News editor: Mikael Kahrle

Vince Clarke keeps himself busy
• In addition to his work in Erasure, Vince Clarke finds the time to work with other people now and then.
The soundtrack for the movie "Winning London" will include three Clarke related tracks, namely "Just Can't Get Enough" covered by Sam Walker, "Treat Yourself" by Family Fantastic (keep reading to find out who they are), and a track called "Knockin' on Ya Door" by the RadioActivators.
The RadioActivators is a Vince Clarke side project he has together with Phil Creswick and Nigel Lewis. Their goal is to make "synth rockabilly". A four track EP is ready for release.
Family Fantastic have recorded a new album called "Wonderful" and as with the last album "Nice!", it is co-produced and co-written by Clarke. The last album was about recreating disco hits from the 70's, and the new one is inspired by the "pre-rock'n'roll" era, with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Perry Como. The record features Daphne Diamond, James Gray, the above mentioned Phil Creswick (former member of Big Fun) and Nick Carter (not the Backstreet Boy). No release information is known as of now. /Johan Carlsson

Depeche Mode release schedule addition
• The fourth single to be released from "Exciter" will be "Goodnight Lovers", and that makes the release schedule look like this: "I Feel Loved" on July 16, "Freelove" on September 17 and "Goodnight Lovers" on November 26. /Johan Carlsson

Tinitus festival this year as well
• The new edition of the Stockholm one-day electro festival Tinitus will be held at Allhuset next to the Stockholm University on November 3. Six bands will be on stage, although it is not official yet who they will be. Tickets will be available on August 1. /Johan Carlsson

Single and album by The Human League in July

• The new Human League album "Secrets" is to be released by Papillon Records on July 28. It has been produced by TOY (the production team behind; amongst several other high-profile productions; Depeche Mode's album "Ultra").
There are 16 tracks in total, out of which ten are genuine songs. The additional six tracks are instrumental and highly experimental "interludes". Production and sound wise, the album can be considered a cross between such classic albums by the band as "Dare!", "Travelogue" and their latest, successful comeback album from 1995 "Octopus".
A single called "All I Ever Wanted" will be released beforehand on July 16. It is to be released as two maxi CD:s, containing several mixes of the track - remixed by, amongst others, David Bascombe (known mainly for his previous work with Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears) and Oliver Lieb. The two Maxi CD's will also contain the nowadays almost standard video clip as well as a non-album track ("Tranquility") to suit both hardcore fans and the general single buyer.
The Human League is touring various parts of Europe during this month, for promotional purposes only. On June 30, the will perform at the London Mardi Gras together with Gene and many others. This is one of Europe's largest gay and lesbian festivals. /Krister Malm, Johan Carlsson, Mikael Kahrle

Echoing Green's new album finally finished
• The title of Echoing Green's new album is "Music from the Ocean Picture". Some of the songs on the new album have been in the works since before the last one "Supernova", so the band is quite happy to finally get it released. The album consists of new songs together with remixed older ones. /Johan Carlsson

The April Tears album after the summer

• The launch of the already delayed album "Consume Desire" from The April Tears has been moved to August or September, according to Edel. The single "Seventeen" is out now. /Mikael Kahrle

John Foxx compiled
• John Foxx , a pioneer in electronic music and one of the founding members of Ultravox, is here with a compilation album with a lot of tracks from his solo career. It was released on June 4 by Music Club. /Johan Carlsson

Rock stars on Tricky's new album

• "Blowback", the forthcoming new album by Tricky, is a melting pot of strange guest vocalists. Scheduled for release on June 25 (European date), it features Ed Kowalczyk from Live, about half of The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ambersunshower, eighties girl icon Cyndi Lauper and Tricky's pal Hawkman. Tricky also recorded several songs with Alanis Morissette, but has for record company reasons been unable to use these tracks on the album.
The single "Evolution, Revolution, Love" will see the light of day close to the album release, on June 18.
Tricky sees "Blowback" as his return to form, after a period of difficult and introspective records since his groundbreaking debut album "Maxinequaye". Expect a review shortly. /Mattias Huss

