The story of Cathode begins in a wobbly hired van on the M6 somewhere in the lake district in 1999. I was moving from Oxford to Glasgow, which presented a few problems for the band I played guitar in, Cody. We continued to wilfully thumb our collective nose at geographical scatter as guitarist John Johnson moved to Italy, by recording exclusively through the post (long before The Postal Service had the same idea, I'd wager), but it left me with the sudden possibility of indulging a rather obsessive drive to control every aspect of the sound, by making music solo. Cody had developed a strain of cautious, melodic electronic pop (somewhere between Stereolab, Spring Heel Jack and My Bloody Valentine) a few years too early, and as we scattered and our own tastes developed, I became more immersed in pure electronica, and after a revelatory Pan(a)sonic gig around the same time, Cathode was hatched.

Several shaky demos, a thousand glitch samples and one year later, another move to Newcastle-upon-Tyne (this time to train to be a clinical psychologist) coincided with the first outside interest in Cathode. Static Caravan and Unbearable records both agreed to releases, which resulted in a remix on the Unbearable compilation and the first Cathode vinyl - "Exh Cat" c/w "From And Inspired By" on Static Caravan. This tickled the ears of John Peel for a few precious minutes, which was enough reason to keep making music in itself. I'd also been in touch with the estimable Stewart Anderson of 555 Records (then of Leeds, lately of Flagstaff, Arizona) who came good with the second proper Cathode release, an EP named "The World And Back", in April 2002. This EP featured more of a feedback-laptop-rock angle, including our tribute , Queen Street Station (gateway to the tenements, I like to think), in "Glasgow Suburban Electrification".

These releases went down well enough to consider the possibility of braving the world of dodgy PAs and balooning soundmen by taking the show out of the bedroom and into the sticky-floored venues of the north-east. The debut gig took place with Hrvratski on the Golden Jubilee (thank you, maam, and thank you Jean for the laptop) and was not quite disastrous enough to put me off altogether. Somehow the next show landed up being a support slot for Bola and Gescom (y'know, Autechre without the PRS complications) at Newcastle's Castle Keep. And a Dark Ages spectacular it was too. Notable for a number of very peculiar experiences, in particular, on turning up for the soundcheck, being sent up to the roof with video artist Rob Kennedy to clean the projection screens which had recently seen some of the worst excesses of Leazes Park. Standing on the roof of the castle, with a view right over tyne and wear, mopping an enormous piece of white tarpaulin is among the less forgettable experiences live work has to offer. Beats hearing a drummer spending two hours soundchecking the hi-hats, anyhow. Also entertaining were the promoter's wee barney at the money complications ("I'm going to squat in the Arts Council's reception until they pay me!" indeed) and the Castle Warden's revelation that a much greater threat to the centuries-old wooden floor than anything that could happen at a rave is, in fact, Sunny Delight spilt on the floor by the kids on school trips...

The steady guiding hand (and blind faith in Cathode) of the Static Caravan brothers remains important in our world (we wouldn't be where we are today etc etc...) and around this time, they happily agreed to a second 7" single which followed in August 2002. "Chad Valley" was an attempt at glitch krautrock, which almost ended up being used in a TV ad for the French national railway (I'm not making this up, you know). "Sundowning", the b-side, generated a collaboration with Rob Kennedy, who made a beatuiful synaesthetic video for the song, which you can see elsewhere on the site. Rob's messed-but-beautiful work seemed to kick most of the highbrow AV stuff that goes with electronica well into touch, and soon afterwards we took part together in a night at the Side Cinema called C90, taking our collaboration live (check the C90 site for Rob's work with cathode, and Cineside's spirograph-tastic work with Posset, and also Spoonbender & view my source code on the zeros and ones).

Oddly, all this local activity seemed to meet with people's approval, and buoyed up by the continuing support of promoters no-fi and writer Ian Fletcher, work started in earnest on the first Cathode album. Pausing for breath via a split single with Awkward Silence, the search began for a suitable home for the album. Expanding Records, based in London, was begun by Ben Edwards as a home for his beautifully wonky analoguia, recorded under the name Benge. I'd bought and admired his "Meme Tunes" album, which prompted me to harangue the label with a collection of rough mixes, and a few breathless emails later, Cathode had a new home with Expanding. The label had begun to blossom with a global collection of electronica-merchants including Vessel, vs_price, Stendec and Holkham, all of whom seemed to share an attention to microscopic detail and evident love of melody, while steering well clear of sounding generic, and right away, Cathode felt at home there.

The album, "Special Measures", was released in March 2004, largely the product of desperate attempts at work avoidance in the latter stages of the clinical psychology course. It came housed in a beautiful sleeve depicting the Thames estuary WW2 sea-fort defences, photographed by Mus Mehmet. These hulking, pseudo-industrial beasts, stranded and gently withering in their natural environment, seemed to provide just the right mixture of brutalism, technology and reflective melancholy to suit the tunes inside. And they provide Cathode's second most Frequently Asked Question: What on earth are those things on the album cover? It's still outrun by the winning question, common to all laptop musicians, I would guess: What software are you using?...

Since then, the energy generated by "Special Measures" has taken Cathode down some intriguing and unexpected paths. For the first time Cathode is dabbling with vocals, though collaborations with Newcastle (via Berlin)'s estimable one-woman electronic avalanche Caro Snatch, and with Caroline Thorp (previously with Tyneside's Fun With Light), the results of this latter collaboration can be heard on the Distraction Records 7" "Chronophobia". We've also had the biggest Cathode gigs yet, at Sweden's Norberg festival (put a bunch of Danish electronica geeks and several coachloads of avant-drone noise fiends in an abandoned steel mine in the Swedish equivalent of Barrow-in-Furness, and this is what you get), and Newcastle's own Version festival (the region's staggeringly impressive bid for the "wouldn't it be great to watch algorhythmic electronica in the basement of a decommissioned german fishing trawler?" niche market, which also hosted Pan Sonic, Autechre, Fennesz and a host of others I was too overawed to remember. Or maybe that was just the effects of the Rostocker lighter fuel-cum-beer they served on board). And that, dear reader, is Cathode to date. Stay with us, it's just getting interesting.

Steve Jefferis

October 2005