Insert

ASTRID

Astrid’s impressive debut solo album Boy For You does not manage to make immediate commercial inroads (first single I Am The Boy For You failed to breach the Top 75) then her vocal contribution to Electronics' Twisted Tenderness album could do the trick. Astrid met Electronic producer/guitarist Johnny Marr during rehearsals at Wiltshire’s Real World studios and was so impressed with her voice she ended up on five tracks.

Nude Records managing director Saul Galpern has stuck with the former Goya Dress front woman Astrid Williamson because, as he says, people who see the genius singer/ songwriter are baffled she is not yet a star.

US PRESS RELEASE

KOCH Records to Release Long Awaited Marr/Sumner Collaboration, Electronic's Twisted Tenderness on September 12

New York - KOCH Records, a division of KOCH Entertainment, is releasing the Johnny Marr and Bernard Sumner collaboration, Electronic's Twisted Tenderness on September 12^th in North America. The album was released to massive critical acclaim in England last year, but has been unavailable to the hundreds of thousands of stateside Electronic fans until now.  This deluxe edition includes three bonus tracks.

KOCH President, Bob Frank decided to pick up the album because "this is a beautiful collection of songs by two gents from two legendary bands.  The music needs to be available for the bands fans.  It's an honor to be able to work with these guys."

 
"It's got an energy about it," Johnny Marr says, "which is something you can't really design.  You can strategize as much as you like, but unless what you do has got the x factor - the moments that make you go 'yes!' even as they first come to you - there's no way you can expect it to have that effect on anyone else." Twisted Tenderness, the third album by Marr and Bernard Sumner as Electronic, is a record that's going to make a lot of people go 'yes!' 

Formed in 1989 in Manchester, England, Electronic was one of the first supergroups from post-punk Great Britain. The group is the on-off project formed by New Order's Bernard Sumner and Johnny Marr, former guitarist of the Smiths. The duo released "Getting Away with It" in December 1989, with both Sumner and Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys on vocals. The single just missed the Top Ten in England, but was the end of Electronic for over two years; Sumner and Tennant returned to their respective groups while Marr played on albums by The The and Billy Bragg. Electronic's sophomore single "Get the Message" finally appeared in April 1991, and an eponymous debut album followed in June. The non-album single "Disappointed" was released just over a year later. Sumner then returned to New Order to record their sixth album Republic, while Marr returned to his sideman role with The The and The Pretenders. The duo reunited to record again -- this time with help from former Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos -- and released Raise the Pressure in July 1996.

After a busy few years, that found Sumner guesting on the Chemical Brothers' Surrender and recording a new New Order song for The Beach soundtrack and Marr working on his own new band The Healers as well as his solo work, the two got busy on Twisted Tenderness.

The album sounds free, not just of the prevailing anxieties that currently surround the music industry, but also of the burden of expectation which has been such a factor in Johnny and Bernard's previous collaborations. Twisted Tenderness is head and shoulder above some of 2000's more loudly trumpeted returns.  It shimmers, it startles and on occasion it rocks like a beast.