Gahan hunted by vicious dogs
• Depeche Mode have just filmed the video for their upcoming single "I Feel Loved", where David Gahan is being chased by vicious hunting dogs. A clip can be seen on the official site. The single is going to be released quite soon, on July 16 to be more precise. According to Uselink, the CD track listings are:
CDBong31: "I Feel Loved" - Single Version, "Dirt", "I Feel Loved" - Extended Instrumental Version. The song "Dirt" is a Stooges-cover.
LCDBong31: "I Feel Loved" - Danny Tenaglia's Labor of Love edit, "I Feel Loved" - Thomas Brinkmann remix, "I Feel Loved" - Chambers mix.
The third single off "Exciter" will be "Freelove" on September 17. The fourth single seems to be either "Shine" or "Goodnight Lovers" on November 26.
On June 4, Depeche Mode played a warm-up show at The Roxy in Los Angeles. Except for a handful of "Exciter" songs, they performed "Clean", "Halo", "In Your Room", "Personal Jesus", "Walking in My Shoes", "Enjoy the Silence", "I Feel You" and "The Bottom Line". Not any of the "Ultra" singles or "Only When I Loose Myself" were heard. /Johan Carlsson, Mikael Kahrle

Orbital cancellations
• Orbital have cancelled several of their new live shows due to family health reasons. /Mikael Kahrle

I love Das Pop?
• Belgian Das Pop has released the album "I Love" on PIAS Recordings, including a mixture of electronics, pop and acoustics. The band has also recently completed s successful tour in their home country. /Niklas Forsberg

More line-up changes in And One

Rick and Joke no longer stands behind Steve in And One.

• Recently, Rick Schah left And One and original member Chris Ruiz re-joined the group. And last year, Annelie Bertilsson left them after a short period. Now, member and live drummer Joke Jay leaves And One as well. He wants to spend time with his family and will leave the music life completely. The gig at Wave Gotik Treffen was his last.
And One have yet to replace him and interested musicians can mail bandmember@andone.com.
The work with "Aggressor" (February 2002) continues. /Jens Krause, Mikael Kahrle

The Mist of Avalon back from UK tour
• Swedish dark rock act The Mist of Avalon is back with their fourth release, the mini album "Tears" (M&A, May 28). Slightly less than a year ago, they released the "Here and After" album. The Mist of Avalon started as punk rockers back in 1994, but over time they have entered darker and heavier sound areas. They have been compared to Black Sabbath, Paradise Lost and Fields of the Nephilim.
Last autumn and in May this year they have toured the UK and they usually play some gigs here and there in Sweden. /Mikael Kahrle

A tribute to the Cure

The Cure are popular in Poland.

• The Polish label Black Flames is releasing a tribute to The Cure. The album consists of 15 tracks, where Polish bands make their interpretations of well known Cure-tracks. /Johan Carlsson

Cleaner get his revenge later
• The release of Daniel Myer's (Haujobb) solo album "Revenge" under the moniker Cleaner, has been delayed to some time in September. /Johan Carlsson

Delayed "Hit" from A Spell Inside
• A Spell Inside have been forced to push back the release of their upcoming album "Hit". The preliminary release month now is August. The studio recordings are yet to be completed. "Hit" will be a completely electronic album with all new tracks, aside from a club version of the ballad "Horizon", originally released on the "Return to Grey" EP back in 1995. /Niklas Forsberg

Anything Box release new EP
• Having just released their latest album "The Universe Is Expanding", American pop outfit Anything Box has also made an EP called "100% Air Friendly". It is a continuation of the album, and contains a lot of new songs. It is out now. /Johan Carlsson

Pet Shop Boys and Soft Cell headlines gay music festival tour
• The Pet Shop Boys and the Creative Artists Agency are organising a new music festival named Watapalava (meaning something like "what a fuss about nothing"). This is kind of like the Lollapalooza tour, and it will kick off in Miami on July 13, to be continued through 15 cities. The final date is in Houston on August 11.
The artists featured on the tour are Pet Shop Boys, Soft Cell, Rufus Wainwright, Magnetic Fields and Sinead O'Connor (who will only play on selected dates). According to Neil Tennant (Pet Shop Boys), the tour is about the right to live as you want.
For more information, visit the official web site. /Johan Carlsson

Large darkwave festival in Polish castle

Das Ich.
Photo by: Peter Åstedt (Release)

• The Polish Castle Party Festival claims to be the biggest darkwave festival in Middle and Eastern Europe, and have now presented its program. Some of the bands playing at the festival are Das Ich, Legendary Pink Dots, Fading Colours and The Garden of Delight, amongst lots of others. The festival will take place between July 27 and July 29 in Castle Bolkow.
The Polish music magazine Morbid Noizz will make a compilation called "The Sounds of Castle Party 2001", to be included in the June edition. /Johan Carlsson

Winners of the second annual American Synthpop Awards

The happy (?) winner of the heavy artist category, Cosmicity.

