SEVERED HEADS - Dead Eyes Opened 12" + Sevs In Space + live ABC Rock Arena 1986

Severed Heads live Beck's Festival Bar, Hyde Park Barracks Sydney, 14 January 2010. Pic by Zoltan Blazer.

Of all the electro-geniuses (genii?) out there twiddling their knobs in basements and attics, Australian Tom Ellard stands (like many, largely unrecognised outside a hardcore of appreciators) at the top of the tree. He has ploughed a singular furrow welding together experimental and melodic electronics and quirky visuals since the late 70s in Sydney when he joined an anti-commercial 'band' called Mr & Mrs No-Smoking Sign. When original members Richard Fielding & Andrew Wright left, Ellard continued as Severed Heads. The early music was almost beyond labelling, incorporating elements of 'industrial' noise-generation, tape cutting & looping, early sampling of found sounds and electronic sound synthesis. As the project developed it became more 'conventional', employing song-structures and vocals in a more-or-less recognisable mutant electro pop style. Over the years he has been assisted by several fellow electro-travellers including Garry Bradbury, Paul Deering, Stephen R. Jones, inventor of one of the first video-synthesizers, and the late Simon (Insect-O-Cutor) Knuckey and Robert Racic.

For a long time Ellard has had a notoriously spiky, up and down relationship with his musical alter-ego, the music business and a fair few of his fans. The Heads supposedly signed off with a spectacular Sydney show in January but on the website www.sevcom.com Ellard pronounces the project as '...born 1979, died 2008.' In truth, he's viewed the Heads as an albatross and railed against the dying of the light for quite a while. He has accused certain post-punk new wave bands like New Order and Depeche Mode of continuing well past what he sees as their their sell-by date while at the same time bemoaning the critical establishment's failure to notice Severed Heads' activities since 1985. He frustratedly refers to fans and critics who prefer early Heads material as 'Cliffords' (the 79-85 compilation album was called Clifford Darling, Please Don't Live In the Past) whom he sees as burying their, er, heads in the sand and refusing to open up to the later, less abstract stuff. Seems like a case of having cake and eating it, but that is one of the most refreshing things about Tom Ellard: he speaks his mind whatever is on it and wears his heart on his sleeve. He now lectures at the University of New South Wales and, reading his blog, even this seems to have as many cons as pros. Perhaps he's just a frustrated rock star ;) or more likely, one of those people (like me, for sure) who never really found out what they wanted to do after they left school.


A major reason I and many Heads fans love the band so much is that for the best part of 30 years they forged a unique identity with heart, spleen and ideology, produced some of the most amazing electronic music ever heard (for me Ellard is THE master electro melodician; his trademark off-kilter basslines are the nuts and his minor-key harmonies are almost overwhelmingly beautiful) and continued through the wasteland of the late 80s/entire 90s into the noughties when doing so must have felt like banging their, er, heads against a bigger, harder wall each year. So I can certainly forgive his spikiness, I just wish he'd try to see it from a wider point of view. People's likes and dislikes are usually hardwired into them for very complex reasons and if anyone out there loves even one part of your oeuvre so much, it's a job well done in my book. Would that many of us had the talent and perseverance to produce something half as good...


From the very early days of the shared (with Rhythmyx Chymx) Ear Bitten album in 1980, through Terse Tapes cassette releases like Clean (1981), Blubberknife (1982) and Since the Accident (1983), Severed Heads did their own experimental thing like no-one else, with a determinedly DIY aesthetic. One track that Ellard created to fill space on Since the Accident became a double-edged sword: Dead Eyes Opened, featuring simple but killer interweaving sequences cradling Edgar Lustgarten's macabre spoken vocal from a cassette audiobook, has been the band's most consistently-loved cut ever since. This fuelled Ellard's frustration with the fandom and marketing side of making music - but quality is quality is quality. I'm guessing he's not a subscriber to the death of the author principle...


Subsequent releases opened the band up to international critical attention. City Slab Horror was released by UK label Ink Records in 1985 and live UK appearances followed, at London's ICA and Everyman Cinema. They went on a fraught tour in Canada and at home, but some good did emerge: Volition Records signed a deal for domestic releases and Nettwerk took on North American distribution. Clifford, Darling... and The Big Bigot soon appeared, followed in 1987 by Bad Mood Guy and 1989's Rotund For Success.

