Flex plus bonus tracks, and New Toy mini-LP
THE OVERVIEW
Lene’s second album is, in my view, just about as delightful as her first — more strong songs, even more great singing, and more of the great sound and mainstream-friendly yet angular pop music that charmed the listener with the last album. There’s still nothing quite like the formidable combination of Lene and Les and their original band lineup of Nick Plytas, Jeff Smith, Ron François, and Bobby Irwin.
There’s also little bit of further growth in the songwriting, performance and art direction, continuing to define goth before it was cool. Throw in another batch of similarly great tunes, even more professionally produced, and a smattering of big-time commercial success (more on that shortly), and you basically have the perfect sequel record.
THE ALBUM
Flex opens with a low-end sonic hum you could easily imagine Kraftwerk employing on one of their earlier albums, with just a hint of actual birdsong before Lene brings in her incredible birdsong call before launching into the song (called, of course, “Bird Song”) proper for the first verse. This is followed by the signature male chorus’ sonic wall over the lyrics of a spurned lover, and lovely “organ” to add to the Goth atmosphere. “Bird Song” would have been right at home on the first album, and closes with more of her incredible bird vocal.
One thing you notice immediately is the improved sound and more sophisticated production, which I’ll credit to Roger Bechirian and Alan Winstanley, both of whom were names frequently seen on many great New Wave records of the era, especially on Stiff and Sire. The pair really “get” what makes Lene and the band great, and plays up their strengths for maximum possible radio- and headphone-friendliness.
“What Will I Do Without You” continues the heroine-as-victim motif, this time, worrying what might happen if her love ever left her. The song replaces the organ with some piano and more of Lene doing more of her own bv’s, but that Slavic-style male chorus is still present. This is another contribution by Chris Judge Smith, and it has “single” written all over it. It really focuses on Lene’s performance, and throws in some strangely underrated (synth) horns here and there that probably should have been played up a bit more.
The first hit single for this album was “Angels,” and it keeps that Goth-y Eastern European vibe going but not focused on a specific lost love and yet still fixated on potential death. This of course contrasts with the uptempo, upbeat and generally danceable groove. This is where the band starts to branch out (a little, and I mean just a little). The contrast between Lene’s swooping vocals and softer, more vulnerable verse singing is quite seductive and effective.
“The Night” was a cover from other songwriters and a sleeper hit for Lene, not really coming into its full appreciation until years after release, with some help from a Marc Almond cover of the song, which refocused some attention on the original. There is also “US mix” of “The Night,” but we’ll come back to that later as it is included here as a bonus track. This one features a really great, short chorus that contrasts so well with the dark and eerie mood of the verses and sub-chorus.
In the hands of any other artist, the first four songs being about a love falling apart would have been repetitive. Lene manages to find different viewpoints to cover such similar topics, and with Les carefully giving each song a different feel with the same players really pays off. This one has some bells and sax to throw into the band’s bass-leading, synth-augmented sound.
That said, the fatalistic theme does start to wear a little on the fifth song, “You Can’t Kill Me,” again by Judge Smith, but it is buoyed by some funny lyrics and a more novel arrangement. The vocals and bv’s are really front and center on this one, and it also has a little nod to Japan — a second gesture to that country after the Japanese version of “I Think We’re Alone Now.”
The mortality subtext doesn’t let up on “Egghead,” with its very sing-song style, but the enthusiasm of the vocal style and upbeat music, as with many of the songs we’ve heard thus far, keep the listener entertained and holding despondency at bay.
Finally, on track 7, “Wonderful One” breaks the mold and finds Lene in a happy mood, sort of. This one features a more jaunty riffs, nice organ fills, and more birdsong-like Lene bv’s. It’s a close as Lene gets to a straightforward love song.
“Monkey Talk” follows in its official recorded version, which the live takes elsewhere in the box set follow closely. I’m still not sure what the song is actually about, except that she seems to be comparing mankind and monkeykind as closer cousins than even the Leakeys would have it. There’s plenty of “monkey chittering” from Lene, and a great Soviet-style “worker’s playtime” chorus.
This takes us to “Joan,” which keeps up the relentlessly catchy dance-tempo music even as Lene sings of the obsession and sacrifice of the historical subject of the song. “Like Joan of Arc, you must be brave/and listen to your heart/Imagination is essential to creative art” is a great twist on persuing your vision at all costs, though of course it didn’t pan out so well for Ms. d’Arc …
The album closes with “The Freeze,” which uses a sonic moonscape, and rather different two-tracked vocals from Lene in what is the spookiest and slowest song on the album. My joke about this when the album originally came out was that this could easily be the Soviet Union’s national anthem.
