OFFICE FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT + BATTERY OPERATED ORCHESTRA – THE ROSSI BAR, BRIGHTON 4.9.24
Ostensibly an electro pop trio, Bexhill’s Office For Personal Development are more like an extended piece of performance art, couched in a retro aesthetic of corporate livery and office culture. Their continuing mission is to deliver relentless motivational exhortations, expressed in a mixture of management-speak and self-help psychobabble, and disseminated through the medium of ludicrously catchy, 1980s-style synth pop. Be advised that once exposed to this concept, listeners can quickly become devotees. The band’s 2024 debut album ‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ has enticed many into the fold and garnered support from DJs, with radio play on BBC 6 Music and Radio X. So is this brain-washing or business acumen? A sinister cult, or a civic-minded public service? It’s time for the gig-goers of Brighton to decide.
Tonight’s office space is fairly compact, being the tiny stage area of The Rossi Bar basement in Queens Road which has been organised by Melting Vinyl promoters. The audience is pretty much at the maximum capacity, so it’s quite warm downstairs. To begin, we are treated to a delightful set from Newhaven electro duo Battery Operated Orchestra, which is described below. This is particularly well received by the packed crowd, and now it’s time for Office For Personal Development.
As is customary, the band has brought the necessary accoutrements for a workplace vibe: some pot plants, a free-standing retractable banner, and an emptied water cooler housing a green strobe and smoke machine. Effects units are stowed in briefcases. The band members are dressed for business in grey suits with green ties that match the corporate livery, although trainers are favoured over more formal footwear. Each player is referred to by their role within the organisation. Lead vocalist Trevor is ‘The Director’, synth maestro and laptop operator Del is ‘Head of IT’, whilst Jenna on vocals and keyboards is designated ‘Goals Liaison Officer’. The staff are looking mildly concerned as some technical difficulties have delayed the start, but with these apparently resolved, we get underway with an intro recording that ushers in the Head of IT’s chiming synth lead on ‘Take Me Back’.
The opening number is comparatively downbeat, but we get right on message with ‘You Are In Control’, emphasised by an accompanying dance, for which the band are joined by an operative wearing a boiler suit. In a surreal touch, he wears a cathode-ray computer monitor on his head, with flashing green lights around the screen. The lyric extols the virtues of self-determination through positive action: “Never believe the way it is is how it has to be. Never believe in any such thing as destiny. You are in control.”
The positivity is maintained with ‘Everything Is Going To Be OK’. The Director makes a foray into the audience, reciting the organisation’s key principles and getting the crowd to chant them back. A trust exercise, reminiscent of corporate training days, features in ‘Strong Enough’. The Director gamely launches himself backwards off the monitors, and thankfully is safely caught and borne aloft by the willing hands of the audience.
Next up is ‘Bexhill’, and as a resident of that town, I feel duty-bound to dance along. The song is a cracker, an insanely infectious 12-bar embellished with guitar from The Director, and listing a delightfully random selection of places that aren’t Bexhill. The band are joined by actor Lewis J Ikin, who reprises his role of “Bexhill Man” from the accompanying video. Lewis also served as the monitor-headed dancer earlier. I’m pleased to note that the lyric has been specially tailored for the occasion: “There are people who’ve had enough in Lulworth Cove. There are people who’ve had enough in Brighton and Hove.” Superb!
Goals Liaison Officer Jenna takes the lead vocal for the frothy pop of ‘Love Me Again’, and The Director’s guitar is back on for the anthemic ‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ Having morphed from a psychedelic intro to a funky groove, it breaks down to a clap-and-chant-along section that is taken up with joyous enthusiasm by the audience, many of whom have been dancing with the ecstatic zeal of new converts.‘Risk To Benefit’ is a fine song that moves along at a brisk pace. The Director has been gradually discarding clothing through the set, and is shirtless for another excursion into the crowd for ‘Do It All Over Again’. He hands the mic to individual punters to contribute screams at appropriate junctures.
Tonight’s technical difficulties, presumably with monitoring, have made things a bit tense for the players, though it all sounded okay out front. The band has soldiered on through it, and at the end of concluding number ‘Invisible To Me’ they take a bow to well-deserved and rapturous applause. If you’re not already familiar, I strongly recommend that you check out Office For Personal Development, and begin your own developmental journey today.
