Top Bar
Musique Machine Logo Home ButtonReviews ButtonArticles ButtonBand Specials ButtonAbout Us Button
SearchGo Down
Search for  
With search mode in section(s)
And sort the results by
show articles written by  
 Review archive:  # a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

Hula - Voice [Klanggalerie - 2019]

Voice was the 5th and final album from Sheffield collective Hula- it showed the group at their most sonically dense & crowded with its blend industrial, synthpop, uneasy new romantics & paranoid funk/ darker hued electronica. The album originally appeared back in 1987 on Red Rhino Records- here it gets a CD reissue from the folks over at Klanggalerie, with the original nine tracks been expanded to a fifteen track release, with a new runtime of seventy-five minutes.

This reissue appeared in April of last year- it comes a four-panel glossy digipak that takes in the original murky yellow, green and blue collage artwork- this, of course, fits perfectly the often tightly packed & layer heavy sound of the album it's self.


Hula were formed in Sheffield in 1981, and though-out their seven four years existent the band membership moved between four & six members. Their sound very much stood in a rather awkward place- as it was often too noisy/ experimental for the passing pop audience, yet they often embedded their work with more harmonic/ pop elements- so of course, this could well be a turn-off for more formal industrial/ noise/ experimental audience.


The album kicks-off with the track “Give Me Money(till it’s crawling out of my face)- and this finds the band at their most dense and slightly messy, as we find a blend of choppy & pumping synth ‘n’ beats( which sounds rather like the soundtrack The Equaliser),  lots synthetic horn darts, discordant string loops, more electronic drums, swooping & wailing guitars, and lastly the layered male vocals- to be fair when you first hear it you’ll think it sounds like a mess, but later plays do reveal some sort logic/ sense to the layering.

As we move through the album we come to paranoid synth pop-meets-stark funk of “Cut Loose”- and once again there are layers of stuff going here- to start with things begin fairly creepy, as we get young women talking about a ghost walking towards a town- then fairly soon we get a chaotic mix of fed back synth horns,  revered vocals, and coldly snapping beats ‘n’ bass pile-in…things calm down somewhat as we move into the sing-song lyrics, but fairly soon more elements are thrown in- samples about crimes, extra wailing at times discordant synth layers, & synthetic horn honks come into play.  With track six “Clear Water” we have somewhat of an eastern feel- with wailing horns, zig-zag percussion, and possibly some ethic instrumentation- this is added to by shifting wave muffled amassed chants, keyboard layers, and latter a cold-clear-if wonky bass tones. The original album finishes with the track “Poison”- here we have a blend of stabbing electro-funk, layered at time yelled amassed male vocals, and of course, the usual dense production with layers of elements- around the midway we get a sudden more meaty/ focused synth line which had a rather EDM vibe to it.

The five bonus tracks here taking in remixes of album tracks- which more often than not add in even more layers of elements- we also get  a few unreleased tracks- these are an ok bonus, and interesting to hear- but as it makes the album's runtime seventy-five minutes- it does become a bit overwhelming if you play it all in one sitting.


Voice is certainly not an album for everyone- as it's sonically dense & very 80’s in its sound, also the blend of experimental & more tunefully pop is unbalancing. But I’d say if you either enjoy Coil’s more tuneful/ sample-based 80’s work, or denser & paranoid genre-blending I’d say give this ago.

Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5Rating: 3 out of 5

Roger Batty
Latest Reviews

Hula - Voice
Voice was the 5th and final album from Sheffield collective Hula- it showed the group at their most sonically dense & crowded with its blend industr...
260424   Marco Baldini/Apartment House...
250424   Intruder - Psycho Savant
250424   Hot Spur - Hot Spur( Blu Ray)
250424   Happy End - Happy End( Blu Ray)
250424   Electronicat - Saturation
240424   Soma - Me Dais Mucho Asco
240424   Koobaatoo Asparagus - Onna-musha
240424   Magda - And Suddenly, Just L...
230424   Andrea Taeggi - Nattdett
230424   Seedpeople - SeedPeople(Blu Ray)
Latest Articles

The Music of Clay Ruby & Burial H...
Over the last couple of decades Wisconsin native, Clay Ruby has been creating some of the world’s finest dark electronic music under the Burial Hex mon...
280324   The Music of Clay Ruby & Buri...
290224   Sutcliffe No More - Normal Ev...
100124   Occlusion - The Operation Is...
181223   Best Of 2023 - Music, Sound &...
051223   Powerhouse Films - Of Magic, ...
181023   IO - Of Sound, Of Art, Of Exp...
210923   Lucky Cerruti - Of Not so Fri...
290823   The Residents - The Trouble W...
110723   Yotzeret Sheydim Interview - ...
250523   TenHornedBeast - Into The Dee...
Go Up
(c) Musique Machine 2001 -2023. Twenty two years of true independence!! Mail Us at questions=at=musiquemachine=dot=comBottom