• As a follow-up to our piece on Elegant Machinery at the Hollywood SynthCon event, here comes a roundup of the winners of the American Synthpop Awards. They were presented at SynthCon.
Best compilation: "Shadow Dancing", "Electricity" (tie).
Best international act: Neuropa.
Best remix: New Clear Sky "The Stuff of Magick (remix)".
Best new artist: Freezepop.
Best artist: Cosmicity.
Best single: Count 2 Infinity: "Space Age Love Song".
Best album: Monolithic: "Power Undiminished". /Johan Carlsson

Music for funerals
• "Funeral Songs" is a new dark compilation with mostly ambient industrial tunes from names like Raison d'être, Amber Asylum and 27. /Mikael Kahrle

Total And One remake of Pitchfork single track

• And One have helped Project Pitchfork to get a dance hit with the new single "Timekiller". And One's Steve Naghavi has re-recorded the song in And One style and he has even grabbed the microphone himself.
The maxi CD contains one exclusive song and seven remixes from Philip Boa, Axel Ermes, Jaw and Pitchfork themselves. /Jens Krause

Dave Clarke mixes favourites on disc
• One of the world's leading techno DJ:s and producers, Dave Clarke, has released a double CD (and four LP) compilation called "World Service" (May 21). Disc one contains a one-take DJ set called "techno mix" and disc two "electro mix". Among the artists included, Radiohead, The Neon Judgement, Jeff Mills, Tuxedomoon and Joey Beltram can be heard. 47 mostly electronic and pulsating tracks, all in all.
Dave Clarke debuted with "Archive 1" back in 1996, which contained the electronic anthem "Red 2". It is estimated that Clarke travels at least 800 000 miles per year to hand picked gigs at clubs world-wide. When he's not DJ:ing, he's in his studio producing his radio show Technology. This show is syndicated to many countries. /Mikael Kahrle

Catching up with Mesh

• Mesh is a busy band these days, and here is a little report on what they are up to.
First of all, they are working full-time on finishing their new album, having quit their day-jobs. It will hopefully be completed at the end of summer and a single will follow shortly thereafter.
They are also playing a number of festival gigs this summer. First in Holland, at Willemeen Festival on June 30, followed by the Eurorock festival in Belgium on August 4. They will end the summer by playing the M'era Luna in Germany on September 2. They will probably play some of the new songs on these gigs.
The collaboration with Mark'Oh (resulting in the single "Waves") will not continue, because both artists say they want to concentrate on what they do best. /Johan Carlsson

Elegant Machinery plays live

Robert Enforsen grabs the mic of Elegant Machinery two more nights.

• The Swedish synthpop band Elegant Machinery played a reunion gig on May 27 at SynthCon, the Hollywood synth convention. Several other live acts also performed, such as Faith Assembly, Cosmicity and B!Machine. Elegant Machinery will play one further gig in Mexico City on June 8. The band explains that they will not reunite as a band, and will only play these two concerts. /Johan Carlsson

De/Vision: "Two" scheduled for August 27
• De/Vision have decided that the title of their new album will be "Two" (the group is now a duo). The album will be out on August 27, and will be preceded by a single on July 30. The sound on the album is said to be very electronic, and it will have a lot of mid tempo songs.
On May 28 a single called "Take (My Breath Away)" was released together with Green Court, a more technoish kind of band. /Johan Carlsson

Rhys Fulber's Conjure One closer to release
• Rhys Fulber project Conjure One is soon ready to be launched. American singer Poe has just finished the last two vocal tracks for the album, and the release is aimed at September or October. /Johan Carlsson

Greek label releases Mission and Covenant

On a Mission to Greece.

• It's not all about Germany, USA, Sweden and the other usual countries. Cyberdelia is the name of a label based in Greece, specialising in electronic and goth music. It is handling the Greece releases of Mission's upcoming album, as well as all Memento Materia releases of bands like Covenant, Mesh and Malaise. The label also publishes material from Greek groups, such as Nexus and Ding An Sich. /Johan Carlsson

Cevin Key's solo album out soon
• The recordings of the new Cevin Key album "Ghost of Each Room" is finished. Furthermore, mastering and artwork is just about done, so expect to see a release date soon. /Johan Carlsson

Mentallo & the Fixer reunited
• After the break-up of the American electro band Mentallo & the Fixer, it comes as somewhat of a surprise that they are back together and will soon release a new album called "Vengeance Is Mine". The compilation "Return to Grimpen Ward" is out now (see review). /Johan Carlsson