British Supergroup Electronic Reissue Career-Spanning Collection on Vinyl
Get The Message expanded to include B-sides, remixes and rarities on CD version as well
The closest Britpop ever came to a true supergroup was Electronic, the duo comprised of New Order frontman Bernard Sumner and former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr.
Yet the union of England’s two best guitarists of the 80s found them finding sonic refuge in the dance hall rather than the rock club. Sumner, frustrated by his New Order bandmates’ ambivalence towards adding more synth programming into their music, was en route to creating a solo album but preferred the collaborative process. So he wound up ringing Marr, who he had previously worked with in 1983 on a track by Quando Quango, a British electronic music group led by Factory Records A&R man Mark Pickering.
The pair would release three acclaimed albums across the ’90s with 1991’s Electronic, 1996’s Raise the Pressure and 1999’s Twisted Tenderness, most of which rooted in the sounds the two men were hearing at popular clubs like The Haçienda in Manchester and London’s Wag Club. But when patched through the converged melodicism between Sumner and Marr, this music radiates with a shimmer that accentuates the aptitudes of both men as true giants of modern pop.
“Electronic were always in pursuit of the upbeat beautiful track,” writes Marr in the liner notes to Get The Message: The Best Of Electronic, which recently made its debut on vinyl in September. “We liked pulling ideas apart and putting them back together in the hope they would make people feel great for a while. Even though we experimented constantly, we dismissed a lot of stuff that might have sounded that way. It had to be concise. I think that’s why people like our singles: It’s what we did best.”
“By the time Johnny and I formed Electronic, I think it’s fair to say we had both been driven to distraction by both the love and hate for our mother groups,” adds Sumner in his note. “And the intensity of sustaining the constant output and touring of both The Smiths and New Order had to an extent burnt us out. Something had definitely gone wrong, and Electronic provided our recuperation and a freedom in our writing that was greatly welcome.”
In addition to making it to wax for the first time, this updated CD edition of the 2006 collection also includes a bonus disc containing a trove of B-sides, remixes and rarities, including an 808 State remix of the 1992 Neil Tennant-assisted hit “Disappointed” along with “Radiation,” the Arthur Baker-produced flip to their 1999 single “Vivid” (with Jimmi Goodwin on bass and Black Grape drummer Ged Lynch). Other highlights include two key B-sides from Raise the Pressure in “I Feel Alright,” featuring Karl Bartos of Kraftwerk on keyboards, and “Turning Point,” which dates back to the first Electronic album.
Even though both Sumner and Marr are still alive, well and remain friends, both men seem satisfied with leaving Electronic in the 90s, which makes this updated and expanded anthology of their work together all the more definitive.
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