SOON - Jack Dangers (Meat Beat Manifesto) x Adi Newton (Clock DVA) - ACTIONS MADE AUDIBLE

LooseLink · January 29

http://meatbeatmanifesto.com/pre-order-soon-actions-made-audible/

https://electronicsound.squarespace.com/shop/p/soon-vinyl-lp?fbclid=IwY2xjawHFcZRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHReECc5rwKXNsYuSZZLYyRhIjBz3ZCLRjTJgSfXZ8dvaxBpfP_zQFAOOtg_aem_g1FZV22-whAzJcVJYdIp6A

Soon is a new project for 2025 from two legends of electronic music: Adi Newton, founder member of Sheffield’s Clock DVA, and Jack Dangers, the architect of Meat Beat Manifesto.

Join Jack and Adi on an uncanny and thrilling adventure in pure electronics and tape archive, an exploration of theoretical frameworks for a new kind of thinking expounded by psychedelic intellectuals like Aldous Huxley. It’s a celebration and continuation of a post-war era when avant-garde western thought was edging towards cosmic consciousness with an avant garde electronic music to match it.

‘Actions Made Audible’ is a fantastical and deeply satisfying aural journey though spectral dimensions and psychedelic radiophonics, with exquisite sound design and beat making. The album floats between a sonic evocation of a mushroom trip to a time when adventurers in sound were capturing interference from the ghostly on reel-to-reel recorders in suburban London living rooms.

The album culminates with the gorgeous swirls and arpeggios of ‘Seratiam’, a magical six minutes, a haunting memory of Berlin School beauty, machines and Mellotron tapes in heart-stopping harmony.

Adi Newton formed Clock DVA in 1978, another Steel City product making music with English synths and tape loops. Prior to Clock DVA, he’d been in various experimental Sheffield outfits with members of Cabaret Voltaire and future founders of The Human League. The band’s first album, the cassette-only ‘White Souls In Black Suits’, was released by Throbbing Gristle’s Industrial label after which they signed to Fetish Records, alongside 23 Skidoo and Bush Tetras. The first line-up split in 1981, since when Clock DVA has been a sporadically active but abiding project for Newton and various collaborators to explore aspects of electronic music in always interesting and unexpected ways. There was a lavish six-disc vinyl boxset ‘Horology’, released by Vinyl On Demand in 2012, and more recently ‘Noesis’ in 2023 and 2024’s ‘EXT Vol 1’ saw Clock DVA touring again to enthusiastic audiences.

Jack Dangers first encountered a recording studio in the early 80s when he found himself helping fellow Swindonites XTC at a cheap facility in the town. His first band, Perennial Divide, was produced by Andy Partridge and in 1988 he formed Meat Beat Manifesto and released the groundbreaking masterpiece ‘Storm The Studio’, before signing to Play It Again Sam and putting out two era-defining 12-inch singles, ‘Helter Skelter’ and ‘Radio Babylon’, which sealed MBM’s reputation as a prime mover in the electronic music underground, with unmatchable beats and bass. Meat Beat Manifesto toured with Nine Inch Nails, and later signed to Trent Reznor’s Nothing Records, while Jack has remixed David Bowie, David Byrne, Silver Apples, Depeche Mode, MC900FT Jesus, Mickey Hart and many more. He has also released more than a dozen albums as MBM and half as many again as Jack Dangers.