It was over four years ago when somewhere, somehow [and I can’t remember] I became aware of the “Jyl” album as issued in the UK and Germany in 1984. I had never heard of it at the time, and now the disc was changing hands at over three figures. The record had production by Klaus Schulze with the music made by Ingo Werner with lyrics by Angela Werner and Jyl Porch herself. A mix of all analog synths and conventional rock instrumentation; in other words, exactly what I like.
It seemed to be the kind of expat-American-dancer-goes-to-Europe-and-makes-synthesizer album that might have some appeal. So it went on the want list. Not that I ever envisioned a copy of this for less than $80, but you never know what could show up in your Discogs want list feed. I once got Stephen Duffy’s “Baby Impossible” 12″ for $6.00. Miracles happen.
Then, a recent comment by slur regarding an upcoming Vicious Pink 2xLP issued by Minimal Wave records saw me going to their website in search of info. Minimal Wave records have been a bastion of the minimal synth movement that I’ve been dimly aware of for the last several years. Once I looked there I could hardly miss the news that in September of last year, they recently reissued the Jyl album in a 180g LP [hisss!] from the original master tapes. I’d have much preferred a CD, but given the choice between a three figure LP from 1984 and a new pressing [hopefully not from GZ] for $23.00… guess what wins in my universe?
Jyl: Jyl – US – LP [2020]
- Mechanic Ballerina
- Universe
- Computer Love
- Positions
- Dance + Death
- The Computer Generation
- Animation
- Silicon Valley
- Electric Lady
- I’m A Machine
The player offers three songs to sample and “Computer Love” proffered delirious arpeggios, a martial beat and a mutli-lingual middle eight in French. The range of Ms. Porch on the outro was quite impressive in those pre-autotune days. Speaking of which, “Computer Generation” lost me with the varispeed/pitch-altered vocals. In the old days there was no autotune, but there was varispeed; which was too gimmicky for my taste. That was a shame, since the music bed had a glistening YMO-like tech appeal. Finally, the third song was “Electric Lady;” a full year before Con Funk Shun and decades prior to Janelle Monae. The synthetic percussion here had a similar electrostatic discharge quality to the percussion used by Kraftwerk on the previous year’s “Tour De France.” I’ve not heard that elsewhere, so kudos to Ingo Werner for his sound design getting that close to the Kraftwerk target.
Will I want a copy of this? I wouldn’t say no. And since it will be sold out in due time, maybe snaring a copy of the LP is just a great investment. But if that day never comes, the Jyl Bandcamp page has a digital copy of this [in the usual lossless formats for only $12.00] There’s room for that in any budget. Available just a click away…
-30-
Post-Punk Monk 
I’m not normally too militant about CD availability, and frankly I’m grateful to the vinyl renaissance for reissuing great albums of the distant past in an improved version of their original format (it’s shocking how many long-dead greats and their classic albums can be found in any modern record store), but that’s because it didn’t hurt CD availability until fairly recently, and the trend formerly was that CDs offered extra room for more bonus tracks.
This sort of trendy short-sightedness in this release is just egregious, and shows off how greedy labels have become to fleece the vinyl junkies — who on top of everything else grossly overpay for the vinyl release compared to the CD version … if there is one, apparently.
It’s particularly stupid with a release from the mid-80s that only a tiny percentage of the large vinyl market are likely to be interested anyway, as many 80s fans still consider CD to be the premier format (despite the nostalgia for vinyl). Not that I’m in a position to know, but it would likely cost very little to also offer a CD version, which would actually net Jyl the most money of any other format!
TL;dr — GRRRR damn kids today …
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chasinvictoria – And for me, the CD format was how god intended electronic music to be heard! Can you remember the first time you heard “Metamatic” songs on compact disc?
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Hi Mr monk,
i would counter, that Vinyl was the format that music was intended to be on, which is why the majority of the ‘good stuff’ came that way. CDs were late to the party, and have tried to catch up, but have failed miserably with the brickwalled and loudness wars and its back to the holy vinyl to right the wrongs.
Just kidding, i’ll take my music in whatever format i can get it, reel to reel, minidisc, cassette, it doesn’t matter. even if you get vinyl, you know you’re going to remaster it anyways, and you’re getting superior large format artwork. i don’t see any downsides
to vinyl, because 95% of the time i never play it, and its just for looks anyways, the few
tracks that aren’t digital soon become that way. digital is the universal format that we
have always wanted, but were reluctant to accept.
later
-1
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negative1ne – We are by turns similar and very different in our approaches. When I buy vinyl, I usually have an interest in eventually playing it. Even if it’s only for one time into the computer. The sad thing is that it can take decades for this to happen! I usually only play something when it makes sense to have a new “project” of making a digital version of an album. For example, an LP never issued digitally. But before I can do that, I need to buy all of the various releases with the “bonus tracks” I’ll need to wrap it up tightly in a pretty bow. And sourcing the often obscure and hard to buy singles can take long years!
I used to “collect” close to a hundred artists in the 90s, when money was plentiful. Now I play my “redundant vinyl” cards close to my vest. I will buy very few vinyl releases that I don’t need because I have the music on them in CD format elsewhere. That would be for maybe a dozen artists these days. Generally: John Foxx, OMD, The Rezillos, The Revillos, Mari Wilson/Compact Organization, occasional Ultravox and Simple Minds.
