Creating Pop Music from Noise

Two weeks ago, we visited the oldest winery in the United States, Brotherhood Winery. The experience planted a song in my mind for the rest of the week: “The Brotherhood” by Frank Tovey from his seventh studio album Civilian – a record I was obsessed with in the late 80s.

There is a note on the sleeve: “Most of the sounds were either played or triggered percussively, including bass lines and melodies,” leading to a frantic industrial production. In the end, it is still essentially pop music with surprising catchiness — case in point: “The Brotherhood” that popped into my head 35 years later.

I first heard of Frank Tovey when he released the 1984 album Gag under his stage name, Fad Gadget. The single “Collapsing New People” did not make it to German radio, but it was presented on Formel Eins, the must-see music video TV show of the 80s. The sound was utterly strange, using distorted recordings rather than the clean synth sounds we were used to. The video shows him with expressive movements and a strange tar-and-feather costume, demonstrating his roots in performance art.

The moderator introduced Fad Gadget as the person who invented the sound of Depeche Mode, who also presented a grittier, sample-based sound on their 1984 record Some Great Reward. It is thinkable that there was some artistic inspiration between the two acts as Frank Tovey was the first signee of Mute Records, the long-time label home of Depeche Mode.

While the superstar synth-pop four-piece at this point in their career had digital computer instruments like the Emulator II at their disposal, Frank Tovey created his sound in a DIY analog fashion earlier. Originally meant as a soundtrack for his mime performances, he used a modified tape recorder to manipulate sounds. Gradually, he added synthesizers to develop his later albums’ eerie, industrial style.

Listening to Gag today, it still sounds very 80s, like a more noisy version of Depeche Mode. But with Civilian, he pushed over that limit and produced a more timeless record that would not be out of place today.

Frank Tovey died in 2001 of a heart attack at 45 years old.

Listen to a selection of his songs in our Spotify playlist:

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Song Pick of the Day

Listen to/watch all seven songs on YouTube. Follow our daily updated playlists on YouTube and Spotify for the 50 latest Song Picks of the Day. Thank you for following us and sharing the excitement.

Song of Llore is the project of Amanda Collins, based in Nashville. With her new song, “Late Bloomer,” she wrote “an anthem for anyone who has ever felt late to the party.” Because taking your time and getting things right is also a virtue.

The “Reptile House” in the new song by Boston via Atlanta singer/songwriter Lena Rayne Allen is a metaphor for the unspectacular places in life. Typically dark, with small exhibits, it is not the first attraction you rush to in a zoo. However, “it’s okay to be content with a simple, conventionally un-spectacular life,” says Lena.

Sybling is the moniker of the sisters Alice and Mariana Makwaia, who have been making eclectic folk music together since 2019. If you think a “Lakehouse” has a spooky vibe to it, you are right. The song is based on a summer camp experience by Alice. Mariana recounts: “[she] spent all of her time in a dark music room, where there was only one small window that looked onto this creepy cottage in the woods.”

In “Boombox,” the new song by English singer/songwriter Morgan Harper-Jones, the artist makes a case for saying what you need in a relationship. Or else. Because life is too short to wait for the perfect partner.

We saw Singaporean musician Linying playing at SWSX 2016, so it was a happy surprise to see new music from her. “Take Me to Your House” is a beautiful pop song about “relief and hope as much as it is about yearning and desperation” in the quest for a lasting relationship.

The British musician and new neighbor of ours, Fenne Lily, has an unreleased bonus track from her latest album Big Picture for us. In “Hollywood and Fear,” she does some deep thinking about making a relationship work – something that is, in reality, “more scary and less sexy than any movie about this stuff.”

"This song is me giving myself permission to be frustrated,” says LA musician Celeste Tauchar, aka talker. As a “Twentysomething,” she feels she has to kick something to make sense out of the litany of things that are crashing over her head. Like most of her songs, this one also comes with an excellent video:

Also Happening

This December, Fenne Lily plays her three albums at three different shows in Brooklyn and London each. The London shows are already sold out, but you can still choose between On Hold (The Broadway), Breach (Purgatory), or Big Picture (Union Pool) in Brooklyn. We didn’t and will see all three of them. Get your tickets here.

Nine Photos in the Color Orange

Thinking of October, several colors dominate our association with the month: black, purple, yellow, and, of course, orange. We’re not quite at Halloween yet, but I wanted to see what comes up when I do a search with “orange” over my iPhone and our shared DSLR library. The result surprised and delighted me. Enjoy the following nine photos from this selection:

1 - June 2003, Lower East Side, NY
2 - August 2020, Troutman Street, Brooklyn, NY
3 - October 2022, Storm King Art Center, NY
4 - August 2010, view from our apartment on the Lower East Side, NY
5 - December 2018, on board the QM2, Brooklyn, NY
6 - December 2018, somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean
7 - August 2017, on board the Norwegian Breakaway, experiencing a solar eclipse
8 - May 2010, drinks with friends in Munich, Germany
9 - September 2013, Pike Place Market, Seattle, WA