Produced By Trevor Horn - Wembley Arena, 11/11/04

The numbers are impressive: 25 years of hits, 6,500 in the audience, 13 acts and one royal. Add to that the pomp of a full orchestra and the personal touch of song-by-song commentary by Horn himself and you have a unique night.

Trevor Horn’s anniversary testimonial for the Princes Trust was presented more or less in chronological order. Which meant that Buggles opened the show, followed by Dollar, ABC, Yes, Propaganda and then Belle & Sebastian. After the interval (presumably for a royal toilet break), Pet Shop Boys, Lisa Stansfield, Seal and tATu brought the story up to date, before Frankie Goes To Hollywood closed the show with a bang.

The house band were a key element of this concert. Lol Creme, various members of Yes, Art of Noise and Buggles’ Geoff Downes were the ones that allowed such a variety of performers to work together seamlessly. The crowd didn’t work together half as well. Disappointed Simple Minds fans (Jim Kerr pulling out after an ear complaint) sat alongside 80s enthusiasts there for partially reformed and, it has to be said, butt-kicking ABC and Frankie, who in turn sat alongside long-haired Yes-sers and shaven-haired Pet Shoppers

So it was the artists with true charisma that got everyone in the arena on their feet and dancing together. Grace Jones did it first, dominating the stage for a stunning Slave To The Rhythm. And Seal followed through, jumping off to deliver most of Killer from within the crowd.

Horn hardly left the stage for the whole evening – singing back-up or playing bass, or darting around playing host. “I’m going to vanish back into the studio for the next 25 years,” he said at the end. But I’m not sure I believe him.

Fila Brazilia – Dicks (Twentythree)

Fila Brazilia have always been a class name to drop by fans of jazzy electronica. But aside from listing founder Steve Cobby’s Heights of Abraham offshoot as a “gem” in RC 301, I’ve never properly checked the band out. So with the release of Dicks, the Hull-based duo’s tenth album released on their fifteenth anniversary, I felt the time was long overdue.

By track five I can say that I’m a Fila convert. It’s much more melodic than I expected (and than electronic experimentalism often is) and also more daring production- and instrumentation-wise than anything equally as jazzy.

Dicks (and the band have made sure they’ve used every pun on the title you could imagine) has 29 tracks across 59 minutes. Some of which comprise random found sounds (An Impossible Place, VD and Curveball for the 21st Century). Others (like The Great Atracrtor, The Giggle Box, and Heil Mickey) are the deepest funkiest grooves, like a cross between Crosstown Traffic, Bullet, early Egg, late Biting Tongues and so on. Personally I’m quite taken with the upbeat, melodic and mellow tracks like Shellac and We’ve Almost Surprised Me – both arriving at the wrong end of the year to be summer chill out classics.

If, like me, you’re well overdue to check out Fila Brazilia then make this your first taster. I’m off to check their A Certain Ratio remix EP…

Claudia Brucken + Andrew Poppy: Another Language (There(there))

This is a project that initially started when Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore asked German electronica icon Claudia Brucken to perform some songs at a party. She set to work with Andrew Poppy - one of the UK’s foremost avant-garde composers by day, but a dab hand at guitar-wielding by night. The party idea has long since passed but between them they have conjured a daring set of duets.

It may just be Claudia on vocals but Another Language really is a series of duets - with Poppy alternating between guitar and his native piano and providing not just backing, but equally compelling melody lines and arrangements for every song. Between them they’ve ‘reimagined’ Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (the kind of track Brucken’s fans have been waiting to hear her sing for years), the midnight cabaret of Grace Jones’ Libertango and a delicate take on Radiohead’s Nice Dream. On the atmospheric Breakfast (originally penned by The Associates’ Billy Mackenzie) Poppy dances across the piano while the vocals tell a moving story.

This is an album of firsts – Poppy’s first long-form pop project (despite intermittent projects with the likes of The The and Psychic TV), the first time Brucken has sung more than a line or two in her native tongue (like the tender Die Nebensonnen), and the first time these songs have been reinterpreted in such a simple way. It’s a sensitive set that’s sequenced exactly like a concert, in which Elvis’ Wooden Heart (one of the first records Poppy ever heard on the radio as a child) makes a touching, almost ambient finale.

Janet Jackson - From Janet to Damita Jo (Virgin)/Live in Hawaii & The Velvet Rope Special Edition Double Disc (Eagle Rock)

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve got nothing against Janet Jackson’s boobs but I thought the whole Superbowl ‘wardrobe malfunction’ publicity stunt was totally wrong. Having spent the 90s carving a highly creative niche with Janet and The Velvet Rope (by far the best two albums ever created by a Jackson), she seems to have blown the 00s on mellow bedroom music and formation dancing.

