Commercial Music: Volume 4

 Six years. I never would have thought when I started this thing way back in 2007 that I'd still be updating it after a half-dozen years! A lot has happened in the interim - I've even moved across the country from SF to New York - but my love of music has not diminished at all. I still love to share music with others, and as my collection grows, so too does my resources of records and songs to post on this blog. Today, for a sixth anniversary, it seems like a good idea to post another homemade compilation.
This one certainly has a lot of odds and ends within it. There's Hungarian synthpop (KFT and GM49, the latter of whom has reissued most of their catalog on MP3 and is rather enjoyable, if cheesy). There's a rare song from the unreleased second Autumn Cathedral LP. It's the best of the 3 songs I've heard from that album, and it makes me really want to hear the rest of them. There's a cover of Voice Farm's "Modern Things", done by the guitarist from Japanese synthpop band The Plastics, found on a scarce picture disc. There's cheesy synthpop from a band called Press, whose album "The Low Hum of Machines" is not as promising as it sounds, but still has one great track.
Post punk/DIY fans will like the Louder Animal Group song, taken from a one-sided flexi. There's a track from the second Bluenose B 12". Unfortunately the other songs aren't nearly as good as their debut. There's weird dark avant-folk-synth from a guy called Breikreutz, a synthpop smash from Shades of Grey, and a practically unheard-of minimal synth demo from the singer of B-Movie, which sounds similar to early Eyeless In Gaza.
Hopefully there's something that everyone will like. Unless you only like twerk-wave, in which case what are you doing reading this?

PS. I promise that will be the only time I ever mention "twerk", unless twerk-wave becomes a genre.

Click here to twerk listen!

Wagner: A Way Of Life EP

When you look at this cover, you just KNOW that it has to be synthpop. Nobody but a synth nerd would dress like a Victorian Michael Jackson conjuring a ring of fire. It certainly did not disappoint me upon first listen. Glorious, cheesy synthpop abounds in this 4-song EP.
 The Third Day of Sorrow and its dance mix are good midtempo synth tracks (although I wish more emphasis was placed on the rhythm...). Visions of You co-opts a synth line from Enola Gay, but in an incredible cheesy manner. And Dust is the true gem on the album - a somber synthpop track that's just perfectly 80s-sounding, somewhat reminscent of Rational Youth. Sometimes it's fun to discover a good old-fashioned synthpop record - and this EP isn't a bad place to start.

Wagner: A Way of Life EP
1986, Novus Records

A1 The Third Day Of Sorrow
A2 Dust
A3 Visions Of You
B The Third Day Of Sorrow (Dance Mix)

Click here to listen!

The Unknown: The Unknown LP

I describe a lot of bands that I post about as "unknown". It's a decent descriptor - many bands are heretofore completely unknown outside of the artists who recorded them and a few friends and collectors. Well, this band from Baltimore is literally unknown - as in The Unknown.
This record is more or less un-googleable since it's by a band called The Unknown, and the album is selftitled. Even their German namesakes are much easier to find online! This post is a joint post with Systems of Romance - this is their debut, and their excellent follow-up album can be found right over here.
I came across this album on a recent trip to that ultimate vacation paradise... Baltimore. The record looked interesting, and the 5 seconds I got to hear in the store was enough for me to buy it. The first time I listened to it in its entirety I was wholly impressed. Tracks on the album sound similar to For Against, Unforgettable Fire-era U2, Sport of Kings, Grapes of Wrath, and other similar melancholy guitar-based post punk bands. Even the weaker songs are only weak relative to the strength of the others, and it was initially hard to choose a favorite song. The record starts off with Eternity, a surf-post-punk sound reminiscent of Abecedarians; The Clock, with its dissonant guitar screeches is certainly impressive, and when the band explodes during the chorus I can imaging it must have been excellent to see live. But the closing track, Songinsee, somehow manages to span 6 minutes and still feel too brief, and it's the one that I found myself listening to on repeat. With several layers of shimmering guitars and lyrics about longing and loneliness, it's pretty much a perfect solemn pop song.
I'm uncertain how it escaped the ears of producers and record company execs and propel the band to stardom. It was 1987, so perhaps they thought The Unknown's sound was dated - it's certainly not as hip as mountains of teased hair, spandex, and novelty songs about cherry pie and girls, girls, girls who're smoking in the boy's room. But hopefully this post will give the song, and the album as a whole, a tiny bit of the recognition it deserves.

