triple color vinyl is out there… but also a single CD
I had certain plans for today’s post, but that flew out of the window when I caught wind of an upcoming release from OMD, which was apparently released to social media last Friday! Sure, sure. I’ve been on the OMD mailing list for as long as they had one. “Had” being the operative word, since now they don’t even send out emails to the faithful any more even when an upcoming release is the news. The last post on their moribund website is almost a year old. So now I guess everything is only released to culturally toxic social media. Nice! I found out about this on one of the remaining web forums still extant in 2021! Sigh.
No matter how poorly they communicated this news to me, a person who has bought many releases through their web store and online campaigns, the fact of the matter is that the band are having yet another tour focusing on their top selling “Architecture + Morality” album which is 40 years old on November 6th, 2021. I spent all of late 1980 and 1981 in thrall to the compelling music that OMD was making and I remember buying that LP at the Record Mart Warehouse in Orlando in the fall of 1981 as soon as it hit the sacred import bins.
The album would go on to have three Top 5 UK singles issued from it, which, in retrospect, seems a little crazy. The album was a challenging program of more Art than Pop, but tell that to the throngs that bought every single from the album like it was an Adam + the Ants record at the time.
The band reissued a DLX RM of the album in 2007, with the sole extended A-side, and all of the singles B-sides appended plus a bonus DVD of their “Live At Drury Lane” home video from that tour. Conventional wisdom says that when the 40th anniversary of your multi-million selling career best album came around, you would issue a three figure box to squeeze the faithful and pack it with 4x LPs, 2xCDs, and maybe Steven Wilson’s 5.1 mix on DVD. Perhaps some tchatchkes like a key ring or T-shirt.
What they’ve done is much kinder to our budget, and frankly more interesting. They are releasing a compilation called [straightforwardly]: “Architecture + Morality: The Singles.” The single A/B sides from the various releases are all present and accounted for, but the other half of the material is previously unreleased demos and live material to sweeten the pot. We have the choice [still!] of buying this on a 3x 12″ EP set on colored vinyl, or a convenient CD with 18 tracks. Though the record edition looks fine, I will be opting for the CD. I’ve got to stretch my music budget responsibly. Here are the offerings.
The cover is actually metallic silver, so the simulation of the surface as shown online will have to do.
OMD: Architectire + Morality The Singles – UK – CD [2021]
Souvenir
Motion & Heart (Amazon Version)
Sacred Heart
Souvenir (Demo)
Choir Song (Rough Mix)
Motion & Heart (Live at Drury Lane, 1981)
Joan Of Arc
The Romance Of The Telescope (Unfinished)
Joan Of Arc (Live at Drury Lane, 1981)
Joan Of Arc (Rough Mix)
New Song (Georgia Demo)
She’s Leaving (Demo)
Maid of Orleans (The Waltz Joan of Arc)
Navigation
Sealand (Demo)
Submarines
Maid of Orleans (Demo)
Joan Of Arc (Maid of Orleans) (Live at Drury Lane, 1981)
That’s a healthy playlist with the familiar versus the unknown. Their recent “Souvenir” boxed set celebrating the band’s 40th anniversary had a full disc of demo material but none of this is repeated from that set. We’ve got seven demos, all of the A-sides as performed live from the Drury Lane show, and an eighth song [“Submarines”] that’s all new.
The colored vinyl set as shown at the head of the post features three six track EPs, in burgundy, red, and purple colored vinyl with sleeve art inner sleeves to fit within a triple gatefold silver, embossed cover. The CD has all eighteen tracks. The 12″ set is selling for a fairly moderate $50.00 in the OMD web store, with the CD at $16.00.
The shipping of the 12″ set from the UK to America will probably cost almost twice as much as the cost of the item itself, so we Yanks are fortunate that we have the option of buying at the US Rough Trade store as well. Rough Trade US will be $63.99 for the 12″ set but I guarantee the shipping will be scant. The CD from Rough Trade US is actually one cent less than from the OMD web store. So anyone with an interest into one of OMD’s most commercially [and artistically] fertile periods might want to check out the twin option buttons below.
