ZANG TUMMM TUMB ARTICLES “the first draft of history”

Onetwo

Onetwo are a new, provocative, deeply luscious and theatrical electro-pop group consisting of two performers who between them, have amassed almost 20 million record sales with their former groups, and whose experience at recording, singing and playing dramatic and original songs is second and none.

One half of Onetwo is keyboard player/producer Paul Humphreys, who was one half of acclaimed electro-pop pioneers Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), who began their life as an exotic Liverpool item uniquely signed to legendary enigmatic Manchester label Factory Records. Inspired by German electronic music and punk enterprise, OMD established many of the rules and regulations all electro-pop groups must follow — the combination of brilliantly organised programming, technological wit, melodic ingenuity, futurist flair and a dark, subversive sense of humour. Their image was created in collaboration with one of the most innovative designers in modern music and image making, Peter Saville, and was distantly related in it’s use of secrecy, luxury, codes and intrigue to the likes of Joy Division, New Order, Depeche Mode and Magazine. OMD took their imaginative ideas about smart, hard synthesizer pop and cunning, artful image into first the British charts, then the European charts, and then right into the American charts. They became known as one of the most distinctive and unique of all the 80s electro-groups.

The other half of Onetwo is singer/producer Claudia Brücken, who was one quarter of the cult glam-goth electro-group Propaganda, who were formed in Dusseldorf, Germany, the home city of Kraftwerk, from whom they inherited many of their ideas about form, content and image. Their debut single Dr Mabuse was produced by the leading producer of the 1980s, Trevor Horn, and it saw them hailed — in a good way — as Abba from hell. It was electronic music definitely rooted in a Germanic tradition, from Can to DAF via Nina Hagen, but filtered through punk, post-punk and the electro music of bands such as Depeche Mode, Human League, Japan and Simple Minds. They collaborated with Horn, Stephen Lipson and Japan’s David Sylvian on their debut album A Secret Wish, acknowledged as one of the great lost classic albums of the 80s. Claudia then formed Åct with underground electronic maestro Thomas Leer, and their first single Snobbery and Decay was a stunning techno- deconstruction of the 80s obsession with style and money.