Cindy Sharp previously known as Gordon Sharp is a Scottish singer, musician and producer. She has led several music projects since 1976, the most significant and long-standing being Cindytalk. Sharp has gained a reputation for an unflinchingly experimental approach to music and ideas.
Biography
Sharp started a punk band called The Freeze whilst attending Linlithgow Academy in 1976. The Freeze was active between 1976 and 1981. Sharp moved to London in 1982, changed the band's name to Cindytalk and signed to the Midnight Music label. In 1983, Sharp sang with fellow Scots Cocteau Twins on one of their John Peel sessions and at selected live gigs, where she met 4ADexecutiveIvo Watts-Russell. This led to her being invited to participate as one of the featured singers with 4AD collective This Mortal Coil on its first album. Early in her career, Sharp traveled from Scotland to London to attend a concert held by David Sylvian's band, Japan where she met John Taylor and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran. After meeting Taylor, Sharp was repeatedly asked by him to join his Birmingham based new romantic band. Sharp briefly stayed at Nick Rhodes' parents house in Birmingham during Duran Duran's early rehearsals, but decided on her journey back to Scotland that Duran Duran's ambitions did not sit well with her own direction. Cindytalk released a series of group albums and singles in the 80s and 90s. An electronic side-project, Bambule, was started in 1994 by Sharp and Simon Carmichael. In 2002, Sharp started to write abstract electronic music using a laptop, and since 2004 has split her time between Japan and the UK, working on various projects. This has included Cindytalk performing live, and a number of recordings. Vienna based record labelEditions Mego, which is known for releasing cutting edge electronic music, released a series of Cindytalk albums focused on Sharp's primitive noise-poetry. No longer perceived only as a singer, this has repositioned Sharp and Cindytalk within the musical establishment.
