Soft Selection 84 - A Nippon DIY Wave compilation
A much-cherished gem from the 1980s underground Japanese music scene returns as Soft Selection 84 is reissued by Glossy Mistakes for its 40th anniversary. Originally released on DIY label Soft, the compilation sees 13 tracks from nine acts spanning minimal, ambient, zolo and more for a beguiling listen.
Liaisons Dangereuses
*2023 much needed repress!* The only full-length from the West Germany trio known as Liaisons Dangereuses, this self-titled record (originally released via TIS records in 1981) is somewhat of a Holy Grail for fans of EBM and minimal synth. Thankfully, Soulsherrif Records has reissued this rarity! Comprised of members Beate Bartel, Chrislo Haas, and Krishna Goineau, Liaisons Dangereuses was only active for a couple of years. Beate and Chrislo played in numerous famous German electronic and goth …
391 | Selezione 2
With the 391 project, Spittle shed light on the most recondite and peculiar realities of the italian underground. The Belpaese illustrated in imaginative regional postcards, with all the legacies of off culture: the do-it yourself ethos and the local gestation of phenomena from across the Channel - above all - such as new wave, post-punk and electronic nouvelle vague. Phenomenal little contributions collected on the periphery of the New World, with future stars of the alternative scene to come a…
Good Night
Ian Elms’s cult isolationist synth masterpiece Good Night returns via Dark Entries. Originally released in 1982, Good Night blends Berlin school minimalism and BBC Radiophonic weirdness with the aesthetics of then-nascent DIY punk electronics throughout its fifteen short tracks.
According to Elms, these pieces were composed in two broad but interrelated modes: pieces with voice and synthesizer, which are obliquely narrative, and instrumental synthesizer pieces that aspire to capture fleeting emo…
The Hidden Tapes
A compilation of Minimal Wave from Around the World ‘79-‘85. The Hidden Tapes features rare, unreleased, and licensed tracks from as far as Japan and the former Yugoslavia. Most of the bands on this compilation recorded on 4-track tape in their bedroom studios while two of them went further to collaborate by sending tapes through the mail. The sounds on this record range from raw proto-industrial to naive danceable Belgradian new wave, to filmic synthesizer music to more complex, vocal-driven me…
391 | Selezione 1
A natural compendium to the 391 series, with a strong selection straight to vinyl. Spittle CDs series "391" is filling a void screaming out for revenge. We’re not actually talking about hard to find material, but properly unreleased songs and compositions locked for several decades in some virtual memory lane. A proper distillate from the ongoing series, which showed the hidden roots of the Italian new-wave (with all the possible links to art-rock, goth, post-punk and industrial). Creativity has…
Issue 82: The Genius of Tom Tom Club (Magazine + 7")
It’s been 40 years since the debut Tom Tom Club album brightened up the early 1980s, so we thought it would be a good time to chat with Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz about the making of this much-loved record and the circumstances that led to it.
They don't hold back – particularly when talking about their former Talking Heads bandmate David Byrne – and they've got some great tales to tell. Along the way, Chris reveals that the pair recently played a secret gig and are now getting ready to star…
Issue 102
With her debut solo album rocketing into the UK Top 10 on the week of its release, we are delighted to have Alison Goldfrapp on the cover of the new Electronic Sound. We have a fantastic red vinyl seven-inch by the always stylish and often elusive singer to accompany the issue too.
Trust
Trust, originally released on Play It Again Sam / Nettwerk in 1989, is collection of electro-pop, rinsed through with Chris & Cosey’s unique erotic vision – “Seldom have electronics this glaciated and deep-frozen exuded so much warmth” wrote Dele Fadele in NME.
Techno Primitiv
The remastered releases for August includes 1985’s Technø Primitiv, originally released on Rough Trade, the album is from Chris & Cosey’s whiplash minimal ‘80s icy synth period.
Pagan Tango
Pagan Tango – described by Melody Maker as “C&C formulating perfection” - followed in 1991 on Wax Trax!, and sees the pair once follow their own hypnotic beat in new directions.
