Swedish SynthPop band Band history: During the spring of 1988, Richard Johansson and Leslie Bayne, heavy influenced by bands and artists like Yazoo, Human League, DM, Rational Youth and Robert Marlow decided to start a band. With the aim to make electronic music the way it was made during the early 80's, they began to put some songs together. But the lack of a good singer haltered them in their progress. But then, at a party in the winter of 1988/89, Robert Enforsen came along. After a short audition, Robert…
Two concerts in Sweden during the year of 1991, which gave them a small but faithful group of fans. During the same period EBA and two other Swedish record labels decided to unite; Energy Rekords was created.
After a small appearance on the Depeche Mode tribute 'I Sometimes wish I Was Famous', the first album, Degraded Faces, was recorded. The album was released in the spring of 1992. The success was now a fact. A small tour was made in the same year which established elegant MACHINERY as one of Sweden's most popular and well known synthbands.
Things would soon change though. Leslie Bayne realized that he found no joy in live performances, which created some problems for the band. Now when a replacement was needed on stage, Johan Malmgren came along. Johan joined elegant MACHINERY on their German tour together with the EBM-band Poupée Fabrikk during the early summer of 1992, a tour which showed the German audience that this was a band to remember. When back in Sweden, Johan became a permanent member of the band.
At this point a Spanish record company, Kong Records, wanted to rerecord the song Process, taken from the album Degraded Faces, and release it in Spain. The song became an instant success. It reached as high as number 5 on the official Spanish chart.
In August the same year, elegant MACHINERY played at the largest music festival in Sweden, Hultsfredsfestivalen, which gave then the chance to perform their music for a larger audience. It turned out to be a golden opportunity, which gave them a lot of new fans. The concert was also filmed by one of Sweden's, at the time, most famous moviemakers, Staffan Hildebrand, and later sent on Swedish national television.
Although it seemed like things were going in the right direction for elegant MACHINERY, some problems emerged. The planned Spanish tour with radio- and TV-performances was canceled due to an argument between two Spanish record companies. At the same time Richard decided to concentrate on his studies at the University of Lund.
Still disappointed about the failure in Spain, elegant MACHINERY decided to go into the studio once more. During the summer of 1993 the album Shattered Grounds was recorded. Later that year, the song Hard to handle reached number 40 on the official Swedish chart. A big and successful German tour was also made together with the band, and good friends, S.P.O.C.K.
During 1994, Leslie decided to leave the band permanent. Except for a smaller tour in Sweden and Norway, nothing really happened that year. Instead, a new album was planned. Meanwhile, the song Watching you was released together with two new songs. Germany and Hungary was also visited for a couple of successful concerts.
During the spring of 1996, elegant MACHINERY finally went into the studio again together with Anders Eliasson (a former member of the old synthpop band Page); the album Yesterday Man was recorded.
Yesterday Man was released in August 1996 and has so far been their most selling album. After a very successful tour in Sweden and Germany during the autumn and winter of 1997, and a smaller tour in Germany during the spring of 1998, the expectations were higher than ever.
During 1998 the long awaited compilation A decade of thoughts was recorded. This time together with Eskil Simonsson (Covenant). A couple of concerts, and a couple of performances on swedish national television were made. Problems with labels and other personal reasons, led to the split of the band during the spring of 1999. The concert at Virtual X-mas in Lund on the 13th of december 1998, was recorded, and released on video.
Breakup, reunion and breakup:
Elegant Machinery disbanded in 1999.
In 2001, the band temporarily reunited (with Johan temporarily replaced by Jarmo Ollila of Daily Planet) for their first-ever American appearance, followed by a performance in Mexico. Over the next few years, the band performed a number of times in Europe.
In October 2004, after a successful gig at Romo Night in Gothenburg, the band decided to work on new music. Johan, Richard, and Robert have been joined by original member Leslie Bayne.
In November 2007, it was announced that the band had signed with German label Out of Line. A new single "Feel the Silence" was released in January. The current line-up consists of Robert Enforsen, Richard Jomshof (formerly Richard Johansson, born Jorma Lohikoski) and Leslie Bayne.
In early April 2011, there were rumours that the band had split once again. This was later confirmed by the group's management. Jomshof denied the rumours that the split had anything to do with his political career with the Sweden Democrats and cited other personal differences as reasons for the breakup.
In 2016, Robert Enforsen and Leslie Bayne reformed Elegant Machinery with new part-time member Jonas Kröjtz. They released a new EP on October 14, 2016 entitled, "I" .
important attention >>> It all started in 1988, started the band in 1988 under the name Pole Position. but …
Robert Enforsen joined the band as lead vocalist in 1989, and the band released their first demo, at which point they changed their name to Elegant Machinery, a name derived from the album by DATA, a British synthpop group of the 1980s led by Norwegian Georg Kajanus.
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