Biography
Pop experimentalists I Start Counting blended English artiness with playful energy. Rather than locking into one pattern like many electronic acts of the 1980s, the band kept reshaping its approach, moving fluidly between brightness and shadow, pop immediacy and experimental edges. Across the decade it issued two full-lengths—My Translucent Hands in 1986 and Fused in 1988—alongside seven singles before adopting a more dance-oriented direction and adopting the name Fortran 5 at the start of the 1990s; later projects appeared under the names John Came and Komputer. Two collections of previously unheard I Start Counting recordings, Re-Fused and Ejected, surfaced in 2021.
David Baker and Simon Leonard formed I Start Counting in the early 1980s. The pair signed with Mute in 1984 and debuted with the offbeat single “Letters to a Friend,” whose British talk-sing vocals and psychedelic keyboard textures stood apart from the era’s synthesizer fare. Their next release, 1985’s “Still Smiling,” was quickly praised as another signature track. Working from a basement, Baker and Leonard completed their first album, My Translucent Hands, the following year. A devoted cult audience grew in both the U.K. and the U.S., particularly among American suburban teenagers encountering Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk on dance floors.
House music shaped 1988’s Fused, the final album issued under the I Start Counting name. Rechristened Fortran 5, the duo pursued increasingly eccentric ideas, drawing samples from unexpected sources and confronting listeners with unpredictable electronic experiments. They closed the I Start Counting chapter with the 1991 compilation Catalogue. In addition to three Fortran 5 albums, the pair issued a more experimental set, Rhythmicon, as John Came. In 1996 they became Komputer, delivering three albums of openly Kraftwerkian synth pop before entering hiatus.
Mute assembled Konnecting… in 2011, a retrospective spanning the duo’s work as I Start Counting, Fortran 5, and Komputer. Expanded digital versions added rarities from all three projects, among them remixes by Adrian Sherwood, Moby, David Holmes, and others. Re-Fused and Ejected, containing unreleased songs and demos from 1985 and 1986, followed in 2021.
David Baker and Simon Leonard formed I Start Counting in the early 1980s. The pair signed with Mute in 1984 and debuted with the offbeat single “Letters to a Friend,” whose British talk-sing vocals and psychedelic keyboard textures stood apart from the era’s synthesizer fare. Their next release, 1985’s “Still Smiling,” was quickly praised as another signature track. Working from a basement, Baker and Leonard completed their first album, My Translucent Hands, the following year. A devoted cult audience grew in both the U.K. and the U.S., particularly among American suburban teenagers encountering Depeche Mode and Kraftwerk on dance floors.
House music shaped 1988’s Fused, the final album issued under the I Start Counting name. Rechristened Fortran 5, the duo pursued increasingly eccentric ideas, drawing samples from unexpected sources and confronting listeners with unpredictable electronic experiments. They closed the I Start Counting chapter with the 1991 compilation Catalogue. In addition to three Fortran 5 albums, the pair issued a more experimental set, Rhythmicon, as John Came. In 1996 they became Komputer, delivering three albums of openly Kraftwerkian synth pop before entering hiatus.
Mute assembled Konnecting… in 2011, a retrospective spanning the duo’s work as I Start Counting, Fortran 5, and Komputer. Expanded digital versions added rarities from all three projects, among them remixes by Adrian Sherwood, Moby, David Holmes, and others. Re-Fused and Ejected, containing unreleased songs and demos from 1985 and 1986, followed in 2021.
Albums
Singles