The 90s proved traumatic, with record company indifference and financial difficulties to the fore. 1991's Cuisine included an experimental suite entitled Piscatorial, outlining schizophrenic tensions of trying to align & market the band's diverse musical styles. Nothing else appeared until 1994's (96 in the US) Gigapus album, which was a commercial disappointment. Ellard had long been interested in video technology and the album was reissued as Metapus, a limited 2 disc package with one disc a CD-ROM of video work. This ushered in a new era of embracing developments in internet and digital technology. Sick of trying to forge new deals, Ellard released 1998's Haul Ass album as a self-issued CD-R, ordered direct from the sevcom website. In the early 2000s a series of cd releases entitled Op (v1.0, v2.0 etc.) became available and he also issued DVD-Rs of new video material like Robot Peepshow. A film soundtrack (Illustrated Family Doctor) in 2004 was followed by a deal with James Nice at LTM to reissue Rotund For Success with remixes and extra tracks. The soundtrack even earned a record industry award - the first recognition of its kind.


In December 2005 I was fortunate enough to see Severed Heads live for the first (and, I guess, last) time at the BIMFest (Belgian Independent Music Festival) at Hof Ter Lo in Antwerp. I went over with a good friend who was lucky enough to have been at the Everyman Cinema gig in 85, the bastard - I couldn't go. Ellard was on great dry form that day and he and Alison Cole played a terrific set augmented by his surreal and blackly humorous video animations. Ellard's first words on stage were "And now, the comic relief"- he even got in a spike to start with. He followed this with "We're called 'Frank Sinatra.'"
Severed Heads live Antwerp BIMFest 2005. Pics by Man On Wire.

I have a good quality audio file of the gig which I found on the sickness-abounds blog a few months ago. I notice the blog has been removed and a smaller version has replaced it - see my blog list - but the file is no longer there. If it is not forthcoming I'll upload it to a server myself for a future post.

Some of the live tracks did appear on LTM's Viva Heads! cd in 2006. The same year, Sevcom released Under Gail Succubus packaged with Over Barbara Island, a round-up of new material. The 2cd remix compilation ComMerz appeared from LTM in 2007, and in 2008 Ellard released the mammoth 5-album vinyl early/rarities retrospective Adenoids, which has just appeared as a cd set available from sevcom.


This list is not exhaustive, and doesn't include side projects like Co Kla Coma, nor does it cover Ellard's occasional production roles for bands like Skinny Puppy and Single Gun Theory. It's been a 30 year career of pioneering music and video work so please do it justice by researching it further at http://sevcom.com and http://tomellard.com - also go to LTM's Severed Heads catalogue page HERE and bio page written by Bernie Krause HERE.

Courtesy of Pop Will Eat My Blog, here's a link to download Severed Heads' Dead Eyes Opened EP, Nettwerk, 1986.

Tom Ellard has his own YouTube channel (of course), where you'll find some of his superb, unique home-made video gems. If he were Czech or similar his animations would have been enough to forge a cult career in their own right. The latest video additions are in HD - 720p max at the moment - paving the way for a mooted Blu-ray disc. This track, Sevs In Space, from the phenomenal Haul Ass album, is a glorious fusion of music & visuals. Velvet Numanesque chorus melodies and a crazy narrative concept based on a monumental flying head (yep, a homage to John Boorman's 1974 sf curio Zardoz) will do it for me every time.



Lastly, here are a couple of archival must-watches thanks to YouTuber 'QRhuggies': Severed Heads live in the studio on ABC's Rock Arena TV show from October 1986. The first video is 13 minutes and features the tracks Petrol, A Million Angels and Bless The House. The second clocks in at 15 minutes and features Big Blue Is Back, Harold & Cindy Hospital, Propellor and Halo. I defy any true fan of electronic music to watch these videos and listen to a Sevs album without getting hooked and diving head first into the whole shebang.