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thanks mr. monk,
well, not to be morbid. and certainly not because of current events. but in the last year, as i’ve mentioned, i’ve had a banner year in income, and collecting has boomed along with 3x -5x the number of purchases i’ve made.
i’m not getting any younger, music is starting to disappear. and all those vinyl goodies, that i would never have found or bought due to price are not an issue any more. i’ve probably liked less than 100 bands from when i’ve started listening to music, and my core groups are around 25 i think. so i’ve decided to concentrate on those, and get as many ‘holy grail’ purchases while i still can, and can afford it, regardless (within some ‘crazy’ reason of a limit).
so in the last few months, i’ve gotten (all used, except as noted):
kraftwerk – spanish Electric Cafe [exclusive tracks/cover]
kraftwerk – french Computer World [exclusive tracks]
literally 15-20 vinyl boxsets (most new);
Depeche Mode remasters – 8
Heaven 17 – 2nd boxset of albums (Still need the first one)
Simple Minds – Album collection, and Rejuvenated
As far as Ultravox goes, due to the Steve Hoffman forum, finished off
——-
all clear 7 inches (19)
all picture disc 7 inches, and some 12 inch ones
almost all the clear 12 inches – 15+
extended vinyl boxset, and associated midge ure clear compilations
pretty much every foreign promo, 7 inch, and 12 inch that was missing 50+ and more to go
i’m also working on new order
——
got the movement special cassette box to complete the 5 boxed cassette releases
all the color variations (9+foreign) for procession/everythings gone green
all the music complete colored vinyl singles and foreign 12 inches
=====================================
so my plan is each month this year, look at which groups i can ‘close out’,
with the major UK, and US release 7 and 12 inches, and albums.
and grab every cassette, and deluxe version that i missed out on.
february – trying hard to complete a 99% sweep of Frazier Chorus [as far as discogs goes]
march – not sure which group, might split flock of seagulls/duran duran/underworld with
neil arthur [again a 99% sweep via discogs]
i plan to buy a holy grail every month [things that cost from $100-$300], so
that i can finally cross them off my want list after 5-10 years of marking them as such.
ambitious i know, wish me luck.
yes, its crazy that i will never play 95% of those items, because as i mentioned
they are almost always duplicates and variations of things i have already.
now some of the holy grail items, have unique tracks, so they will get played once at least.
such is the peril of being a collector.
[please ignore the crazy spacing my posts always have].
later
-1
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negative1ne – Let me be the first to say that there is almost no way to “complete” a collection! 15 years of Discogs has taught me that just when you think you have it all, there’s always some new title that you didn’t know about earlier! So good luck! Collectors need a lot of it.
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hi mr monk,
as an addendum to my last message about collecting vinyl. a few things of note:
1) due to the pandemic, shipping times from Europe can vary wildly from an extra week or two to months. i am currently awaiting 3 high priority items from Germany which have now been stuck for 3 months somewhere over there. well at least they will make it over here this year. i can wait, as they were the only sellers of those items.
some from the UK, France, Italy and Spain seem to be OK though.
2) Shipping costs, yes, they are all extremely high, especially from the UK. but if you use discogs, and ebay. (i dont use AevilMazon as much), you can find some sellers with ‘reasonable’ costs.
where ‘reasonable’ means not double or triple what you would expect
3) for my cases, most 7 and 12 inches from the UK are now worth $0.50-$2.00, so are basically
worthless, so what you’re paying for is the shipping. i tend to buy 5-15 items at a time that way.
if you do the same with US 7 and 12 inch releases (depending on the group), you can get 10-20
items for $1-$2 each, and pay $5-$10 shipping at the most. I’m pretty sure, i got over 100+ singles
this way, to offset all the expensive items.
YES, they almost always have picture covers, unless they are promos.
YES, they are used. YES the albums might be a little beat up. YES they might have stickers, writing, etc on them.
NO, I will never play them.
They are basically just gap fillers for the collection, just for the sake of looking, and going ‘there it is’.
Now, I do get some rare, clear, picture, and exclusive unique sleeves from Spain, Germany, and France, that cost more. But again, those are 2nd, 3rd rung items to get after getting the main versions. Those tend to be in much better shape for some reason.
carry on.
later
-1
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Hi Mr. Monk,
When I say 99% complete, that is because there will always be 1 rare one promo no-ones heard of, or seen, or for sale.
I’ve actually found 2 items that weren’t listed on discogs for Frazier Chorus (from ebay),
which I’ve since added:
1) Wide Awake (US album) on cassette
2) Wide Awake CD single promo
And there’s a french/european promo CD single of ‘walking on air’ thats never been on sale. So who knows what else is out there.
It is satisfying, having every cassette single, US promo, UK promo, white label release, although I guess I would have to play those to make sure they are correct, but i digress.
—————–
By far, the best, most haunting, and sad advertisement that I see constantly now is this one from an online reseller pop.market : Because your collection will NEVER be complete. [emphasis added to Never].
later
-1
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