You Can Choose Fission Or Fusion, Obviously

One of the lovely consequences of daily blogging is discovering (or rediscovering) music by artists you've name checked in a post. Today's case in point is Rico Conning. 

 

Rico's has been a familiar name for almost as long as I've been buying records. The first Erasure single I ever bought was the 12" of Sometimes in 1986. Not the regular 12" though, I was drawn to the limited edition featuring Rico Conning's remixes of Sometimes and Sexuality. Still my favourite versions of both songs to this day.

 

A couple of months later, Rico delivered another brace of remixes, this time of A Question Of Time and Black Celebration by Depeche Mode. I was a huge Depeche Mode fan at the time, so it was perhaps inevitable that I'd snap up the 12" singles, but these versions are brilliantly bonkers.

Rico's production and remix credits are vast: a regular credit on other Mute label releases by Wire, Laibach and Renegade Soundwave; solo remixes including The Anal Staircase by Coil, Happy Birthday (Yet Another) by The Bambi Slam and Meltdown by John Moore; a regular collaborator with William Orbit (both remixes and as Torch Song) and Daniel Miller, the list goes on.

 

I admit that I haven't kept up with Rico's 21st century achievements but a reunion with Danny Briottet (Renegade Soundwave) on a remix of afterglow by Martyn Walsh and Simon Lyon featuring Claudia Caraffini in 2021 inevitably grabbed my attention.

 

 

2022 saw the release of This Is Something by Summerisle Six, aka Sean Johnston with Jo Bartlett (another recent "rediscovery"). Closing out the 4-track EP was an epic Rico Conning remix, described in the promo thus:

 

"There are no words to describe Rico Conning’s mix other than to say this 10 min journey has to be heard to be believed. A genuine Balearic gem."

 

This is not hyperbole, believe me. 

  

But it was my recent selection of remix gems, ending with Rico and William Orbit's reworking of Zobi La Mouche by Les Negresses Vertes that belatedly switched me on to Rico's two solo albums on Bandcamp, released in January 2018 and February 2017 respectively. 

range drifter is a 10-track selection of treated guitar pieces, recorded, layered, amended and edited over several years but providing a cohesive collection of sounds. Songs range from two to ten minutes in length, travelling through the same country as Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and Christian Fennesz at his more abrasive. 

 

Companion pieces serenA and serenB are especially satisfying sides of the same coin: the first channeling Neil Young's ArcWeld, the second beautifully delicate, flowing, calming. 

Rico discovered seventeen11 on an old cassette labelled "17th November 1979", edited the "long and meandering" original into 4 minutes 44 seconds of music that called to mind Matt Johnson's early experiments with The The. Stirring stuff indeed.

 

The aforementioned serenB points the way back to 2017's Frogmore, comprising four long-form pieces including the title track, which clocks in at nearly sixteen minutes. Again, Rico has created layered, intricate musical suites that, in old money, would comfortably occupy a side of vinyl.

Album opener Mustang is named after Rico's first electric guitar and sounds like the soundtrack to a long-lost movie about a road trip across the USA. Believe me, it's been road tested in the past week or so on work commutes across the Cotswolds, the Forest of Dean and other beautiful spans of Gloucestershire and it works just as perfectly there.

 

  

Just when you think it can't get any better, with less than two minutes to go, Rico's vocals appear out of nowhere, a pattern repeated on three of the four songs. Until now, I'd had no idea of Rico's earlier role as singer and co-founder of post-punk band The Lines from 1977 to 1982. But that's offered up another rabbit hole to dive into.

Both range drifter and Frogmore are available on Bandcamp as name your price digital purchases. In retrospect, I feel guilty that I only paid roughly £7.50 (converted from US dollars) for the pair, given how much I've enjoyed them since. Not to ease my conscience but because they're two very satisfying albums, head on over and buy your own copy now!