Mark Bell was an electronic-music innovator throughout his career, which was tragically cut short last week. Riding the wave of the early-90s dance-music revolution, the Leeds-born Bell and longtime friend and partner Gez Varley defined the northern English “bleep” techno sound found in LFO’s music – especially on the group’s bass-heavy self-titled hit. Along the way they helped put Sheffield’s Warp Records (home to Aphex Twin, Boards of Canada and countless others) on the map, and remixed Radiohead, Sabres of Paradise and their hip-hop heroes Afrika Baambaataa & Soulsonic Force.
When Varley left the group in 1996, Bell maintained a solo career as a respected underground techno producer. In 1997, his transformative work on Björk’s epochal Homogenic album brought him into the pop sphere and established a long-running and fruitful partnership. Other collaborations followed, most notably with Depeche Mode, as well as movie soundtracks and more acclaimed productions under the LFO guise. The shock of Bell’s death casts a sudden light on a considerable discography, which was marked by adventurism and a consistently recognisable approach to funk-infused, melodic, wonderfully bleepy electronica. His best productions put him in a league with better-known peers like Andrew Weatherall and Aphex Twin. Here are 10 of them.
LFO – LFO
This is the track that will define Bell’s legacy as a dance music producer – one of the best artefacts of the British club scene that exploded in the late 1980s under the influence of American house music. As with many other seminal acid-house and techno records, it started life as a demo, became a club hit on word of mouth, and eventually sold thousands, reaching No 12 in the UK charts. The sweeping sci-fi keypads, absurdly deep bassline – expressly made to rattle walls at illegal warehouse parties – and signature bleeps are a classic formula for dancefloor destruction.
LFO – Nurture
Like their northern peers 808 State and their Warp labelmate Nightmares on Wax, LFO elevated the industrial clanging and free-for-all spirit of early-90s rave music into a sophisticated form. Many of their productions were on par with influences such as Kraftwerk and Detroit-techno innovators Juan Atkins and Derrick May. This B-side to We Are Back, also included on the group’s 1991 full-length debut, Frequencies, is one of the gems of the era. The delicate synth strings, rubbery bassline and stinging high-hats are as fresh now as they were back in the day.
Radiohead – Planet Telex (LFO JD Remix)
In 1995, Radiohead were still years away from the glitchy electronica of their groundbreaking early-00s work, but they were savvy enough to bring remixers in to give their anthemic indie a different spin. LFO’s work on this track from The Bends marked a shift away from the elegant 4/4 techno of their early years, into the abrasive downtempo trip-hop and big-beat that was the soundtrack for much of the mid-90s. Thom Yorke’s vocals are chopped up and heavily distorted, leaving him to clatter around the dark, dubbed-out sonic construction.
Clark – Christo
In the mid-90s, Bell embarked on a solo production career, releasing a string of singles and EPs under different monikers on a variety of British and American underground labels. His output during this time was mainly Detroit-influenced analogue techno that was hard and relentlessly pounding yet melodic and experimental. On this gliding, jazz-inflected deep-tech number you can sense the epic storytelling quality underlying the jacking 4/4 beats which soon drew noted techno-head Björk to entrust him to helm her productions.
Björk – Jóga
Björk’s collaboration with Bell on her fourth album, 1997’s Homogenic, was a watershed moment for both. The Icelandic diva’s songwriting and lyrics reached a new maturity, and Bell’s cool aesthetic translated her wild visions into crystalline sonic sculptures that combined classical and electronic elements. A highlight among highlights, the album’s first single is a passionate ode to Björk’s homeland, though a characteristically enigmatic one. It slowly builds from an exquisite string intro to the wrenching, anthemic emergency of its chorus, framed by pulsating, crashing electronic noise designed to sound like an erupting volcano.
Mark Bell – A Salute to Those People Who Say Fuck You
Away from Björk’s Icelandic studios, Bell continued his techno experiments with new vigour. This flippantly titled track, from Warp Records’ milestone 1998 compilation album We Are Reasonable People, sees Bell chaining the unrestrained glitch of IDM to the 4/4 discipline of techno, with noisy and thrilling results.
Deltron 3030 – Turbulence (Mark Bell Remix)
The new millenium found Bell tasked with remixing a pair of hip hop innovators – a natural progression for a producer weaned on the sounds of the 80s breakdance scene. Deltron 3030 was collaboration between two West Coast powers known for smoked-out psychedelia, rapper Del the Funkee Homosapien and producer Dan the Automator. Bell takes the original’s lurching, paranoid apocalyptic funk and gives it a minimalist, aerodynamic edge.
Depeche Mode – Dream On
For their 10th album, 2001’s Exciter, Gahan, Gore and co hired Bell to update their sound. His lustrous but distorted electro-pop was the perfect sonic and thematic fit for the veteran group, who managed yet another comeback despite many well-publicised personal crises. The album was a worldwide hit, thanks to singles like this one, which combines crisp breakbeats, acoustic guitar and familiar swooning melancholy of Gahan’s vocals to fine effect.
LFO – Freak
In 2003, Bell returned to the LFO moniker for the entity’s third and final album, Sheath. Here, he united disparate elements from his eclectic musical travels into an assured suite of sometimes gorgeous, sometimes noisy electronica worthy of comparison to Warp labelmates Autechre and Boards of Canada. The hit single is a bleepy, uptempo number marked by cartoon gunshots and a freaky vocoder, most memorable for its use in the opening sequence of Gaspar Noé’s controversial film Enter the Void.
Björk – Declare Independence
As much Bell as Björk, this single from her 2007 album Volta was first developed as an instrumental during Bell’s solo performances. To the furious pounding of the grimy punk-industrial track, the singer adds an unusually politicised lyric that doesn’t leave much room for metaphorical interpretation. (She’s got herself in trouble dedicating it to Tibetans and Kosovars at live shows – and most recently reworked its lyrics ahead of the Scottish referendum.) Bell himself is featured in the video, a weird one even by director Michel Gondry’s standards – he’s suspended in air, playing a massive stringed instrument that seems to double as a device for deconstructing mind control. And so it leaves us with one of the more visually apt (if surreal) ways we have to remember his career.