Who was the mysterious Michael Atavar behind Fontana Mix?
It was some time in 1989 when my friend Ron Kane sent me a Japanese CD he ran across in one of his L.A. stores he bought from called “Single Compact.” Ron knew I was a fan of Mari Wilson, and this was a compilation for the Japanese market made after the issuing label, The Compact Organization, had been active in the UK any longer. Yes, it had some Mari Wilson material on it that was new to my ears, so huzzah for that. But the bottom line was that everything on it was stellar. I had known of Virna Lindt and that was about as far as it went past Mari Wilson at the time. I had only been collecting Ms. Wilson’s work for a scant three years by then. It also had late period bands from the always intriguing label that were pretty scarce on the ground where I was.
Wave | JPN | CD | 1989 | EVA 3009
Various: Single Compact – JPN – CD [1989]
The Sound Barrier: Mornington Crescent
Virna Lindt: Excerpt From ‘Attention Stockholm’
Mari Wilson: Baby It’s True
Fontana Mix: Cherry Lips
The Academy Of Fine Popular Music: The Morning After
Floyd: The Seal Song
Bruce Morrison & Rachel Orlane: Eyes Of Suspicion
Mari Wilson: Glamourpuss
Virna Lindt: I Experienced Love
Oceans Eleven: Kissing
Cynthia Scott: Excerpt From ‘The X-Boy’
Mari Wilson: Ain’t That Peculiar
Fontana Mix: Fang
The Academy Of Fine Popular Music: Heart And Soul
Mari Wilson: It’s Happening
The Sound Barrier: Fasten Your Seat-belts, We’re Off To Suburbia
Virna Lindt: Intelligence
The Beautiful Americans: The Beautiful Americans
Floyd: Death On The Wind
Mari Wilson: Love And Learn
Mari Wilson: Would You Dance With A Stranger?
The Sound Barrier: Bank Holiday
One such band was Fontana Mix. They took their name from the John Cage experimental composition but were surprisingly pop-oriented for it. I loved their rollicking song “Fang” on the compilation. And their other one, “Cherry Lips” was a song with a complex melody staggered at intervals that never ceased to worm their way into my cranium. I made a note to buy any Fontana Mix record that I ever came across.
<fast forward 32 years…>
Well, it’s 2021 and I still only have one Fontana Mix record! It was in the late 90s when Ron Kane came to the rescue one more time, among the hundred of such occasions. He sent me the “Teach Yourself Compact” boxed set of 8×7″ers that is one of the more astonishing items in my Record Cell.
The Compact Organization | UK | 8×7″ | 1985 | ACT 13
Various Artists: Teach Yourself Compact – 8×7″ – UK [1985]
Virna Lindt: Attention Stockholm
Virna Lindt: Episode 1
Shake Shake!: Shake Shake!
Shake Shake!: Yellow Ditty
Cynthia Scott: The X-Boy
Cynthia Scott: The X-Boy (‘X’ Cert. Perf.)
Fontana Mix: Catwalk
Fontana Mix: Cherry Lips
Virna Lindt: Intelligence
Virna Lindt: Letter To Sergei
Bruce Morrison (3) & Rachel Orlane: Eyes Of Suspicion
Bruce Morrison (3) & Rachel Orlane: Count The Tears
The Sound Barrier: Mornington Crescent
The Sound Barrier: Bank Holiday
Tot Taylor: I Wanna Play The Drums Tonight
Tot Taylor: An Appointment With You
The Compact Organization | UK \ 7″ | 1983 | ACT 7
Fontana Mix: Catwalk – UK – 7″ [1983]
Catwalk
Cherry Lips
And have I ever played the A-side? As usual, that would be a “no.” What is wrong with me?! Yet, this is the single Fontana Mix record in my Record Cell. There are only two such other records, yet to arrive. There is also the band’s other single, the aforementioned “Fang” which seemed to be a 12″ single, only. But the data on Discogs is as usual, inconclusive. I have no idea if this is the same roughly three minute tune on “Single Compact” or a [gasp] extended version.