The Unknown: The Unknown LP
1987, Fetal Records

A1 Eternity
A2 I Wonder Why
A3 Perfect Ground
A4 The Clock
B1 Dear Mrs. Jones
B2 Slow Song
B3 Salvation
B4 Songinsee

Click here to listen!

Sinking Ships: Dream 7"

Here is the rare second 7" from Lincoln, England's Sinking Ships. The band released only a handful of recordings in their brief existence - two 7"s and a couple compilation tracks - so their songwriting never really had a chance to evolve. It's a shame, because each song touches upon a different style. Their first 7", Cinema Clock - which can be found over at Systems of Romance with a brand new, high-quality rip - featured a Wire-esque post punk banger and a more anthemic pub-punk song.

This record features a questionable choice for a B-side: a long live dirge that changes little over its six minutes and could have benefitted from a studio recording and could have been shortened by a few minutes. It renders the B-side rather low in sound quality since it's spread so thin - and it's already a rather cheap pressing.  The A side, Dream, is my favorite song of theirs along with Cinema Clock. It takes the arty atmospherics of early MOdern English, throws in sax a la Psychedelic Furs (perhaps a result of having opened for the Furs on their early tours); the result is a brief, dark DIY post-punk song that could have been a classic.

Sinking Ships: Dream 7"
1980, Recession Records
A: Dream
B: After the Rain (live)

Click here to listen!

Apex Curve: Territory EP

Despite this blog's tendancy to highlight the obscure synthpop, post punk, and new wave records from the 80s, I have a soft spot for 1990s synthpop. When I was in high school and college, Cause and Effect, Celebrate the Nun, Seven Red Seven, Mesh, De/Vision, and the first Iris album were my soundtrack. I bought all the CDs by Red Flag and Anything Box, not just their debuts. Hell, I even had a Red Flag T-shirt at one point. So while that sometimes belittled, often forgotten era of synthpop may be underrepresented on this blog, I suppose this post is a small way to remedy that.
Apex Curve was a synthpop trio from San Jose that featured Steve Smith, founder of the Razormaid-inspired Art of Mix series of DJ-only remix albums. The EP only has 3 songs, although 2 of them have remixes and extended versions (I suppose remixes would be inevitable given the Art of Mix relation). The song "This Time" is a bit of a bland throwaway track. "Treachery" is more interesting; it's an imperfect midtempo synthpop song, but has a nice chorus. There are a couple remixes of the track, too, including a 7" remix - which is weird, because I don't believe Apex Curve released anything aside from this CD. But the real winner is Sunday, a melancholy danceable synthpop smash that sounds like it was recorded after a 24-hour marathon listening session of Violator, Naive Art, and Anything Box's Peace. The Club mix of the song is similar to a lot of the Art of Mix releases (reflecting Steve Smith's input on the band), with its extended intro, slightly muted vocals, and emphasis on the drums and the beat. It's the mixes of this song that make this CD a gem and fetch rather high prices for a CD.

Apex Curve: Territory EP
1991, Art of Music International

1 Sunday
2 Treachery
3 This Time
4 Treachery (Extended Mix)
5 Sunday (Club Mix)
6 Treachery (7" Re-Mix)

Click here to listen!

Famous Rays: Ending Beginning LP

The first time I saw this LP, I knew it had to be by a New York band. Anyone who has been to NYC can be easily confused by the similarly-named-but-not-at-all related pizza places called "Famous Ray's" "Original Ray's", "Famous Original Ray's", or (as Kramer discovered), simply "Ray's Pizza". As it turns out, the band was from the UK originally, but moved to NYC in the late 80s to seek better opportunities.
Famous Rays released this record in 1990, and from what I can find, this is the only thing they ever released.
By most standards, 1990 is a rather late year for a DIY post punk album to be released. You probably know the kind of record I mean - the kind that combines relentless experimentation, amateurishness, and variety of non-punk instruments (synths and sax being especially common). Bands as diverse as 48 Chairs, Beyond the Impload, Vice Versa, Androids of Mu, Desperate Bicycles, and countless thousands others all fell into this "genre". Well, Famous Rays can be counted as a VERY late addition to that DIY group (and indeed, an earlier incarnation of the band, Romford Stompers, was part of the fertile UK DIY scene). Famous Rays carried the lo-fi, avant-garde, synthpop-meets-post-punk-meets-jazzy-noise-meets-goth of their forebears into the neon years of the early 90s.
As with pretty much all of these records, there's a combination of strong and weak tracks. After a brief spoken-word intro the songs start off with the lyrics "I am looking through a synthesizer" on Hard Times. With a somewhat bouncy beat, it's a nice 100% minimal synth track that sounds 10 years too late. The next couple songs on the syn-drums and throw a wall of cascading, noisy guitars into the mix. Then there's a slow dark ambient synth interlude before delving into No Recognition, probably the most poppy song on the album. The song is musically similar to early Cure, but with the keyboards and arty weirdness of early Modern English (it's not as good as either of those bands, of course, but had it been released in 1980 I can guarantee it would have been on many "UK DIY Top Ten" lists.)
The following songs range from sax-and-synth skronk (Deception Island) to dark synth noise with spoken word (Wealthy Not Healthy) to almost deathrock sounding (Move By Dance), which combines syn-drums, heavy and noisy guitars, and sax similar to Ipso Facto. Overall, it's a highly unique album that (at the moment) is readily available very cheaply online. Perhaps others will like what they hear here and decide to pick up a copy. Or perhaps the late release date of this record will turn off people and the album will toil in the cheap bargain bins of obscurity, relegated to a few crackly mp3s that forever float in the aether of the Internet.

