Electribe 101/Billie Ray Martin

[Pughie]

One and a half hours of Billie Ray Martin ‘Your Loving Arms (Original & Bonus Mixes)

https://music.apple.com/gb/album/your-l ... 1491875006

[Pughie]

Four previously unreleased Frankie Knuckles remixes of Electribe 101's "Heading For The Night" are due July 9th via Electribal Records.

The original track comes from Electribal Memories, the 1990 debut album from the UK-based group fronted by German vocalist Billie Ray Martin. Since Knuckles had previously remixed Electribe 101's breakout single, "Talking With Myself," Martin got him back to lend his touch to "Heading For The Night."

"He was smitten with 'Heading For The Night,'" Martin recalls. "He enjoyed mixing it so much that he did six mixes, each one brilliant and soulful in its own way. His effortless and perfect vocal production while creating a more danceable version makes this another Knuckles masterpiece."

Knuckles' versions never ended up seeing a release, and they have remained unpublished for more than 30 years. Four of the six mixes are getting the vinyl treatment through Martin's newly minted Electribal Records label. The record will be followed by Electribe 101's never-released second album, Electronic Soul, later this year.

Revisit our 2014 feature reflecting on the life of the late Frankie Knuckles.



Tracklist
A1 Heading For The Night (Night Over Europe)
A2 Heading For The Night (Heading For Maddness)
B1 Heading For The Night (Classic Club Mix)
B2 Heading For The Night (Pianopella)

Electribal Records will release Heading For The Night—The Frankie Knuckles Mixes on July 9th, 2021

[stickman]

I can't believe it! Electribal Memories is one of my all-time favourite albums. Knowing we are finally getting the second album after 30+ years is amazing. Only one of the songs from it ever leaked and I didn't think they finished it before they imploded

[Pughie]

I can't believe it! Electribal Memories is one of my all-time favourite albums. Knowing we are finally getting the second album after 30+ years is amazing. Only one of the songs from it ever leaked and I didn't think they finished it before they imploded

Electrical Memories is also up for a reissue.

[stickman]

I can't believe it! Electribal Memories is one of my all-time favourite albums. Knowing we are finally getting the second album after 30+ years is amazing. Only one of the songs from it ever leaked and I didn't think they finished it before they imploded

Electrical Memories is also up for a reissue.

Ooh hopefully with a sparkling new remaster and some of the new mixes. Heading For The Night was always my favourite and I thought it was a shame it didn't get the single treatment

[Pughie]

Are you ready for the release of the second Electribe 101 album? Lacquer cut and went to the pressing plant today.
#electribe101 #newalbum #unreleasedalbum #electronicmusic #classichouse #kraftwerk #electribal #electronicpop



https://fb.watch/6jl9RG6RdU/

[Pughie]

Classic Pop Mag. Out now.

B I L L I E R A Y M A R T I N
ELECTRIBE 101, RAVE’S GREATEST CULT, WERE FORMED WHEN GERMAN SINGER BILLIE RAY MARTIN ASSEMBLED FOUR BANDMATES VIA A SMALL AD. HER SOULFUL VOICE PLUS PULSATING ELECTRO MADE FOR A PERFECT CONTRAST, BUT THEY SPLIT AFTER ALBUM NO.2 WENT UNRELEASED. NOW, IT’S ABOUT TO BE REVISITED…
J O H N E A R L S

How does it feel to – finally! – be releasing Electribe 101’s second album Electribal Soul, made in 1991, later this year?
I didn’t realise how big the support is for the group. When Phonogram dropped us, we were virtually blacklisted. We were told, in no uncertain terms, we were rubbish. One A&R said he’d consider signing us, but made us have a studio test. A test?! We’d already passed the damn test and proved we could produce songs. We felt we were no good, and Phonogram have never capitalised on what they have. There have been no reissues, no licences, nothing. We were just gone, so to see the reaction on social media to the album announcement, it’s really made me smile.

How does it feel listening to
Electribal Soul 30 years on?
It has an urgency to it because, without realising it, the lyrics were about my experiences at the time. I was making myself heard by belting it all out as intensely as I could. I had the odd tear listening
to Insatiable Love and A Sigh Won’t Do. It’s moved me, as has the beautiful music the guys created. Without their music, the songs wouldn’t shine so much and the arrangements were built around respecting my vocal. I’ve been in touch with Brian Nordhoff recently to discuss everything Electribe, and that was lovely.

