Thee Outside - "Deaf Disco" (Year Zero Records YEAR002) 1997/2010

Did someone say Drum'n'Bass? This gives me the opportunity to plug this D'n'B ignored underground classic from 1997; re-released in 2010 on Year Zero records.Bizarre dark Drum'n'Bass stylings with a splash of Black Humour. Still sounds remarkably fresh, maybe because it isn't yer bog standard Drum'n'Bass format. Fused with Electronica,with a dash of Exotica,found sounds,noise samples, crossed with a drop of only the best in Elevator Muzak.You could even dance to this if you were so inclined and on drugs.Probably the most commercial record on Year Zero!
Think Luke Vibert, Aphex Twin , Squarepusher and U-Ziq as musical references.

Tracklisting:

Track Listing:

1. Testcard (3:24)
2. Sectioned (4:58)
3. Empty Mind (5:48)
4. Intruder (5:33)
5. Instructions From God (6:33)
6. Its After The End Of The World (8:55)
7. The Grey Room (The Deaf Disco) (3:11)
8. Towers Open Fire! (14:36)
9. This is Your Saviour Calling (7:28)
10.In the Beginning (5:28)
11.Wormhole (3:53)
12.A Short Song About Death (9:54)

DOWNLOAD a piece of thee outside HERE!

Tuning Circuits - "No Compassion" ( Totally Freaked Out Power Electronics ‎– TFO PE2, Totally Freaked Out Power Electronics ‎– No. 2) 1990

Not all Electronic music was shit after 1985, some of that Acid House stuff was pretty good, and Drum'n'Bass was rather marvellous around 1995. And this cassette is most excellent in its House music filtered through home made Tandy/maplin style electronic kits kinda way. The Solid state circuitry fizzes with an endearing cheapness that most Dance producers gag at; but fuck those pricks, this is what dance music should be, endlessly repetitive and home made by real people for real people.
All this and a great malfunctioning robot voice to put some icing on the already sweet cake.
Like it says on the insert:
"Recorded live at home April/May 1990. No mixing or editing afterwards, no samples, no stereo, no dolby.
Play this analog dancecore very loud!!!!"

Track Listing: 

A1		I Am A Non-Believer (Looking Out Of The Window On Sunday Version)
A2		I Know What You Want (Harcore XXX Version)
A3		No Compassion (No Compassion Version)
A4		Come Again (Sleazy Orgiastic Version)
B1		Mindbender (It's In Your Brain Version)
B2		It's In My Brain Too (Screaming Oscillator Version)
B3		It's In Your Brain (Harcore House Version)
B4		Now You Know Where You Stand (Too Heavy Bass Distorted Version)

DOWNLOAD without compassion HERE!

Crash Course in Science - "Crash Course in Science Anthology 1979-1981" (VOD 67) 2009

This still sounds like the Future to me!
A Future where all computers are homemade from catalogue kits,along with synthesisers and beat boxes. This is the kind of music that someone from the 1950's would imagine the music of the 21st century would sound like.Played in the background in one of those concept houses featuring all the mod-cons of a 21st century home, like electric curtains and other crap that technology is wasted on.
This is in fact the only prediction that came true; with our mobile phones,smart phones, tablet computers, and the internet; technological marvels, yes? But what do we do with them? Gossip,buy crap,order Russian Brides, and watch Pornography.
The only other thing that came true was that we are listening to Crash Course in Science, with their buzzy, boingy,electro fuzz anti-music of the 21st century.The only problem being, that it was made in the 1970's; and only now is it being appreciated.
I clearly remember hearing "Kitchen Motors" on the John Peel show in 1979.One of those epiphanal moments on the peel show, between the crap reggae and anecdotes about shagging schoolgirls in the sixties, when everything stops, and you think, or even say,"What the Fuck was that?" This only happened on a handful of occasions, like hearing The Fall doing "Stepping Out" live at the Electric Circus, Blah!Blah!Blah!'s "In The Army", and anything from the "Weird Noise EP". Crash Course in Science was up there in that exalted company. The only problem was the record was impossible to find in the record shops in Leicester, the uninterested sneers on the shop employees faces  made it at best an unenjoyable quest. so think yourself blessed that a download that contains everything they ever recorded in a studio, plus some live stuff ,(supporting uber minimalist, Phillip Glass, of all people!?) is available below,accessed by just one click with your mouse finger. Now that IS technology put to a good use; hopefully it comes to you without any porn links or tempting messages from some charming capitalist.
This is the Future.