I've loved the Heads since Since the Accident and especially City Slab Horror, duly conforming to the Clifford stereotype by loving that album perhaps the most of all the band's output. I've lost count of the people I've introduced to Severed Heads down the years who wondered how come they'd never heard them before and bought their product. I hope the blogosphere serves to increase profiles and sales of artists like Szajner, Ellard and others featured on eclectic music blogs - even I'm not cynical enough to think that everyone who comes across the material is only destined to download it for free wherever they can find it. As Ellard himself put it a long time ago on an album sleevenote:
'Remember - no-one lost their job buying Severed Heads.'

BERNARD SZAJNER - Indecent Delit + The Big Scare + Welcome (To Death Row)

In the late 70s and early 80s, enigmatic French artist Bernard Szajner (pronounced Shyner) moved effortlessly from visual and laser effects work to audio and produced some of the best electronic music that even many of the most rabid EM fans have never heard.

His debut album Visions Of Dune, under the moniker of Zed, was a soaring synthesizer instrumental tribute to Frank Herbert's highly influential 1965 science fiction/fantasy novel. Getting the best from Oberheim and Arp hardware, Szajner (at the time a self-confessed non-musician) created a rich album of sublime ambient textures, wailing ethereal leadlines and hard-edged sequencer patterns.
To augment the synthesizers he selected virtuoso musicians like Gong bassist Hansford Rowe, Magma vocal stylist Klaus Blasquiz and occasional live drummer Clement Bailly, and ex-Bachdenkel guitarist Colin Swinburne. The project was overseen by Bachdenkel's manager Karel Beer, and released on his Initial Recording Company label - based in Birmingham, oddly enough - in 1979.

The following year, Szajner released one of the strongest, most memorable electronic albums ever made, Some Deaths Take Forever. The album was dedicated to the worldwide work of Amnesty International '...for the immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience and for the abolition of torture and the death penalty.' A semi-concept album, it follows the progress of a prisoner on death row through execution and beyond, using some of the most incredible sounds and hard-edged electronic textures I've heard, many of them courtesy of the RSF Modular synthesizer. Once again he added an art prog-rock dynamic using a crop of experienced French musicians including Blasquiz and another ex-Magma stalwart, Bernard Paganotti (whose rumbling effected bass dominates the detuned sequencers on Welcome (To Death Row) and Ritual. Guitarist Pierre Chereze and Marc Geoffroy on Fender Rhodes and Polymoog also feature strongly. Without a drummer, of special note is the inspired electronic percussion programming/sounds which added a new dimension of precision and strangeness - especially on the magnificent, hyper-intense Execute.

Disturbing, intense and inspired in equal measure, Some Deaths... received critical acclaim from the more adventurous music journalists like my good friend John Gill in Sounds: 'After dozens of plays, 'Some Deaths' still - musically and morally - shames the bulk of oscillator nuts peddling their dodgy little repetitions around the A&R department of Sky Records. Szajner's frantic, outraged music - employing both electronics and traditional instrumentation - whirls at such a pace that the division between 'pure' and 'machine' music blurs completely. Like his debut 'Visions Of Dune', it shows that some electronic composers still have backbone and energy.'

In 1981 came Superficial Music, which took the original recordings for Visions Of Dune, reversed and slowed them, and added outboard FX like the Eventide Harmonizer to create a dark and portentous atonal 'ambient' work. Szajner was still experimenting with visuals, using new MIDI technology to interface music and light, notably with the Syrinx - a spectacular triangular laser-harp best known for its (uncredited) use in concerts by Jean-Michel Jarre - which triggered synthesizers by breaking the light beams at different points and velocities; and The Snark, a long spindly alien-looking PPG synth controller.

In 1983 Szajner signed a three-album deal with major label Island Records and released the more 'commercial' Brute Reason, an album of recognisable song-structures featuring vocals by footloose former Magazine frontman Howard Devoto. He toured the album with a full band (including Devoto, Paganotti, Bailly, Xavier Geronimi/Colin Swinburne on guitar, Schroeder on saxophone) and showcasing the Syrinx. Szajner's Audiences loved it, but he felt that Island wanted him mainly for the gimmick of the laser harp and he ended up losing money on the live shows.
I have a good quality cassette recording of the London concert at Hammersmith Lyric Theatre, May 15 1983, which I will get around to digitising and uploading sometime.