Famous Rays: Ending Beginning LP
1990, Blue Dot Records

1 The Sky Belongs To The Sun
2 Hard Times
3 Agents Of Change
4 Absolute Zero
5 Uphill
6 No Recognition
7 Deception Island
8 Black Dress
9 Wealthy Not Healthy
10 Release - For Bitten
11 Blue World
12 Move By Dance
13 The Great Discovery

Note: Many of these songs are only a few seconds long, or blend indistinguishably into one another, so I've combined several songs together in the rip.

Click here to listen!

Stranger to Stranger: Darkest Dreams LP

After a hiaitus (again) I realized that I miss writing about and sharing obscure vinyl nuggets (not to be confused with Obscure Vinyl Nugent, the BDSM-themed Ted Nugent cover band). I still have plenty of records to share, starting with this virtually unknown second LP from Philadelphia-based Stranger to Stranger. You can find a fresh, clean rip of their debut on Systems of Romance. While their first LP is a collection of wonderful (if monochromatic) dark synth-based post punk that's high on atmosphere but low on pop sensibility, their follow-up is much janglier, and, well, almost pop-sounding. That's not to say that they've abandoned their darkwave roots; they just became a bit less enigmatic.
There are definitely some gems on the record - Summer Winter starts the album off perfectly, a guitar-heavy post-punk track with some slight hits of Darklands-era JAMC; the title track is a somber, beautiful song that rewards repeat listens; The Only Pleasure and The Freedom Beat are both tuneful tracks layered and sprinked with synths that recall The Sound; Life After Birth is their most aggressive track, approaching the style of early Furs. Where the band's debut LP was stuck in a singular style, the follow-up expands upon myriad influences. Even if the results are sometimes imperfect, if there's one quality that Darkest Dreams has that their debut was lacking, it's stylistic dynamics. Of course, this long-lost Obscure Vinyl Nugent (oops!) is well worth a listen, so get it now...

Stranger to Stranger: Darkest Dreams LP
1989, Strange Productions
Summer Winter
The Darkest Dreams
No More Heroes
The Only Pleasure
The Freedom Beat
Ignore My Heart
Opportunity
Can Time Stand Still
I Will Remember
Life After Birth

Click here to listen

Crashblack Big Orange: Naked Man LP

     Sometimes you have to redefine your idea of a “prime” era of good music in order to find music you love. For the longest time I was extremely wary of records from the late 80s and early 90s. There was so much CRAP issued around that time, as hair metal extended its Aqua Net-doused tentacles and electronic music traded in its experimentalism for digitalized rhythms and its vocals for the sound of a thousand  ravers sucking on pacifiers in an ecstacy-induced fury.

     But I have been occasionally finding records from this forsaken era. It was, after all, a great time for shoegaze. And the French coldwave/touching pop bands of the time were quite good.. The Juju mini LP from 1989 is a masterpiece, and both records by Intelligence Unit from 1989 and 1991 are excellent and unique. Well, Chicago band (and Intelligence Unit labelmates) Crashblack Big Orange can certainly be added to the category of great post-punk from this time. In fact, I'd say they were one of the best dark post-punk bands of not just their era, but ANY era. Here's a sample:

