minimal synth

This Perfect Day – No Frills, Just Noise [SS015]

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This Perfect Day was a band formed in Manchester, UK around 1981 by vocalist/blues harp player John Sama Snowden and synthesiser player Mik Hayes. John had the street-cred having previously been vocalist with The Limit and for a short time was the vocalist with The Passage during which time they played gigs alongside Joy Division. Mik, by contrast, had no street-cred, having been bass guitarist with a semi-pro cabaret/covers band, playing 2 hour sets of pop songs every Saturday night. The antagonism between the two, the fight between atmosphere and melody characterizes This Perfect Days sound… in fact the name This Perfect Day is an attempt to convey this. It comes from the novel by Ira Levin in which everything on the surface is perfect, but underneath this surface is an underbelly of pure scum! Their music was never intended to be synth music in the classic Kraftwerk / Human League / OMD / etc sense. It was music that just used synthesizers because they didnt have a drummer or a guitarist. They immediately started writing their own songs, bouncing music from track to track on a Revox B77 tape recorder, using a monophonic ARP Axxe and a Soundmaster SR-88 drum machine. Over the next 2 years, besides playing a number of gigs in the northwest of England, they were able to record a total of 13 songs on 8-track tape at Bootleg Studios, Stockport, UK, culminating in the final session with the recording of The Garden and The Time of Your Life, which utilized the polyphonic capabilities of their new Crumar Stratus synth. The Garden and The Time of Your Life were put together as a double A side single purely for promotional purposes. Copies were sent to record companies, radio stations, DJs, etc. but no-one was interested, so the music finally faded away. No decision was ever made to stop… life just took over… until now…

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This Perfect Day – No Frills, Just Noise [SS015]

Xymox – Subsequent Pleasures [DE072]

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Xymox was founded in Nijmegen, a city in the east of the Netherlands in 1983 by Ronny Moorings (Vocals, Guitars, Synthesizers) and Anka Wolbert (Vocals, Bass). In April of that year Moorings bought a TEAC 144 four-track tape recorder and the duo moved to Amsterdam. They began to record songs utilizing a Yamaha CS-15, Korg MS-10 and MS-20, a BOSS Dr. Rhythm DR-550, guitar and effects pedals. They layered the drone-like tones of monophonic synthesizers alongside tape loops and rhythm tracks, then played guitar and bass, without the use of computers. The 5-song EP Subsequent Pleasures was released in 1984 and limited to 500 vinyl copies, and served as a precursor to the dark wave sounds they would champion on their self-titled debut on 4AD the following year. Also of note, the track Muscoviet Musquito, was later re-recorded for the compilation album Lonely Is An Eyesore released by 4AD in 1987.

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Xymox – Subsequent Pleasures [DE072]

Executive Slacks – Executive Slacks EP [DE071]

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Executive Slacks was spawned in the humidity of post-industrial Philadelphia by three restless art students – Matt Marello, John Young and Albert Ganss. Starting out with performance art in subways, they soon took their angst-ridden act to galleries and night clubs. They recorded four songs in the fall of 1982 that became their self-titled EP released by local independent label Red Records in 1983. On their debut EP Matt Marello roars and churns out white-hot shards of guitar while John Young’s short-circuited noise machines and Albert Ganss’s industrial metal drums create dramatic body rhythms. The Slacks drew their influences from contemporaries like Cabaret Voltaire and Tuxedomoon, but also from extremes like disco and dadaism. Songs were created using heavily modified synthesizers and various percussive instruments: industrial steel drums, a filing cabinet, metal rods, and an African drum covered in antelope skin. Executive Slacks’ unique brew of primitive electronics, harsh guitars and aggressive vocals inspired many bands like Ministry, Front 242, Skinny Puppy.

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Executive Slacks – Executive Slacks EP [DE071]

Severed Heads – Dead Eyes Opened [DE070]

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Severed Heads are one of the longest standing bands to have emerged from the Australian post-punk and experimental scene. They began in Sydney in 1979, and were an early outfit to incorporate elements of ‘industrial’ noise-generation, tape cutting & looping and electronic sound synthesis. As the project developed, song-structures and vocals were employed in a more-or-less recognizable mutant electro pop style. Dead Eyes Opened features samples from a radio program narrated by Edgar Lustgarten, a crime journalist from England, referencing a double murder case that occurred in 1924. The rhythms are made by a TR-808 drum machine and an SH-1 synthesizer. A KORG PolySix was used for strings and additional atmospheric elements. The lead solo was a Casiotone run through an Octaver foot pedal. On the B-side are two solo compositions Bullet and Mount that Ellard recorded at Terse Tapes in 1982.

