but because they were copying they'd just start adopting cliches.

"In the last 10 years it seems like there have been very few new methods of playing guitar. Everybody's just trotting out the same old cliches, pulling the same faces, striking the same old rock 'n' roll poses.

"The synthesizer now has a history and there are already cliched ways of playing it. You can sound like Gary Numan on a Polymoog. You can do lead solos like Billy Currie on an ARP Odyssey-that wailing, no-melody type of riffing. There are popular guidelines for playing synthesizer laid down by people who were around before.

"Recently I talked to a young guy from Liverpool who played us a demo. I asked him why it was so unmelodic and discord- ant; he refused to play melodies. He said, 'The trouble is, every time you play a melody on synthesizer you sound like Orchestral Manoeuvres!'''

McCluskey laughs, no doubt thankful he got there first.



D espite his reservations, McCluskey does not share Rachel Webber's skepticism about the current wave of English synth-pop groups. He sees great diversity among the bands, and frowns on efforts to lump them all together because of their choice of weapon.

''People from outside Britain see all bands that play synthesizer as part and parcel of the same movement or ideology, which is far from the truth. The music we and other bands make, and the reasons behind the making of the music, are actually quite different from each other.

''A few examples: That Human League plays synthesizers is almost unimportant. It's pop music for the '80s. The lyrical content is very traditional: 'I love you and you love me' or 'I love you and you don't love me.' When we write a love song it lends to be more offbeat. Depeche Mode is a very young thing, the sound of young boys. The lyrical content of Heaven l7 is fairly radical."

Some synth bands try to minimize the mechanical aspect of their electronic instruments. Keith Silva says that Our Daughter's Wedding avoids sequencers whenever possible. "To me it makes the music a little too sterile. I prefer the actual physical attack of playing a note yourself. I think the feeling actually changes when you use sequencers."

The rhythm section in a synth group tends to be its weakest component. Those tinny, ticking rhythm boxes used to sound pretty feeble coming out of Lowery organs; their descendants don't fare much better trying to drive a loud battalion of synths. Depeche Mode deals with the problem by taping all their percussion one element at a time. The sight of a big Teac reel-to-reel machine onstage where a drummer should be comes as a shock, but the output is, Dave Gahan says, " really clear and punchy.'' The band's tape consists of a bass drum sound from Daniel Millers old ARP, the snare drum sound of a rhythm

machine, and various sequencer bits.

On their five-song EP, Digital Cowboy, Our daughter's Wedding used ace drummer Simon Phillips instead of a rhythm box. Onstage Layne Rico augments the mechanical beat with a Synare synth, which can produce either percussive or melodic tones. The Units recently enlisted a percussionist and a drummer. On Architecture & Morality Orchestral Manuvres combine acoustic and synthetic drums for a hybrid sound.

Soft Cell and producer Mike Thorne concocted an intriguing approach for Non- Stop Erotic Cabaret. As David Ball reveals, "We took the output of an electronic snare and put it through a little speaker, which we laid face down on top of a snare drum; then we miked that up. So we were getting a real snare sound, but it was triggered by a drum machine. I think it gives a slightly richer sound."

There's no reason for any two synthesizer bands to sound alike if they've got talent and aren't too rigid in their outlook. Paul Humphreys believes synths are "the most versatile instrument-but there are things you can't do on a synthesizer, like get the power and rawness of strumming a guitar.' That's why Architecture & Morality features OMD'S first use of guilar, as well as horns, piano and saxes.

"Very often the mainstay of a song is not synthesizers but sound ideas in general,' Andy McCluskey observes. OMD'S recent single "Joan of Arc'' employs a glockenspiel which gives it springiness, and I did two different vocal lakes. One has all these little voices- I'm trying to follow a synthesizer I'd set on D. On the other one I sing high-pitched, almost falsetto harmonies.''

"Souvenir'' resulted from equally ingenious procedures. Humphreys took tapes of an eight-member church choir singing scales and made up the tape loops that give the song its wobbly, shifting quality.

In other words, smile when you call Orchestral Manoeuvres a synth band. "They're not our number one priority," McCluskey states. "We're not on some electronic crusade; we're not interested in the synthesizer as an image. We have a load of them onstage because that's what we play. We just use them as a means to an end. ''



A close look reveals that, in one sense, most of these bands aren't all that different from traditional rock groups. Our Daughter's Wedding, the Units and Depeche Mode all dole out responsibilities for melody, bass and percussion to different members, just like the good old days. In most cases the material could be rearranged to accomodate implements of yore like guitars and drums. Our Daughter's Wedding recalls Sparks. Orchestral Manoeuvres sometimes suggests a smarter Beach Boys. Soft Cell's



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