Client, female UK electro duo with Dubstarís Sarah Blackwood and Kate Holmes, an ex-member of Frazier Chorus.
tbj: What's your definition of the "80s sound?"
Kate: I think '80s music has kind of influenced everything really. New OrdeR's "Blue Monday" is a classic, and everybody wants to make a "Blue Monday." There's a story that people tell that New Order said, "If there were no New Order, the electro people would have never listened to rock music, and the rockers would have never stepped on the dance floor."
Sarah: I think the scene was somehow quite bad in the West in the 1980s, but the sound and the beats [from that era] were definitively the father of dance music. If you listen to Kraftwerk (the pioneering German electronic band from the 1970s), you will hear their sound coming from the future. I think they are great!
tbj: What do you think of Depeche Mode's new album Playing the Angel?
Sarah: We've listened to Depeche Mode, but we haven't heard their new album yet because we've been doing gigs recently.
Kate: I think Depeche Mode is great and their best album is Violator. I like many of their songs, like Personal Jesus, World in My Eyes, Enjoy the Silence etc. – I think their new album should be nice. Depeche Mode's guitarist Martin L. Gore played on our new album, City.
tbj: Tell us about your new album?
Sarah: City is Client's second album, and compared with our last one, it has more of a rock sound. We put some new stuff in it, like the '80s beats as we mentioned before. I really want to recommend the song Down to the Underground, in which we invited the very popular British band The Libertine's Pete Doherty to join us. This is Client's new style.
Kate: We play some classical rock beat anthems during our show – it's our "Death Disco" party style from back in London.
tbj: What kind of music are you into now?
Kate: I really like "new disco," French new disco especially, like Daft Punk and Mirwais.
tbj: Speaking of Mirwais, they are influenced by Madonna. What do you think her new album Confessions on a Dance Floor?
Kate: I love Madonna, I think Confessions on a Dance Floor is amazing, kind of like French dirty disco. I really, really like it.
Client performed at Tango last month
(That's Beijing January 23, 2006)