 
     Crashblack Big Orange (don’t worry, their name literally does not mean anything) was a husband and wife duo that rose from the ashes of a couple other bands, The Hail Marys and Unknown Pleasures. I found an interview in which they cited Killing Joke and Xmal Deutschland as their biggest influences and, well, it shows (and that alone should get you to download this post haste). I’d also add Skeletal Family to that list; Crashblack’s guitars are often quite remisncent of them. Both members share drum program duties, and both sing as well. He sounds a bit like an early UK goth-punk singer (think Twisted Nerve or UK Decay) and she sounds a bit Siouxsie-ish. The combination of male and female vocals (both of whom are actually good) is one of the things that sets this band apart from so many others. And the extended guitar intros, outros, bridges, and solos could sound a bit jammy if they didn’t completely kick ass, weren’t chock-full of distortion, or did not have that perfect darkwave tone to them. Even the basslines are memorable (and is it just me, or does the bassline of the lead track “Trust” sound like the bass from Secession’s classic “Betrayal”?) Here's another song of theirs:

 
   The band released at least 3 demo tapes before this LP. Most of those songs were released on this LP, although I would love to hear them if they’re demo versions. And at least one Iain Burgess –produced tape has some exclusive songs on it. The band later shortened their name to Crashblack, although I have not heard anything from that incarnation. If anyone out there has anything else from them – or demo tapes from  Unknown Pleasures or The Hail Marys, I’d be interested in hearing them!

Crashblack Big Orange

Naked Man LP

1990, Cold Grey Matter Records

Listen here!

The French: The Model 7”

The French were a band from England (um...  where else?) in the early 80s who released a couple 7”s on their own label and then disappeared. Like many bands at the time they were a post punk band featuring angular guitars and stabs of synths and plucky basslines and even the occasional sax. While it’s not the most original style, it’s the type of sound that I love, and I’m willing to bet that many of you appreciate it as well. It’s always nice to unearth another nugget of post-punk gold.

Their first 7” features a cover of Kraftwerk’s “The Model”. It’s a bit of an odd choice – the song had come out only a few years prior – but they actually make it sound pretty great. In fact, it’s one of the best covers that I’ve heard in a long time, as it sounds very different from the original but still captures a raw urgency that seems to be lacking from the many rote covers that abound. The song is built upon a tinny syn-drum and slices of guitar and bass. The strangest part of the song are the synths that randomly are thrown on top of the entire affair – they are loud, haphazard, and sound almost exactly like the sound Pac-Man makes when he’s caught by a ghost.

The band’s other songs are originals. Set Me On Fire is a great (if thin-sounding) track with simplistic synth pulses and flourishes of sax on top of great guitar lines and vocals. It’s certainly a favorite in the house of Goutroy.

I’ve also included the A-side of their second single, The River Flows East. It’s also a pretty good song, trading in the angular and arty sound for a more groove-oriented sound in the style of bands like APB. Unfortunately my copy is currently in storage and I don’t have a rip of the B side, but from what I remember it sucked. So I’m sparing you a song that you’d just end up deleting anyway.

Click here to listen!

Electric Avantgarde: Lonely 12”

Hailing from the college town of Freiberg in Germany, where I obtained this 12” while travelling earlier this year, Electric Avantgarde was a duo who made amateur yet enjoyable synthpop. If the band is remembered at all, it is for a tape they released on the long-enduring Danse Macabre Records  in 1990. This 12” predates that tape by a few years, and has two mixes of a song called “Lonely”.

While the band’s later material (at least the songs that I have heard) are more guitar-oriented goth rock, “Lonely” is completely enjoyable – albeit unabashedly cheesy -- electro-pop/Euro dance. Think Mysterious Art or Dead or Alive or Secession and you’re halfway there. The group was led by a guy who mysteriously (or pretentiously) went by the name Mozart. He sings in a weird combination of a girlish falsetto and a forceful masculine style.

The B side is just a dub mix of the A-side, because every band apparently had to have a dub mix back in the 80s. It’s not as good as the original mix. This song may not be for everyone , but those of us who have a soft spot for the occasional unironic dance track will enjoy it!

Electric Avantgarde: Lonely 12”

1988, self-released

Listen here!

New Law Nightmare: S/T EP

New Law Nightmare was a project from the late 80s fronted by a guy named Rik Savering. The act is probably most notable for having two great darkwave songs on a couple of the excellent Grindstone Compilations (um... re-upload to come soon, I suppose). There is almost no mention whatsoever of this 1988 EP, aside from some store that has a copy for sale on a couple online sites. This has completely escaped notice from pretty much everyone. Now, we can’t let that continue, can we? 

