Ancien Régime – The Position LP [MNQ032]

The Italian band Ancien Régime with theoir first album on Mannequin Records. “The Position” evokes new wave and synth-pop memories, delivering epic vintage sounds and wrapping them all with catchy riffs and melodies. Still, despite this fascination with the past, the band’s work stands out as a distinctive, highly personal take on the genre. The album is opened by the single “Negative”, with its dark gloomy vocals and war-like drumming. “Negative” is, in fact, the quintessential Ancien Régime composition: wave, biting snare, interweaving synths and guitars, reverbs, delays.

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Ancien Régime – The Position LP [MNQ032]

Soviet Soviet – Summer, Jesus LP [MNQ033]

MNQ 033 Soviet Soviet - Summer, Jesus LP cover art

Mannequin label from Rome release the “Summer, Jesus” LP by Soviet Soviet, first released on Tannen Records. This post punk LP includes 6 tracks and is burning mix of new wave and dark geometric linear reflections that are then.

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Soviet Soviet – Summer, Jesus LP [MNQ033]

L​.​A​.​S​.​’s Crime – Disphoria 1985​-​1989 LP [MNQ025]

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L.A.S.’s Crime (the initials stand for “Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime”, a famous short novel by Oscar Wilde) is an electronic band from Siena founded in 1984 by Sandro Marchetti (vocals, synthesizer, programming) and Maria Elena Brogi (vocals, synthesizers). With a music sometimes soft, sometimes melancholic, but always fully electronic the duo from 85 to 89 L.A.S.’s Crime produced 5 demo tapes (Five Lies ’85, Anomaly ’87, Inanitas ’87, Electa ’88, Korobi ’89) and a studio album (Abyss 43) registered at Sound City studio of Florence, but remained unreleased for label close. Today, thank to the italian label “Mannequin”, 13 selected songs can have finally a new life on vinyl, giving to the listener a small piece of 80’s remained intact.

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L​.​A​.​S​.​’s Crime – Disphoria 1985​-​1989 LP [MNQ025]

Sam Rosenthal – Tanzmusik LP [MNQ029]

Reissue of one of the top minimal synth Holy Grails out of there. ”Tanzmusik” is the first LP from Sam Rosenthal, boss of the historic Projekt Records label and mind of one of the most influential dark wave acts coming out of the US, Black Tape For A Blue Girl. Originally released in March 1985 and completely recorded at home on a four-track TEAC-2340 with a super minimal setup (Korg Poly 61, Realistic Moog, Boss Dr-110 and some effects), the vinyl release was limited to 250 copies. The album continues in the “electronic mood-music” tradition established by Sam on the Projekt Electronic Amerika cassettes, with the added intriques of the drum-computer, exploring the realms of electronic music. Its signature combination of gothic, ethereal, ambient and neo-classical elements has explored existential themes of loves lost and passions yet to come.

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Sam Rosenthal – Tanzmusik LP [MNQ029]

Heinrich Dressel – Sighing Melodies Thru The Graves [MNQ027]

DRESSEL, Heinrich - Sighing Melodies Thru The Graves

New release of Heinrich Dressel aka Valerio Lombardozzi, mind of one of the best Italian techno-electro labels around, MinimalRome. Heinrich Dressel is finally celebrating the use of vintage synthesizers and driven electronic machines, holding elements of electro and ambient at the same time, but breaking from the genres too, deeply inspired by Heinrich Dressel, the pioneering German archeologist sent to study in the holy city in Monte Testaccio, who drew what is now a major tool for study of Roman amphorae, the ”Table of Dressel. Heinrich Dressel is placed in a sort of limbo where John Carpenter meets Drexciya, a sonorous journey through the darker side of the electro, taking the commands of the Elka Synthex, one of the most impressive polysynths in the history of music, planned and manifactured by Mario Maggi in the early 80s, as the commercial brother of the MCS70, synth that gave birth to a masterpice album like ”Automat”. “Sighing Melodies Thru The Graves” musically speaking can be described as a captivating hybrid of styles, mixing the chilling-menacing mood of the 70s / 80s lo-fi funkadelic horror soundtracks to outerspace synthesised soundscapes in a pure classy vein. This is cryptical-kosmische psychedelica with a nice electro retro touch and avant-minimalist vibes.

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Heinrich Dressel – Sighing Melodies Thru The Graves [MNQ027]

SURVIVE – Survive LP [MNQ026]

Mannequin presents an 8 track LP from full-analog-synth quartet S U R V I V E aka Adam Jones, Kyle Dixon, Mark Donica and Michael Stein, considered as one of Austin’s (TX, US) most important live electronic mainstays.

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SURVIVE – Survive LP [MNQ026]

Degada Saf – No Inzro [MNQ009CD]

Degada Saf was a transgressive-dada-ist musical combo coming from Veneto, Italy. Degada Saf played a synth-electronic music, a kind of involved no-disco with no-sense lyrics in esperanto. Their music suggests a peculiar mixture of post-modernism synthesized electro assaults, new wave’s imaginative minimalism and pop art aesthetic vision. “No Inzro” makes constant interferences between rigorous avant-gardism, alternative music styles and colorfully plastic electro pop. The spectrum of musical imagination reveals a lot of good surprises, notably with the opening theme “La Rhumba de Shang Hai” which directly gives the tonality of the entire album: kitschy retro-popish ambiences based on dancing minimal hypno pulses and efficiently cold melodies. A groovy and captivating electro experience and a pretty decent introduction to the band’s very own musical universe.