The Compact Organization | UK | 12″ | 1983 | ACT X-10
Fontana Mix: Fang – UK – 12 [1983]
Fang
100,000 Years
,Next came the band’s sole album; the delightfully named “The Noise Spiral.” This was released in 1984 when The Compact Organization was seemingly running out funding to be tabled in the following year. The only hit the label had put into the top 10 in England was Mari Wilson’s effervescent “Just What I Always Wanted” the previous year and from what I can gather, the entire low-budget yet hi-concept project seemed to have been funded by Tot Taylor himself. With licensing finance possibly being afforded by London Records who released them in other markets on the London label. Goodness knows, that’s how the still astonishing US releases of Ms. Wilson happened. One day, I’ll have to write the book on The Compact Organization, but until then all theories will be entertained.
The Compact organization | UK | LP | 1984 | COMP 5
Fontana Mix: The Noise Spiral – UK – LP [1984]
From A Speeding Car
The Double
Out Of The Shadows
Great Curtain Comes Down
Gold Coin
The Feeling House
Cherry Lips
Opal O
The World Famous Industrialist
So that allows for only 13 songs in total. The following year bought the two further compilations which were among the last of The Compact Organization’s contiguous releases. First up, there’s “Do they Mean Us?” which was a hefty 2xLP sampler with some acts like The Bushmen and Paul Bevoir never got discrete releases.
The Compact Organization | UK | LP | 1985 | PACT 6
Various Artists: Do They Mean Us? – UK – LP [1985]
Fontana Mix: From A Speeding Car
Floyd: Soul Fever
The Bushmen: Love Like Law
The Sound Barrier: Bank Holiday
Mari Wilson: Let’s Make This Last
The Academy Of Fine Popular Music: Heart And Soul
Virna Lindt: The Windmills Of Your Mind
Paul Bevoir: It’s Gonna Stop Somewhere
Oceans Eleven: Back To Back
Floyd: Mass Production
Virna Lindt: Wild Strawberries
The Bushmen: Grind
Mari Wilson: I’m Happy Just To Dance With You
Fontana Mix: The Feeling House
The Sound Barrier: After The Gymkhana
Mari Wilson With The Wilsations: Let Me Dream
Virna Lindt: Trailers From ‘Shiver’
The Academy Of Fine Popular Music: The Morning After
Then there’s the “Pens, Guns, And Riffs From The Compact Organization” compilation. That has to be one of the best titles ever. It’s another album with at least another artist that never escaped the gravitational pull of the compilation to have a release of their own: The Poptowners. Who I’ll bet were a re-branding of the Popheads from earlier in the Compact Organization’s history.
The Compact Organization | UK | 2xLP | 1985 | PACT 9
Various Artists: Pens, Guns, And Riffs From the Compact Organization – UK – 2xLP [1985]
Floyd: Death On The Wind
The Sound Barrier: ‘Mornington Crescent’
Mari Wilson: Would You Dance With A Stranger
The Bushmen: Love Like Law
Fontana Mix: The Feeling House
Richard Hartley: Fog Theme
The Poptowners: Poptown
Mari Wilson: Let Me Dream
Virna Lindt: Wild Strawberries
Oceans Eleven: Kissing
Paul Bevoir: ‘It’s Gotta Stop Somewhere’
Fontana Mix: Opal-O
Floyd: Soul Fever
The Academy Of Fine Popular Music: The Morning After
That appears to be about it for Fontana Mix, but wait, a thorough investigation has me going down the rabbit hole of alternate releases of the seminal “A Young Person’s Guide To Compact” compilation! I own the original, thrill-packed UK edition with enough tcatchke’s to choke a chinchilla. And I bought the first ever CD version [they all seem to be different] that was released by Wave in Japan in 1989. Yet the German edition seems to have a unique Fontana Mix to its credit.
