One of the founders of contemporary pop and electronic music joins us for an in-depth conversation with Dave Clarke.
Following up on our recent announcements about ADE LIVE and the focus on Morroco we have some very exciting news about ADE's day program. Electronic music pioneer Gary Numan will be present for a dialogue with Dave Clarke.
If you were a kid who loved electronic music in the late 70s, there really wasn't that much on offer, especially if you preferred pop to hippy prog noodling à la Tangerine Dream. Nonetheless, Jean-Michel Jarre and Kraftwerk rightly get huge credit for forging a new way of making tunes that hit the mainstream charts, but in terms of lasting impact, they are at the very least equalled by Numan.
Numan was as much a punk as he was a fan of synthesisers, a combination that created tight, insidiously memorable songs, sung by someone who sounded urgent, lost and more-than-a-little alien. His breakthrough single Are Friends Electric was followed by a string of hits including Cars, This Wreckage, and I Die:You Die. He is also widely credited with being one of the early pioneers of sampling, and more recently, releases by Armand van Helden (Koochy) and The Sugababes (Freak Like Me), that sampled Cars and Are Friends Electric respectively, bought his work to a younger audience. Numan is seen as an inspiration for a wide range of artists, including Radiohead, Foo Figthers, Nine Inch Nails, Moloko and GZA.
These days a thoroughly reinvigorated Numan tours the world and plays major festivals including Coachella and Bestival. He collaborated with Jean-Michel Jarre on Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise, and last year was presented with the Moog Innovation Award by Moog Music. “Replacing guitars with heavily effected synthesizers,” Moog Music notes, “Numan’s early work is almost single handedly responsible for introducing post-punk electronica into the popular consciousness, while propelling synth music beyond Prog Rock to inspire the wave of 80s synth pop that soon followed. 2016 also saw him being given an Ivor Novello award for his inspirational role in music.
Date, time and venue to be announced. Gary Numan will also perform at Paradiso during ADE on Saturday October 21 (accessible for ADE Pass holders).
Tickets
ADE’s Passes are available here. Not sure which ticket to buy? Here's everything you need to know.
Watch Gary Numan in the trailer of Planet Elektro, a documentary about the origin of electronic music that premiered at ADE 2016:
Additional info: