Die Krupps came together in 1981 as a duo comprised of vocalist, guitarist, keyboardist, and mouthpiece Jurgen Engler, formerly of the German punk outfit Male, and ex-Propaganda member Ralf Dorper. Over the course of the group's first three records, 1981's Stahlwerksinfonie, 1982's Volle Kraft Voraus, and 1984's Entering the Arena, Die Krupps continued to refine its lyrically bleak, synth-based sound.
Entering The Arena is an excellent example of synth sound combined with industrial sounds. A must have for all synth enthusiasts!
TRACKLISTING:
"Risk" - 3:54
"Rise and Fall" - 5:32
"Communication Breakdown" - 3:02
"Risky Soul Version" - 6:34
"Gladiators" - 5:26
"Your Voice" - 5:38
"Communication Breakdown" (Don't Speak Mix) - 3:12
"This Day Is Not the Last" - 3:55
"Risk" (Operatic Intro) - 3:52
"Risk" (Metallic Outro) - 3:17
This sampler was given away free to anyone who ordered the first Mutebank catalague "Statement 1" at the launch of the Mutebank. It contains the most important Mute Records artists and it gives an overview of the gretness of Mute Records.
TRACKLISTING:
DISC 1
1 - Barry Adamson - The Snowball Effect
2 - The Balanescu Quartet - The Model
3 - Simon Bonney - Don't Walk Away From Love
4 - Cabaret Voltaire - Nag Nag Nag
5 - Can - Mushroom
6 - Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Nobody's Baby Now
7 - Depeche Mode - Walking In My Shoes (Live)
8 - Dinosaur Jr. - Freak Scene
9 - Einsturzende Neubaten & Anita Lane - Blume
10 - Erasure - Always
11 - Fortran 5 - Time To Dream
12 - Diamanda Galas - You're Mine
13 - Holger Hiller - Whippets
14 - Inspiral Carpets - Saturn 5
15 - Juno Reactor - High Energy Protons
16 - Laibach - The Final Countdown
17 - Miranda Sex Garden - Peepshow
18 - Moby - Feeling So Real
DISC 2
1 - Nitzer Ebb - Kick It
2 - Non - Cleanliness And Order
3 - Parallax - Push For The Love Of Life (Savage Mix)
4 - Plastikman - Plastique (Short)
5 - Rancho DIablo - Chicken World
6 - Renegade SOundwave - Positive Id
7 - Rosa Mota - Hopey
8 - Sonic Youth - Teen Age Riot
9 - Spk - In Flagrante Delicto
10 - Mark Stewart - Hysteria
11 - Phase - Voo Doo Pop
12 - Throbbing Gristle - Hot On The Wheels Of Love
13 - Frank Tovey & The Pyros - The Liberty Tree
14 - Wire - Kidney Bingos
15 - Yazoo - Winter Kills
I would like to give you my best Christmas greetings. I hope it will be a wonderful xmas for you and your families and I wish you come back here soon for new releases.
In 2003 and 2004 Swedish sensations The Legends received world wide recognition with the hyped debut Up against the Legends. Now they return with an album, their first Australian release, bound to take the world by surprise. Public Radio echoes of the early 80’s and sounds futuristic at the same time, mixing influences from bands like New Order, Felt, Feelies and The Cure, but with a unique pop aesthetic to turn it into something utterly wonderful and new.
From the debut to today, The Legends have transformed from a 9-piece band to a one-man project. At least officially. The truth is that both Up against the Legends and Public Radio were recorded, written, played and produced by Johan Angergård (also member of Acid House Kings). Johan explains, "When I start recording an album I have a very clear idea of what I want to do and by doing everything myself the album comes out exactly the way I want it to. Involving other people might only blur the vision."
Yes, Johan is certainly an inspired gentleman. As a result Public Radio delivers a focussed Legends outlook on life, embracing a cohesively innovative approach that embarks on a musical turn a second.
The Legends happily list Television Personalities, Comet Gain, Motown and C-86 as inspirations to their sound, but it’d be hard to ignore the significant nod to Manchester, circa 1983, that Angergard embeds in his songwriting today. It’s all tracked here on Public Radio, a major development for the band. Accomplished, timeless, and somehow simultaneously personal and detached, a stellar effort from the new generation of musical masterminds.
What critics said about The Legends’ debut album Up Against The Legends. . .