You worked with Mark Moore from S’Express on Hey Music Lover in ’89, and he quite rightly wants to know why you haven’t stayed a huge star…
Ha! The real me has never been mainstream. I thoroughly enjoyed adapting a mainstream sound on Your Loving Arms, and the fact I wasn’t putting anything on
is why that song reached people. I moved to New York to see how far I could take it,


but America didn’t know what to do with me, even though then I really tried to be mainstream. I was in a weird netherland, attempting to have hits but also visiting underground dance labels, thinking “This is what I really want.” I was trying to do both, but I didn’t and I don’t fit in either camp.
Maybe that’s the answer.

You’ve collaborated with Slam, The Grid, Hard Ton, DJ Hell, Aérea Negrot, Stephen Mallinder, Robert Solheim… what makes you a good musical teammate?
It’s important not to come in like a ton of bricks, insisting “Here’s the song, here’s the words.” You have to let people shine their light and let them explore. That’s been a learning curve, as I’m quite dominant. I can be “No, I want that chord there.” That can leave people thinking “Does she even need me?” It’s important I give people the reassurance I can’t do it without them.

Are you working on new music?
I’m working on four albums. When I get stuck on one, I can switch. It keeps me busy, which is good in times like these. The first
to come out emerged from two songs: a German version of Peter Gabriel’s Here Comes The Flood, about how mankind goes with the flow when a great flood sweeps it away. I thought “Yes, that suits me fine!” The second song was from an idea of Wolfgang Tillmans, who asked me for

“I GREW UP IN THE HAMBURG RED LIGHT DISTRICT. MY SONGS ARE FULL OF MISFITS AND HOOKERS”
B I L L I E R A Y M A R T I N


vocals for his installation in Hamburg. It’s in a concrete room, which you can’t look out of, but you can hear everyone outside. I thought “What if Hamburg was swept away?” Another album, Chanson, is about how French culture – certain movies, how the old neighbourhoods of Paris have been replaced by big boulevards – influences me. That’s an elaborate record, which needs more work. I have another record to
make at some point, and then there’s Poem. I was writing a play about Oscar Wilde’s last days, and I started writing poetry. That was a new way of writing for me.

How do you usually write songs? The lyrics and the melodies always arrive together. I’ll craft the lyrics afterwards, but they don’t change much from the original story. I research the characters for my songs. I grew up in Hamburg’s red light district and my songs are full of misfits and hookers. I physically see the characters in my songs, like they’re in a film. I’ll think “She walks around that block and sees this guy, who looks like this.” Then, with Poem, I was going through a loss, sat helplessly every morning with my coffee. I thought
“I don’t have any melodies,” but then I just grabbed a pen and wrote everything down as poems. I sat with the poems for a couple of years, trying them this way and that, thinking it’d be complicated to
find the right people and enough money to produce them. Then I realised it needed to be simpler, just a pianist and an engineer. The engineer and I have experimented, so it’s not just a boring piano album. I wrote the melodies in one day. All of them came in 20 minutes, singing along to the poems’ words. It was crazy.

Electribe 101’s Heading For The Night – The Frankie Knuckles Mixes is released on July 9. Electribal Soul follows later this year

[Pughie]

[Pughie]

ELECTRIBAL SOUL is the fabled, previously unreleased second album from UK electronic pioneers Electribe 101. The album will be released 18th February 2022 through Electribal Records.

Digital pre-order starts in mid. January when the first full songs are shared as well.

Recorded in 1991 by the quintet of vocalist Billie Ray Martin and Birmingham-based electronic musicians Brian Nordhoff, Joe Stevens, Les Fleming and Roberto Cimarosti, Electribal Soul was conceived as the sequel to the band’s 1990 debut album, Electribal Memories.

