Gordon Sharp

Gordon Sharp (born 1961 in Linlithgow, West Lothian, Scotland) is a Scottish singer, musician and producer. He has led several music projects since 1976, the most significant and long-standing being Cindytalk. Sharp has gained a reputation for an unflinchingly experimental approach to music and ideas.

Biography

Sharp started a punk band called The Freeze whilst attending Linlithgow Academy in 1976. The Freeze was active between 1976 and 1981. Sharp moved to London in 1982, changed the band's name to Cindytalk and signed to the Midnight Music label.^[1]

In 1983, Sharp sang with fellow Scots Cocteau Twins on one of their John Peel sessions and at selected live gigs, where he met 4AD executive Ivo Watts-Russell. This led to him being invited to participate as one of the featured singers with 4AD collective This Mortal Coil on its first album.^[2]

Early in his career, Sharp was repeatedly asked by John Taylor of Duran Duran to join the latter's Birmingham based new romantic band after having met Taylor and Nick Rhodes at a London concert held by David Sylvian's band, Japan, which Sharp had travelled from Scotland to attend. Sharp briefly stayed at Nick Rhodes' parents house in Birmingham during Duran Duran's early rehearsals, but decided on his journey back to Scotland that Duran Duran's ambitions did not sit well with his own direction.

Cindytalk released a series of group albums and singles in the 80s and 90s. An electronic side-project, Bambule, was started in 1994 by Sharp and Simon Carmichael.

In 2002, Sharp started to write abstract electronic music using a laptop, and since 2004 has split his time between Japan and the UK, working on various projects. This has included Cindytalk performing live (solo or group), and a number of (mostly solo) recordings. Vienna based record label Editions Mego, which is known for releasing cutting edge electronic music, released a series of Cindytalk albums focused on Sharp's primitive noise-poetry. No longer perceived only as a singer, this has repositioned Sharp and Cindytalk within the musical establishment.

References