The Compact Organization | FR | LP | 1983 | COMP3
Various Artists: A Young Person’s Guide To Compact – FR – LP [1983]
Virna Lindt: Attention Stockholm
The Beautiful Americans: Sparkletones
Cynthia Scott: The X-Boy 12″
Shake/Shake: Shuttle Service
The Popheads: Headpop
Fontana Mix: Cherry Lips
Mari Wilson With The Wilsations: Beat The Beat
Cynthia Scott: Dancing With You
Shake/Shake: Shake Shake!
Virna Lindt: The Dossier On Virna Lindt
Mari Wilson With The Wilsations: Ecstasy
Fontana Mix: Citadel
Virna Lindt: Pillow Talk
The Beautiful Americans: The Beautiful Americans Part 1
Yessssss. A fourteenth track, named “Citadel” appears nowhere else. Well, believe it or not, there are copies for sale in America right now of this French import album, “The Noise Spiral” and “Fang.” So I have to buy them before someone else does. From the two tracks I’ve heard I am expecting a fascinating ride. As near as I can tell, Michael Atavar [which for decades I mis-read as “Michael Avatar”] was Fontana Mix. He now has a career as a consultant who attempts to teach creativity, which seems to be a thing that I think you either have or don’t have. He released an indie 7″ in 1980 that appeared to be fully engaged with the avant-garde roots of Cage in more ways than one. As noted by the label name and catalog number on the release.
Chance Records | UK | 7″ | 1980 | Chance 1
Michael Atavar: Untitled – UK – 7″ [1980]
Cabral-Dynamic
Fire Anchor
Vase Reverse
Now this record is one for the long haul. Minimal synth musik like this is both expensive and highly sought after by the wave of Jonny-come-lately minimal synth collectors that make my life much harder than it was 20 years ago or earlier. Wish me luck on this one and join me in [checks calendar], uh…seven years for a follow up on the intriguing noise of Fontana Mix.
Figures On A Beach managed to live up to my expectations as well as surprise me
[…continued from last post]
The Art Rock of “A Pagan Gift” followed the astonishing “Elvis’ House.” Proving that this band were more that met my eye. The track was still dance floor friendly, as befit one of the two bands on DJ/producer Ivan Ivan’s I-Squared label, but the drum machine made room for plenty of Rock melodrama. Moving in a position similar to that of Icehouse on the Venn Diagram of Rock®. I liked the intense middle eight where vocalist Kaczynski spat out a fast tempo rap and the song answered the question of whether Art Rock and Acid could coexist.
The mood lightened for the upbeat and effervescent “Paris” where a playful sequencer line led the song thorough its paces. Only to parlay a drastic tonal shift when the brooding “State of Emergency” followed. The complex rhythm loop let us know we were not in Kansas anymore. Especially when punctuated with gunshot foley affects. This burning number with elegant sustained guitar in the middle eight, managed to reference the South African apartheid era strongly for an American band. In fact, I can’t recall ever hearing one write such a song!
And they’re dancing in Soweto
They’re dancing in Cape Town
They’re dancing in Johannesburg
I hope they tear that sucker down
“State Of Emergency”
“Delirium” was the most Post-Pink influenced track yet, with a dour, bass forward sound showing the Cure or Banshees influence. But the band surprised by coupling the crepuscular verse structure with a dramatically brighter and shinier chorus. Then all bets were off for the concluding “The Big Top,” which opened with a potentially show-stopping [and not in the best sense of the word] 24 seconds of circus calliope. This was maybe the track that was the outlier to album number two as the vocals were strangely EQ’d and featured a heavy application of reverb; giving the jaunty track the whiff of Rockabilly.
The CD here was further enriched with all four of the cuts from the “No Stars” 12″ single. The Club Remix was made slicker and more frictionless by piling on the drum programming and streamlining the mix to include only the chorus of the song. That the vocals were pulled down in the mix almost led one to think of this as a dub mix. The net result of all of this effort was to remove large amounts of the song’s original charm for perhaps a misguided aim at the club floor.
