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Album Reviews

Joy Electric is a couple of guys who dress like it's the '60s and play synth pop music like it's the '80s. While listening to Robot Rock I couldn't help thinking that I was hearing Men Without Hats' "Pop Goes the World" over and over again. Being a fan of this particular brand of bubblegum synth rock, I'll admit that I'm very taken with Robot Rock. Besides digging their wonderfully kitschy music, I admire Joy Electric's dedication to the lost art of analog synthesizer programming - and these guys are hardcore. Their liner notes make a big deal of the point that there are NO drum machines, NO samples and NO computers to be found on this CD, just Moog Prodigys and the like. Songs like "Sugar Rush", "I'm Your Boy" and "Joy Electric Land" will make you want to trip down a daisy scented path in spring, but songs like "Monosynth", "The Robot Beat (We're Back)" and "(We Are) Taking Over" are more "munching-on-sour-kraut-while-listening-to-Kraftwerk"-type tracks.

~ Noah Wane

"We're back" sings Ronnie Martin and, yes, it's difficult to dispute that he is, bringing with him yet another disc of his highly idiosyncratic brand of synthpop. The image has changed - he's ditched the Count Ronald look of We Are The Music Makers and gone back to something that harks back to the days of his debut, Melody, albeit with some really serious sideburns. Yep, you have to hand it to Ronnie, his appearance is every bit as distinctive as his music.

The album's ten tracks all tread fairly familiar Joy Electric territory lyrically, mixing songs about analog synths, romantic lurve, and Christianity in roughly equal measure. Musically, it's a continuation of the determinedly purist sound that Ronnie has purveyed since We Are The Music Makers. The band is Ronnie and Jeff Cloud (who has been in the Joy Electric background since the beginning, but only gets band member status on this release), and the instruments are synthesizers. That's all - Ronnie goes one step further than those who eschew the use of non-electronic instruments, and makes a point of not using samplers, drum machines, and computers. One man and his Moog. Well, OK, two men and their Moogs. At this rate, I expect the next Joy Electric album to be produced using a single oscillator.

However, from the sound of the first track, "Sugar Rush", I have to assume Ronnie's twisted the truth a little, and he should really have listed "tape machine" as an instrument too. Why? I find it very difficult to believe that anybody could have played some of the synth lines in this track in real time, since the thing barrels along at something between 180 and 200 BPM and manages to squeeze some surprisingly intricate synth work into its two and a half minutes. As with all up-tempo Joy Electric material, it's relentlessly happy and energetic, and suits its title - you'd need to take a couple of pounds of the stuff to get the sort of rush suggested by the track's tempo though. The next track, "Monosynth", is a lot slower, and has a rather moody atmosphere compared to most Joy Electric. As the title suggests, it's Ronnie singing the praises of his monosynth. There's really not much need to describe the music itself - it's Joy Electric, hence it's all synthetic, and filled with all those "wasp trapped in a tin can" synths and arcade-like bleeps we've come to know and love.

"I'm Your Boy" is the first of Ronnie's religious tracks. From my own atheist perspective, these don't bother me in the slightest - you certainly can't accuse him of being preachy. Far from it, the more obviously Christian tracks on the album are straightforward expressions of Ronnie's own faith. I've never had any problem with people singing about their own beliefs, morals, sexuality, or whatever - it's when they start trying to push it on me that I get upset, and nobody could accuse Joy Electric's music of doing that. OK, soapboxing on soapboxing in music over, back to the review.

Both "Joy Electric Land" and "Storybook Love" fall into the "boy meets girl" category of Ronnie's output, both are up-tempo, and so on. Oh, the former does remind me a little of "The Cobbler" from the "Old Wives Tales" EP, but a lot of Joy Electric material reminds me of other Joy Electric material, so that's OK.

Next up is "The Robot Beat (We're Back)", which gets filed under "songs about synths". However, Ronnie seems a little more annoyed than usual this time around, and takes the opportunity to get a few words in against those who dismiss synthpop. I'm presuming this is a reaction not only to the negative reception to much of Ronnie's purist synthpop sound, but also to the anti-electronica backlash that's built up recently. Oh, and there might be a teensy little religious reference in there, although it's not entirely clear whether Ronnie's equating "persecution" of synthpop with persecution of Christians, or being specific about Joy Electric who are criticised for their sound and their religion, or something else entirely.

After this, another three tracks of typical up-tempo Joy Electric synthpop, then finally the ever-so-slightly sinister "(We Are) Taking Over". It's in similar vein to "The Robot Beat". Again, it's difficult to tell whether it's religion or synthpop or a bit of both that he's singing about, but who really cares - read it whichever way you want to.

So, all in all, another excellent Joy Electric album, albeit a rather short one. Ronnie shows no signs of changing his music to suit anybody else, or to increase his popularity, and it's rather reassuring to find an artist who is producing such uncompromising material and has no intention of stopping. The negative side of this, of course, is that if you didn't like Joy Electric's work in the past, you're almost certainly not going to like this one either. However, if you've been exposed to Ronnie's music in the past, and liked it, this is more of the same. It does suffer from the same problem as all of the Joy Electric releases that I've heard to date - eventually all of the songs blur together, and there does seem to be a definite limit on the number of sounds that Ronnie can produce with his equipment. Still, it's highly enjoyable in small doses, and the album's exactly the right length for me to listen to it all the way through while I'm driving home at night. Favourite tracks? "Sugar Rush" and "Monosynth", definitely.

~ Al Crawford