It’s been a crazy week, with no power at work [eventually we got generators in] and I’m trying to make up my time sheet to equal 40 hours with a crazy quilt of hours here and vacation time there. There’s just enough time today to post a quick one about the infamous Berlin debut album. 1980’s “Information” was the first Berlin album; available only in Germany, back in the day. It’s a fine New Wave album; of rare genus Synthisus Americanus.
It’s my favorite Berlin album. You’ll hear synthesizers and guitars aplenty, but what you won’t find on it was singer Terri Nunn. This album was recorded after the Berlin debut single, when Ms. Nunn had departed the band to give acting one more big push. The band picked Virginia Maccolino to be the singer on it for this one release. After this album came out in Germany only, Ms. Nunn re-connected with her first, best destiny and we know that story well.
Now it seems that the August Day label, who have been releasing new albums by old faves with orchestral accompaniment [Visage, A Flock Of Seagulls, Wang Chung, and even Berlin] have announced that they will be the first label to reissue the scarce “Information” album. Presumably on the silver disc, DL, and possibly even the 12″ disc as well. These days it’s hardly a stretch. The page on the website lists only the ten LP songs so it doesn’t look like any bonus tracks will be present.
You can see the placeholder for the release here, but as of yet there’s no date for release. No pricing and no live order button. Only a promise of more to come. Scuttlebutt has it that the release was mastered from the LP since the master tapes for this one are said to be missing. I’ve already mastered my LP to the golden disc eleven years ago, but if you’ve not been able to source a copy of the German LP for less than $50, then maybe it behooves you to keep an eye peeled on what August Day will ultimately do with “Information.”
Stop Press: Commenter Mike tells us that the Album as a DL is already available in the Juno store and he gave the results on lossless thumbs up, but it’s strange that other online stores, to say nothing of August Day themselves, are mum on the release. But for $12.99 in lossy and $18.99 in lossless, anyone can scratch that “Information” itch right now on Juno. As ever, Mr. D.J. hit that button!
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Post-Punk Monk 
This video was one of the first things I recorded back in 1980 featuring a VERY young looking Terri Nunn. I was always looking for the “Information” album but never realized that it was so hard to find. https://youtu.be/APPhaCUZj-0
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thxdave – The 1979 Zone-H single was the Teri Nunn version. I.R.S. Records picked it up the next year and reissued it in 1980, but that was the album version with Virginia Maccolino singing on it. The latter was fairly common, back in the day. Even I had two copies of that one. Your video was the band lip syncing the 1st version. Hollywood Heartbeat rocked my world. You wouldn’t have any airchecks dating back earlier, to 1977, would you? I’d really enjoy seeing that Sounds Unlimited “Cheese Wars”ad a second time.
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Can’t help you with THAT one, Monk. I have a lot of stuff I need to upload and tons of old tapes to sift through so I’ll keep an eye out. I haven’t posted any new material in quite a while as I got tired of being b**** slapped by YT for copyright matches. Still happens when some bands catalog gets sold to another big conglomerate label and they hit me with copyright strikes even when the video has been online for 10 years! You can’t win….
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Try vimeo, or another sharing site.
later
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I found this in the bins a few years ago, not sure it was even the Berlin band I knew but gave it a chance as it was the first time ever I’ve seen it. Kept it as it’s not bad but if I had to pay collector and vinyl craze prices I’d refuse, my favourite was and is the title track.
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Hmm, isn’t she a Trumper (Nunn)? Having a different vocalist certainly makes that purchase easier.
I knew she tried her hand at acting but never knew she was that resolute about it. Read for Leia in Star Wars circa 1976.
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Tim – Well, I had forgotten about that issue! [checks] Well, she has done a Mea Culpa but as they say, the optics were bad. Any conscious performer would hang up, not sign the dotted line. Why couldn’t they call The Nuge?
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who cares about what the think. do you like her singing, support the band or not.
later
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Hi postpunkmonk, I remember you and I talked about “Information” a while back on Discogs. I did manage to get a burned copy eventually. Well imagine my surprise yesterday it turned up on the Juno Records online store, as an August Day release! Sound is good, very crisp, file size is good for lossless. Interested to know what you think of it (interestingly, it’s not available yet on August Day’s website).