The actual Dub Mix played like a shorter edit of the Club Remix until the middle where the vocals began getting dubbed out in the classic style, but the overall mix was a dense as ever. The Remix recast the song with a harder beat and a stripped down mix that substituted power for the missing Pop. And the non-LP B-side was a delight! “Eternal Repetition” may have been slightly undercooked, and thus perfect B-side material, but I loved the ingredients in the recipe! The melodic ideas were still strong and vibrant and the climax of the tune was glorious.
Finally hearing the major label debut of Figures On A Beach was surprising to me. I had been primed by all I’d heard before to expect early Duran Duran-styled Rock Disco thrills and to be sure, they were in evidence here. If anything, this band had greater chops than the Fab Five®, and vocalist Anthony Kaczynski avoided the many pitfalls of Simon LeBon by singing in his range, while reminding me of Australian vocalists like David Sterry of Real Life, or Mr. Hutchence of you-know-who.
What I was unprepared for were the equally numerous journeys into Art Rock territory liberally included here. Some of these songs carried strong suggestions of places where [to cite Hutchence again] his less commercial side project Max Q would head in two years time! Given that the only band Ivan Ivan released on his label besides FOAB was the light as air Book Of Love, I’d been primed to expect strong, if lightweight, dance oriented material. I was blindsided by the darker hues here that I have to say Ivan Ivan ran with capably as producer.
I’d initially been dismissive of FOAB due to the fact that anyone aiming for an Early Duran Duran type of sound in 1987 was a few years behind the curve and that was to my detriment. The Trouser Press review of this album liked it yet dissed it for the notion of offering the cream of 1983 in 1987. Cream is cream no matter how its served, and I’m one to lap it up greedily. However I can get it. But the fact was that this band was more ambitious than that. Half of this material was pushing far beyond places where I’d comfortably slotted the band into. Now I’m more than intrigued by the band’s follow up album which hopefully won’t take me seven years to hear.
Figures On A Beach: Standing On Ceremony – US – DLX RM CD [2008]
No Stars
The Glamour Of Motion
Feel the Mood
Angels Working Overtime
Rhythm
Elvis’ House
A Pagan Gift
Paris
State of Emergency
Delirium
The Big Top
No Stars [Club Remix]
No Stars [Dub Version]
No Stars [Remix]
Eternal Repetition
It was seven years ago when I had a bit of Figures On A Beach drop into my lap, courtesy of my friend JT who had made me a CD-R of the band’s rare early cassette. I had been thinking about getting into this band for a few years thanks to how the tracks on those Sire “Just Say…” samplers really sounded vibrant and alive in the drab 90s. Last week, I finallysnapped and bought a brand new copy of the band’s first full album for Sire; released in 1987 when I really should have paid more attention at the time. In 2008 our friends at the modest and self-effacing Wounded Bird Records label saw this title reissued on the solver disc, along with the 12″ single contents of “No Stars” added for extra goodness.
“No Stars” kicked the album off with a downbeat Post-Punk intro that only flirted with the Dance Rock which was the band’s métier until the expansive chorus arrived and took the song into flight into the skies of pop bliss. Chris Ewen’s juicy piano solo on the fantastic middle eight recalled past glories of Ultravox and early Talk Talk capably well. Anthony Kaczynski’s multi-tracked vocals were powerful and appealing; having a bit of the vibe of Michael Hutchence without his tendency to smoulder. This single was beautiful. How did I miss it at the time? Was there not a video serviced to 120 Minutes on MTV at the very least?
The feel moved to the sort of slinky funk that Double Duran were also dealing in around the same time with “The Glamour Of Motion” featuring John Rolski nailing the classic Nile Rodgers rhythm guitar sound to the angular, moody track. His sustained leads were also excellent. Perry Tell’s bass was not wasting any of our time on this one as the band capably switched to night prowl mode without batting an eyelash”Angels Working Overtime” changed the pace to a syncopated, martial beat that could have rolled for days. Giving the track an relentless pace reminiscent of Bjork’s “Human Behaviour.” The drumming couldn’t have been more different on “Rhythm” which eschewed the traditional drums for a pure 808 approach without coming anywhere near House music at all. Which probably took a lot of nerve in 1987.