Janet’s experimental streak - both musically and visually - hit a zenith with What’s It Gonna Be?, her collaboration with Busta Rhymes. This and her laid back but equally mesmerising Beanie Man collaboration are sadly missing from Virgin’s new compilation disc. But it does hold a slew of promos, almost of all of which are perfect examples of their form and are available for the first time on DVD.

Eagle Rock’s double DVD is also available now, with a concert from the Velvet Rope tour on one disc and a Hawaiian date from the subsequent All For You on the other. Disc two is best, leaving me wondering just how much more theatrical a show like this can get. Can the costumes and set pieces Janet pioneered over ten years ago really get any bigger or better? Can Janet carry on out-cirque de soleiling cirque de soleil?! Visually breathtaking, but the music suffers from far too much ‘you-had-to-be-there’ audience participation.

The live box proves just where Britney, Justin et al find their inspiration for everything they do on a live stage. But Janet’s been doing the Tribly hat-meets-synchronised dancers routine for so long it left me yearning to see her do an altogether new type of live performance - a small stage, a band and a microphone - where the songs, already perfectly illustrated on From Janet to Damita Jo, stand up on their own merits.

Onetwo - Islington Academy, 30/09/04

The debut gig for this new collaboration between OMD founder Paul Humphries and Propaganda/Act founder Claudia Brucken. Only one EP to their name so far, but with heritage like that they had a wealth of electronic pop classics to play for a crowd that hadn’t seen either on a UK stage for at least ten years.

A surprise guest on the night was Suzanne Freytag, the Agnetha to Claudia’s Frida in their original ‘Abba From Hell’ formation of Propaganda. She doesn’t seem to have aged a single day since 1984’s Dr Mabuse, which they sung as a warm-up to November’s Produced By Trevor Horn Wembley testimonial.

Paul Humphries delved into the OMD back catalogue with reverence and flair. Almost apologetic for taking Andy McClusky’s vocal part in Almost - perhaps their best ever track - it left the OMD nuts wanted to bounce up and down Joy Division-like rather than over-analyse. He’ll have to get some low-down dirty swagger into his vocals to replace Thomas Leer on Act tracks, though.

The best OMD reinterpretations were Messages and So In Love – both sounding better than ever as male/female duets. In all quite startling to witness two 80s electronic music stalwarts back on stage doing credible, new music that builds on their past rather than trades on it. And not a Here, Now, chicken or basket in sight.

Biosphere - Autour de la Lune (Touch)

...Sub-sonic sound collage from dusty radio tapes...

The Norwegian Orb. The Scandinavian Sun Electric. Biosphere is all of those things and more. The work of isolated, arctic hermit Geir Jennsen, his albums and 12”s on Apollo Records were landmarks of the early 90s ambient house scene and pointed to its myriad of possibilities and longevity.

This latest work recalls Scanner’s Sound For Spaces and Sylvian’s Ember Glance with its stripped down environmental electronics based on a specific installation or commission. The roots of this piece go back to Radio France Culture who contacted Jennsen for music for their ‘Festival de Radio France’. He was given access to the radio station’s historic archives where he found an early 60s radio play of De la Terre à la Lune by Jules Verne. This dialogue was then woven into own recordings of the MIR space station to create something that’s startlingly unique.

Word of warning, though, it’s not quite as exciting in practice as it sounds on paper. Jenssen stays true his ambient roots and what results is like a sequel to Brian Eno’s Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks, as opposed to some kind of mashed-up voyage through the archives that a DJ might put together. Sub-bass, clicks and cuts, there are many hallmarks of an ambient classic here. And Rotation and Disparu have a wonderful sense of grace, but I couldn’t help but be left with a sinking sense of ‘anticipointment’...

Anne Piglle - L’Histoire D’Anne Pigalle

Singer, actress, painter, performance artist. Search on Google.com for Anne Pigalle and you get a variety of results – and they’re all the same person. On one hand, there’s ArtsHole.co.uk which talks about Anne Pigalle’s Erotic Revue as “an antidote to the constant bombardment of generic pornographic images we witness everyday in the media.” On the other, there’s a user at RateYourMusic.com that calls Pigalle’s ‘He Stranger’ single “A perfect expression of melancholy and desire from the most underrated artist in recent years.”

Although Pigalle’s milieu remains the stage, this new DVD is a must for fans and anyone that’s come across her one, highly collectable, album from 1985. Part biography, part fantasy, it traces her life story from early the punk scene of 1977 Paris to i-D cover star as ‘the anti-Sade’ in 1984 London, then on to LA, around the USA and back.

