Ones To Watch: Burn The Negative

Big fuck-off dance vocals. They are back for sure. Just look at Chew Lips, who are puffing to keep up with Little Boots, who in turn is sprinting past Ladyhawke faster than you can say ‘glitterball’.

These obese and glammed-up electronics are rife on airwaves and strewn across the dancefloors of house clubs to grimy indie basements, and now are being beamed from places like Carlisle via a band called Burn The Negative, whose sequined manifesto is an antidote to the grim realities painted on every mundane wall of their northern quarter. Singer Mark Baker used to work as one half of Lil’ Devious and has seen every shade of taste pass under his nose.

“We’ve seen it grow and recede then grow again. I LOVE most electronic or dance orientated music with all my heart, the exciting stuff is where you see it cross into other genres, but there’s so much shit around too. As producers and song writers, we’ve seen the music within its formats and its distribution change dramatically, its piracy sadly escalate, its fans grow massively with the mainstream coverage and, most significantly, the accessibility into production, recording and writing through new technology.”

These Carlisle post-punk programmers stand out a mile and confess to regularly being abused during every pint for being ‘long haired wankers’, though they balance this with a knowledge that their location has inevitably helped their sound.

“Carlisle is a bit like standing on top of a tall ladder. It’s enabled us to stand and oversee the current trends and scenes and have been able to take from those areas that make most sense to us. We’re not drowned in a certain scene, that can’t be a hindrance, can it? It’s a pain in the arse to get to London at the drop of a hat; everywhere is a serious travel issue.”

Burn The Negative’s sound is brash and wide open. It harks back to the unashamed and halcyon days of ’80s dance before genres splintered and tastes became too niche and specialised.

There is also a strong degree of social comment which Mark is keen to understate: “The mood is up and down in the album, there’s a lot of positive word play, but there’s some seriously pissed off statements in there too. We aren’t trying to be some arty snooty college band, I just write and sing about what I love, like or loathe, anything else would be just nonsense. I ain’t a politically driven person, so I won’t be singing about the invasion of any countries, depletion of ice in the arctic or Ireland’s recent outbursts just yet. The message is, there is no message, but there is something that will probably strike a chord with you if you want to look for it.”

Words by Tom Spanklin