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Degada Saf – No Inzro [MNQ009CD]

Newclear Waves – S​/​T LP [DSR028LP]

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Hailing from Rome – Italy, Newclear Waves is essentially the  solo  project  of  Alessandro  Adriani,  mind  and  boss  of  Mannequin  Records,  one  of    the  most  important  synth  wave  /  cold  wave  labels  around,  with  contributions  from Oksana Xiu, an academic russian musician devoted to analog synths. Deeply  influenced  by  the  works  of  the  early  minimal  electronics  sounds  on  Mute  Records  and  4AD,  Newclear  Waves  is  exploring  droned  out  electro  pop  territories  with  an  interest  for  a  refreshing  hyperactive  80s New Wave. Having turned out releases on Mannequin Records, the duo is now presenting a full‐lenght ten  tracks  collection  of  caliginous  pure  analog  minimal  synth  on  the  way  on  Desire  Records,  french  Cold  Wave  and  Electro  Wave  label,  focused  both  in  new  artists  and  stunning reissues from 4AD like Mass, In Camera and Dance Chapter.

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Newclear Waves – S​/​T LP [DSR028LP]

Tropic Of Cancer – Permissions Of Love [MNQ023]

Brand new 12” from Tropic of Cancer, one the most important realities in the modern post-punk and darkwave scene. The band consists of Camella Lobo and John Juan Mendez. Though Tropic Of Cancer’s sound has been called gothic, cold wave and drone pop, the band’s take on their influences is anything but nostalgic. Lobo and Mendez have managed to imbue their own elusive gaze and craft a strangely beautiful and intoxicating sound in the wake of their predecessors. The three tracks on this new 12” take us gently by the hand into a slowed-down opium dream – it’s like watching the desert from the same stark corners where Lyciastood many years ago. This EP gathers the primal thrust of their bleak Post-Punk (think about Cultural Decay shaking hands with Section 25 in their psychedelic/buddhist years) and Minimal Wave aesthetics with this entirely new dimension in the music of TOC – heartfelt and deep. Cold waves have never been so warm.

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Tropic Of Cancer – Permissions Of Love [MNQ023]

Budapest & Berlin Holiday

Continue reading “Budapest & Berlin Holiday”

Budapest & Berlin Holiday

UV PØP – No Songs Tomorrow [MNQ028/SBR3009]

Mannequin and Sacred Bones are honoured to join their forces to offer you one of the best UK New Wave reissues from the 80’s. UV PØP were an early post-punk group from the South Yorkshire region of England. Their sound was regionally bleak and they used staccato, angular guitars lines, with vocals ranged from spoken repeated mantras to whispered and shouted political poetics. ‘In the 1980s there was nothing to smile about. The person whom some called wrongly the iron lady brought vengeful spiteful selfishness and a narrow-minded out- look into all our lives. The sound of UV PØP has always been a sophisticated blend of sadness; with morose North Country sense and a humorous confrontational sensibility. UV PØP were as certain as anybody there was a strong possibility there might not be anything left with which to make a tomorrow…

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UV PØP – No Songs Tomorrow [MNQ028/SBR3009]

Janitor Of Lunacy – Crimes On The Dancefloor LP [MNQ008]

Big release by one of the best electronic Cold Wave bands from Italy. Janitor Of Lunacy were an Italian New Wave electronic band, active in Brescia from 1981 to 1986, composed by Kovre, Claudio Asserini and Gabriele Farina. With this line up, JOL produced a demo tape in 1983 entitled ‘Crimes On The Dancefloor”, which was very well reviewed by the italian music press. Thanks to such great feedbacks, the band was choosed for various compilation of the era, playing many live shows in historic clubs like Xenon in Florence or Odissea 2001 in Milano, sharing the stage with Weimar Gesang and some others Supporti Fonografici related bands. In 1986 JOL entered in studio for recording their first full-lenght for this label, album publicized by various magazine but that never saw the light of the day, due to artistic divergences.

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Janitor Of Lunacy – Crimes On The Dancefloor LP [MNQ008]

Central Unit – Loving Machinery [MNQ024]

Mannequin is really happy to present the 30th Anniversary Edition of the 12’’ EP ‘Loving Machinery” from Central Unit, the cult New Wave mitteleuropean band based in Bologna. Formed in 1981, they were among the first in Italy to manipulate synths, drum machines and other electronic devices to create atmospheric soundscapes. Central Unit published in March 1982, the 12’’ EP “Loving Machinery” with 4 tracks, including a cover of “What Use?” from Tuxedomoon.

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Central Unit – Loving Machinery [MNQ024]

VA – Danza Meccanica Vol. 2 Italian Synth Wave 1981-1987 [MNQ022]

Mannequin announce the second volume of the much acclaimed italian New Wave Italian compilation. “Danza Meccanica” is the latest, unmissable chapter in the story of Italian post punk – the less traditionally rock branch. It outlines the approach taken by ten more or less unknown groups who all deserve rediscovery and to be remembered alongside luckier outfits. Ten tracks that spell out the manifesto of a scene fascinated by electronic innovation.

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VA – Danza Meccanica Vol. 2 Italian Synth Wave 1981-1987 [MNQ022]

Martial Canterel & Tobias Bernstrup – Strange Land [MNQ017]

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New single on Mannequin Label featuring a real collaboration between Tobias Bernstrup and Martial Canterel, in a sense that Tobias sings on the Martial Canterel-tracks and vice versa.

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Martial Canterel & Tobias Bernstrup – Strange Land [MNQ017]