Brute Reason is a perfect example of intelligent, leftfield electronic rock that should have found a larger audience but didn't, mainly because of a lack of will by the label - music too 'difficult', audience too 'niche', the usual story - which begs the question: why take on such an eclectic artist in the first place if you won't support him as much as you can?
Szajner and Karel Beer collaborated on an anonymous project using the name The (Hypothetical) Prophets, releasing a few singles and in 1982 the album Around the World With... Far too quirky for the mainstream, the album was - like most of Szajner's work - ingenious and ahead of its time.

Disillusioned with the music business, Szajner did not remain with Island and retreated to Paris to pursue other avenues including stage design, theatre direction, painting and light sculpture. Only two more releases saw the light of day: 12" singles on independent label New Rose, 1984's The Big Scare and, two years later, Indecent Delit. Both are testament to Szajner's acute ability to fuse memorable electronic textures and melodies with conventional rock instrumentation, continuing in a similar vein to Brute Reason but with an additional extra quality that makes them classics of their period. By the mid-80s synthesizers had been co-opted as mainstream studio production tools and fewer artists were realising their potential to craft quirky off-kilter avant-pop. These two releases buck the trend and sign off Szajner's all-too brief but illustrious career on a high note.

The reason I haven't linked to download any of Bernard's releases is that James Nice's invaluable LTM Recordings label has recently reissued Some Deaths Take Forever and Superficial Music in terrific new cd editions with extra unreleased tracks. [Go HERE for LTM's Bernard Szajner catalogue page, and HERE for LTM's Bernard Szajner biog page.]
I began an occasional correspondence with James in 1985 because of our mutual love of new wave music of the likes of Minny Pops and The Names, and we finally met 20 years later at a Tuxedomoon concert in Amsterdam. He's doing a great job reissuing material by all of these bands and many more, including Severed Heads, Paul Haig, Gina X, Section 25 and The Passage, and all releases are available to buy direct from James via his LTM website. The label is one of the best resources for discerning electronic-tinged post-punk new wave lovers, so please support James and Bernard and other important niche artists by purchasing instead of downloading.

In appraising Szajner's music Some Deaths Take Forever is probably the best place to begin; Magma fans in particular should be very happy with what they hear. Bernard is still active musically and has been on and off since the mid-80s. He generously sent me a cd of his latest material, of which he has around four albums' worth - which is dark and rich and fabulous - and is seeking a label to release and market it. He is also interested in playing live to promote any future cd release. You can hear some tracks at his website HERE, and at his myspace page HERE.
It would be fitting if, 30 years on from Some Deaths Take Forever, Bernard's unique brand of electronica could reach a whole new audience.

I leave you with the videos for Indecent Delit, The Big Scare, and the masterwork Welcome (To Death Row). And yes, that is a bass guitar break; Paganotti's awesome signature sound.




BERNARD SZAJNER - The Big Scare

THE METRONOMES - Multiple Choice LP + Justification + A Circuit Like Me

Back in 1980 the best way to encounter new wave, post-punk, synthesizer, avant-garde and all kinds of non-mainstream sounds was to listen to the late, great, much lamented John Peel. Peel's Radio 1 show (10pm-midnight Mon-Thur) was THE showcase for anything off the commercial radar and he introduced a few generations including mine to all that was interesting in contemporary music.

One evening he played a cool slice of electro heaven called A Living Person by The Metronomes, a quirky Aussie band that mixed weird and melodic electronics, topped off with a supremely disinterested but sexy spoken female vocal. What wasn't to like?

Not for the first time nor the last after listening to Peel, I rushed to get the album and it didn't disappoint. Some lovely synth work - melodic string washes, bleeps, sequences, alien noises and FX - complemented by guitars, inventive vox and basic but effective drum machines. A dark humour shone through this elegantly crafted album, especially on cuts like The Ballad of the Metronome and Sex II, while the gorgeous A Living Person and Music For Lounges just oozed composition and production class. My favourite piece, Justification, provided the crossover between styles with its simple bass step-sequence, delicious strings, swirling high leadline and repeated spoken mantra "At least it has a steady rhythm."
A cover version of this is in the offing sometime; it's on a long list.

The album followed two 7" single releases, 1979's Saturday Night/Sunday Morning and 1980's A Circuit Like Me/Closed Circuit (video below).
The Metronomes did produce another album but not for another five years, Regular Guys (1985). It certainly has its moments but lacks the inspiration and style of its predecessor. The band members are still musically active but no further releases have been forthcoming - the links to new tracks on their website are dead.

Like so much of the music I loved then, I thought it a crime that bands like The Metronomes flew so far under most people's radar. Synthesizers were fast becoming the new guitars but, with few exceptions, only the most commercial acts broke through and shifted enough units to make a good living from the business. Most of my favourite artists were fated to languish in obscurity or achieve limited cult 'success', get stitched into dodgy record deals, release a couple of albums that were largely ignored, and sooner rather than later, find something else to do. Thirty years on, it's amazing to see so many of them reunited and back on the 'scene', often enjoying hindsight reputations they never achieved first time around.

The Metronomes: Multiple Choice, Cleopatra Records CLP 210.
01. A Living Person
02. Sex I
03. The Ballad of the Metronome
04. Commentator
05. The World Is My Oyster
06. Music For Lounges
07. Sex II
08. Hey Coach
09. Justification
10. Bad Timing

Main personnel:
Ash Wednesday - rhythm programs, synthesizer, random syncussion, treatments, some lead vocals
Andrew Picouleau - bass guitar, synthesizer, random syncussion, Milo tin, some lead vocals
Al Webb - rhythm programs, synthesizer, guitar, random syncussion, backwards hurdy gurdy, some lead vocals

Let's face it, in 1980 those were credits to make any electronic music fan drool.

I'm indebted to excellent blog Capa Nostra Syndicate for the album download link: Capa Nostra Syndicate: Multiple Choice mp3 download

For further info about The Metronomes, go to the band's website, Ash Wednesday's website and Andrew Picouleau's biog.

From Multiple Choice, here's Justification:


And finally, the rare and wonderful single A Circuit Like Me.

AAAH... ! - Slip Away 7" (UK 1982) + ARTISTIC CONTROL - Dance With Me

Let's begin with a fantastic slice of home demo-style catchy-as-hell synthpop - but with a dark halo - from 1982, released on Flesh Logic Records.

As a synth-struck youth I was lucky enough to hear this on David 'Kid' Jensen's early-evening show on BBC Radio 1. I taped it, and poor non-FM signal notwithstanding, it sounded great - right up with the best of its 'professional' peers. The production is way better than the usual garage standard, and the track itself is a thing of beauty. I remember Jensen saying on air that it had been sent to him, and he knew nothing about its origins other than it was postmarked from St Austell, Cornwall.

After the coming of the internet I searched for it a few times without success, until one day last year I found a cover image on Minimal Wave (www.minimal-wave.org). The cover gave away almost no details, but one name stood out: Henry Kent.

The excellent Fantasmi Macchina blog finally provided a downloadable mp3 of the track and its B-side, the competent but less interesting Duty Calls - look for posts in May 2008 and you'll find it. That was a happy day I can tell you, and many heartfelt thanks to Fantasmi. A bunch of blogs have now cottoned onto the single, but last summer I think only he had uploaded it.

This discovery led to two things: an increased determination to complete my own cover version, which I'd held in abeyance until I could get a better quality copy to work from, and a search to try to track down the enigmatic Mr Kent somewhere in the global internet village. After much fruitless donkey work I came across one Dr Henry Kent, a research fellow working for International Paper in Sterling Forest, USA. The signs were just as unpromising as all the other blind alleys I'd been down. Surely this couldn't be the guy I was looking for?

I turned up a blog of Henry's that revealed some personal info: a 'mad scientist' with a Ph.D in Theoretical Physics living in Bloomingburg, New York. An Englishman whose favourite city was Venice and who could decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. And... a man with an electronic music studio in his basement who released 'a couple of crappy 7" singles in the 80s with my weird-haired synthesizer band AAAH!'

Eureka!

Dr Henry J. Kent's stumbleupon blog pic

In a state of near-elation I began looking forward to contacting Dr. Kent to see what he would say about the band, the music, and getting to hear the other enigmatic single release he'd mentioned in his blog. I went straight to the website address he gave: www.flesh-logic.com - this would surely answer some of my questions and perhaps provide contact details.

When I typed in the url, the link was no longer active.