This self-produced and directed short film pulls from a dazzling array of sources – TV footage, music videos, magazines, home movies, films and showreels. It’s collaged together with world-weary voice over of highs and lows and some dramatically Twin Peaks-esque music by TDS.

Those with a passing interest will be surprised at the DVD’s gloriously stripped down format – comprising the short film, a limited edition hand made sleeve and nothing else. Quite possibly the only extras-free DVD reviewed this month, it diminishes the power of the format but not the content, which is both enthralling and mystifying.

Made In Sheffield - The Birth of Electronic Pop (Slackjaw Films)

Repackaged beautifully by The Designers Republic, this is a welcome DVD transfer for Eve Wood’s fascinating documentary about the late 70s Sheffield electronic scene.

If you need a history lesson – on how sparks flew out of a baron industrial climate creating some of pop’s most influential music – or just want to revel archive footage and anecdotes then this is a must buy. The Human League, Cabaret Voltaire, Heaven 17, ABC (and their legendary Vice Versa ‘prequel’) all feature prominently. To say nothing of some more obscure names – like I’m So Hollow and John Peel favourites Artery – hitherto only talked about in indie 7” collector circles also get a long overdue platform.

Wood takes just under an hour to guide you through how in the late 70s guitars were trashed and – in the true spirit of punk – anyone with an idea or vision jumped up on stage and used keyboards and synthesizers to make themselves heard. From the first art school twiddlings of Humnan League the story closes just as ABC take to the stage to perform on Top Of The Pops. It’s a compelling story although the inclusion of more guitar-oriented groups like The Extras and even Pulp is disorienting, even if they do offer valuable insights into Sheffield band life.

As well as a gallery of very rare photos, DVD extras include crystal clear early footage of Vice Versa right at the moment they were about to go into a cocoon and come out the other side as ABC. Pitifully short but the kind of stuff collectors have been waiting to see for years. The only material you’ll find over-familiar is interviews with Phil Oakey and his Human League band mates – they seem to be permanently on TV these days on ‘Top Ten This’ or ‘I Love That’!

The Orb - Bicycles and Tricycles (Cooking Vinyl)

One thing’s for certain – a new Orb release is never a case of ‘same old same old’. Ten albums and 16 years after ‘A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre of the Ultraworld’ there is little whiff of ambient house – the genre The Orb pioneered – on Bicycles and Tricycles. They’ve evolved, something which some of the pretenders to the chill out throne would do well to try for themselves.

You need to persevere with Bicycles and Tricycles in places. Tracks like the Zion Train-esque ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ sound like filler on first listen but bear up well to repeat plays. ‘The Land of Green Ginger’ is the most traditionally Orb-like track, complete with odd sampled narration and synth sounds reminiscent of Paterson’s work with Sun Electric. It was first heard on Paterson’s Back To Mine compilation where it followed beautifully from Julie Cruise’s ‘Falling’. Elsewhere, ‘Aftermath’, with vocals from MC Shoom T, sounds like a welcome and long-overdue follow-up to ‘Perpetual Dawn’.

The most exciting part of this album is ‘From a Distance’ – the sound of Orb founder Alex Paterson getting back together with his original partner-in-crime Jimmy Cauty (who jumped ship in 1990 to form The KLF). This track has been unceremoniously panned in fan quarters but I love it. In fact I love it a little more for that very reason. I’m like that. If this is anything to go by, then pre-orders should be placed immediately for the pair’s forthcoming Custerd project.

Act - Laughter Tears and Rage Anthology (Zang Tuum Tumb)

Originally titled Pandemonium, Act’s 1988 album is finally reissued alongside Anthology – a 3CD retrospective, covered elsewhere this issue. But it’s a double-edged sword. Collectors will leap at the ten extra tracks (five on CD for the first time) but new listeners will be thrown. The original vinyl album sounded and felt like a true performance – some of the most in-your-face, glamorous and intellectual elctronica ever produced. But this new 22-track version loses all structure and suffers as a result. So use the Program button on your CD payer to follow the original track list, and save all the ‘extras’ for later.

Of these, head straight for ‘White Rabbit’ – a delightful Jefferson Airplane cover, ‘(Theme From) I Can't Escape From You’ – a barmy piano session, and ‘Short Story’ - an atmospheric interlude previously only available on the original 1988 vinyl edition. It’s all cast inside a wall of sound – the trademark of producer Trevor Horn and his then apprentice Steve Lipson. Lipson’ work is great – this was well before he blanded out with Annie Lennox and the like. And Horn devotees will also hear echoes of this album in later collaborations with Inge (‘Riding Into Blue’) and Betsy Cook (‘Love is the Groove’).