                When I found this in a local store recently, I was immediately grabbed by the somber dark “touching pop” style of the first song, Witch Trial. With some truly remarkable synth lines and perfectly emotive vocals, it’s a wonderful song. Other songs mix a bit more guitar into the sound – in some cases I’d prefer the songs without it. “Upper ten”, for example, is a great dark synthpop song, but the short guitar solos stand out a bit too much, especially since they are so loud in the mix. Even so, the guitar-heavy songs aren’t bad… it’s just that the instrument is more prominent than necessary and stands in sharp contrast to the melancholic synthpop with which it’s paired.

Fortunately, the formula does work wonders on the final song, “Only As”, with an unstoppable beat and synth line, and whose shrieks and wails of guitar actually work to enhance the track. Overall, this is a good EP with a couple excellent tracks, and several valiant attempts that just didn’t quite get the right balance of sounds. I’d be interested to hear if he released anything else under this moniker – hopefully more songs on the caliber of Witch Trial are waiting to be discovered.

New Law Nightmare: S/T EP

1988, Vuv Records

A1 Witch Trial

A2 Upper Ten

A3 Say

B1 Déjà vu

B2 Fifteen Shadows

B3 Only As

Click here to listen!

The Intelligence Unit

This week I’m quite happy to share a couple very underrated records from a Chicago band called Intelligence Unit. They were around in the late 80s and early 90s and featured a wildly original and diverse array of sounds. There is certainly a lot to absorb here – there are elements of goth, synthpop, post punk, experimental, and gypsy folk music. This is one band who cannot be accused of lacking creativity or originality.

The group was a quartet made up of multi-instrumentalists who played guitars, bass, percussion, synths, e-bow, keyboards, and more. They featured an extremely unique singer – he escapes the trappings of emulating vocalists of more established bands and lets his distinguished voice carry many of the songs. Nowhere is this more evident than on the killer darkwave masterpiece Havens Amoung Wastelands, the first song on their debut EP. It starts with an ambient soundscape before the guitars, synths, and punishing drum fills kick in, followed by his forceful vocals pushed up front and center, full of dragged vowels and occasional over-pronunciation. It took me a few listens before I began to really appreciate this style, and now I cannot imagine it sung any other way. I posted it to youtube as well... check it out here: 

Their debut EP continues with more gems – Perimeter sounds somewhat influenced by the Chameleons; The Visionary is instrumental darkwave at its finest, and Venice is basically romantic Venetian gondola music with synths. The only misstep is Cinecila, which sounds a bit like a warmup session by a coffee shop jazz band.

The band’s full length, Foundation, is an even more diverse affair. It starts with a great midtempo darkwave song, Lilith, which reminds me of late 80s/early 90s kindred spirits like Mute Angst Envy or Autumn cathedral or any number of the bands on the Lively Art label. The next song is another generic jazz retread (why?!) but it’s the only misstep on an otherwise solid and original album. Other gems include the slow, somber “Distance”, on which synths and sax kick in during the chorus for a wholly melancholy soundtrack to a midnight drive; “The Black Death” is a surprising melodic turn, with a more focused pop sensibility; “The Prison Ship” is a dark, unstoppable dirge, full of reverb and synths and guitars that fade in and out amoung any number of unknown and mysterious sounds; Reinette and Mirabel in Paris is a complete winner, sounding like a Parisian folk-waltz with layers of synths, twinkling gypsy guitars, and accordions.

I don’t know if the band ever released anything after Foundation. I’ve gleaned that they may have written some songs after the album, so if anyone has anything else from them I would certainly love to hear it. In the meantime, satiate yourselves on these two wonderful releases!

Click here to listen to both of their records!

Circle Seven: Suburban Hope EP

Now it’s time for some good crowd-pleasing post-punk. This is the sole release from Montana-based Circle Seven. It was released on the venerable Ruthless Records back in 1981. It was one of the very first releases on the label. The band is often filed under or mentioned as a punk band on the web, and while they definitely had a punk edge to them, their music was more dynamic than that label implies. Their songs were generally pretty fast-paced but their guitar sounds ditched the guitar noise of many of their contemporaries for a surprisingly refined tunefulness. The vocals are especially strong – emphatic and pretty powerful, bordering on goth on a few songs on the second side. It somehow sounds as if he is yelling in a hushed voice.

The record starts out with a midtempo burst of punk energy on the titular “Suburban Hope”. The second side certainly has the strongest songs. “Cover Up” is a trackthat drives forward without losing momentum. It doesn’t even contain a chorus, it just keeps a steady pace until the last 40 seconds or so when the it ends in repeated chants of “cover up cover up cover up…”. “Say One Thing” is another unrelenting track that barely pauses for air in its 1:45 length. It also contains some pretty great drum fills that are basically substituted in place of any sort of vocal chorus. The record closes with “Look What You Got”, on which the singer sounds more angst-ridden than on any preceding track. He progressively sounds more aggravated as the song barrels on.

