The Shimmering Mystery of Tony Mansfield

Birthday salute to a reclusive British creator of visionary pop music

“To get that medium between weirdness and commerciality; if you achieve that, it’s new music. It’s all about balance.”—Tony Mansfield, (Sounds magazine, 1980).

Out of the mists of southwest London music acts arose the band End of the World. They tag-teamed with the pop-funk/New Wave Nick Straker Band before settling into New Musik. Lead singer-guitarist-keyboardist-producer and main songwriter Tony Mansfield was joined by the rhythm section of bassist Tony Hibbert and drummer Phil Towner (sideman for The Buggles)—who bed-rocked the tracks so well he was sometimes used to replace drum machines on sessions with other artists. Joined by classically trained keyboardist Clive Gates, Mansfield made their chronometric music feel warm and friendly, presaging would become known as Synthpop in the 1980s. Credit also goes to the engineering of Phil Hammond (who went on to a substantial career mixing dance hits). What emerged was as if they all said, “Let’s sound like The Beatles, David Bowie, Genesis, and Kraftwerk were all in one band.” Case in point (my favorite New Musik song), “Sanctuary”

New Musik’s songs were styled in a Beatlefied-British Pop tradition, possessed with irresistible melodies and bonded by a future-primitive alchemy of organic instruments coated with thick electronics—lush, synthesized atmospherics, “sonar” pings, punchy electronic percussion, backwards sounds and echoes, and shimmering guitars—it all became known as “The Tony Mansfield Sound.” The Bowie/Kraftwerk influence is obvious, and the Genesis flavor comes through on several tracks, notably “A Map of You”…

“Changing Minds”…

and “Traps”…

“New Musik’s cleanly defined records could act as a kind of purifying balm—a fresh, futuristic, uncluttered, pain-free, self-contained, quietly industrious world of science and straight lines – a World Of Water, even, or some kind of Sanctuary – into which you could retreat, cleanse yourself, and conceal the burning shame of your puny human cravings for sex and crisps.”—Oregano Rathbone/Record Collector Magazine 23/4/18

Mansfield’s lyrics ranged from dystopian sci-fi to a childlike, spiritual awe of God and cosmos. He mingled Biblical symbols with oblique, first-person observations, vocalized with a John Lennon-ish flair while channeling Peter Gabriel, Florian Schneider, and even R2D2. His electric guitar style imagined Steve Hackett as a surf rocker, but Mansfield favored a glistening acoustic 12-string guitar. This complimented his gleaming production motif. In the studio I refer to “The Tony Mansfield Sound” for mixes: Layering fat keyboards is one thing—getting my guitars to sound as sharp and buoyant as Mansfield’s is another. The closest I’ve come is this:

Epic Records signed New Musik in 1979, back-stopping them for 3 albums in the UK, several singles, videos, TV appearances, festival gigs, and European shows opening for Elvis Costello. New Musik excited fans of Electronica, New Wave Power Pop, Prog-Rock, and Synth-Pop. Frank Zappa toasted them, and critics put them on par with The Cars, The Cure, Split Enz, Talk Talk, and XTC.

The first New Musik album FROM A TO B, was released right as Mansfield’s wife was about to give birth to their daughter Maria (who later turned up on Tony’s e-Musik project). Mansfield’s younger brother Lee featured occasionally on New Musik's output, most notably the dialogue that closes the song “On Islands”—the bouncy plea for interplanetary curiosity, merging folk rock with synthpop years before Beck got the idea.

FROM A TO B charted in the UK and was followed with their excellent 2nd LP, ANYWHERE.

In America, Epic issued SANCTUARY, a compilation of the 2 UK LPs—which was how I discovered them, thanks to a co-worker in a San Francisco record store. The (now rare) 10” EP STRAIGHT LINES was also heavily promoted in the US.

Yet, despite respectable chart hits in the European markets, there weren’t enough American sales to suit Epic, and New Musik was dropped from the label.

In 1981 they became a 3-piece, with drummer/percussionist Cliff Venner replacing the departing Hibbert and Towner. New Musik’s final album, WARP (released only in Europe, Japan, and the UK) was an experimental shift into funky electronics and icier tones, with themes of redemptive love framed with degrees of harsh realism. Their oddball “If The Planet Doesn’t Mind” became an international underground favorite (covered by a few artists), and the spoken word instrumental “Here Comes the People” is a happy synth-update on Archie Bell & The Drells “Tighten Up.” The Kraftwerkian “Train on Twisted Tracks” is classic Mansfield songwriting, but the most curious aspect of the album are two different songs entitled “All You Need is Love”—one is an awkward Beatles cover; the other is an original that is not only great song craft, Mansfield’s lyrics motivate us to ask, “If all you need is love, why don’t you do it?”

New Musik quietly disbanded in 1982. Hibbert briefly played with Bruce Cockburn before leaving the music business altogether, while Towner keeps busy as a drummer-for-hire. Gates still works with Mansfield, and they’re both regarded as champion pioneers of sequencers, emulators, classic synths, drum triggers, and the Fairlight CMI. In 1989 Mansfield formed a label 100% Love Records Ltd., and his work output into the 80s and 90s is that of a successful jobbing producer. He went on to work on major film soundtracks and bring the “Tony Mansfield Sound” to After the Fire, A-ha (shown here)

Aztec Camera, The B52’s, Miguel Bosé, Captain Sensible, Sheena Easton, Naked Eyes, Yukhiro Takahashi (Yellow Magic Orchestra), Mari Wilson, as well as unreleased projects with Chris Andrews (Roger Daltrey, David Essex, Davy Jones/Monkees) and George McFarlane (Kylie Minogue, The Quick). Some of Mansfield’s commercial victories include all of the Naked Eyes hits (“Always Something There to Remind Me,” “Promises Promises”),

the #1 1997 album PUNTOS CARDINALES by Ana Torroja, and the acclaimed 2001 ONLINE album by the Latvian band Brainstorm.

From Asia to Europe, a global cadre of Mansfield/New Musik disciples keep on posting, remixing, and analyzing his songs like holy writ. http://www.discog.info/mansfield.html However, Mansfield was, and still is, notoriously reclusive. Even during the New Musik peak it was clear he viewed any sort of publicity as a necessary evil, but he was more at home locked in the studio. After the New Musik days, he increasingly withdrew from the limelight to the point where even the smallest scraps of contemporary comment have faded, a situation which has only added to the mystique of a man many people still admire on so many levels.

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