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Severed Heads – Dead Eyes Opened [DE070]

Kline Coma Xero – Kline Coma Xero [MR036]

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Medical Records presents the debut full length release of Kline Coma Xero. Formed in 2012, Kline Coma Xero is a group whose work embraces elements of early minimal synth wave with distinctively thoughtful lyrics and evocative melodies. Kline Coma Xero’s Tony Williams has had his roots planted in various projects in the past, spanning a realm of styles from experimental noise, tape loops and early industrial. Using a writing style that employs the use of hardware sequencers driving analog instruments rather than computers, Kline Coma Xero produces a uniquely oblique interpretation of past-meets-present in modern electronic music.

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Kline Coma Xero – Kline Coma Xero [MR036]

Severed Heads – City Slab Horror [MR035]

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Their most varied, interesting work, City Slab Horror includes stark synthesizer workouts, several tracks of pure rhythm and noise, and, thankfully, little of the unambitious tape music for its own sake of Since the Accident. “Cyflea, Rated R,” “4.W.D.,” and the title track provide several examples of the best experimental synthesizer tracks of the mid-’80s.

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Severed Heads – City Slab Horror [MR035]

Information Society – Insoc EP [MNQ053]

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The ”Insoc EP” contains the first official recordings from the legendary Minneapolis music collective Information Society led by founder/producer Paul Robb. Originally released on vinyl in 1983 the EP became extremely difficult to find. Now, for the first time since 1983, Mannequin Records is giving it a new birth on wax, this time including a bonus track ”Charentiesm” never appeared before in any format, which is the first track ever recorded by Information Society in 1982.

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Information Society – Insoc EP [MNQ053]

V2 Schneider – Tape Works 1981-85 [VOD126]

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The finest German Minimal / Synth from early 80’s NDW Underground by V2 Schneider. For this release Jurgen Schweighart, alias V2 Schneider, sat down, saved and listened to approximately 50 original master tapes, reels and cassettes from 1980 to 1985 including his official tape releases ”Vol. 1” (1981), ”Blues” (1982), ”Abgrund der Gefuhle” (1984), ”Nr.1 in Hong Kong” (1985), ”After A.I.D.S. Symphony” (1985) and many so far unreleased hidden treasures, demos and out-takes. At the request of VOD-Records, none of the tracks were remixed or edited and therefore kept in their authentic original and charming form.

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V2 Schneider – Tape Works 1981-85 [VOD126]

LeLu/Lu’s – Operating On Specific Cues: Early Works 1982-86 [VOD125]

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LELU/LU'S - Operating On Specific Cues: Early Works 1982-86

LeLu/Lu’s were an early to late 80’s electronic/synth-based project based around Deni (in the early 80’s known as Yo-Yo and nowadays known as Timekode). In 1985 they released a fantastic 12 song tape on Unlikely Records (URT91) called ”Operating on Specific Cues” which forms the basis of this 25 track 2 LP-release While the tape is still rather unknown to fans of synth music, the three 7”s released from 1985-87 (on Alain Neffe’s Insane Music as well as Possum and R&D Records), with the outstanding tracks ”Spaceman Bassman”, ”Africa” and ”Fragile Thing”, are better known to the minimal synth/wave community and collectors of 80’s wave and minimal synth vinyl.

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LeLu/Lu’s – Operating On Specific Cues: Early Works 1982-86 [VOD125]

Rational Youth – Cold War Night Life Recordings 1981-84 [VOD124]

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One of Canadas first synth-pop groups, Rational Youth was formed in the summer of 1981 by Tracy Howe (The Normals, Men Without Hats, Heaven Seventeen) and Bill Vorn (U, Sacred Noise). Within the 10+ years that Howe put Rational Youth on indefinite hiatus, their early vinyl recordings (1981-1982) became much sought after collector items, and had been re-branded as minimal-synth. This 5LP set with booklet provides an almost complete overview of their works from 1981-1984.

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Rational Youth – Cold War Night Life Recordings 1981-84 [VOD124]

Peine Perdue – No Souvenir [CBR003]

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Cold Beats is a record label from Barcelona created to give support to bands and artists in the wave/electronic scene. ‘No Souvenir’ is the third release on the label and comes from the French duo Coco Gallo & Stephane Argillet. The album include 14 tracks and it was recorded and mixed in Paris-Berlin between 2011 and 2013.

Peine Perdue – No Souvenir [CBR003]