Tracklisting:

 1: Signals From Pier13:

	Cardboard Lamb
	Crashing Song
	Flying Turns
	Factory Forehead
	Bonus Track
	Pompeii Spared (Original Demo Version)
	Bonus Tracks: 1981 Demos
	Near Marineland
	Second Glance
	It Cost's To Be Austere
	No More Hollow Doors
	Force The Habit
	Jump Over Barrels
	2: Live Recordings
	Opening For Phillip Glass Ensemble, Harrison Auditorium_University Museum, Philadelphia, Pa. November 15, 1980
	Crashing Song
	Cardboard Lamb
	Alarm
	Digital Information
	Two Panes Of Glass
	Pompeii Spared
	Pressure Point
	Basic Device
	Mechanical Breakdown
	FOPPEM Electronic Music Festival, Tucc Cinematheque, Philadelphia, Pa. December 19, 1981
	Near Marineland
	Someone Reads
	Jump Over Barrels
	No More Hollow Doors
	Sputnik In Orbit
	Cardboard Lamb
	Second Glance
	3: Near Marineland
	Near Marineland
	Second Glance
	It Cost's To Be Austere
	No More Hollow Doors
	Force The Habit
	Someone Reads
	Jump Over Barrels
	Pompeii Spared
	Near Marineland Remix
	Second Glance Remix
	Jump Over Barrels Remix
	4: Cakes In The Home
	Cakes In The Home
	Kitchen Motors
	Mechanical Breakdown
	Rehearsal Tapes
	Streetcar 4 A.M.
	Bumpster
	Beat Filter_Instro
	Wait A Minute

DOWNLOAD a crash course in science HERE!

Kitchen and the Plastic Spoons- "Best Off - Recordings 1980-81"

 A sort of X-Ray Spex with a synthesiser. Absolutely classic manic synth-punk from Sweden,probably up there in the top three of the genre,alongside The Screamers and Crash Course in Science(up next).

Track Listing:

		The First Single
1		In Bars	2:38
2		Blätta	2:56
3		Happy Funeral	2:45
4		Fantastic	3:10
		The Second Single
5		Ice Cream To God	5:14
6		(-)	3:23
		The Demo
7		Pajazzo	3:27
8		Psch	6:04
9		Liberty	3:06
		Other Studio Tracks
10		The Poet	2:49
11		Filmen	3:37
		Live Tracks
12		Alfabet För Analfabet	3:08
13		Wrong Selection	3:38
14		Polska Korridoren	2:25
15		Uddavalla	2:25
16		Light	2:54
17		The Kitchen Between Your Ears	2:02
18		Be With The Boys	4:26
19		L'Arabe	3:51
20		Instrumental	3:38

DOWNLOAD it HERE!

Tone Set - "Calibrate" ( Pegna Records ‎– PEG1) 1983

Long forgotten minimal synth classic from Arizona! This is just fantastic, full of no-nonsense basslines,taped dialogue, and classic drum machines.......guaranteed MIDI free.

Track Listing:

A1		Life Is Busy	3:58
A2		Living In Another Land	5:53
A3		Slim	4:38
B1		Out Out	3:58
B2		What Good's A Hit Song	3:25
B3		Wigglin Around In Middletown	6:46

Plus 
Bonus tracks:
7 - He's Got a Little Dog
8 - Relax


DOWNLOAD and calibrate HERE!

Units ‎– "Digital Stimulation" (415 Records ‎– A-0003) 1980

San Fransico's Units, synth punk contempories of The Screamers and Nervous Gender,but far more commercial sounding.They quickly decended into the Synth pop quagmire, but the first few tracks of this "seminal" classic really cut the mustard, in fact the whole album is a great demonstration of man and machine in harmony.
One point of interest is that Jandek called himself The Units for his first album,"Ready for the House" in 1978.One assumes he changed his name because of this very combo? Jandek's a better name anyway.

Track Listing:

A1		High Pressure Days	3:19
A2		Digital Stimulation	3:12
A3		Warm Moving Bodies	3:32
A4		Go	2:13
A5		Mission	1:46
A6		Cannibals	2:44
B1		Bugboy	2:15
B2		Tight Fit	4:04
B3		Passion Or Patterns	2:32
B4		Town By The River	1:59
B5		Cowboy	5:16

DOWNLOAD some digital stimulation HERE!

Vice Versa - "Music 4" ( Neutron Records ‎– PX 1092) 1979

Was gonna carry on with Californian Synth Punk, but realised I hadn't made the files up.So here we are with some naive DIY UK synth pop, from a early incarnation of what would go on to be ABC, of Lexicon of Love fame.
Pretty charming primitive electronica from UK's synth city, Sheffield. Obviously jumping on the Human League bus, and then later,even following their local heroes into the New Pop world of 1982 onwards. A crime that should not go unpunished.
In many ways Sheffield and San Francisco are twin cities in the realm of Music. Both had a healthy Industrial music scene, and had a preference for the electronic; but thats the only thing they have in common,except maybe it rains a lot in SF? Sheffield looked like a Dickensian toilet in the 1970's, so I can see where the Industrial angle came from, and even the escapist leanings towards New Pop; but San Francisco's dark side is a mystery to me.Probably the standard large gulf between the Haves and the Have nots I wager.