“Who The Legends are is so much less important than what their debut is: a solid, surprising album whose rewards are commensurate with the time you spend with it.” (Pitchfork)
“Every song on Up Against Legends is a potential single, and perhaps more importantly, every song on Up Against Legends is a unique creation from the lo-fi “Just Like Honey”-esque “Your Song” to the (almost too) impeccably produced “When the Day is Done”, from the distorted squeals and sonic abuse of “Breaking Time Breaking Lines”, to the acoustic driven Brit-pop of “The Kids Just Wanna Have Fun”. (Stylus)
Track Listing: 1. Today
2. Hide Away
3. People Like Us
4. You’re Alive
5. Air
6. He Knows The Sun
7. Something Good
8. I Want To Be Like Everybody Else
9. Heaven Will Wait
10. So Much For Tomorrow
11. These Old Hearts Of Ours
12. Do You Remember Riley?
This is one of those albums that I had to take a chance on because there were no audio samples; I had to base my purchasing decision solely on the reviews of total strangers and pray that they knew what they were talking about.
I am happy to say that the reviewers were right on; what a treasure this album is! And it's a wonderful time capsule as well! These songs were produced between 1982 - 1984, however they were never released until about 1999. The magic is the songs don't sound dated. Vince Clarke produced this album, and he and E.C. Radcliffe did the programming. This album has been compared to sounding like early Depeche Mode and Yaz/Yazoo, but I think it's more similar in sound to "The Circus"-era Erasure.
I'm not sure why no record company (Mute??) wouldn't have picked up these songs and ran with them; the 80s would have been THE time to have released these songs. However I'm not sure how these songs would have fared without Vince C.'s touches and studio wizardry because there aren't really any strong individual singles. Don't get me wrong; all of the songs are great, it's just that all of the songs are pretty consistent and nothing really stands out as "the song you must hear."
My favorites are "Calling All Destroyers", "The Face Of Dorian Gray", "Ambition" and "Crying For The Moon", which has a "1950s meets Synth-Pop" feel. I find myself starting to sing "Great Balls Of Fire" whenever I hear this song; clearly the most fun song on the album.
This album is worthy of five out of five stars; it's not too long (a little over 37 minutes), and I believe it stands up well next to "Speak & Spell", "Upstairs At Eric's" and "Wonderland." I gave it four stars, partly because I'm not able to rate it 4 1/2, but also because of my own minor quibbles. The first one I previously mentioned - I can't decide if I am captivated by the songs themselves or simply by Vince C.'s production. Also, Vince C. is a genius for what he does with songs. However, some of the sound effects he chose to incorporate into some of the songs kind of take away from them; like the cartoonish "boing" throughout "Torch Team." Bleeps and bloops are fine, but a "boing" kind of pushes the envelope. The same goes for the car horn that beeps in time to the beat in "Crying For The Moon" (which I know only happens once, but I'm trying to make a point here). I know he's all about putting out-of-the-ordinary sounds into songs and making them work, but every so often, they can be slightly out of place.
Anyway, instead of pontificating on who's album this really is - Vince Clarke's or Robert Marlow's, I'll take it for what it is - a tasty slice of early 80s new wave synth-pop which I am glad to have in my collection.
After so many years contributing to Kraftwerk's genius, and then making his Electric Music project (with a very good first album in the Kraftwerk's style, "Esperanto", at the begining of the 90s, and a completely missed second album, too much "britpop" for the synthetic music's fans at the end of this decade), Karl Bartos shows us he's quite an energetic 50 years old. "Communication" is a kind of come-back to his origins, Bartos has understood that his genius is more linked to the use of machines than the simple creation of pop melodies. We think of "Esperanto" and the fascination of the German musician for all the communication's technics (photography, internet, virtual reality, etc.); we can't help ourselves to think of Krafwerk in the essential use of the vocoder and the numerous synthetic sounds, the whole wrapped up in candid, "hippy" harmonies. But, unlike the new Krafwerk's album, greeted for its coherence and its modesty, "Communication" is a real pop album, technopop in the meaning the Düsseldorf's quartet gave it in its good years (from "Neon Lights" to "Electric Café" and "Computer World"). Therefore more sexy and more exciting. The melodies are catchy, the rhythms are dancing on almost all the tracks and even some sounds equal the current best techno productions (we think of Orbital - which remixes I'm the Message on an eponymous EP- as well as LFO, who dedicated its first album to... Kraftwerk). We remember that Karl Bartos sensibly collaborated with Bernard Sumner of New Order on Electronic's second album, and that he undeniably kept the habit of singing like him, which is confirmed on tracks like 15 Minutes of Fame (an EP already released last year), Electronic Apeman and Life. As for the rest, and if we except the rather bland, almost instrumentals Interview and Another Reality, Karl Bartos offers us eight pop-electronic tracks, very robotic, cold and warm at the same time, subtle and above all ageless. It was worth waiting for.
