash), Legowelt (Italo-fueled big-room techno), Solvent (melodic synth pop), DMX Krew (retro new wave), Ectomorph (corroded techno), and Lowfish (classic electro), et. al. But then, Ghostly and its clubbier Spectral Sound sublabel have always made connections between disparate genres (electronica, acid, minimal) and contexts (home listening vs. DJ tools, etc.), so it stands to reason that they were connecting so many different dots, even so early in their history.
The origins of Disco Nouveau is just me emailing artists I was loving from the school computer lab around 2000, using my Hotmail account. Asking artists such as Holland’s Legowelt and I-F, Tokyo’s Susumu Yokota, London’s DMX Krew, Detroit’s Perspects, Toronto’s Solvent, and more for music that was more song-driven and related to electro or Italo disco.
The DAT tapes started rolling in, and the compilation came together, coupled with cover art by Swedish fashion illustrator Kristian Russell, whom I think I had seen in Flaunt magazine; the magazine rack at Border’s books was the artery to unseen worlds (Other illustrators we brought in at the time included Tokion’s Deanne Cheuk). The record was arguably the one that helped set things off for the label (as well as Matthew Dear and Dabrye’s debut albums), giving us a small global reach, with the zeitgeist on our side. I remember that while I was getting close to finishing, Daft Punk’s Discovery came out, which, of course, leaned heavily on Disco and Electro, which felt like a validation of my side quest in many ways.
The comp started as a small project I was working on while in school, and less than a year later, DJ Hell was playing Legowelt’s “Disco Rout” and Perspects’ “They Keep Dancing” at Berlin’s Love Parade. You can see Miss Kittin handing over the decks to him in the clip below.
JACQUES RENAULT’s Top tracks:
Ed note: When I finally moved to NYC in 2006, my favorite regular night was a Thursday at the Tribeca Grand (now The Roxy Hotel) called I.S.S. (2006-2007) with residents such as Jacques and Will Burnett aka Speculator, with host Chase. Electro style dj’ing was still in vogue and ruled the night (“Those Thursdays were a blast….we even had Alexander Robotnick as a guest ha”).
JR’s songs: The Hacker – Fadin’ Away (Dima Remix) [Goodlife]
also
Vitalic – La Rock [Gigolo]
Or
Miss Kittin and The Hacker – Flexibility [Gigolo]
follow uppers:
Håkan Lidbo – Synth Noir [Lasergun]
Savas Pascalidis – Space Affair [Gigolo]
Mr. Lovelace & Mrs. Kalif – Stop [MIS]
The Parallax Corporation – Slowflight / Runner [Viewlexx]
Memory Boy – (There Is No) Electricity [Memory Boy]
Gabe Catanzaro & Mark Verbos – I Wonder Why? [Viking Music]
Kap10kurt – Die Sleeping [Memory Boy]
A Visitor From Another Meaning (Alden Tyrell) – Hills of Honolulu [Viewlexx]
Japanese Telecom – Virtual Geisha [Gigolo]
Northern Lite – My Pain (Special R.E.M.I.X.E.D. Version By The Hacker) [Lasergun] Ellen Allien – Alles Sehen (Miss Kittin Remix) [BPitch]
Miss Kittin & The Hacker – The Beach [Mental Groove]
The compilation garnered acclaim, even Simon Reynolds (Herb 32) showing love. In the electroclash chapter of Energy Flash and on his blog: “The Ghostly International comp is the most all-the-way-through enjoyable thing I’ve heard in this neo-electro/Eighties synthpop vein since the Interdimensional Transmissions’s From Beyond several years ago.”
This put us into a circuit of parties and even festival/conference panels, including a 2002 Billboard one (Nü-Electro—Hype or Reality?") with Larry Tee, Tiga, etc. in NYC. I remember being neg on electroclash at that point, and on the panel, not seeing the songcraft rise to the challenge, perhaps me being a little self-serious, I’ll admit. I had also seen how the press, especially in the UK, would turn on you as an electronic label once you were pigeonholed, and was fearful this sound would overshadow the label's goal of sonic diversity, so apart from continuing with Solvent as a roster artist and eventually ADULT., fingerprints of the sound were scarce after the series.
Tricia Romano (former Village Voice, Spin, etc + author of The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture (2024):
“I mean, obviously Fischerspooner and the performance at Deitch. The Larry Tee Luxx parties, the Hungry Wives, the Scissor Sisters — tho I feel like they blew up so fast they were not around in NYC as much.”
