Tony Mansfield
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Tony Mansfield (born 19 January 1955 in London) is an English songwriter, musician and record producer.
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[edit] Early work
Mansfield is best known as the main songwriter/producer for New Musik, a synthpop band that performed from 1979 to 1982. The band had three UK Top 40 hits in 1980 (and a Number 1 hit in France), releasing three albums: From A To B (1980), Anywhere (1981) and Warp (1982). The group also released a compilation album for the United States in 1981, known as Sanctuary. It consisted of tracks from the first two albums.
After the disbanding of New Musik in 1982, Mansfield embarked on a similar project entitled Planet HaHa, with his younger brother Lee Mansfield and Rob Fisher (of Naked Eyes). They released just one single, Home, inspired by the popular film E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial of 1982. It featured Lee's sing/speaking child vocal. The single was subsequently removed from sale by the record company for legal reasons.
[edit] Production
Mansfield then turned exclusively to production, producing a number of successful albums and singles for various popular artists in the 1980s, most notably Naked Eyes, Captain Sensible, a-ha, Yukihiro Takahashi, Mari Wilson, The B-52s, Miguel Bosé, Ana Torroja and After The Fire.
In the 1990s he produced the album Puntos Cardinales for Spanish female artist Ana Torroja singer of one of the best Spanish pop group Mecano, among other production works.
His productions are distinguished by a balancing of rich textures and atmospheric soundscapes. He is known for his inventiveness in the studio and utilisation of the latest musical technology (e.g. the Fairlight CMI in the early-mid 1980s). His "sound" is in part carried over from his New Musik days, and he usually plays keyboards and acoustic guitars on his productions, which along with distinctive reversed effects, twelve-string acoustic guitar and a "submarine" sonar effect are signature elements his fans can readily identify.
[edit] Recent work
Tony Mansfield appears reclusive and not keen on any form of publicity, making it hard to stay current with his efforts. Certainly the 2000s have seen fewer productions, notably a 2000 Eurovision Song Contest entry single, "My Star", for the Latvian band BrainStorm, as well as their 2001 album Online. All evidence suggests there have been no productions since.
Rumours emerged in the very-late 1990s of the release of another New Musik album, supposedly entitled e-Musik. It was believed to be the work of Mansfield and his brother, Lee. Nothing came of this however, but more recent rumours (2006) suggest an album is ready for release under the band name Planet HaHa, resurrecting the name of that project after a gap of more than twenty years.
It is believed that, whatever the title will be, this new album's tracks were finished some time ago but release has been delayed on more than one occasion for unpublicised reasons.
