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Interview
by SashaS
13-8-2003
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| Client: the only parts allowed exposure |
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No pussyfooting
Client on cyberism, pop-herd and independence
Extract from ‘Global Music Companion’ (2132 edition): “The advances in computer technology in the late 20th and early 21st century made a revival of interest in electronic music inevitable, but no-one was quite prepared for the arrival of the duo Client (known only as Client:A and Client:B). Launched onto a stagnant music scene in mid-2002 with the help of their associate Client:F, they received acclaim for combining cutting-edge digital media with good old-fashioned songwriting to create a unique sound which was simultaneously dirty and pristine, cynical but touched with innocence.”
“They quickly attracted music fans bored with production-line pop, superficial dance and tired rock, and later spawned many imitators who only served to show the uniqueness of their work. Embracing all the possibilities of the Internet circa 2001, Client pushed the music scene in a whole new direction, and their influence is keenly felt even now...”
129 years earlier, Client release their debut album ‘Client’ and we meet the members: Client:A, a dark haired DJ/keyboardist, and Client:B, a blonde singer. The ladies haven’t asked for their identities to be protected but we respect their ideology although some more eager pop watchers, who can remember when Take That were young, should recognize the vocalist. There is also a silent partner, Client:F, whom we can name: boss of their label, Andy Fletcher of Depeche Mode.
A very few more pleasurable things in life can exceed lounging in a sunny pre-midday with a latté and a couple of ladies who are intelligent, informed and sexitudinal. The two have made an album that is disarmingly catchy, deceptively simple, a tad disaffected, somehow naďve but fresh and brimming with ardour. These songs are vigorous and quirky, sometime abrasive, at others – melodious and fondle-enticing…
The overall sound is darker, machine-generated electro-pop without a pacemaker. These tunes contain certain funkiness, cyber-beats to get your hormones set to charge, engage your dance-muscles, alert your soul and pacify your pop craving… Imagine a sonic-jamboree of Kraftwerk, David Bowie (Brian Eno-era), DAF and Dusty Springfield (velvet lungs, platinum chest and delightfully northern accented vocal).
“We made this album for 12,000,” Client:A opens the info-pack, “and without any advance from the record company; it means that we need to sell 20,000 albums to recoup. That gives us freedom and we are happy with the situation. We are into DIY-music making and hope that a new punk wave is gonna happen. I’d love to place against the wall, perhaps not kill but certainly stun all these manufactured bands! They are dangerous for music industry and are diabolical as far as creativity goes, they are destroying it all!”
Idealistic position but the question is how do you fight the plague, how to search and destroy the rot?
“By going underground,” Client:A continues enthusiastically. “The music industry is a dinosaur, club culture is immediate and they can’t react; it reflects in the market and people tend to get stuck in easy choices. We started DJ-ing to inflict our music on other people, so see what works and what doesn’t”
Pink robots(The Woman machine)
Working with Client:F the two ladies have experience of big budgets without having any. The result is music mixed to the major’s standard but with diversity that encapsulate dirty sounds, more sinister scope, deeper/catchier pop tunes, electrifyingly infectious instrumentals, vocal tracks, a spoken cut…
“Half of the album is rather sexual,” C:A confesses looking at Client:B, “the theme of the album is prostitution, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, the seedier side of love,” Client:B concurs, “as well as addiction to prescription drugs, cruelty to cats…”
All valid observations but no solutions really?
“We are not out to preach,” C:A defends their approach, “we are out to explore… And it all happened so naturally: I was working with a girl as Technique and we had a radio-hit in Germany; I wrote a letter to Andy asking to support Depeche Mode in Germany, inclosing our single. He said we could support them on two dates; few days later we were told we could support them on ten dates!? But then, my singer told me how she had a solo deal and she was going to Ibiza for the whole summer… It was a week before the tour's start…”
Sex, hype and intel
Finding herself with a tour but missing a singer, Client:A heard “through a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend” of this vocalist, phoned and asked her to join. They admit to intense rehearsals of “three days with a karaoke-machine,” C:A says with a smile.
“… And went straight in front of 45,000 crazed Depeche Mode fans,” C:B sounds incredulous, “but we made it through.”
“Yeah, I had to give her a half-a-bottle of wine,” C:A quickly adds, “and push her on that stage! That was our first gig!”
“We then went to Russia with them, travelled on their jet, and they kept on adding more dates.”
There is a specific visual method employed here with the girls hiding their faces in favour of using different body parts for promotional photographs and the artwork.
“Yes, we are trying to do something different”, C:A admits, “like already working on our second album, to be issued next year. And, imagery we use, it is a comment on the way industry treats women, so much is placed on the way women look… When Blondie came back it was all about how she looked like, not how good the music was.”
“So much is placed on the looks,” C:B agrees, “and it overtakes music; when I was in Dubstar they wanted to put my face on the cover and I argued that there were more interesting things than my face to put on it. Our (stewardess/military-like) uniforms also support that standpoint, it is not exploiting our sexuality. There is too much of it around.”
Listening to them speak you’d think they were mingers but the truth is that these two are babes. And they know that men love women in uniform, however fake!
“We don’t appeal to teenagers with our music,” C:A concludes, “and we don’t have to be whatever… We are appealing to, I suppose, people with interesting minds, who are into the lyrics, a bit of an image… Slightly darker side of the people.”
Those only happy when it rains? No, no way…
SashaS
14-7-2003
Client album ‘Client’ is released 18 August 2003 by Toast Hawaii/Mute
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