DOWNLOAD music 4 HERE!

The Screamers - "Demo's 1977-78"

                                     
                                     
The second Synth Punk group,after Suicide of course,(thanks to icastico for reminding me!) were The Screamers,from L.A., but i don't think they had any bona fide synthesisers in the line up. It was all distorted thrift store organs, and real drums; but Synth-punk this is.
What made them extra great is the fact that they didn't release any records, and relied on building their legend by performing Live, theatrical shows, and making video's. Some would say that this was ahead of their time, and they'd be right.
By spurning rock cliché, rejecting guitars, and not playing the record company game, this is pure no sell-out punk rock, and a definite influence on bands like Nervous Gender.

Track Listing:

1.	The Beat Goes On
2.	Thru the Flames (She Frightens)
3.	Sex Boy
4.	(If I Can't Have What I Want) I Don't Want Anything
5.	She's the Girl (The Girl In The Car With The Glasses And The Gun)
6.	I Wanna Hurt
7.	122 Hours Of Fear (1)
8.	122 Hours Of Fear (2)
9.	Punish Or Be Damned
10.	Government Love Affair (Don't Pay The Whore)
11.	Peer Pressure
12.	In A Better World
13.	Vertigo
14.	Magazine Love
15.	It's A Violent World

All tracks recorded "live" in one session in Summer 1978.
Produced By Geza X, recorded on a 4-track.

DOWNLOAD this screamer HERE!

Various Artists - "Live at Target" (Subterranean Records SUB 03) 1980

                          
                          
                          
                          

This is sort of a "Live at the Roxy"(1977) for the San Francisco punk scene.
Featuring the obnoxious synth punk racket of Nervous Gender, more offensive synth punk from Uns and Factrix (both soon to sell out to Industrial music), and the peerless sludge punk legends Flipper. Kinda makes you wish you were there, rather like that "Roxy" album did. So can pay no higher compliment than that.

Tracklisting:

Side A:
Factrix:
1. Subterfuge
2. A Night To Forget
Nervous Gender:
3. Miscarriage
4. Scandinavian Dilemna
5. Poets And Confession
Side B:
UNS (Z'EV):
1. UNS 1
2. UNS 2
Flipper:
3. Low Rider
4. Falling

Recorded live at Target Studios, 2-24-1980
LP, Subterranean Records, 8-1980


DOWNLOAD directly from the Target HERE!

Nervous Gender - "Music from Hell" (Subterranean Records SUB21) 1981

Sorry,but astonishingly ,I Got a DMCA notice for this one, so had to take the link down or face deletion of this Blog. Big Brother disapproves.Seems they're out to get me!
  

 
Near perfect, unhinged minimal synth punk from the minimal synth punk capital of the world, San Francisco. This group had a ten year old drummer, a pre-requisite for greatness in any musical sphere. Then you got the sublimely named Dinah Cancer guesting on one of the tracks.
I suspect a severe Screamers influence was endemic in the formation of this nasty little collective, which is understandable; the Screamers being one of thee perfect Punk groups ever.
All this, coupled with the recorded live straight to cassette quality and you have a definitive Synth Punk Classic.

(Tracks B1 to B5 performed live in Traetion Gallerie May 30 1981.
The entire contents of this album were recorded on a Toshiba RT-8200a portable cassette recorder and a Sankyo STD-1700 cassette deck. Our most outrageous thanks to Mr Mike Fox for his fidelity recouperation tactics. This album was recorded and mixed in a span of 36 hours, mistakes and all).

The band's web site helpfully points out that Beelzebub Youth is often mistakenly identified as a separate band, but was really only the name of the tracks on the second side

TRACKLIST: 

		Martyr Complex
A1		Monsters
A2		Nothing To Hide
A3		Cardinal Newman
A4		Fat Cow
A5		Alien Point Of View
A6		People Like You
A7		Regress For You
		Beelzebub Youth
B1		Christian Lovers
B2		Exorcism
B3		Bathroom Sluts
B4		Pie On A Ledge
B5		Push, Push, Push
B6		Alice's Song

