New single – ELECTRIC MAINLINE – Don’t You Know
out now on Northern Star Records
Electric Mainline are effectively Scott Causer, or as you may remember him from his heady days in Rhyl as Hot Scott, one time bassist with Psycho Sexual Sex Terrestrials and member of one gig tricksters Pig, Surfin Birds and Fantastic. All four bands were good for a giggle, one even had some inspired moments (and members!), but it was all pretty much buy today, throwaway tomorrow stuff.
Scott escaped the demoralising clutches of Rhyl and headed for the bright lights and big city (stopping off in Leighton Buzzard) and ultimately founded Northern Star Records where he has released a (hopefully) endless catalogue of Class A psychedelic music.
Not content with simply taking the plaudits for the excellent Psychedelica compilation series (Psy5 soon to be released), amongst others. Scott is Electric Mainline and after a period of inactivity they/he are/is back with this splendid single.
Available on 7″ vinyl, CD and download, Don’t You Know is basically one song and four remixes of it. A bit like the trend of the 90s when all and sundry would have the B-sides of their singles remixed by, well; all and sundry, Electric Mainline have done the same here.
Unlike those releases in the 90s where you’d have 4 remixes of a song, each being 9 minutes long and totally pointless after the 2nd track unless you were on trendy drugs, Electric Mainline have carefully chosen their remixers.
Let’s talk about the unmixed song first. It’s a low key affair, it’s shoegaze without the shoes, it threatens plenty with its opening loud double tracked guitars but it doesn’t get going, catchy enough, but very frustrating. New Order-ish vocals with the punchline ‘All I wanna do is fuck this situation,’ that’ll guarantee no airplay, but do we need airplay in this digital age?
This ‘unmixed’ A-side is almost like an offering; the raw material for what you are about to hear. Flip the vinyl over and quite rightfully taking it’s place as the B-side on this 2 track 7″ offering, is the HiTS remix (that’s Head in The Shed), also known as Matty from Swansea, who’s been quiet of late (in this site’s circle at least). HiTS rewrites this track, takes it apart and slams it back together with nothing short of high quality (as you’d expect). It’s banging and at a little over 4 minutes, not too long.
Coming in on Track 3 on the CD, and a bit of a coup for Electric Mainline is The Deep Cut remix, with a very Joy Division Love Will Tear Us Apart style opening, complete transformation from tracks 1 and 2, with nice feedback waves.
The Millrock Remix at a whopping 2.14 minutes with breakbeats is ace, sounds like a souped up Depeche Mode (is that the same vocalist or have they completely done their own version?).
I never thought I’d ever write a review (or this long) on basically 5 versions of one song! But hey! I guess the Teenage Sin (and final) remix is how I would’ve put the single out myself, loud, with lots of feedback.
This single has been described so well that you don’t need to buy it now!! In case you’re not convinced, Buy It Now
