OPPOSITES: LIGHT & DARK

 Too obvious? Maybe, but surely they are the original pair of opposites, as in in the beginning was and all that. And you can play around a little with either of the polarities and steer a path down the middle, embracing dusk and/or twilight, trying to work out if they are the same or come from the opposite starting points. Light is a bit of a tinker, though, as it can also have an opposite with heavy, which I personally try to avoid, in any musical sense, if less successfully in my own life. Dark doesn't have any such, unless we talk chocolate, as milk chocolate is hardly the opposite of dark, or plain, as some will have it. Where would that leave the vile heresy of white chocolate? These, however, must be concerns for another day.

I thought this the opportunity to indulge my occasional pecadilloe into non guitar based music, into electronica, in fact. Or techno, as the music today featured probably was thought of. At least when both bands featured were just starting. I loved John Peel's putdown of Emerson, Lake and Palmer, arguably whose travails with synthesisers set the scene for the wider genre, road testing the prototype models. "A waste of electricity", the venerable DJ called them. Strangely, as synthesisers begat drum machines and sequencers, and computers became more prominent than keyboards, he became quite keen. Funny that. Anyhoo, be that as it may, I too was quite keen on techno. Reading the definition of the genre makes for daunting reading, so I guess I was no early adopter. Indeed, if Kraftwerk were trailblazers, with the Detroit and Chicago scenes picking up the influences and running, or dancing, with it, I was decidedly sceptic. I thought it was all a bit disco, especially the rooms and fields chokka with e-infused teenagers, blissfully off their heads, that I found distinctly off-putting. But then I caught Orbital at the Glastonbury Festival in the early 90's. Literally caught: we were making an early Sunday evening getaway, for work in the morning, getting caught up in the similar traffic jam of weekend only revellers. And, in the stationary car, heard the set and could see the lightship in the sky. Quite a formative moment. I suddenly saw the light. (See what I did there!)

Funnily enough, the car has remained my place of preference for listening to this genre, lapping up the associated, in my mind, and similar bands and musicians: the Prodigy, Chemical Brothers, Moby and, of course, given this piece, Leftfield and Underworld. Sometimes to the extent of attracting alarmed glances cast my way, as I drive along, rhythmically thumping the driver side window in time. I recommend it.

So then, Light is here brought to you by the splendour of Leftfield, the track entitled 'Alternative Light Source', the title also of their 2015 long player. I think they were/are probably my darlings of the scene, with, especially, the remixes version of 'Rhythm and Stealth' being my all time leader of this pack, not unentirely associated that my wife being a huge fan. We met relatively later in life, with music our main comparator on the dating site(!) we both frequented, and she, a massive Faithless aficionado, liked a good bit of my tastes in this direction. (The rest, the folk, the country, the blues, the jazz, less so.)  Leftfield were also the first live band of this ilk I dared go see, in 2015, for the tour that promoted this album. I didn't know quite what to expect, somehow assuming an army of flare carrying floppy fringed fops, finding, instead, an audience not so different from me. And plenty my age or older, too. It was terrific, even if the "show" was just the three, I think, of them, tucked near invisibly behind abstract geometric sheets, through which coloured lights were shone, concentratedly beavering away on their hardware. The bass was extreme, subterranean rumbles that had me fearing that fabled note, over which no bowel has control. Thankfully it didn't come, and I forgave them the missed last train and taxi-ride home. So Light for the Light (as we call our good ladies round here.)

Dark comes, appropriately, from Underworld, the underworld supposedly lightless. 'Dark and Long' the track, from their inventively entitled 1994 debut, 'dubnobasswithmyheadman'. I came to them via the joyous lager lager lager of 'Born Slippy' on the 'Trainspotting' soundtrack. I confess I sort of went off them a bit after watching them on a BBC at Glastonbury filmed performance. And for silly reasons like the 'singer' dancing and having dyed hair, while the anonymous fella with him had to do all the IT heavy lifting. (Thank goodness I never saw the Prodigy, eh....) But I grew out of such daft prejudice, or, rather, my wife told me to, and they too continue to produce work of no small value, keeping the flame alive.

Opposites? Hmm, actually, if nothing else, I seem to have proven Dark and Light can be broadly much of a muchness. Am I bothered? Well, given dark light seems actually to be a thing.....

Light.

Dark.

ON/OFF : Electricity

Jings, me too, this is a real toughie, scouring the interweb for songs relating "on" with "off". My initial idea had been to find equal and opposite songs. Like You Can Keep Your Hat Off as a riposte to  Tom Jones, Eat Stuff on the Sidewalk as a riposte to the Cramps, but no such luck. It's enough to make me go off on one, a peculiarly english phrase that would make a wonderful song title, meaning to lose my rag or blow my fuse. Which, like a lightbulb in my head, gave me the answer. OK, abetted by the illustration to the side of this column. A switch. The ultimate off/on being of electricity. (Let's ignore water as that would "faucet", boom boom!!)

So then, Electricity, the initial single from UK synthpop pioneers, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, back in 1979. Inspired by Kraftwerk's earlier Radioactivity, this song is a paean to the wastage of the earth's resources, truly ironic in a band who relied so totally thereupon. (OMITD unplugged would just be singing!) Over this side of the pond it seriously seemed, for a while, as if guitars may have had their day, such was the plethora of electronic keyboard bands bursting forth, from the Human League through Depeche Mode, Tubeway Army through Soft Cell. OMITD did have a bass guitar to complement the drum machines and synthesisers, but I was never sure whether this was for real, or a prop for the vocalist to fill his hands with. Suspicious at first, it wasn't long before I was converted. It was touch and go whether I preferred this band or the Human League, they were certainly the two leaders in my pack. I don't know how well, if at all, this style translated stateside, or even if any impact was felt at all. My usual sources, thanks, Wiki, suggest little.

Riding the crest of their wave, OMITD followed this single, and the album it led, with the even better Enola Gay, about the plane that dropped the initial H bombs, perhaps the ultimate on/off, before a brace of songs about Joan of Arc (both, confusingly, of the same name), no moon in june dilettantes these. Frustratingly, I think it was this arguably cod-intellectualism that pissed me eventually off, along with the expansion to include more traditional instrumentation, guitars, real drums, brass. The band split, Paul Humphreys, synths and straight hair, leaving Andy McCluskey, bass and curly hair, to lead whatever session men were about him. Even that imploded, before a chance request to do some gigs brought the original duo together and back to life in the mid noughties, a decade or so ago. How do they sound? Not a clue. I haven't had the heart since about '83. But what a heart it was then. And we are supposed to be conserving power, aren't we. Or most of us.....

Start here!