That said, if you’re old enough to remember the Soviet Union — and the threat of nuclear war that hung over the world in the closing decades of the last century (and now trying to stage a comeback …), you’ll get the vibe the band was going for on this one.
BONUS TRACKS — FLEX
“The Night (US mix)” — in addition to a slightly different mix, the record company (or someone) added ska horns to the sub-chorus, which works well.
“What Will I Do Without You (single version)” — the name implies that this is just a different mix of the album version. It’s not — it’s the demo (generally referred by this box set as the “original version,” but not in this case). Among the many differences is Lene’s singing (a half-octave lower!), very restrained bv’s, more reliance on synth, bass and drums, and generally a far more basic version.
“Bird Song (edit)” — by contrast, this single version of “Bird Song” is identical to the album track except it’s 30 seconds shorter. They cut the vocal birdsong intro and went straight into the song proper. It also fades out quicker then the album version, but keeps some of Lene’s haunting angry birdsong at the end.
“Details (Original Version)” — Having these demos scattered around the set is interesting, since they are usually located close to the finished versions, but two things come across very well in these cruder, less polished version: that Lene is an incredible vocal talent even without much in the way of polished production, and that Les and her bandmates can put together extremely good demos that communicate the design of the song very well. I love their use of occasional bits of stopping cold as a musical punctuation mark.
As for the song itself, its a jaunty number that misses out (in this version) on the trademark Slavic male supporting vocals. It features a dreamy lyric where Lene laments her fate and demands the “details” of the plan for her life.
“New Toy” — this was another song, this time from new (but sadly temporary) band member Thomas Dolby that was a popular (irresistible more like) single on original release, and the extended version we’ll get to in a minute was a solid club hit, and once again found a second life later when US retailer Target licensed it for a massive ad campaign and millions of people said “What is that song and how can I get a copy?!”.
This one is solid gold from the first note, focusing on a mostly-straightforward but perfectly-put vocal from Lene and incredibly solid bv’s from the boys (though less Slavic in style) and music from the band, including more excellent piano and synth work brought more to the fore by Dolby, who had joined up with the band for a brief time.
“Cats Away” — another energetic instrumental, but this time with some snazzy (synth) horn sounds to jazz it up.
“New Toy (Extended Version)” — The intro, first verse and chorus (sans vocal) serve as the “extension” before the vocals get underway. Thankfully they kept the saucy sound effects of the first lines (Les’ purr, and the whip sounds). The middle-eight gets and “breakdown” type selection of isolated instruments and bv’s are added before Dolby’s keys come back into play. An even longer version of the first and best song about conspicuous consumption and consumer capitalism run amok
NEW TOY (US MINI LP)
It’s quite peculiar that for this box set, the New Toy “Mini-LP” as they call it took the title track and put it among the Flex bonus tracks, leaving us without the title track to this EP here, where it belongs. Instead, we only get the second side of the original record, and slightly out of order to boot.
“Cats Away” — a gentler intro that ramps up to speed real quick and a punchier sound with real horns (played by Lene!), it’s still a heckuva swinging number, but an instrumental is a strange choice for the first track on this altered version of the US “mini-LP,” which Stiff/Epic issued to play for time while Les and Lene took a rest (losing the band in the process, regrettably). Lene writes in the booklet that they felt under pressure from Stiff, like some of the other artists, to come up with more “hit singles.” Lene says that they then did a lot of short sessions with different producers.
The lack of a regular band did result in Lene’s work getting some fresh new sounds, but sadly a lot of eclectism that characterized her previous work was reduced, though of course you can’t eliminate it entirely.
“Details” — The polished version of “Details” gets a glow-up from the demo, and makes for a nice change of subject matter. This is a far more polished production as you might expect, but still sticks pretty close to the original.
“Never Never Land” — a song from Jimmie O’Neill, but certainly Lene makes it her own (as she generally does with all her covers). It’s a lovely song, not single material but a well-chosen addition that also features stronger vocal contributions from Les.
Because the final two tracks of the five-track “New Toy (US mini-LP)” were just demos that got revamped later on, only the three songs from Side Two of the record were included on this disc, with the two “Side One” tracks saved for accompanying Disc 4, the No Man’s Land album, as bonus tracks.
Next time: The Wrap Up, and the breakdown of the Stiff relationship
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