“There was a degree of confidence among us when we came to write the second album,” recalls Billie Ray Martin. “To me, the songs we put down sound like some of our finest moments.” More immediately lush and warm than the dancefloor-friendly structures of Electribal Memories, the clue to the sound of Electribal Soul lies in the second word in its title: soul. Songs like the aching sensuality of opening track ‘Insatiable Love’ or the emboldened defiance of ‘Moving Downtown’ showcase Billie Ray Martin’s distinctive vocal range as it moves from haunting quiet to dramatic, euphoric rapture. Lyrics from ‘Moving Downtown’ had found their way into ‘Pimps, Pushers, Prostitutes’ by S’Express, and the song would appear as ‘Running Around Town’ on Martin’s 1996 solo album. The striking production on the version of the song presented on Electribal Soul suggests classic late sixties soul influences, such as those of legendary Motown producer Norman Whitfield, with the long shadow cast by Kraftwerk never being far away.

To spend time with Martin’s voice on Electribal Soul is to find yourself moved deep into the ordinarily impenetrable emotional corners of your own psyche. “I was into big ballads at the time and listening to all kinds of US and UK singers, and I was also young enough to want to prove myself as a belter of ballads,” explains Martin of the classic soul edge the album showcased.

That Electribe 101 were as comfortable offering complicated, nuanced tracks like ‘Persuasion’ alongside pop house bangers like ‘Space Oasis’ – written by Billie Ray Martin with Martin King before Electribe 101 was formed – is testament to the way the band wove their way effortlessly through electronic music reference points.


Hooking up with the Birmingham-based Nordhoff, Stevens, Fleming and Cimarosti after placing a Melody Maker ad in 1988 (“Soul rebel seeks musicians – genius only”), it was clear that Martin had found a group that recognised the unique power and importance of her voice. Having worked with genres as diverse as reggae, rock and R&B, the four producers proved to be perfect collaborators, presenting carefully-sculpted backdrops that emphasised the towering emotional dexterity of her voice.

“Listening back to these tracks now, I was reminded of what a bunch of great musicians they were,” says Martin. “They had a rule that if a part still sounded good after a day or two then it could stay. If it bothered the vocals, it would go.” Even more so than on Electribal Memories, Electribal Soul places Martin at the captivating centre of these pieces, surrounding her voice with everything from dubby rhythms to chunky R&B beats to nascent trip hop breaks; wiry, acid-hued synths uncoil gently without ever dominating, while horn samples and lush, disco-inflected strings provide a rich, naturalistic accompaniment for Martin’s emotional outpourings.

The band finished mixing the album at London’s Olympic Studios in 1991. They were assisted by Apollo 440’s Howard Gray on production duties for ‘Deadline For My Memories’, ‘Insatiable Love’ and ‘Space Oasis’, with Gray supported by talented engineer Al Stone.

Thirty years after the songs were recorded, we’re now finally able to hear what the second and final chapter of Electribe 101’s story sounded like. Electribal Soul shows that the band had really only just got started when they dropped their first album in 1990. Heard only by a select and privileged few, what followed elevated the band’s music to a completely new level, making Electribal Soul musical buried treasure of the most precious and rare variety.

Electribal Soul will be released on 12” vinyl, CD and digital formats on 18th February 2022 through Electribal Records. The physical formats include extensive liner notes from Billie Ray Martin, and the album sleeve features unseen archive photographs by Lewis Mulatero from the original 1990 sessions with the band that were never used in the sleeve designs for Electribal Memories.

[Pughie]

Electribe 101 – Electribal Soul – CD




11€ incl. 19% VAT plus shipping costs
Ships 18th February 2022.

CD digipack with 16 page booklet and extensive liner notes.

ELECTRIBAL SOUL is the fabled, previously unreleased second album from UK electronic pioneers ELECTRIBE 101.

Recorded in 1991 by the quintet of vocalist Billie Ray Martin and Birmingham–based electronic musicians Brian Nordhoff, Joe Stevens, Les Fleming and Roberto Cimarosti, Electribal Soul was conceived as the sequel to the band’s 1990 debut album, Electribal Memories.

Tracklist:

Insatiable Love
Space Oasis
Moving Downtown
Conquering Tomorrow
Deadline For My Memories
A Sigh Won’t Do
True Moments Of My World
Hands Up And Amen
Persuasion

Bonus tracks:
10. Deadline For My Memories (Alternative Version)
11. You And I (Keep Holding On)

Ships 18th February 2022

https://www.billieraymartin.com/product ... l-soul-cd/