Melon - Serious Japanese

Melon, the Japanese synthpop group founded by ex-Plastics Toshio Nakanishi and Chica Sato, released the "Serious Japanese" single in 1985, between their albums Do You Like Japan? and Deep Cut. A couple odd things about the single are that the song title is actually called "Serious Japan", and it did not appear on any of the group's albums. Another interesting fact about the song that I just learned today is that it is a reworking of the Plastics song "Diamond Head"; visit the Picnic Land blog to hear the original version. On the back cover thanks are given to, among others, "Angie for telling me dirty words", and the dirty words abound in this song, with Toshio and Chica rapping lines like "What's happening bitch", "Too much much shit", "Don't be so fucking serious", etc. An earlier version that included a sample from the movie Rumble Fish was recalled, though samples from The World According To Garp ("Don't you dare say 'sperm' in this house") and other films remain. As on Deep Cut, Nakanishi and Sato are joined by Gota Y (EMU-2 operator & rhythm programmer) and Prince Kudo (DJ & keyboard player). The 12" contains two extended versions of "Serious Japan"--Tokyo Mix (by Franswah) and San Francisco Mix (by Joseph Watt)--and a single edit by Franswah. This record is Melon's most fully-realized foray into the electro genre; get the vinyl rip here or here (new links 1/3/2010). And here is a live performance from YouTube (with the dirty words replaced with clean ones):

Ballistic Kisses - Wet Moment

New York-based Ballistic Kisses released two albums: Total Access in 1982 (available at Mutant Sounds), and Wet Moment in 1983, both on the quirkily-named UK label Don't Fall Off The Mountain. Trouser Press doesn't think much of this one:

Wet Moment is a tedious cross between the B-52's and Gang of Four: minimal melodies, propulsive rhythms and bleak vocals. It's easy to believe freaked-out tunes like "Emotional Ice" and "Everything Leaks," but how alienated do you really want to feel?

But it's really better than that. True, there are not many melodies to speak of, and no real hooks to linger in your mind, but if you just like the sound of 80s minimal synthpop then there's plenty here to enjoy. There's so much, in fact, that it wouldn't all fit on a single record: the 54 minutes of music was spread out over a 33rpm 8-song LP and a 45rpm 3-song 12". The band lineup is:

• Michael Hrynyk: keyboards, vocals
• Richard McClusky: percussions, vocals
• Michael Parker: vocals
• Jeff Freund: guitars, vocals

There's some pretty cool bass guitar on several of the songs, too, which I presume is one of the "guitars" credited to Jeff Freund. Get the Wet Moment vinyl rip here or here.

A Popular History of Signs - Comrades

A Popular History of Signs, led by Andrew Jarman, was an 80s synthpop band that didn't quite fit into any of the standard synthpop categories: not beat-heavy enough to fill dancefloors, too warm and melodic to be lumped in with "minimal wave" bands, and too thinly arranged to take their place with more melodramatic bands like Ultravox. Jarman's vocal style has been compared to David Byrne's, and it's a good comparison, though Jarman's voice is deeper and more wobbly. Jungle Records released the ten-song Comrades album in 1984; there is a thread of socialism running through several of the songs that makes it feel almost like a concept album. The opening track, "Body and Soul", was released as a single, and it is the strongest song on the album, with some nice bass work from Jarman. "Tidy" could pass for a Talking Heads song circa Fear of Music or Remain in Light; "Father and Son" is a touching downtempo ballad; "Comrades" contains echoes of David Bowie's "Heroes" in its melancholy, possibly doomed, optimism. Overall this a stronger album than the Trouser Press Guide gives it credit for. The band members on Comrades are:

• Andrew Jarman: vocals, bass, keyboards, drum programs
• Lindsey Smith: guitar, keyboards, drum programs
• Paul Patient: percussion, pixie phones (?)
• Christeen Isherwood: vocals, ideology

Get the Comrades vinyl rip here or here. Andrew Jarman is still musically active, currently with the band Southern Arts Society.