This is Elvis’ refrigerator
This is where he made his meals
And you can get anything you want in Elvis’ Restaurant
Elvis’ House
I had bought this album expecting nimble Dance Rock, well done, but I was not prepared for the rather stunning turn of events on “Elvis’ House.” The somber pacing and low tempo drone accompanied what could only be termed Art Rock with Kaczynski methodically listing an ever expanding list of Elvis’ possessions over the 5:40 track. The lyrics became quite a fascinating meta-commentary on American culture and values, even as the band managed to inject some playful wit into the proceedings. The finale of the cut surely ascended to a plane of logical grandeur as the music bed piled on increasing levels of bombast; absolutely fully merited on this occasion.
Various Artists: Hit It. Dance + Contemporary Music Warner Bros. Records – USP – CD [1987]
Atlantic Starr: One Lover At A Time [7″ mix] 4:02
Nick Kamen: Each Time You Break My Heart [Radio Mix] 4:01
Erasure: Sometimes [7″ mix] 3:39
Depeche Mode: Strangelove [single version] 3:47
Kraftwerk: Sex Object [7″ edit] 3:57
Club Noveau: Why You Treat Me So Bad [7″ mix] 3:44
Atlantic Starr: One Lover At A Time [extended version] 8:02
Nick Kamen: Each Time You Break My Heart [extended version] 8:35
Erasure: Sometimes [extended Razormaid US mix] 7:31
Depeche Mode: Strangelove [Blind Mix] 6:10
Kraftwerk: Sex Object [Razormaid US Mix] 7:41
Club Noveau: Why You Treat Me So Bad [Club Mix] 7:50
This was an interesting promo CD that I probably bought after seeing an ad in an eyeball-straining Goldmine Magazine dealer ad. It probably mentioned that it had an otherwise unavailable 7″ and 12″ mix of Kraftwerk’s “Sex Object” and that would have set me right off. While I had a muted response to their divisive “Electric Cafe” album of 1986 [I was down on side one], the track “Sex Object” was one of the two songs on it I thought were very successful. So I sent off for this CD at a price of around $20, if I recall correctly. The time frame for this would have been not more than a year after this was released by Warner Bros. in 1987.
wow, does that conceit ever come home to roost on this compilation!Listening to it now, the pairing of mid-80s R+B and the tail end of the New Music era made for strange bedfellows. But only in one sense of the word. All of this music was made on synthesizers as the New Wave techniques spread through the mainstream wildly by the mid-80s. We’ve talked about how there was only a degree of separation between the likes of Taylor Dayne and The Human League by this time, and wow – does that conceit ever come home to roost on this album!
The first two tracks are what passed for R+B in the 1987 window. All synthetic and pulling Freestyle tropes from the early Madonna playbook. Nick Kamen was even produced by Madonna with her posse onboard attempting to turn the model into a chart star, but in America it didn’t happen. He’s probably still best known for his Levis ad in the UK and he died earlier this year. The first track on here of note was Erasure’s “Sometimes,” though I would not really embrace the band until I heard “Wild” being playing in-store.
I was all over “Strangelove” by Depeche Mode. I normally bought everything by the quartet from 1984 onward, so I had the UK CD5 of this single, but this was the sturdy , original 7″ version. Nothing special. Far more exciting was the prospect of the 7″ edit of “Sex Object” by Kraftwerk via the editing block of Joseph Watt of Razormaid. It appeared that “Sex Object” had been considered for single release by Warner Bros. or else why would this track be on this disc? Watt brought in more foreign language sound bites up front in the mix intro and managed to make a memorable four minutes from the nearly seven minute album track. I loved the intro with the synthetic strings and synthetic percussion taking us out. This was such a fascinating song for Kraftwerk as it was not really a good “fit” for their “brand.” Which is what made it to entrancing to me.