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Mike – Welcome to the comments! So it’s out there digitally on Juno then? [checks] It’s strange how there’s no release date! At least it sounds good. That’s all we can hope for at this point. I looked at iTunes for this and didn’t see it. So I’m surprised that another retailer has it already.
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Do you have a link?
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Wilco – Welcome to the comments! The bottom of the post has the “buy here” button that links to the album in Juno.
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Amazing – I spent way too much tracking down the vinyl for this – fingers crossed they did a good job transferring it. Frankly I would have expected this from Rubellan Remasters – but I know Scott is about ready to throw in the towel on his label because it is so difficult to deal with the record companies and poor quality control with the pressing plants… Why didn’t Berlin return to this sound for Transcendance? I had big hopes with Crawford returning, but it all sounds like a sad attempt to sound modern. Anyway, excited! This is one of their best and almost perfect 80s synth-pop.
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Christopher Merritt – I have not bothered with what Berlin have done post “Count Three And Pray,” which I only have the singles for. Ms. Nunn is a strong vocalist but I can’t count on her to steer the vessel. I think that Berlin were at their best when Chris Ruiz-Valesco and Daniel R. Van Patten were also in the mix. It sounds like Berlin went “EDM” [Monk gestures with finger poking down throat] for their “original band reunites” phase on “Transcendence.” What a waste. As for Rubellan Remasters, it is a disappointment that he didn’t get to make the ultimate “Information” CD! Even I couldn’t cross that finish line, owing to the cost of obtaining that 1st “Metro” b/w “Tell Me Why [version 1]” that even my luxe bespoke CD is missing! However, RR did transform “Pleasure Victim” with the DLX RM CD that gives me much more than I was used to from that release! I just hope that he hangs in there and can keep doing such great work.
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Heya – is it this 7″ you are missing? https://www.discogs.com/release/1529936-Berlin-Metro
I have it in my collection, and happy to let you borrow it to make a good vinyl rip if you’d like. – Chris
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Christopher Merritt – You’d do that? Yikes? I’m nervous at the notion, though once I shipped my Japanese 1st pressing Kraftwerk I/II LPs to a friend for him to rip. So it can be done without incident. I’ll PM you on particulars.
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Hey postpunkmonk, just a few details of what I noticed so far. Sound-to-sound comparison with the copy I had burned to disc a few years ago.. not much difference actually. It seems a little higher in the treble range, a bit sharper and more defined overall. What I noticed is the file sizes (I normally save as flac). For example, my personal album fave ‘Mind Control’ is 19.33 MB on August Day and 18.99 MB on the Vinyl burn. That implies some improvement in audio quality that wasn’t there before, I checked both soundwaves on Audacity and they are nearly identical, and there are a few more peaks in the high db range on ADAY. Oh–and ‘Uncle Sam’ was trimmed of that awkward minute of silence (on the original vinyl) so now it clocks in at 2:58 as opposed to 3:45. I’m pretty happy with it.. I’m always a little suspicious of DL cause you never know is it just a low bitrate file saved in wav or flac format or is it truly lossless from the source. But enough of my paranoia .. lol
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Mike – Was the copy you had burned to disc your own LP? I’m confused since you mention an “awkward minute of silence [on the original vinyl]” and there’s no such thing. It sounds like the agent who digitized that for you made an error. Here’s the unedited in any way wave for side two of my LP:
At any rate, it’s good to hear that what you bought from Juno sounds good. DLs that are poor vinyl rips are out there!
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It was my own vinyl, but frankly it’s been so long I didn’t remember. I just talked to the guy and turns out he put in the quiet space to match the label time discrepancy so I could edit it as I wanted.
Well, now all we need is Suburban Lawns, Slow Children, Wide Boy Awake, Novo Combo….
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Mike – Aaaaah! Did you miss the Suburban Lawns CD on Futurismo too? All of a sudden it was three figures!! Just like the album [which I bought in the early 90s for a few dollars]. But if you want Slow Children [and who doesn’t?] surely you knew that they came out this year on Rubellan Remasters packed with goodies, no?