This has been labelled classified by the DCMA

Jeff and Jane Hudson - "Flesh" (J&J Records J67890) 1983

When I first saw this record in the rack, I envisioned a group of four young men with a 'cool' band name; and what a 'cool' band name is Jeff and Jane Hudson?
But, No! Its actually a record by none other than....er...Jeff and Jane Hudson, aka, Mr and Mrs Hudson. Having seen a picture of them, they look exactly like a husband and wife; you know the type, slightly missed the boat late comer Trendies who are completely self-unaware. Frankly, they'd be laughed at on X-Factor.....but NOT here, for they have the (d.i.) Y factor in shovel loads. They are soooo not Pop that the loving couple with the naff clothes are soooo good.
Also surprising is the great slabs of minimalist electronic pop that they churned out in the early eighties.
Americans doing well in Belgium, the spiritual home of minimal synth music, is not something you hear about every day; but these records were released primarily in the bilingual hinterland of the european low countries.
This is the CD version from later, so you get a whopping 5 bonus tracks from earlier singles.

Tracklisting:

1		Special World
2		3 X 3
3		Fat Of The Land
4		Mystery Chant
5		G.S. III
6		Operating Instruction
7		Pound, Pound
8		Up From The Hell
9		Help Me
10		Small World
11		Los Alamos
12		PCP
13		Information
14		Guatemala
15		Abadan

 Track 1 released as A-side on Special World 7".
Tracks 2 -11 originally released on Flesh LP.
Tracks 12 - 15 originally released on World Trade EP.

DOWNLOAD some Flesh HERE!

Absolute Body Control - "Live" (Body Tapes 004) 1984

Here they are again, our favourite Belgians, this time showing us what a Minimal Synth band can do live! This was back in the days when seeing an electronic band live was not too different from seeing a punk rock band,exciting and unpredictable, and played more or less live. No computers in sight, just the odd sequencer that had to be activated by hand, and re-loaded in front of the audience.
ABC sounded pretty good live too, especially with Velvet Underground, Fad Gadget, and Suicide covers; this is real entertainment.

Track Listing:

A1 - So Obvious / Sister Ray
A2 - Is There An Exit?
A3 - Radiation
A4 - I Wasn´t There
A5 - Dance Dance
A6 - Pictures On the Wall
A7 - Touch Your Skin
B1 - Burning Inside
B2 - So Hard
B3 - Move Up
B4 - Wait And See
B5 - Dirt
B6 - Back To Nature

DOWNLOAD live body control HERE!

Absolute Body Control - "Numbers" (Body tapes 002) 1982

The second cassette release from those electronic Belgians Absolute Body Control, is a curious untitled instrumental only affair, rather like that Human League "Dignity of Labour" ep. It just sounds like a collection of backing tracks that they couldn't be bothered to put any words to.
Having said that, its still a joy to listen to all those gorgeous analogue synths going through their motions.
Not the place to start for the ABC beginner. I would recommend "Figures", or their eponymous debut

Track Listing:

Side A :
Untitled 1-8

Side B :
Untitled 8-16

DOWNLOAD some numbers HERE!

Absolute Body Control - "Figures" (Body Tapes 003) 1983

This is the third cassette release by ABC, and is probably their best album.A welcome return to form after the instrumental "Numbers" album(which i'll post next).Another selection of minimal analogue sine wave smoothness, and warmth. Really is a great advert for leaving things out rather than putting things in. This wouldn't be so easy to do once the evil spectre of MIDI loomed in 1984, tempting all decent electronic groups/duo's to pile as much sound into three minutes as possible.......bloody awful musical claustrophobia.
Another argument for restricting access to too much equipment for the sake of creativity. One synth,one drum machine, one voice = Perfection, like a rock power trio. Raw ,simple power.

Track Listing:

A1		The Man I Wanna Be
A2		Automatic I
A3		Love At First Sight
A4		Melting Away
A5		5 Minutes
B1		Figures
B2		Give Me Your Hands
B3		Terminus
B4		Automatic II

DOWNLOAD figures HERE!
or Try Here if the figures just don't add up!

Absolute Body Control - "S/T" (Body Tapes 001) 1981

As one is on an Electronic vibe, one feels it obligatory to post all the Absolute Body Control cassettes, starting with the self-titled debut from 1981. This is the template for the Belgian style minimal electronics that later was ridiculously called Electronic Body Music, whatever that means.
Wonderfully harsh, stark, analogue fatness, from those wonderful vintage synthesisers; hanging in space,hovering above a TR808 hammering through the center of every tune. The lyrics lean towards the minimal also, with shake, for example, consisting mainly of only the title being chanted throughout.
Everything you want in an electronic record exists here.

Sorry,but astonishingly ,I Got a DMCA notice for this one, so had to take the link down or face deletion of this Blog. Big Brother disapproves.Seems they're out to get me!