The conceit of the promo album was that 7″ and 12″ mixes of the same tracks made it up. So each of the six songs was contained in both song formats. Years later when I started collecting Erasure, I usually bought the German Intercord CD5s of their singles since they were first to market. So that meant that I never had the US 12″ mix of “Sometimes” since the Rico Conning remix as re-edited by Joseph Watt anywhere else, since I never bought records for Erasure; only CDs.
This was a fantastic remix of the kind that really blew up the original song and made it larger than life in every way. Mixes like this were the reason why we were bitten by the 12″ bug in the first place. All of the sonic details hidden in the song were expanded upon and given a dose of spotlight for at least a few bars in this mix that never bored in nearly eight minutes. All of the aspects of the mix were altered here, with radical shifts in EQ to make for maximum rhythmic impact and novelty factor. And the stomping, glammy beat was accentuated by all of the pulse gating applied to the song’s elements, including the vocals! The dubby attack almost threatened to take the mix off the rail at the end as the entire mix shuddered with the reverb until the drop to the bass driven coda.
I love all of the various mixes of “Strangelove” and one day should compile a disc called “Strangelove: The Motion Picture” with as many of them as I can find. The Blind Mix was by Daniel Miller and Rico Conning and was the 2nd UK 12″ A-side but included in the US 12″ package with several mixes. The intro here was like an alien insect loop for a bar before the more familiar tune began. The beat was harder than ever here with cold, precise blasts of white noise playing against the cicada-like percussion. The mix was thinner and more streamlined, and might be the least of the “Strangelove” mixes I’d heard. Once the “Bomb The Bass” mixes dropped, that was it for me. The strange thing was that I never bought records for Depeche Mode post 1985, so I only heard this mix on this compilation.
Joseph Watt began the extended remix of “Sex Object” with arid samples of “Ja…Nein” ping-ponging back and forth back in the stereo spectrum. Then the same in Japanese. As with the 7′ edit, this mix of “Sex Object” was fully multi-lingual. The slap bass samples were always a problematic aspect of Kraftwerk, beginning with “Tour De France” in 1984. But the manipulated bass samples used to construct a “solo” made a kind of sense when juxtaposed against the synthetic cellos and strings later in the song. Apart from the rhythm, everything melodic in this song seems to be “string” textures and given the emotional vulnerability that the song was espousing. it may have been the right decision.
The coda dropped out all of the string patches and samples for a minute of beat and mutli lingual vocals. I actually have the Razormaid issue A-12 [also from 1987] which has what was called there the “Tiergartenstrasse Mix” by Watt, but with the penchant the Razormaid crew have for re-remixing many tracks, I need to actually play mine to see if there are mix differences.
The liner notes contained a crossword puzzle that people were supposed to solve and send back to WB to win one of 12 CD players
With the packaging listing a contest to win one of 12 CD players, we can see that the format was still seen as something exotic in 1987. The various 12″ mixes on the then exotic CD format were rare birds for their time, and with the eye of Kraftwerk collectors [I can’t play in that $andbox any more…] always on this one for the unreleased commercially “Sex Object” remixes, this disc still manages to change hands for a solid two to three figures. Thank goodness I found this one relatively early and when money was more plentiful. I still find it surprising that there were not even any white labels of the title that made it out into the wilds.
The Metamorph: Return To Splendour – UK – 10″ [2021]
Opening Titles
The Visible World
Reverie
Slumber Submerged
The Metamorph has been releasing music on Bandcamp for three years but the artist has made the step up to actually being signed by a Scot synth label, Werra Foxma, and their new EP is getting the love on 10″ vinyl to be released on Friday, September 3rd. This session was originally recorded for the Magic Window radio show and the wise decision was made to put it out to the larger world. The Metamorph is of interest due to the artist’s penchant for analog synthesizers, which places music like this right into the PPM wheelhouse.