Various Artists - For Your Ears Only

As mentioned previously, here is the massive 1987 Third Mind compilation album For Your Ears Only: 25 songs over two LPs, some tracks previously unreleased, some rerecorded, and some taken straight from already-issued albums. It is the most comprehensive overview of the Third Mind label in existence. In fact it's so much music I wasn't able to fit a complete 192kbps rip into a single archive file, so each LP is a separate download. The track list is:

LP 1

01 Bushido - Introduction (previously unreleased)
02 Bill Pritchard - Pas De Plaisanterie (previously unreleased)
03 Beautiful Pea Green Boat - And She Laughed Too (previously unreleased)
04 Attrition - Fusillade III (Both Barrels) (rerecorded version)
05 All Singing All Dancing - The Rising Tide (previously unreleased)
06 Bushido - Recalled To Life (rerecorded version)
07 CRedit - Almost Virgin (previously unreleased)
08 Beautiful Pea Green Boat - Paper House (from Future Tense)
09 Bushido - Time And Time Again (from "Voices"/"Time And Time Again" EP)
10 Attrition - Into The Waves (from In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts)
11 Bill Pritchard - Greek Street (previously unreleased)
12 All Singing All Dancing - The Grains Of Time (previously unreleased)

Get it here or here.

LP 2

01 Badland - Til the Stars Fall (previously unreleased)
02 Intimate Obsessions - Why Can't I (rerecorded version)
03 Tragic Venus - Paintbox (previously unreleased)
04 Frontline Assembly - Aggression (previously unreleased)
05 Konstruktivits - Nostalgia (from Black December)
06 Bill Pritchard - Déjeuner Sur L'Herbe (previously unreleased)
07 Bushido - Question Of Time (from Deliverance)
08 Simon Fisher Turner - I Love Your Suit (previously unreleased)
09 Jung Analysts - Entrails (previously unreleased)
10 Edward Ka-Spel - And The Lord Said RISE (previously unreleased)
11 CRedit - What Are These Words (previously unreleased)
12 Attrition - Day I Was Born (from The Attrition of Reason)
13 Intimate Obsessions - Erebus To Hades (from Erebus to Hades)

Get it here or here.

I always liked the Jung Analysts song, but I never found any records by them. I've just found their (or his, Terry Burrows) 1985 album Sprockendidootch over on Mutant Sounds, and it's great! I love how the Internet has given me a chance to hear the records I missed the first time around.

Pleasure and the Beast

Pleasure and the Beast was the band formed by Robert Pereno and L.A. (Lowri-Ann) Richards after the breakup of Shock. Shock is best known (when they are known at all) for their pulsating electro cover of the Glitter Band's "Angel Face" (which appeared on the popular Blitz new-wave compilation on RCA)--


Robert Pereno is the frontman, looking and acting uncannily like Will Arnett as G.O.B. Bluth, and one of those women is L.A. Richards. (Also seen are robotic mime duo Tim Dry and Sean Crawford, who became Tik & Tok after Shock disbanded, and went on to record several records of prime minimal synthpop on the Survival label.) Pleasure and the Beast recorded only two singles during their short career. The first, "Dr Sex", was released in 1983 and was produced by Jimme O'Neill of Fingerprintz (and later Silencers) fame. The 12" release, offered here, has an extended version of "Dr Sex" and four additional songs. The title track is upbeat synthpop with lecherous overtones; Pereno and Richards seem to be positioning themselves as a raunchy, new-wave Captain and Tennille. The next two tracks, "Snake" and "Creep", hit a gothic funk groove not unlike early Brilliant; "Rock the House" has a glam-rock shout-along chorus that echoes Shock's glam influences; and the record closes with the pseudo-liturgical "Hymn". The band is listed as Pereno and Richards only, though there are two women with Pereno in the back cover photo; no musicians are credited. For their second release, 1984's "Gods Empty Chair", Pleasure and the Beast expanded to a real band: in addition to singers Pereno and Richards, there are Marty Williamson (guitars), Cheyne (bass), Simon Ellis (keyboards), and Martin Hanlin (drums). This record, produced by Rusty Egan (Visage) marks a turn away from sleaze and toward more "serious" pop. "Gods Empty Chair" sounds like a second-generation copy of New Order (or a copy of Secession), while the B-side, "Sometimes", has a more intense sound in the vein of Killing Joke. Not bad! It's a shame they never made any more records. Robert Pereno went on to have some success as a DJ, but I don't know enough about that to expand on it; I don't know whatever happened to L.A. Richards. I don't have the 7" releases with the single edits, but you can get rips of both 12-inch records here or here.

