I recently stumbled upon a website featuring the reminiscences of producer Mike Thorne. Amongst the fascinating essays on the site is a production note centred on the recording of the band’s first album ‘Non Stop Erotic Cabaret’.In terms of the history of electronic music, this album is of prime importance. For the first time electronic music was becoming more than just a curio obsessed over by an underground cult. Soft Cell took the purely electronic formula and thrust it firmly into the pop charts all over the world.
Yes Kraftwerk wrote some great purely electronic albums in the 1970’s but they didn’t achieve the success of ‘Non Stop Erotic Cabaret’. Similarly, Gary Numan had topped the charts with his electronic sound for some time, but all of his work included a conventional rhythm section with an electric bass and a drummer.
Mike Thorne and Soft Cell were amongst the first who ditched the conventional drummer and let their drum machine do the work. In 1981 this was a bold move for a group attempting to achieve commercial success.
Thorne gives us a fascinating insight into the production of early electronic music and this site comes highly recommended. If nothing else it has put ‘Non Stop Erotic Cabaret’ back on my play lists and that can’t be a bad thing.
