Where and what is the Kingdom of welcome addiction for IAMX?

Chris Corner: In a cold suburb of my sensual and  beloved Berlin. In the womb of IAMX. A place where the aches and pains of banality can be relieved. Vices, insecurities, stupidities cured.A little bit like Disney world but with lipstick, cynicism and wit.

What kind of addictions are not welcomed for you any more?

Chris Corner: Destructive ones. That is obviously  subjective. Everyone is someone else's freak, every cure is someone else's disease, Hard vicious narcotics  don't drive me anymore. I am not closed to any experience ,but repetition of negative ways is a digression. Chocolate and wine are devils but acceptable.

Since we did that exciting interview some months before, I don't want to ask any general questions. We would like a track by track presentation of your new album. Inspiration, recording process, what every song is about, etc.. So let's start from the beginning..

1. Nature Of Inviting

Chris Corner: Opening tracks are always difficult because they introduce the listener to the record. I like to get the blacksheep of the album out of the way first. My fascination with sleaze and its connection with slow electronic funk was the reason for this track. Melodically it is held back, as i intended to let the rhythm take the attention. I threw in percussive sounds which usually don't fit together and tried to make the journey uncomfortable. Vocally, i took myself from croony low to high falsetto and then into a distressed broken chorus to expose the schizophrenic content of the lyrics. I love you, i hate you. Me myself and Mr X.

2. Kingdom Of Welcome Addiction

Chris Corner: i feel this is the most courageous, rousing song on the album. With a lilt of Spanish flamenco to open i put the uplifting guitars and keyboards together to represent a grand struggle . Images come into my head, matadors,kings, swaggering dark haired, sweat drenched girls. It is dynamic and full of tenderness at the same time.

3. Tear Garden

Chris Corner: Songs should sometimes be a combination of pure evil and sincere lightness. I feel that the first impression is quite a sweet and approachable track. I thought about putting a bouncing but heavy childlike drum track together with a water falling piano line. Then developing the sound into a more ambient direction. Vocals becoming strings , piano delay feedback becoming bass distortions,

The lyrics are the most sentimental, violent but also humorous. This became a very visual song , which is odd because it started very simple  when it was written on the acoustic guitar.  People should work for music. i am not interested in making it easy or instant. With work comes reward and longevity. This is a good example of that.

4. My Secret Friend (featuring Imogen Heap)

Chris Corner: i wrote this very recently towards the end of making the album. it was really an afterthought. I have always wanted to do a duet and a finally found a track that needed it. Imogen is a friend and i somehow thought of her when i came up with the lyric for the first verse . i fantasized about a psycho mind game relationship, for some reason brother and sister . Playing with each other, needing each other , damaging each other.  I sent a rough version to her and she added a second verse and lovely incidental vocals . The arrangement and chord structure is very simple so most of the interest lies in the performances and ,of course , the dirty bass line.

5. An I For An I

Chris Corner: This is a challenge .  I think it shows a subconsciously political side of IAMX. I am generally unnerved by what i see in the world or what i am forced to see by ignorant, money driven indecent humans. It is everywhere, everyday in my face. This dis-functional  electronic experiment is my way of trying to focus my negative energy, or let it go, however you want to see it.  Scratchy guitars, wrong notes, hard drums.Fuck you and fuck the world. Revenge against the willing souls and the white lies.

6. I Am Terrified

Chris Corner: An exposing, naive therapy ballad.  This the closest i have come to being simple. i think there is an element of Phil Spector meets Suicide to this. Beginning soft and welcoming , it slowly turns into a screaming orchestral monster. All the strings, horns and 'real stuff' were recorded here in  Berlin by an inspiring group called The Unfall Orchestra. The rest , as usual, programmed by me.

7. Think Of England

Chris Corner: Berlin has allowed me to recreate everything inside and around me . To take a step way back and look at myself. my loves, my concerns, my confusions. The freedom of Berlin has breathed life into my work. A confidence and brave sincerity that i was afraid to explore in London. It makes me not care about who likes what i do and how much money i can make, which is ironic since i am doing better now in England with this project than i ever did when i was living there. That country made me and broke me. Berlin has helped repair some of the damage. I will always love my old home but it must be deconstructed, demonised and burned to the ground in my head before i can feel good about it again. This track describes the journey set against ,unusually traditional, rock instrumentation. It is also a little play on words. Google it and see where it takes you.

8. The Stupid The Proud

Chris Corner: Over the  last year , my mind has been exploding with vitriol towards organised religion. Lyrically this is a taste of that. With the sound i i felt it was time to present a track stripped down ,  as it was written. i take a lot of pleasure from production and sound creation but i felt this should be an acoustic guitar song.  Some kind of hypersensitive neurotic Johnny Cash track. Hypnotic and relentless. At the moment it is my favourite because sometimes get tired of hearing snare drums and distortion.

9. You Can Be Happy

Chris Corner: Again i used Unfall on this song. I wanted to create a soaring bending string line and mix it with a low voice female chant. The voice is Janine from the band. She says ..'It's a cruel world for small things but with lies and luxuries, in the in-between, you can be happy'. i know that my mother made me too sympathetic to the suffering of others. i sometimes get carried away with the notion that i feel what others feel. Especially the weak and hopeless . There is always an internal fight to overcome this and 'own' happiness. Maybe this was a mantra for myself. I often need to wake up. I made it purposefully upbeat and bittersweet to remind me.

10. The Great Shipwreck Of Life

Chris Corner: I think the title describes everything. My influence came from Fellini. I admire his disgustingly beautiful veracity . The ultimate tragic, comic film maker . Showing the ups and downs of life in all its colour, glory and horror . i wrote the melody with all this in mind.  It jumps around quite playfully over an incessant bass drum throughout the whole tune. I wrote the verse 3 years ago and the chorus 3 weeks ago. i could never make it work. i simplified my vision and tried to write  about something everyone could relate to. Failure.

11. Running

Chris Corner: Each album is snapshot of a small period of time. A few entries in a diary. Creation is like clockwork, it always comes around like a keeper with a whip and no completion. Putting it onto a cd is just the beginning of the process. I always have this feeling of chasing my own tail. Running away from and running after unknowable things. Although i am an atheist i always loved hymns. I don't like what Christmas has become but i like carols. i ended the album with a  hymn dedicated to the me, the mouse on a wheel . The jagged sub electro loop leads out beneath the church-like heavenly organ and warns- there is more to come.