Puzzled, I read his blog to see if I could establish why. Lots of quirky posts, evidence of a crazy sense of humour with lashings of innuendo, but no real information. Then I noticed the most recent blog was dated June 27, 2006. I was reading it on August 9, 2009, over three years later. Curious.

More digging needed.

A few minutes later I found a stumbleupon blog by one Denise R. , one of Henry Kent's 'favourites'. The entry was dated August 31, 2006. This is what it read:

'Dr. Henry J. Kent, a research fellow for International Paper in Sterling Forest died Wednesday, August 9, 2006 at his home in Bloomingburg. He was 53.

The son of Fredrick Kent and Margaret Wurzinger Kent, he was born February 2, 1953 in Plymouth, England.

Henry was a Research Fellow at International Paper in Sterling Forest from 1986 until 2004. His research included mathematical modeling of coatings and led a group of scientists in the design of novel instrumentation to characterize fundamental properties of paper. His published works include three papers in the Royal Society in London England, as well as numerous other contributions to the Technical Association of the Pulp and Paper Industry (TAPPI) in the United States. He held numerous U.S. Patents for his instrumentation. Recently he had been consulting for a number of companies in the U.S. and Europe. He was actively involved in the Save the Children programs.

He is survived by his wife, Patricia A. Reitemeyer Kent, at home; his parents of Austria; a son, Gene Kent of England; a daughter, Candice Kent of England; two stepsons, Keith Durchanek of Greenwood Lake and Christopher Durchanek of Bel Air, Md.; and a granddaughter, Caitlyn.

A memorial service was held Monday evening at the VanInwegen-Kenny Funeral Home in Wurtsboro.

Interment will be made in the family plot in Kindberg, Austria at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the American Heart Assoc, P.O. Box 628, Monticello, NY 12701 or to the American Diabetes Assoc., Lower Hudson Valley Chapter, 200 White Plains Road, Suite 523, Tarrytown, NY 10591.'

So that's the story of my abortive effort to track down Henry Kent, weird-haired synthpop genius. Note that, creepily, I found out about his life and death three years to the day after he passed away. The lyrics ('Oh I won't die, slip away...') now seem just a little too heavily laced with irony.

I wish I had tried harder, earlier. I wish - obviously - that I could have discussed a lot of things with him, and perhaps helped in some way to find a new audience for his work. For now though, I'll have to be satisfied that I got to hear Slip Away back in the day, and it remains one of my favourite synthpop tracks. I hope my cover version (which I'll post later when I can figure out more about embedding tracks on my blog) will stand as a suitable testament to my love of this piece of music.

This still feels like unfinished business, knowing that he used to have a website with other music on that I haven't heard. Titles like Input: Output and Rise Robots, Rise only serve to whet the appetite. If anyone has any further information about HK, or links to more tracks - especially that second single, Neon & Nylon - please post a comment and make my day.

To download both tracks, courtesy of the great Crispy Nuggets blog, follow this link:

Crispy Nuggets: Slip Away & Duty Calls 7" mp3 download



Lyrics:

Ther's one outside, there's one inside me
There's one in her eyes, and they used to be blue

Everything, everything, everything, every heart and mind
Oh I won't die, slip away
Oh I won't die, slip away

Cheer for the still, they sing in colours
Cherished and vain, she moves like a movie

We try, we fail, we die, every day
Oh I won't die, slip away
Oh I won't die, slip away

A young boy called science vanished one day
Invented hallucination, threw the rest away

Everything, everything, everything, every heart and mind
Oh I won't die, slip away
Oh I won't die, slip away
Oh I won't die, slip away yeah yeah
Oh I won't die, just slip away

Enjoy.

UPDATE: The wonders of the internet - here's another cool early 80s track by Artistic Control called Dance With Me. The singer is Kez Stone, who was the vocalist and co-writer of Slip Away.
Kez Stone in Henry Kent's studio, early 80s

Henry, Kez and Henry's ex-wife Barbie (who also played on Slip Away), Cornwall early 80s.

Kez's YT channel is kezstone1, and I'm indebted to him for pix, correspondence and enthusiastic co-operation. I hope to be able to further update soon to include an interview with Kez plus the second single by AAAH! and audio of Henry talking about the early 80s St Austell music scene. Happy days!