Heaven Is Waiting
“The waiting is hell but heaven is waiting...it seeemed like an age to complete this record, we had demo’d it in a couple of days in swanyard studios and it sounded fresh and powerful, just like we wanted. Signing to Arista had given us the means and funds to take us to the next level and we were itching to get started. We had new equipment, the status of being a ‘signed band’ and we hoped the backing & Finances of a record company that believed as we did, that we could be big. Not ‘pop star big…
Issue 101
We have British Electric Foundation on the front of this month's Electronic Sound and an exclusive blue vinyl seven-inch boasting two previously unreleased Martyn Ware tracks to accompany the issue.
Panoramic Colorsound
The venerable Dark Entries celebrates it’s 300th release with Panoramic Coloursound, a triple LP from the Creative Technology Consortium. Traxx, Andrew Bisenius, and Jason Letkiewicz forged the CtC during the depths of pandemic isolation. Drawing from film and television music of the 80’s/90’s and armed with a mighty array of vintage analog and digital synthesizers, they set out to explore heists, vices, and catastrophe. Panoramic Coloursound collapses sound and image into a neon blur throughout…
Music For Stowaways
The first reissue of seminal early 1980's electronic recordings from the British Electric Foundation (B.E.F.), aka Heaven 17 / ex-The Human League's Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh, with Adi Newton (CLOCK DVA / THE FUTURE), and John Wilson (HEAVEN 17), originally a cassette-only release (1981).
391 | Vol.10 Friuli - Venezia Giulia - Voyage Through The Deep 80s Underground In Italy
Friuli and Venezia Giulia, have often been judged by some reviewers as some strange, exotic places, almost hidden in the upper right side of Italy's map. In fact, if compared to the average Italian habits, we got used to feeling marginal and eccentric. Yet, in the Eighties, Udine, being one of the main military service stations in the country, was a destination place for youngsters from all over Italy. Around six in the evening, the city center was literally invaded by an army of young people fr…
Canzoni Dada, 1981-1985
"If this band from Vicenza found a place in Italian rock history, it is mainly because of their [1983] debut [self-titled] mini-LP... duly presented here at the beginning of the tracklist. I hope the frontman Sergio Volpato will forgive me if I say that, despite the quality of the following releases, their mythical status (small as it may be) is owed to that first piece of vinyl originally released by LM Records and coproduced by Discotape, a record store in Marostica. An enigmatic cover, a made…
391 | Vol.9 Lombardia - Voyage Through The Deep 80s Underground In Italy
The nintth episode of the Voyage Through The Deep '80s Underground In Italy, dive and then a deep immersion into the New Wave phenomena developed in the Lombardia region between the second half of the '70s and the whole of the '80s. From the heart of Milano towards the geographical limits of the region, here is a whole legion of bands as representatives of a new subculture perfectly in step with the various music revolutions started in London and New York as in other centers of the Anglophone mu…
391 | Vol.8 Emilia Romagna 2 - Voyage Through The Deep 80s Underground In Italy
The eighth episode of the Voyage Through The Deep '80s Underground In Italy. Almost a couple of years in the making, this is a truly attempt to describe what happened in Emilia Romagna in the '80s. As for the other collections of the 391 series, forget the term "best of", this is an outstanding compilation, a hidden history finally revealed.
A series of bands long forgotten plus a handful of future underground stars, all in all a necessary path to join with the socio-political clutches of the l…
391 | Vol.7 Emilia Romagna 1 - Voyage Through The Deep 80s Underground In Italy
The seventh episode of the Voyage Through The Deep '80s Underground In Italy. Almost a couple of years in the making, this is a truly attempt to describe what happened in Emilia Romagna in the '80s. As for the other collections of the 391 series, forget the term "best of", this is an outstanding compilation, a hidden history finally revealed. A series of bands long forgotten plus a handful of future underground stars, all in all a necessary path to join with the socio-political clutches of the l…