TRACKLISTING:
1. The Camera
2. I m The Message
3. 15 Minutes Of Fame
4. Reality
5. Electronic Apeman
6. Life
7. Cyberspace
8. Interview
9. Ultraviolet
10. Another Reality
MODERNE - Moderne/L'Espionne Aimat La Musique 1980-81 (Minimal Wave) Comentários: "A limited edition release of Modernes two full length LPs: Moderne (1980) and LEspionne Aimait La Musique (1981), remastered from the original analog reels and pressed on 180 gram audiophile quality vinyl, is now available. The gatefold artwork features photographs of the band, and is printed on heavyweight 350 gram double white board, with a matte laminate and black inner sleeves. The release is accompanied by a double sided 18" x 24" poster featuring an interview with the band on one side, and photograph on t he other. Moderne was a Minimal / Synthpop band formed in Tours, France in 1979. The band consisted of: Gérard Lévy, Thierry Teyssou, Bernard Guimond, Dominique Marchetti and their videographer Patrick Millerioux. After releasing two albums and two corresponding 7" singles between 1980-1981, nothing was heard from Moderne and aside from "Switch on Bach" (released on the compilation So Young But So Cold in 2004), very little has been heard from this band. Moderne remains notoriously hidden in the past, and their albums and singles have become collectors items. The albums were recorded in their Tours studio and mixed by Joschko Rudas and Henning Schmitz at Studio Rudas Düsseldorf, the same studio Kraftwerk used for Man Machine (1978). The production is exceptional. This is French new wave at its best."
TRACKLISTING:
1. Switch On Bach
2. Mercenaire Solitaire
3. Judo-O-Dojo
4. La Romance
5. Qu'Elle Me Caresse
6. Eldorado
7. Video Idéale
8. L'Homme D'Affaires
9. Dilemma
10. Mode
The melting of electro with other genres is what makes the electronic scene and its music more interesting than ever before, even at a time where economically speaking it is difficult to proceed in music business. Some might not survive it, but I feel it is a time of innovation, sort of a consequent building of the next level - and not a time of antitraditionalism." (Anthony Rother, 2005)
The 30-year old producer and label owner from Offenbach (Frankfurt) obviously knows what he’s talking about when calling a compilation “In Electro We Trust” as he did not so long ago. For over 17 years, he has been working, playing, living and representing electro. Always believing in this kind of music, Rother went through all its ups and downs. With his club label Datapunk he has been transforming the aesthetics of electro into today’s music for over a couple of years now. Some extraordinary successful maxis, like productions for Sven Väth’s Cocoon label, and Rother’s fifth studio album "Popkiller" prove the timelessness of his sound. Not only was "Popkiller" on top of all the 2004 charts but also it was crowned album of the year by the Raveline Magazine readers. All in all, enough proof of how up-todate electro still is today.Anthony Rother’s career started in the late eighties.
His first record releases were strongly inspired by the spherical sound collage of director and composer John Carpenter ("Die Klapperschlange", "The End"). From 1994 on, Rother was one of the most important producers of Heiko Laux’s Kanzleramt label, which, at that time, was located in rural Hessen and has remained one of the few German labels releasing techno on a qualitatively high level.Three years later, a sub label of Kanzleramt was founded especially for Rother’s long player "Sex with the machines", Kanzeleramt’s first artist album to be released. It added a long lasting dynamic to Rother’s career. With "Sex with the machines" Rother realised for the first time the synergy of clubbing expectation and the intensity of electro beats typical for his sound. "The unbelievable feedback from different people was the first proof for me of how much energy I can get out of my music and all of a sudden, everything was clear to me! The success I had later on has confirmed me on what I am doing and has shown me my way to better understand myself as an artist."As a consequence, Rother started to go his own way in 1998 and founded his own label PSI49NET, an artistic platform to release his own productions as well as a variety of collaborations with fellow producers and innovative musicians for whom PSI49NET represented the right medium.
It was this label on which celebrated albums like "Simulationszeitalter" (2000), "Little Computer People" (2001) and "Hacker" (2002) were released. Not only were these records musical statements, but they also convinced with their critical vocals which are rather unusual in electronic music.