Claudia Brücken and Thomas Leer gave Act their all. Brücken’s vocals on ‘Snobbery & Decay’ and ‘I’d be Surprisingly Good for You’ are unrelenting and Leer’s sounds and solos – especially on ‘Snobbery (Extended for Stephnie Beacham)’ and ‘Bloodrush’ – are gorgeous. If the A’s in your CD collection include Aphex Twin, Age of Chance, ABC or Art of Noise, then Act urgently needs to join their ranks.

Keith Topping - The Complete Clash (Reynolds & Hearn)

‘Rock The Casbah’. ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’. Two reasons that justify the existence of this new book. To say nothing of the untimely death of Joe Strummer earlier this year, just as The Clash were set to reform – for fun, if not for world (re)domination…

I’ve always admired The Clash. Far more for the things they did wrong, did on a whim, or their ridiculous experiments than for something as timeless (and consequently a little less lovable) than ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go.’ Like the sprawling, 36-track double album (they ditched the third disc) ‘Sandinista!’… 1982’s ‘Combat Rock’ and the way it annoyed their die-hard punk fan base… Their enduring proto dance-rock fusion… Or the image of the band sailing up the Thames bashing out ‘London Calling’. That would make the ultimate home-page for rememberthedyingdaysoftheseventies.com.

Author Keith Topping first saw The Clash live in 1978. Twenty-five years later his passion for the band doesn’t seem to have diminished one iota. He loves detail. If there was a Clash museum, Keith Topping would curate it. ‘The Complete Clash’ contains a song-by-song analysis of everything from 'Armagideon (sic) Time' to 'White Riot' and an almanac of the band’s 600 live performances and TV and film appearances.

Just as the circle ended – when the band received Ivor Novello Awards in 2001 - it looked set to roll again, only to be stopped dead in its tracks with Joe Strummer’s passing. The Complete Clash is as much a celebration as a fitting finale.

Vice Versa - The Neutron Archives (Ninthwave)

The north of England, 1979. Economically depressing. Musically exploding. Guitars were finished. Punk was decaying with the rest of London down south. In Sheffield, Kraftwerk were inspiring a new wave to make music with what now seem like such primitive technology. But at the time a Korg Micro Preset or a Roland JD8000 was the most futuristic musical instrument in the country. Fortunately this didn’t turn people the way of Wakeman or Roxy-era Eno – these keyboard players didn’t feel the need to wear silver space suits and wizard outfits. Instead they fused the new machines with attitude and song-writing of their time and surroundings. Urbana. The result: Sheffield spawned the Human League, Heaven 17, Caberet Voltaire, and Vice Versa.

Vice Versa were Martin Fry, Stephen Singleton and Mark White. Their music was explosive, electronic energy. Smash and grab techno twenty years ahead of time. Despite lasting just over two years, their output was comprehensive, buoyed on by the punk’s DIY ethos – which spawned Vice Versa tapes, cards, EPs manifestos, and seven inch singles, all on their own Neutron record label. Neutron’s ‘1980: The First Fifteen Minutes’ become a legendary UK indie single which packaged Vice Versa with early work from I’m So Hollow, the Stunt Kites, and Clock DVA. They followed with the ‘Music 4’ EP, especially notable for ‘Camille’ – a track of vocal cuts and synth drones. Perhaps the missing link between Byrne/Eno’s ‘My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts’ with The KLF’s ‘Chill Out’.

Other tracks here have been dusted down from the Neutron archives, before closing with Vice Versa’s final and most accomplished burst. A session for Rotterdam’s Backstreet/Backlash Records produced the ‘Stilyagi’ 7”, which went on to become a collectors item not least due to the trios imminent metamorphosis into something altogether different, of whih singleton explains, “Instead of writing about tower blocks and pylons, we wanted to use a lot of different influences. We wanted this kind of grandiose epic”…

Vice Versa became ABC and Fry, Singleton and White went on to write another chapter of pop history. First with everyone's classic 80s album, The Lexicon of Love, followed by the ‘80s most underrated classic, Beauty Stab. All this naturally detracted from their earlier work under the more anonymous guise of Vice Versa. There were no recognisable faces on Pete Hill’s “videograph” cover for ‘Stilyagi’. But when the needle hit the vinyl, fireworks erupted.

