Full Description
A ROUGH TRADE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025
The amazing story of the home studio that helped launch some of Britain's most beloved bands.
The Sheffield space age began in 1961, when local mechanic Ken Patten won a tape-recording competition by recreating the sound of a rocket launch using a pencil and a bicycle pump.
In the decades that followed, the makeshift home studio he constructed became the launch pad for a group of young musicians who would shape the futuristic sound of 1980s pop. The Human League, Heaven 17, Pulp, ABC and others made their early recordings with Ken, whose DIY ethic was the perfect fit for a city facing industrial decline but teeming with ideas.
Studio Electrophonique tells the story of a generation seeking new frontiers in music, using everything they could lay their hands on - from science fiction novels to glam rock, Dada art and cheap electronics - to get there. Drawing on original interviews with Jarvis Cocker, Martyn Ware, Mark White and others, it brings to light a world of humour, charm, creativity and unfounded yet undaunted self-belief.
Contents
Preface: young meteors
1 Death of a futurist
2 Ballifield year zero
3 The analogue trace
4 Untrained / undaunted
5 The décor of tomorrow's hell
6 War chants
7 This is tomorrow
8 Knock three times and ask for Big Jake
9 Musical Vomit
10 Adolphus rising
11 New ruins
12 No illegal connections
13 Fast products
14 Notes from a condemned terrace
15 Dreams of leaving
16 The wall in the head
17 Buried dreams
Index