TRACKLISTING:
1 Eyes (4:49)
2 Electro Pop (6:33)
3 Little Computer People (2:54)
4 Follow The Leader (6:05)
5 I Am (7:09)
6 Tokio (3:20)
7 Who Do You Love (7:30)
8 Sea Of Love (5:28)
9 Pop Music (2:20)
10 Fly High (3:56)
11 Friends Are Not Electric (16:24)
12 Always The Same Game (2:06)
Experimental Products were a two-man minimal wave project who formed in Delaware in 1982. By the time the group disbanded in 1987, they had expanded to four members and had released one full length LP and a handful of 12'' records. Mark Wilde and Michael Gross remained the core members of the band until their demise.
TRACKLISTING:
1. Modern Living
2. Sweet Rejection
3. New Project
4. Feeling Left Out
5. Nightmares I
6. The Addict
7. Anesthetic
8. Streetwalk
9. Clear Image
10. Nightmares II
A lot has been said about Fairlight Children� Maybe too much actually?! Cos expectations are high from this new project featuring Stephan Groth from Apoptygma Berzerk surrounded by two sexy girls, and the higher expectations are, the harder the fall can be. �808 Bit� is a minimal retro-lectro pop album full of old computer sounds, simple sequences, kitsch drum machine patterns and a mix of clear and vocoded vocals. I have the impression that our Norwegian musician must have had a lot of fun while working on this album. Fun� it�s exactly what you experience when listening to this record for the first time, but then I started doubting� HopingStephan Groth really made this album with humour and wanting us to take it at the second degree, otherwise it is nothing but a pure catastrophe! �Falling Out�, �Before You Came Along�, �Electropulse� or yet �808 Bit� are okay synth pop tracks, but the rest is more of a true experiment with early eighties sounds of Groth�s idols! And while speaking of heroes, we also get a cover of Soft Cell�s �Bedsitter� which is the only song close to Apop�s sound and which makes me think this one was initially written forApoptygma Berzerk and eventually ended up on this record per error? So it�s mixed feelings that I will give a rate of 6 to this record�
TRACKLISTING:
1. Electropulse 2. Before You Came Along 3. Falling Out 4. Invade My Heart Tonight 5. Windshield Wiper 6. 808 Bit 7. Bedsitter 8. New Age 9. Microhard 10. Big City Girl
When James and Meredith aren't being attacked by mutant rave elements, they lay out their faded quilt of 80s synth pop. No one will be surprised that Figurine have sewn the rinky-dinkness of Depeche Mode's Speak and Spell to the pompous austerity of OMD's Architecture and Morality, with threads of heavily blushed, Dare-era Human League. What's surprising is that the band's lyrics are-- with the charitable exception of the opening song, "International Space Station II"-- woefully banal expositions on relationships not going perfectly. Rather than examining the root causes as to why these fictional relationships have collapsed into disappointment and recrimination, the band scrabbles for $4.99 paperback self-help platitudes and irritatingly weak singing.
The album opener, "International Space Station II," looks to \xB5-Ziq for its otherworldly ambience and to kindergarten for its percussion as James and Meredith discuss their long distance relationship across the solar system. "Impossible" tosses the innovations of the opener away with its fusion of the Euro dance-pop of La Bouche with Visage's synth pads. (And if you were wondering, the Belgian rave sound being dropped into this track is annoying, rather than disquieting.) For "Rewind," Figurine try to emulate Four Tet's Pause. Above picked acoustic guitars and Roland TB-303 squelches and stabs, James sings, "Every single move you make/ Ends up being a big mistake/ You constantly embarrass me/ In front of friends and family." Despite these shortcomings, James thinks that, with a judicious rewind, things could be made right.
Yaz and Depeche Mode founder Vince Clarke should have been given a writing credit for "Our Game," which borrows liberally from Clarke's pioneering, two-finger keyboard style. Unfortunately, Meredith doesn't attempt to emulate Alison Moyet's bluesy power. Instead, as on the rest of The Heartfelt, her voice is paltry and characterless. Figurine redeem the track halfway through, however. Like the old Studio 1 releases that segued from the vocal to the dub version, so does "Our Game" launch into its remix version with glistening glee.
Without lacing The Heartfelt with the anxiety of Fad Gadgett, Lali Puna's pop contortions, or the retro futurist panache of Ladytron, Figurine slump into being just another band who are competent at recreating music to wear too much make-up to. And that, my friends, is frustrating, because I know members of this band are capable of outstanding work. The core of Figurine is Dntel's James Tamborello, whose Life is Full of Possibilities LP is the most creative and provocative statement I've heard this year. But where Life is Full of Possibilities takes risks and subverts, The Heartfelt is simple and unremarkably dour. If this is how Figurine define "heartfelt," they'll learn much from Seventeen's forthcoming article on defeating low self-esteem and underachievement.