Office For Personal Development:
The Director (lead vocals, keyboards, guitar) – Trevor Deeble
Head of IT (keyboards, electronics) – Del Querns
Goals Liaison Officer (vocals, keyboards) – Jenna Love
Office For Personal Development setlist:
‘Take Me Back’ (from 2024 ‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ album)
‘You Are In Control’ (from 2024 ‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ album)
‘Everything Is Going To Be OK’ (from 2024 ‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ album)
‘Strong Enough’ (from 2024 ‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ album)
‘Bexhill’ (a 2024 single)
‘Love Me Again’ (from 2024 ‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ album)
‘Best Days Of Our Lives’ (from 2024 ‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ album)
‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ (from 2024 ‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ album)
‘Risk To Benefit’ (from 2024 ‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ album)
‘Do It All Over Again’ (from 2024 ‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ album)
‘Invisible To Me’ (from 2024 ‘Doing. Is. Thinking.’ album)
Opening the show tonight are Battery Operated Orchestra, a well-established synth pop duo from Newhaven who have released five albums. This stylish pair are clearly on a similar wavelength to Office For Personal Development, with a finely tuned pop sensibility and a lot of gorgeously retro synth tones. The message is slightly more subtle, and delivered with razor sharp wit and plenty of sass. Like OPD, they wear suits with trainers, though the look is quirky and arty rather than corporate. Lead vocalist Brigitte, a tall willowy figure with a stylishly angular bobbed haircut, sports a skirt suit with an op-art print. Her bandmate (and husband) Chris favours a pinstripe jacket and shades, and his tie co-ordinates with Brigitte’s outfit. His array of tiny analogue synths sits atop a pair of vibrantly twinkling light boxes, and the equipment is connected by a jumble of coloured cables.
Brigitte is throwing some shapes on opener ‘Nightclub Mishap’, her vocal delivery a singsong staccato. A wavering lead line floats over a backing of juddering electronica. There’s a lot going on and it’s all rather lovely. For ‘Obelisk’, the vocalist dons a Yamaha CS01, a small analogue synth that she plays slung from a strap, like a guitar. A gloweringly deep and naggingly catchy bass line underscores the soaring vocal. There’s an enthusiastic clap-along during ‘Lady Megawatt’, which moves along nicely on an infectious groove.
“I forgot how deliciously dank it is in here,” Brigitte observes, elegantly divesting herself of the suit jacket. She’s not wrong there. The Rossi basement is packed and it’s very warm, despite the gallant efforts of the air con unit which I have deliberately stationed myself beneath. Chris lasts one more number before his jacket comes off too.
I’m rather taken with the vibey mood of ‘Dead News’, and there’s some lively dancing by Brigitte during the more urgent ‘The Sea’, a dual vocal gliding smoothly over bubbling sequenced bleeps. “Let’s do a song about sh*t relationships,” Chris quips, “Everyone loves those…” He’s introducing ‘Perfect Wreck’, with an appropriately glowering bass, moody lead, and a high, sustained vocal.
The standout number of the set for me is ‘Service Economy’, which features on the ‘Compulsory Games’ album. To make it even better, they recreate the ‘Mr Humphries Mix’ included on a recent single, opening with a straight cover (complete with cash register sample) of the theme tune from TV sitcom ‘Are You Being Served?’ You know the one: “Ground floor: perfumery, stationery and leather goods, wigs and haberdashery, kitchenware and food. Going up…” As someone who endured communal family TV viewing in the 1970s, and who has also done time in retail, I can relate to this. “You don’t own me just because I served you what you wanted,” Brigitte snarls, with feeling. She delivers a flurry of air punches to emphasise the equally acerbic “If you treat me like a slave I will teach you to behave,” and overlapping ascending synth lines propel us towards a dramatic conclusion.
The CS01 is back on for ‘The Dissolve’, providing additional texture on a wonderfully rich and varied track, and there’s a theremin-like ghostly lead line over the punchy bass of set-closer ‘Fairy Tale.’ The crowd has other ideas, and there are vociferous calls for more. The duo obliges with ‘Where Nobody Can Find Us’, a glorious slice of electro pop originally recorded by Chris’s previous project Katsen.
This has been a hugely impressive set, and if quirky electronica is your sort of thing, time perusing the Battery Operated Orchestra back catalogue will be well spent.
Battery Operated Orchestra:
Brigitte Rose – lead vocals, synth
Chris Black – backing vocals, keyboards, electronics
Battery Operated Orchestra setlist:
‘Nightclub Mishap’ (from 2023 ‘Compulsory Games’ album)
‘Obelisk’ (from 2014 ‘Incomplete Until Broken’ album)
‘Lady Megawatt’ (from 2020 ‘Yesterday Tomorrow And You’ album)
‘Killing Girl’ (from 2023 ‘Compulsory Games’ album)
‘Dead News’ (from 2023 ‘Compulsory Games’ album)
‘The Sea’ (from 2016 ‘Radiation’ album)
‘Perfect Wreck’ (from 2018 ‘Snare’ album)
‘Service Economy (Mr Humphries Mix)’ (a 2024 single)
‘The Dissolve’ (from 2020 ‘Yesterday Tomorrow And You’ album)
‘Fairy Tale’ (from 2016 ‘Radiation’ album)
(encore)
‘Where Nobody Can Find Us’ (Katsen tune) (from 2015 ‘It Hertz! Deluxe Edition’ album)
