Paper Thin by Mesh

Mesh has a habit of ripping some absolutely brilliant b-sides on their singles, which makes picking them up even cooler (the remixes tend to be pretty good too.)  From their most recently released single, "Kill Your Darlings"—a phrase that originated among writers not getting too attached to their work that wasn't up to snuff—"Paper Thin" is another one of these great b-sides; on par with "Let Them Crush Us" and "From This Height."

Adjust Your Set by Mesh

Alright; one more for today.  After doing a number of 80s one-hit wonders (for relatively loose definitions of "hit") it occurs to me that I'm going to someday, and maybe not that far from now, run out of bands to highlight.  Sure; I have a lot more music than is highlighted here, but does anyone really want me to highlight 30-40 different Depeche Mode or Erasure songs?  This is part of the reason I branched out beyond synthpop into italo-disco and EBM, etc., and why I branched out beyond the 80s to music that is more recent, but firmly rooted stylistically in the synthpop and new wave movements of the 80s.

Mesh is a band that hasn't really had its due here on my blog.  I only have one Mesh post (not counting this one, which I'm adding now.)  It was originally a video of "Confined" but when the video crapped out, I replaced it with "Crash."  I later found another copy of "Confined" on youtube, and added them both.  However, this rather inauspicious history belies their importance.

Mesh is cursed with very bad timing.  Forming in 1991 and active throughout the 90s and beyond, they've never been able to enjoy the mainstream synthpop boom that they really should have been entitled to.  Then again, they've also moved in and out of a "pure" synthpop sound over the years.

Their earliest material (although not released early) is found on Original 91-93, which naturally suggests the vintage of those tracks.  These songs are synthpop.  However, Mesh's first actual release was Fragile in 1994 sounds like slightly more melodic Nine Inch Nails.  They then went on to sound like classic line-up Depeche Mode for several albums in a row, before branching off into a kind of "synth rock" sound that can honestly be called somewhat unique.

To be fair to Mesh, they also really pounded the pavement in the 90s.  Back then, the synthpop scene was much smaller and more insular, and yet Mesh (along with De/Vision) emerged as real superstars in that scene.  For that matter, Mesh also did a bunch of remixes, including for De/Vision, from time to time.

I've been a fan, although I'm not always as sold on their style as I could wish.  One of my absolute favorite of their songs, "Confined" is from relatively early In This Place Forever, but in general I prefer The Point at Which It Falls Apart and Who Watches Over Me?, which are also the most Depeche Mode-like of the lot.  We Collide and on features a much more layered, intense production, and a grittier rock-like sound.  It was also produced by Gareth Jones, which is interesting.  It also has some of my favorite tracks, although I'm a little bit more skeptical in general about the style.

For today's, I've picked one of their most recent songs, "Adjust Your Set."  The mix is by Rob Dust, and he certainly brings his own style, but the Mesh produced original isn't as different as you'd think in sound.

Crash by Mesh

Mesh, like De/Vision that I posted about last time, is a bit of a relic in some ways. They formed in 1991, and just missed synthpop mainstreamism. Their earliest material (which actually wasn't released for some time; it came in out 2001 on Original: 91-93) sounds very much like a product of this time period. Perhaps ironically, it's not overly Depeche Mode like, and in fact when Mesh finally got a release, in 1994, Fragile didn't sound very Depeche Modish at all either. If anything, it sounded like slightly more melodic and British Pretty Hate Machine era Nine Inch Nails. 1996's In This Place Forever was more of the same, although the melodic side was made stronger, and this is where some tentative comparisons to Depeche Mode start making sense.

Mesh did some compilation and live albums over the next few years, and 1999's The Point At Which It Falls Apart and 2002's Who Watches Over Me? are the two that sound the most like Depeche Mode albums to me, out-Depeche Moding Depeche Mode themselves (although the song "People Like Me (With This Gun)" is probably the most Pretty Hate Machine sounding song Mesh ever recorded.) With 2006's We Collide and 2009's A Perfect Solution, Mesh introduced some rock sensibility in the song structure and tone of some of the songs, while still remaining darkly synthpop on most of the rest. If anything, those later albums suffer from being over-produced at times; they're too lush and "busy." Some of the earlier, slightly more raw tracks have more punch. Although I will say that "Crash" is one of my favorite songs of all time.

So anyway, that all sounded pretty rambly and probably incoherent, right? Well, check out the song then, and don't worry about it. If you like it, I certainly recommend that you check out more Mesh. They're relatively easy to find nowadays, and you can get quite a few of their works as mp3 downloads from Amazon, or as cheap CDs on the used market.

EDIT: Curses! The user who posted the video I had closed his account! Anyway, here's a live version of the song. It lacks some of the fragility live, but hopefully you can still get the idea.

EDIT EDIT: Replaced the live version of "Confined" with the music video of "Crash." Maybe I'll upload "Confined" myself one of these days, since it's gone now.