The Metamorph goes further than preferring analog synthesis. Additionally, the music is not sequenced or recorded with a Digital Audio Workstation on a computer. The music is recorded straight to 32 track digital recorder. In other words, it not been quantized! It lives and breathes off the restrictions of a grid! So what is it like, you may ask?
“Opening Titles” set the tone admirably. There was no rhythm track. Only analog synths and drone to carry us into the warm environment. When a glissando of piano appeared nearly halfway into the brief track, it had all of the impact of sunlight reflecting off of a calm lake’s waters. More than anything, I got Vangelis vibes from the track, but minus the level of bombast that some wrongly see as his alpha and omega.
We next went to a different place entirely with the rattlesnake lashings of rhythm that heralded “The Visible World.” Choral patches vied with delicate piano as the dreamlike state of the track brought me back to the Bill Nelson approach of his Orchestra Arcana period. The arrival of professorial soundbites as found vocals only strengthened this connection. But the ominous, rumbling bass synths were not part of the Nelson aesthetic as you may sample below.
A reverberant flute patch opened “Reverie” like watching a flower unfold from a bud in fast motion. This is exactly the kind of music you want to be your companion in times of solitude and solace. I will say that at 4:00 this track felt like it was almost a cheat. I’d like at least nine minutes of this contemplative, and well-named, music.
The concluding “Slumber Submerged” was a full chorale of Orpheus with delicate, Satie-esque piano dancing among the liquid jets of synthesizers coursing overhead. As with everything on this EP, it’s over with a little too soon [always keep them wanting more, eh?], but fans of Bill Nelson, Ryuichi Sakamoto or Harold Budd will enjoy the music on offer and we can hope that the next full album to follow this will be quickly forthcoming. This music is the perfect, reflective soundtrack to your late night creative jags.
In the meantime, the pressing of 200 10″ EPs is pre-selling briskly. The basic DL will be £3.99 and the 10″ will go for £13.99 [with your choice of DL formats]. Act quickly, as they are depleting fast. I’ve heard that US distribution should be happening for the 10″ so the shipping won’t be quite as brutal from Scotland, but that’s only to say if there’s any left to distribute in America. The button below is your friend.
Great Googly Moogly! It was some years ago when I managed to source the rare UK 7″ by The Hawks, Stephen Duffy’s band that occupied his time between singing lead vocals in the hatchling Duran Duran in 1979, and his solo turn in 1982 as Tin Tin. The single was “Words Of Hope” on the Five Believers label and apart from a rare airing of “Big Store” under their original name of The Subterranean Hawks on a 1984 Birmingham compilation, that was all she wrote.
Until this year, when word came from on high at the Stephen Duffy website that there would be a release of The Hawks recordings forty years after the fact. The band was a Birmingham four piece with Simon Colley, Dave Twist and the late Dave Kusworth joining Duffy on the tapes. Mr. Kusworth sadly died last September, but the reclamation of the Hawks archives had begun in advance of that event. First the cassettes had to be restored and baked, then John Paterno mastered the results for vinyl and [be still my beating heart] the grandad-friendly silver disc.
The ten tracks [the two from the original 7″ single were also here] were collected and what else could they name it but “Obviously Five Believers” in honor of their indie label that self-released the tunes back in 1980.
Today [August 27th, 2021] was intended to be the day of release but the …complexity…of putting music onto PVC in these, the end times, means that the best laid plans of Hawks and men must take a back seat to the grim realities of pressing LPs in the 2021 vinyl bubble. The CDs are ready for sale, but the whole shebang has been delayed until September 17th according to the latest.
As I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Duffy collector, it goes without saying that this album will be shortlisted for the Infinite Want List. There are limited numbers of the LP being made and that will set you back $31.99 from Rough Trade USA with the CD ready, willing, and available at $15.99. UK pricing is £11.99 CD/£22.00 LP at Easy Action. I can hardly wait to hear this one, so Stateside readers may join me in hitting the button below. Thanks to Rough Trade USA for selling this domestically! Their US shipping costs make it all go down very easy!