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OHHH No way man–I missed it! Both of them!! I was able to get cds burned of a few of these from my vinyl lps over the years, not to mention the occasional torrent, but there’s nothing like a legit remaster. I’m looking at it right now–plus the tracks from the Lawns’ “Baby” EP…Wow!! Well, I guess now is as good a time as any to grab one. And Slow Chldren.. I had no idea, wasn’t aware of the Rubellan Remasters with the bonus tracks. Very interesting!
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Mike – Amazingly, Rubellan remastered both Suburban Lawns and Slow Children. His remastering is fantastic. Several years ago he started his own CD reissue label though now he’s releasing LPs as well. But the CDs are his passion projects. His Slow Children CDs just came out and I’m dying or order them…once I have two nickels to rub together!
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Postpunkmonk, just checking out those Rubellan releases, the second Slow Children cd “Mad About Town” is a real goldmine, with the extended mixes of ‘Spring in Fialta’, ‘Vanessa Vacillating’ and ‘President Am I’. Definitely get a hold of that one!
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Actually this made me look at other neglected bands that might have been released when I wasn’t looking–turns out Novo Combo finally made it to disc on Renaissance Digital in 2018! The extended mix of “City Bound (“E” Train)” is notably absent, but still its pretty remarkable.
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> That implies some improvement in audio quality that wasn’t there before
No, it only implies a *change*, not necessarily an improvement, and the change could be as simple as a tweak in the compression algorithm. Nothing you could have observed in a comparative waveform analysis would necessarily correlate with a change in file size.
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JT–Cool…Thanks
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OHHH No way man–I missed it! Both of them!! I was able to get cds burned of a few of these from my vinyl lps over the years, not to mention the occasional torrent, but there’s nothing like a legit remaster. I’m looking at it right now–plus the tracks from the Lawns’ “Baby” EP…Wow!! Well, I guess now is as good a time as any to grab one. And Slow Chldren.. I had no idea, wasn’t aware of the Rubellan Remasters with the bonus tracks. Very interesting!
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Came late to this party – just downloaded the Juno version of this album that I wasn’t aware existed (frankly I wasn’t aware Juno existed, I like them!). Great music, very unusual glitch: I was surprised when I saw Track 7 (Fascination) was 18:24 long. It actually appears to be the entirety of Side 2 of the album, replete with needle drop after opening with about 15 seconds of silence. I’ll have to manually extract Fascination from it…
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JayOnDemand – That is a bridge too far for me! I’m appalled that even after paying for downloads you have to bust out the wave editor to “fix things.” By the same token, I get the occasional promo DL here at PPM and it drives me nuts when that entails taking MP3 files on an album that are simply the songs titled with a track number appended to them! Then I have to spend 30-40 minutes in my wave editor tagging the files so that they will constitute an album in the right sequence once I load it in my phone for listening.
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MP3’s (and even WAV files) drive me nucking futs. I just bought the fantastic new A Flock Of Seagulls album from their site but the only options were MP3 or WAV. I chose the latter but the correct metadata wasn’t there so I had to manually rename each track. At least the track order was correct but still.
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JayOnDemand – D’oh!!! So you just had that mishap occur to you, eh? So the new AFOS album is fantastic, eh? I’d hoped that with John Bryan and Sare Havlicek involved [they were heavily involved with the Visage period we discussed today] that it would reflect their musical values. I am a little sad that AFOS touring guitarist and prime mover of Canada’s excellent Spoons, Gordon Deppe is nowhere to be found on “Some Dreams.” But I sort of get it. Not his circus, not his monkeys.
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Huge (annoyed grunt) PPM! [Only true Simpsons fans will catch that reference – ed.] I have a slew of new purchases to listen to but I can’t resist revisiting Some Dreams again – it’s great, and though I do like the title track it’s one of my least favorite on the long-player (Castles In The Sky, currently spinning at JOD Studios, is downright gorgeous). I wasn’t aware of the Visage/Spoons royalty connection but they certainly fill in nicely for the former ‘Gulls. This album deserves to be heard!
[Still can’t Like yours or anyone’s replies, and I have to log in every time I want to comment – maybe I should update my Netscape browser? I’ll ask Jeeves what to do.]
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