I’ve often wondered about something I’ve noticed. Why is it that virtually every release I have on the Statik Records label features a deep-voiced, if not guttural  singer? There is but a single Statik issue that I have on my racks where the vocalist can’t be said to have guttural vocals, and that’s on the Flying Lizards “Top Ten” CD from 1985. Vocalist Sally, being female, makes of herself an exception to this rule. But that didn’t stop Gina Kikoine! Let’s take a trip down memory lane and see how this weird I-can’t-just-call-it-a-coincidence perhaps came to be.

Positive Noise was a Scot band whose second album got a US release in 1982. I’d heard the group on a flexidisc that was aded to subscription copies of the late, great, Trouser Press magazine. The band proffered dynamic synth rock like the exciting “Positive Negative” which enlivened any mix tapes I may have made for the last 30 years. It was precisely the sort of tune that never got wide exposure but was insanely catchy and memorable. This album features vocalist Russell Blacklock, who took over vocal duties after founder Ross Middleton left the group after their debut album [which evades my grasp] to form the band Leisure Process. And Blacklock sings in a deep, guttural tone of voice. Almost a bellow.

At roughly the same time as hearing and purchasing Positive Noise, I remember buying the UK import [on Statik] of the first full length album by Quebec’s Men Without Hats. I’d loved their debut EP from 1980, picked up and distributed in The States by Stiff Records, so I was glad to see they hadn’t disappeared at the time. Of course, in vocalist Ivan Doroshuk, they had a guttural voiced singer who seemed identical in qualities to Blacklock from Positive Noise. Could this be a coincidence?

1983 brought a new band signed to MCA in The States, but licensed from Statik in the UK. Chameleons had a powerful rock sound on the track I heard called “Up The Down Escalator,” so I bought the US edition of the album, which had more great material, like the track “Don’t Fall.” I later found out that the MCA edition was four songs shorter than the UK edition, so I sold off the LP with the intent of an “upgrading” that hasn’t happened yet, sadly. But let’s check on vocalist Mark Burgess. Sure enough, he sings in a forceful, guttural bellow. Sounding for all the world like Blacklock and Doroshuk! Is this a conspiracy?

Finally, 1984 bought German singer Gina  Kikoine to the Statik label, which by now must have signed every deep voiced singer in the world… except for maybe Nico! But Gina X was the next best thing to Nico, who wasn’t around for too many years after this before her death in 1988. But even she outlasted the Statik Label, which released its final salvo of material in 1986, for the most part. Ms. Kikoine’s vocal style is admirably deep for her gender as only the singer of “Be A Boy” could aspire to.

I started thinking of the Statik label a few years back, mentally cataloguing what releases and acts I had on it and it was then that I quickly realized that “hey, all of the vocalists on these Statik releases have similar, deep, guttural vocals  – what gives?” One can only imagine that label head Ali McKenzie liked him some deep vocals. Perhaps that was why the label only lasted for five years. Maybe no one else [besides me] could stand all of that bellowing.

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