This is a pretty solid EP, and will certainly appeal to fans of no-frills guitar-driven post punk. The songs are quite well-written and the record is surprisingly refined, which is probably why it tends to be on quite a few wantlists. It’s a record that sounds good upon first listen, but slowly grows in potency over repeated spins.

Circle Seven: Suburban Hope EP

1981 Ruthless Records

A1 Suburban Hope

A2 I Woke Up

A3 Distant

B1 Cover Up

B2 Say One Thing

B3 Look What You Got

Click here to listen!

UV Prom: Field of Vision 1-sided 12"

Sometimes it’s nice to just hear some good old-fashioned guitar-based post-punk. A record does not always need a lot of frills (or even a lot of originality) to be top-notch material. This record – the sole release by North Carolina band UV Prom (not to be confused with UV Pop!) is a perfect example of US post-punk done right. I’ve had this for at least 10 years or so and completely forgot about it until I found it stored away in my parents’ closet during a recent visit.

The band liberally grabs elements from UK luminaries like Echo and the Bunnymen, early Killing Joke, The Chameleons, add a bit of punk sensibilities (especially with the chanted "HEY"s in the first song - it almost reminds me of an oi band). They combine these elements on an excellent four-song one-sided 12”. The music is certainly familiar, and the band does not really take any chances or experiment too much – but in this case that works to the record’s advantage, as all four tracks flow together perfectly, and there is not a bad track among them.

It’s a shame the band never released anything else, as their imitation of their musical heroes is quite excellent. I believe this band has yet to be “discovered” by anyone, as copies still regularly float around online for pretty cheap.

UV Prom: Field of Vision 12”

1985, Centograph Records

A1 Mobile Home Murder

A2 Upper Room

A3 Funhouse

A4 Pink Cell

Get it here! - new CLEAN rip courtesy of Frankie Teardrop at Systems of Romance!

Real Macabre: Emotion 12”

Here is a mysterious record from 1985, from a UK band called Real Macabre. There are absolutely no credits or band members listed. The cover is just a white textured sleeve with a sticker on the front that says “This is Emotion”. The band seemed to go out of their way to NOT attract any attention.

It’s unfortunate, because this could easily have been a big club hit in the 80s Surely this band’s noisy-yet-tuneful brand of dark (but quite poppy) goth rock has widespread appeal. Fans of Look Back in Anger, Asmodi Bizaar, and Siouxsie and the Banshees will certainly enjoy both mixes of Emotion. While the tracks on this 12” may not be terribly original, they are well-written. With slightly sassy vocals and buzzsaw guitars, the extended mix of Emotion is a pretty great "lost" single, and is guaranteed to have you tapping your feet by the time the chorus arrives and the song kicks into overdrive.

Sadly, fate has found this band receiving little or no recognition. I’m sure the record was simply not distributed well enough for it to gain a wide audience. At least the age of mp3s can rectify this. I have no idea if this band ever released anything else (or, as mentioned earler, WHO the band members were). If anyone out there has any information, share it!

Real Macabre: Emotion 12”

1985, Push Records

A1 Emotion (extended)

B1 Emotion

B2 The Dance

Click here to listen!

Mock: Skyryder EP

With all the recent synth and post punk and new wave records I have been posting as of late, I thought that maybe it would be a nice idea to completely digress musically for a day. The above-mentioned genres are just some of my favorite; but sometimes I just love to put on a shoegaze album and bliss out to a warm blanket of hazy sound. I know there are a lot of others who love post punk and shoegaze with equal fervor - maybe it's because of the atmosphere and mood that the two genres create, maybe it's because both genres are the perfect blend of rebellion against the greater music world and embracing of fringe elements of pop sensibility.

This record - a completely unknown gem from a UK band called Mock - is one of my current favorites. In only four (long) songs, they pack an entire album's worth of reverbed beauty. They take their cues from the best of the shoegaze set - especially Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine. In fact, the song Diving sounds so much like it's off of Souvlaki that I sometimes have to take a look at what record I have on just to verify. The song is an epic of sloooow, deliberate percussion, dense washes of guitar noise and bass fuzz and vocals that are reverbed to the point of abstraction. The title track features stabs and plucks of warm guitars on top of a thick wall of sound, with dual vocals that simultaneously sound male, female, and androgenous. The first song, Poppy, and the final song, the wonderfully titled Vertigo Melt, are the real rock songs on the album; Vertigo Melt in particular sounds like it could have come from pre-Loveless MBV.

