Background

Collaborating since 1982, Leonard and Baker were originally signed to Mute Records

Mute Records

Mute is an independent record label based in the UK. It was founded in 1978 by Daniel Miller and featured several prominent musical acts on its roster such as Goldfrapp, Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure and Fad Gadget.-Beginnings:...

 in 1984 under the name I Start Counting  and continued with releases under the moniker Fortran 5

Fortran 5

Fortran 5 was an electronic music band recording music during the nineties.-Background:The band were made up of members David Baker and Simon Leonard, who had previously worked together on the music project known as I Start Counting. Around 1990 they had begun recording new material, and realised...

 until the release of Komputer’s debut album, The World of Tomorrow in (1998).

Simon Leonard and David Baker originally met at Middlesex University where they DJed together and, in 1982 began to collaborate on an electronic pop project, I Start Counting. Both had an abiding affection for pop music as well as a deep love of music in general, although Leonard specialised more in technology and David's bias was on the musical side. I Start Counting released two albums, and, in 1987, supported Erasure on a European tour.

In 1990 the new material they were working on was sounding quite different from their electro pop roots and it was decided that a new name, Fortran 5, would give the new dance/techno style a completely fresh start. The duo also began to collaborate with a number of other artists including DJ Colin Faver, Thrash of The Orb, Rod Slater of the Bonzos and Neil Arthur of Blancmange. Remixes were provided by the likes of Vince Clarke, Moby, Joey Negro, David Holmes and Pascal Gabriel, while the duo supplied remixes for other artists including Erasure, Inspiral Carpets and Laibach.

David and Simon then reacted to the tedium of mid 90's indie guitar music by returning to their Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. The group was formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970, and was fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008...

inspired roots which again provoked a name change.The band takes samples from a variety of sources: from Russian cosmonauts to rubbish compactors and mobile phone ringtones.

Komputer's first releases, the 'Komputer EP' and the subsequent album 'The World Of Tomorrow'; were a respectful homage to the duo's German electronic heroes. Later material saw Komputer absorbing a much wider variety of influences and creating their own unique style of English electronic pop/folk music.

The duo never performed live as Fortran 5, but from the earliest days as Komputer, live shows were very important, leading to many performances all over Europe, most recently appearing at the Short Circuit presents Mute festival at London’s Roundhouse.

For Synthetik, the band’s third album, the music gradually evolved over a long period of time, tracks were tried out in live sets then discarded or reworked in the studio, maturing into a return to the more traditional electro sound of the first album, The World Of Tomorrow, with the incorporation of a more experimental and contemporary electronica approach.