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Interview
by SashaS
1-10-2004
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| Client: ready to entertain your iSoul |
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Elegance and essence
Client: a 'City' portrait with two dames
There are a lot of female artists who are trying to make their mark on the cookie-cutter pop world but only few truly deserve to be listened to more than watched. Forget the pop-princesses who rely on erotica as their musical currency - from Kylie Minogue to Natasha Bedingfield, or the youngsters who pretend not to be ‘aspiring divas’ [the jury is still out on Joss Stone] and concentrate on female artists like Goldfrapp, Nellie McKay and Client.
Whilst Alison Goldfrapp uses her sexuality to challenge the notion of quality and vamp-imagery not being complimentary, Client are more stealthy, sly and taunting. Their allure is cunning, clandestine, mickey taking: employing uniforms, reminiscent of the SAS chic of the 1950s - accentuated curvatures - coupled with fetishistique gloves, their music is based on the Krautrock and Brit-electro legacy of the 1970s and ‘80s but updated to the post-traumatic techno-world spec with lyrics that are clever, witty and unPC, the ‘couldn’t-get-away-with’ variety if they were by a male outfit.
The duo’s eponymous debut - they like to be known as Client: A and Client: B - of last year was one of the overlooked discs of the period. Album No. 2 is ‘City’ and we met with both ladies - singer/lyricist Client: B and computer/keys partner Client: A. The new disc is darker, bleaker and its fulcrum altered to sharpened edge, freshly empowered and fairly bitchy, enhanced with inclusion of several new music idioms.
On a Tuesday afternoon of their monthly Club Night at Notting Hill’s Arts Club, we met with the principle members for three cuppas Italiano as the evening traffic was building to a congestion and reporter’s meter appeared to be running twice the speed of ‘tube-minutes’.
‘City’ is an album that should make masses take notice: it is more confident, upfront, it punches at the right places, centres the right feelings, it rams the correct hormones…
“On our first record we were finding our feet,” Client: A is the first to speak, “and the first one was done in a bedroom… Well, this one was done in a bedroom as well, but we brought in Joe [Wilson, of Sneaker Pimps], who plays live with us as well, and he brought in better drums and from that… I feel like songwriting has got better from the first one, the songs are generally better.”
“We didn’t make this album much differently than the first one,”… A continues. “I was on a holiday and I wrote eight tunes. Actually, most of the album was written while I was abroad… I was kinda pissed off with the music business and it got a bit more depressing; Sarah, as a lyricist, she worked hard on it and together…”
“I was also miserable at the time,” Client: B interjects with a smile.
“My ambition in life is to be a songwriter,” Client: A continues, “it is a craft and the more you work on it… We were touring a lot and have seen a lot of things; also, you tour the first album so much and you want to write some new songs.”
One pornography at the time
Their sound is a sexy minimalism of electronic-class and, in spite of its Brit-influences such as Joy Division, The Smiths and the whole Northern pop tradition, Client’s songs are easy-to-appeal to European because it is informed by Kraftwerk, DAF and Euro-artforms. The debut album proved a hit with audiences and critics across the Channel, even inspiring a German art-loving-fan to develop an installation piece entirely based around ‘Client’ material.
In the UK, the single ‘Rock and Roll Machine’ attracted the attention of film-maker Nick Love to feature the duo and the song in his forthcoming film ‘Football Factory’.
The show they performed later on the night earned a notice in the London‘s Evening Standard - “… A little more quality control to push them over the edge”, the reviewer concluded and just a week later they got included on the paper’s ‘Fashion Rock’ compilation of up’n’coming bands. [‘Fashion’, in this instance, is in conjunction with the London’s Fashion Week.] The track representing them was ‘Here and Now’.
Formed in 2002 and signed to Depeche Mode Andy Fletcher’s label Toast Hawaii, the girls had an album written but, when they played it to their boss on a way to Moscow, he told ‘em, ‘They are all s**t, apart from one’, but, “He was right,” Client: A admits before explaining that it pushed her to [im]prove herself as a songwriter.
“I think this album is a bit more Rock’n’Roll,” C: A analyses aloud, “and it is a bit more Joy Division. I think the next one is going to be even more Rock’n’Roll…”
Among the tracks that accelerate body-functions, there is ‘The Chill of October’, a luscious affair, string-driven, that evokes warm and lascivious thoughts… The girls have been helped on the album by some interesting guests, such as the members of The Libertines.
“We knew them anyway,” C: A, i.e. Kate Holmes, admits, “Alan (McGee, Creation/Poptones founder and A’s husband], manages them and Pete [Doherty] was always around the house. He asked me to produce his Babyshambles but I wasn‘t up to it and asked if he wanted to guest on our track, ‘Down To The Underground’. When Carl (Barat) heard about it, he also wanted to be on the album, so we stuck him on ‘Pornography’, that should be our next single.”
“The one we are the most proud of to have on the album is Martin [Gore, on ‘Overdrive’],” Kate confesses, “who doesn’t do anything outside of the Depeche [Mode] but it shows that he respects what Andy does and likes what we do.”
No "babe" calling
These two ladies had their marketing [usually sans budget] well planned and the first album played an anonymity game by presenting parts of their bodies wrapped in stewardess-like uniforms; one of the reasons for withholding their identities was that they‘ve been known around London [Kate was a member of The Frazier Chorus and Technique], and Britain, in case of Client: B [Sarah Blackwood, once a pop-star with Dubstar]. Things have certainly changed on ‘City’ and the two babes reveal more of their identities.
With Andy, Alan and other men around, do you feel creative interference?
“No, not at all,” Kate laughs, “women know how to manipulate men. They suggest some-thing, we agree, then ignore it, and do it our way.”
“We keep our heads down,” Sarah adds, “plough our way through it and do what we want, regardless.”
Their heads also appear on the artwork and not because of the pressure from the men in their lives.
“It is a progression,” Sarah instils, “we are playing live now and people know what we look like.”
“Still, the cover is sort of ‘Emmanuelle’,” Kate sums up a shot of two pairs of skirted legs], “a bit dirty, a bit naughty… ‘Emanuelle’ in a Gentlemen’s club, that’s the vibe. It‘s great to reinvent ourselves, keeping the same theme but changing it.”
It’s a great ‘City’ and I wouldn’t mind living in it.
“It’s not that glamorous,” Kate laughs. “When we tour England, it is in my car, the two of us, Joe and a driver-cum-roadie-cum-sound-engineer and we return home every night to save money on accommodation. I print up things, design T-shirts we sell at our gigs. At least we are enjoying ourselves and have not become bitter because we do not sell huge amounts of records.”
It’s quite easy to trust these two ‘guerrilla’ babes.
~ ~ ~
Addendum [following the Client’s sophomore CD launch party/show at Infinity (London) on 29 Sept. 2004]:
Client members know well the clout of a ‘taciturn sex appeal’, how to put their best breast forward without turning into ‘Stepford females’. These partners-in-sound are purveyors of some sort of vampish Puritanism, a stimulating mix of the 1950s chic, cyber-age attitude and a dominatrix-type auguring without any [alas] twinges involved. The concept of ‘ice-maiden’ personae is deployed with a discernible insight of men’s penchant to fantasize of gutting suchlike demeanour. [Ain’t that a hallucination!?]
The set-list currently on offer by Sarah (blonde) and Kate (brunette) are classy cuts rammed with quality that far outstrips myriad compilations from the 1980s.
Client rock. Hot. Verbatim.
SashaS
14-7-2003
Client album ‘City’ is released 27 Sept. 2004 by Toast Hawaii/Mute
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