I cannot recommend this highly enough. If you have a passing interest in shoegaze, you'd do well to take a listen to this. What it may lack in originality, it more than makes up for in ear-piercing euphony.

Mock: Skyryder EP

1994, Bites Back! Records

A1 Poppy

A2 Diving

B1 Skyryder

B2 Vertigo Melt

Click here to listen!

The Real Camouflage: Look Close EP

It's very, very rare that one gets to compare a darkwave album to The Ghostbusters, but I have the opportunity to do just that with this post here, so I will take advantage of it. Those of us who grew up in the 80s will remember that the Ghostbusters cartoon based on the films we all knew and loved was actually called The Real Ghostbusters. This was because there was already a cartoon called Ghost Busters that was around years before the film-to-cartoon was extant. So it was not just a superfluous qualifier in the title; the "Real" indicated that THIS was the Ghostbusters you actually cared about (at least until the show became overly Slimer-centric and started being called Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters).

This ties in to the Kozmonaut LP I posted a while ago. Christian, who provided that LP, also provided this excellent record, as well as the majority of the info for the writeup below. Peter Ziegelmeier, who formed the industrial band Kode IV with Hans Schiller of Kozmonaut, was in a band called Camouflage years before his well-known industrial project existed. Camouflage was a darkwave band with quite a few similarities to the Italian and Greek darkwave bands of the mid-80s - groups like Magic De Spell, South of No North, and Diaframma. The band was formed in 1982 in Switzerland, which is where Peter was originally from. Back then, they recorded 3 songs (the ones on the A-side) before they relocated to Berlin in 1984. That's when they recorded the two songs found on the B-side. They made a video clip for both songs, which one of the band members uploaded two years ago but have received little play, what with all the competition from kitten videos:

(Peter is the one on the right)

Canmouflage was the name they went under for several years, until they finally decided to commit to pressing all five songs on vinyl in 1987. As luck would have it, a new Camouflage band had surfaced and became huge Depeche Mode clones overnight. Peter said that he was in shock when he saw a big banner advertising the other Camouflage's first album. The earlier Camouflage had no money or resources to go after the new Camouflage. Hence, they ended up changing their band name to "The Real Camouflage". Did they knowingly take a cue from the cartoon Ghostbusters naming war? Probably not... The record was pressed up in very small quantities and is virtually unknown to this day. They were completely underground.

The story of The Real Camouflage ends in 1987 when the band split up. One former member is still making music, another started working for a TV station, and Peter was looking for a new band. Peter said that he was really good friends with Carlos Peron , a former band member of Yello. Hans Schiller of Kozmonaut was also friends with Peron. When Hans recorded a Kozmonaut demo cassette called Hyko, he sent a copy of the tape to Carlos. At the time, Hans was trying to form a real band that was more than just a solo project. Hyko was the name of a girl he wanted to have a band with, but for some reason it didn't work out. Carlos played that cassette to Peter. Peter loved the music so much he decided to fly to San Francisco to meet up with Hans, literally just showing up at his front door one day. Just a few months later they had their first record deal as Kode IV. Kode IV was supposed to be named Code 4 but Peter, still traumatized from having one band name stolen from him, decided to mix things up and spell the band name with a 'K' and change the number to Roman numerals.

In one more highly amusing bit of Kozmonaut trivia, it turns out that Hans's identity is completely questionable - first of all, was not German at all. He was from a small province in Canada. He moved to San Francisco due to his sexual orientation, in hopes that he would find acceptance in the tolerant City By the Bay. He was fascinated by German culture, German music (big Kraftwerk fan), and Germany in general. Hence, he made these pseudo German records under the Kozmonaut alias. It also turns out that Hans Schiller was a made up name as well. He admired a musician called "Hans" and was a big fan of Friedrich Schiller, the German poet. So he mixed the two names together to make the pseudonym Hans Schiller. He also used a different name in the gay community - his identities were so different and separate from each other that he had three different phone lines set up at home and called himself different names depending on which phone rang.

He ran his "Vier Productions, Inc." label right out of a house that he rented near Ocean Beach, San Francisco. It has nothing to do with Hamburg, Germany. They recorded all of their Kode IV stuff in that same garage as well. That's where Hans stored all his records and cassettes as well. And, unless there are any more new discoveries, that concludes the story about The Real Camouflage, Kozmonaut and the beginnings of Kode IV all in one nice nutshell.