Various - Nataraja 2 (POF)

Shimmering, colourful and moving, Nataraja 2 catalogues the best of a relatively new art form - "la trance psychedelique". Building BPMs onto soundtrack vocal samples and layers upon layers of atmosphere has never sounded so effortless as on this latest edition from France's increasingly groovy POF label. 18 tracks across a superbly packaged 2-disc digipack set and available in the UK as a Virgin import. There's nothing hard-core about most of the tracks on this set - in fact the French techno scene oozes a thirst-quenchingly refreshing quality that sets it apart from it's German and, lately UK relatives. From the opener, Vaporum's 'The Platform', things take decidedly trippy turn. Remember Loengard's final LSD trip in the penultimate episode of 'Dark Skies'? Well this would have been the perfect backdrop! POF Records sit perfectly in the area of hypertension where psychedelia and futuristic high-paced dance beets mesh. Blue Planet Corporation, Joking Sphinx stand out and Universal Island take things to a logical, hypnotic conclusion. Disc 2 kicks of with a more artcore, rootsy approach before piling on the BPM and steering into French hi-NRG. Stand-out artists here are Toi Doi, Denshi Danshi and Imago. By the looks of the party pictures on the sleeve, trance is being taken to the next level in France. High times indeed. 8/10

Muslimgauze – Narcotic (Staalplaat)

It seems like never a month goes by without a new Muslimgauze release and their Dutch label, Staalplaat has even set up a subscription system where listeners can receive each new release, with the cost being deducted from their virtual balance. 'Narcotic' is full of Eastern promise and is probably one of Muslimgauze (a/k/a Bryn Jones) most colourful works to date. Think of the percussion you hear from world music artists like percussionist Hossam Ramzy (which often show up as samples in tracks by William Orbit and 808 State) and you're half way there. But this album is more than just a collection of samples, or a mere replication of other styles. There's a fusion going on that you can actually here developing across the first few tracks. The pounding rhythms of 'Medina Flight' soon give way to more Gulf Stream backstreet atmospheres on 'Ramadan' and 'Effendi'. But when the two merge (and some western production is brought into full effect) you get the most unlikely - yet truly unique - trance sound ever in tracks such as 'Believers of the Blind Sheikh' and 'Gulf Between Us'. This album rises to a climax with three different versions of the title track, the first a pulsating, repetitive eastern percussion work-out which - following an interlude - builds into perfect chill-out soundtrack music. Perfect for any club with an international attitude in its more laid back areas. 7/10

Colin Newman – Bastard (swim~)

An aeon after Wire - the seminal '70s guitar outfit - Bruce Gilbert is working with Elastica, but Colin Newman has just released his first solo album in over ten years and is mixing a new, melodic approach to drum & bass and elctronica. 'Sticky' is where it all starts - an edgy, beat-driven wind-down of a track that calms the listener, rather than prepare them for anything that might lay in store. Tracks such as 'May' show just what a boost being an accomplished guitarist can be when it comes to making cutting edge '90s trip-hop. Whereas the first obviously jungle-inspired piece 'Slowfast' (naturally subtitled 'Falling down the stairs with a drum kit'!) is a little naive and best avoided, 'Spiked' adds a funky live bass and drums to for a serious new angle on the genre. But Newman excels in tracks such as 'Without', which continue the thoughtful strands started earlier in the album. While it's easy to spot musical similarities with the artist's other projects - Immersion, wife Malka Spigel and his own Swim~ label being the main ones - this LP does achieve a logical progression. You can chill out and hear an evolution taking place. And the album title is certainly memorable, but how many people will have the nerve to ask for it at the record shop counter? 8/10

Charlemagne Palestine – Godbear (Barooni)

Caution: you should only read this review (and contemplating buying Godbear) if you regularly visit the outer limits and are open to the world of extreme possibilities. Coming out of the Netherlands' Barooni Records, this is one of the most enticing packages of the fortnight: a re-evaluation of Palestine's work from the seventies, which was recorded in the late eighties and finally released in the late nineties. But who on earth is Charlemagne Palestine? Well if the names La Monte Young, Philip Glass or Steve Reich ring any bells, read on. Along with those, Palestine was one of the originators of minimal music, an unplanned, escapist force that pre-dated ambient, unwittingly shaped techno and quietly oversaw everything that has happened since. The minimalists may be heald in high regard in left-field classical circles, but after all it was Glass that worked with S'Express and La Monte Young that challenged the boundaries of jazz before this whole contemporary dance thing started. And now there's Palestine, whose three pieces on this CD are performed purely on his fist love - the Bosendorfer Imperial Grand piano - and are dedicated to his other great passion, teddy bears. But minimalist only means a minimal regards for tradition as there is little time to chill out during the three lengthy pieces here - 'The Lower Depths', Strumming Music' and 'Timbral Assault'. Check this out if you dare. 8/10