“There’s an article I did on the scene for Spin:”
I remember being in NYC, seeing a Paper magazine ad for an event called “Electroclash” featuring a bunch of acts I liked, including ADULT., and making the trek. I brought some burnt CD-R copies of Disco Nouveau (I recall Ladytron said they played it a ton on tour after I gave them one). The record arrived right in the thick of the Electroclash storm, no plan intended. We were in luck. However, the mood soured a bit when Electroclash became a punchline for less nuanced, more vapid fare.
CAROLINE DRUCKER (then, Berlin: !K7, Get Physical, Vice)
“I remember in the fall of 2003 spending all my money on the last pair of white Chuck Taylors in Berlin, it seemed. That night was a birthday party for Miss Kittin in the back room of Cookies (before it was a restaurant) and I managed to blag my way into it. There was the very snooty sales guy and he saw my pristine shoes and immediately stepped on them, making them properly grotty. He looked at me and said with a straight face, ‘no one has clean shoes in Berlin.’ IOW — don’t try, just be. The clubs were filthy back then — I remember needing to walk on planks to get to the loo in Rio because all the toilets were overflowing and it was the only way not to wade through shit. It wasn’t an American Apparel ad, it was dirty, smelly, silly, it was glorious.”
RE: Electroclash in Berlin
“It was more about the electro than the clash, quickly morphing into minimal techno with the neons fading into black. The aesthetics of electroclash were far more pronounced in the UK and the US. In Berlin the live acts (Peaches / Chicks on Speed, etc.) were/are earnest in their work/art, vs. Avenue D or other US acts that were more about irony and humour. Berlin was always about the art — the moment — the soul that was in the little blips that brought joy on Wednesday morning 5am as the last song was played.”
Fave tune: “Maybe “House of Jealous Lovers,” though not really electroclash, was my fave. I could never not run to the floor when it was played.”
Electro loomed large for early Ghostly; we even booked DJ Hell for one of our first NYC parties in 2002. When it came time to celebrate Disco Nouveau in Detroit in December 2001 on the eve of the record, we worked with our friend Jon Ozias and a cast of creatives such as Barbara Deyo and took over the basement of famed goth club City Club, aka Labyrinth, with an unstoppable lineup of ADULT., Ectomorph, DMX Krew and more.
It felt like an arrival in Detroit, a real moment, and a legit UK journalist (!), Piers Martin was even on hand capturing it for an issue on the Electroclash topic, which they labeled under “Synthcore,” which featured our party, record, and label as a key player in my fave magazine at the time, Sleazenation. Electro delivered once again.
By the mid ‘00s the electronic party had turned to extremes, blog house and the re-coined “minimal” techno sound both had roots in Electro but further obscured. There were some great records in that crossover too, I wrote about one of them on my my playlist, Ellen Allien’s “Your Body Is My Body,” for Matthew Schnipper’s Deep Voices:
In an electronic era where "minimal" reigned, the truncated sound palette often left romantic sex at the door. Here stands the rare track that is at once interior and mutual, as sweaty and squalid as a post party Berlin flat on a hot August morning.
The other day, I was driving on the West Side Highway and listening back to my playlist to see if it was done. A remnant of the old High Line was parked in front of Hudson Yards and the Vessel sculpture, a contrast between a (nearly) lost city and an over-financialized one, one with fewer chances.
Something you still want for the city, any city, is a chance to push yourself to the front as an artist, to make yourself actualized. Whether it's Suicide in the ‘70s or some newer misremembered Electro duo, the tools have remained the same: Me and my rhythm box.
Bonus Beats:
Kate Bollinger returns with “Shop Girl” and a new EP for pre-order
Chris DeVille of Stereogum sez:
“The reliably excellent, retro-tinted Richmond singer-songwriter Kate Bollinger was dropping great tracks for years before releasing her debut full-length Songs From A Thousand Frames Of Mind in 2024. Now she’s back in EP mode and still sounding great.
Jonathan Rado produced Bollinger’s new five-song release Shop Girl, due out in October. Its title track merges a few strains of classic songwriting, accenting its soulful ‘60s pop sound with shades of disco. This one’s going to be in my head all day, and I’m not mad about it.”
In the spirit of anniversaries from my post, Secretly Group celebrated 30 years this week in Bloomington. Co-CEO Darius Van Arman revisited the early days in this lovely post.
HTRK’s Ghostly debut Work (work, work) is finally reissued for its 15th anniversary.