The Real Camouflage: Look Closely EP

1987, Z Records

A1 Walk With Me

A2 Il Tempio

A3 Get Away

B1 Out of This Time

B2 Victims

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Gluons: Gluons EP

The first time I heard this EP several years ago, it was a cheapo record I picked up on a whim the middle of a batch of Amoeba Record finds that included a bunch of gems that I had been looking for for a long time - I listened to about 30 seconds of this, thought "Huh, OK, nice" and filed it away. It was not until I rummaged through my records I wanted to part with before moving to New York that I even gave it a second thought.

I gave it a good listen, and it instantly grew. It starts with the midtempo and spacey I Enter Your Void, which, although very repetitive, contained a mix of characteristics that made me love it. The guitars were dissonant, the drums steady, and the vocals almost in the glam-punk realm. The tempo practically doubles with Miami, which mixes more of the dissonant guitars with plucking basslines and more of the glam punk vocals. But the songs on side B are really the killer tracks. By the time A Room In Your Head started, I realized that the band's strongest point is the difficult ability to take dissonant and effected guitars and slightly snotty/arty but usually perfectly clear and articulated vocals and spin them into perfect dark pop. Your Manikin Hand drove this point home, sounding like a frantic version of Joy Division sans the studio atmospherics. This record is now one of my favorites. The band was from Massachusetts and I believe this was their only release. Perhaps, sadly, the city of New Bedford was not quite ready for their arty brand of dissonant new wave.

Gluons: S/T EP

1983, Self-released

A1 I Enter Your Void

A2 Miami

B1 A Room In Your Head

B2 Your Manikin Hand

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London Underground: Train of Thought 7"

Here is one of my current favorite post-punk 7"s, from London Underground. This band later found themselves on Adrian Sherwood's On-U-Sound label assuming a full-on synth-dub sound, but on this record released on the Situation Two label (although it was produced by Sherwood), the band was loud and aggressive, very very VERY similar to early Section 25. The A-side features tinny guitar riffs, pulsing basslines, hard-pounding snare drums, and blasse reverbed sung-spoken vocals and could very easily have appeared on that band's Always Now album. The B side is guitar noise overload, reminding me of Fire Engines at their most raw and visceral. How this band took a complete one-eighty into dub territory, I have no idea. But this 7" is the one record of theirs that post-punk and goth and noise-pop fans absolutely need. It just realized this was recently shared on the excellent Lethal Injections blog, but I had it ripped a few weeks ago and figure I'll still share it as well - people need to hear this one.

London Underground: Train of Thought 7"

1981, Situation Two Records

A: Train of Thought

B: All Too Many

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WOG: Selftitled LP

Here is the only release by a mysterious Los Angeles duo called Wog. This duo consisted of Aret Madilian, a Turkish immigrant who had a bit of recording experience in 1983 with a self-released new wave 12", and his friend Ari Excel. They formed this band in late 1983 and named themselves after the Stranglers song "I Feel Like a Wog".
Madilian was on synths/vocals/drum programming and Excel played bass and sang lead vocals. Highly influenced by post punk bands like The Cure, Joy Division, the Stranglers, early OMD, Magazine and Wire, they slowly began to gain popularity in Los Angeles. 1985 was a big year, when one of their demo tracks was played by Richard Blade on KROQ, and they were voted "best unsigned band in LA" by listeners of the venerable station. Throughout the next three years, they continued to write songs but did not release anything until this album, on the tiny LA-based Clandestine Operations label. Despite distribution in both the US and Europe, the LP was pretty much completely unnoticed, and only a handful were sold. The band broke up shortly thereafter in 1989.
I can find no info on what became of Ari; Aret took a hiaitus from recording before eventually moving to northern France and forming the goth/darkwave band Deleyaman (whose site has a great bio of Madilian, from which I got most of this info).
Musically, they play darkwave that sounds like a mix of The Cure, Joy Division, and are even a bit reminiscent of the Juju mLP that I shared last year (which, if you have not heard yet, is HIGHLY recommended!). The repetitious and often hypnotic mix of pianos, synths, bass, and somber vocals give this release a great rainy-day appeal.

Wog: Wog LP
1988, Claudestine Operations
A1 Morale
A2 Guts
A3 I Had A Notion
A4 Moment Of Betrayal
B1 Divine Rave-up
B2 Les Anges
B3 Businessmen In Love
B4 Dialectic

Click here to download this record!