LFO interview

[V Knid esq]

I did this for "a best-selling right-wing broadsheet newspaper" but it never ended up getting published, so bear with me if it appears as if it's addressing a less-than-musically-educated audience...



I have to keep reminding myself that the man sitting opposite me in this funky Leeds café is a bona fide rave legend and producer for some of the coolest and most influential names in music. As Mark Bell – a shortish, unpretentious Yorkshireman, cheery despite having a bit of a cold – reminisces about his early musical experiences, he seems no different to any early-30s clubber looking back on the old days. Yet the story he’s telling was to have lasting repercussions for the sound of the 1990s and beyond.

“Me and me mate Gez started going to the Warehouse in Leeds; they'd play Mantronix, early Chicago house, soul, all on the same night, mixed up by all the DJs. You'd get allsorts there from goths to zoot suit jazz dancers to b-boy style kids; I really don't know what drugs were around then - I was sixteen and pretending to enjoy half a lager and lime. We gave a tape of our recordings to 'DJ Martin' who helped loads with arranging our tracks so it'd work on the dancefloor. We’d just been messing around with drum machines since we were like thirteen, tapping away at them like they were arcade games, making tapes to play our mates at school. Anyway, DJ Martin would play our cassettes in his sets and people would go mental - in a good way - cos they were totally raw. Me and Gez would be so proud, nodding at each other - that was enough for us, we really didn't consider anything being released, we were complete!”

However, it didn’t end with that completion. The owners of the fledgling Sheffield techno label WARP Records were regulars at the Warehouse too, and in 1990, snapped up Mark and Gez’s track ‘LFO’ to be one of the first releases on the label. It was truly an epoch-defining tune, mixing the machine funk of Detroit techno with the northern electronics of Cabaret Voltaire and, crucially, a simple but gigantic speaker-shattering subsonic bassline. Its Speak’n’Spell machine vocals could be heard in raves from Penzance to Aberdeen, and it crashed the Top 10, memorably causing a bitter Steve Wright to declare it “the worst record ever”. An album, ‘Frequencies’ followed in ‘91, spawning more hits, more rave moments, and collaborations with the boys’ all time heroes Kraftwerk and other electronic dons.

Rather than capitalise on their success, though, Mark and Gez promptly went home and took it very easy. Five years separated ‘Frequencies’ and their second album ‘Advance’, but the album was warmly received, and cemented their place in the burgeoning electronica scene. Gez left shortly after, and Mark managed to wait a full seven years before releasing the stunning new LFO album, ‘Sheath’. He doesn’t see this as strange, though: “Yeah, people always say ‘where have you been’, or talk about our influence, and that makes us seem like the old guard, but it doesn’t feel like that. I don’t know where all the time goes. I’m doing the same thing whether I’ve got an album out or not – making tunes at home is what I do, that’s what I love, not the promoting and packaging. So when people say ‘oh you’ve been away’, I haven’t – I’m still doing exactly the same thing, making tunes and hanging out with my friends up here.”

He hasn’t just been in his bedroom, mind: Mark has also been spending time in the studio defining the sounds of his childhood heroes Depeche Mode and 21st Century diva Bjork. Even on this subject, he’s pragmatic: “It’s been crazy, coming from my little bedroom studio to these incredible expensive recording places. With Depeche Mode I’d just end up hiring a little mixing desk and setting up in a corner by where the band were actually playing so I could communicate direct with them instead of using the huge desk. With Bjork, we’ll use laptops, so I can work on a track, send a CD out to whichever hotel she’s going to be in, and she can just plug in and do her thing on it then send it back. It’s just amazing for an artist that there isn’t this wasted time, sitting in hotel rooms and whatnot.”

Mark has taken classical influences from Bjork (‘Unafraid To Linger’ on ‘Sheath’ shimmers with weightless Debussy melodies), and a rock feel from Depeche Mode (‘Snot’, as the title suggests, is fantastically simplistic electro-punk boogie). However the synths on the album sing just like they have done on every LFO release, and this timeless signature sound has ensured that it is being embraced by old-school electronicists and super-fashionable electroclash disco punks alike. Mark is still the eager clubber he was at 16, and his music (current single ‘Freak’) is still making people go mental – in a good way – worldwide. Whether we get another LFO record this decade is anyone’s guess, but they’ve left us plenty to enjoy in the meantime.


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