Various Artists - Future Tense

Like Four from the Madding Crowd, Future Tense is a four-artist compilation released by Gary Levermore's Third Mind label in 1986. Future Tense (TMLP15) was actually released first, with Four having the next catalog number (TMLP16). In fact, they released three compilation albums in a row, the third being the massive two-album set For Your Ears Only (TMLP 17/18, coming here someday) (and I definitely have it!). The Future Tense track list is:

The Beautiful Pea Green Boat (Obsessions LP posted here)

• Paper House
• The Vase

Bill Pritchard

• Grey Parade
• Cecile
• The Invisible State
• Springtime in Prague

Attrition

• Questions
• Which Hand?
• A Forgotten Dream
• A'dam & Eva

The Legendary Pink Dots

• Premonition 5 (previously released on the Rising From The Red Sand cassette on Third Mind)

Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Richard Bone - Joy of Radiation 12"

Another small file for you this time, I'm afraid. I was all set to rip the Abstract Magazine #5 LP, with Colourbox, The Jazz Butcher, Cindytalk, etc., when I did a quick blog search and found that, once again, someone has already posted it, this time on the Waves of Champaign blog. He's also scanned the magazine into a separate file, much more thorough than I would have been, so hurry on over there and download it if you don't have it already. Another record I've been meaning to post is Richard Bone's classic 1983 album of minimal synthpop Brave Tales, but I still can't find my copy. I did, however, find the 12" of "Joy of Radiation", with an extended version of "Joy" on the A-side and three tracks on the B-side: "Sordid Affair", "Do Angels dance", and "A bit of Joy", so I hope that will do for now. Get it here or here; click the Survival tag for other records from the great Survival label available on this blog.

Melon - Deep Cut

Back to Japan: Deep Cut, released in 1987, was the second album from ex-plastics Toshi Nakanishi and Chica Sato as Melon. (See here for their first album, Do You Like Japan?) On this album the band also includes Kudo (turntable, keyboard) and Gota (drums, computer programming, keyboard, guitar, backing vocals); guest musicians appearing on some tracks are Guy Pratt, bass; John L. Walters, Lyricon; Preston Heyman, percussion; Frank ricotti, percussion; and Colette, backing vocals. (See the discogs.com listing for specific track credits.) Deep Cut opens with a cover of Les Baxter's "Quiet Village" (made famous by Martin Denny), and the whole album has a loose "techno-exotica" theme, as evidenced by the song titles:

1. Quiet Village
2. Uptown Downtown
3. Hard Core Hawaiian
4. Hawaiian Break
5. Time Enough For Love
6. Somewhere Faraway
7. Faraway
8. Pleasure Before Your Breakfast
9. Funkasia
10. The Gate of Japonesia

Also notable is the electro vibe that Gota brings to Melon's sound (which was state-of-the-art back then), with "Pleasure" and "Funkasia" being real dancefloor contenders. Get the vinyl rip here or here.

Recipe - Skinny-Dipping

Dave Henderson's liner notes from Recipe's 1986 album on Dead Man's Curve are informative enough to be reproduced here verbatim:

A cold night on Singles duty for Sounds magazine and nothing is shaking -- not even the leaves on the trees. Recipe's debut opus, 'Upriver', slips neatly from its nice cheerful sleeve. It breaks the ice. It moves mountains. It doesn't give me a headache. And, how? How? How come it isn't on the radio at any God-given moment (and every God-given moment).

Further investigation reveals that Recipe had a previous 45 called 'Waterglide'. It's similarly impressive. Douglas Benford (a Recipe) tells me all about it. His cohort, Kevin, is part of Always (they are great, too). Both are on Inertial (an Uxbridge label).

Always sign to El. Nothing happens. Recipe sign to Survival, a single and video are released ... still superb. Nothing happens. Time goes on (as it does) and eventually Always do release something on El, but Recipe are homeless.

Enclosed on this magnificent piece of plastic are the life and times of Recipe. Herein you can study those first recordings, get to grips with their Survival smash. Hear the track that they contributed to Food's 'Imminent 2' and get a lot of other wonderful tracks thrown in for good measure.

If you don't buy this, don't come running to me when your deadliest rival tells you that it's the hippest thing this side of life. Hey, we told you so, everyone doesn't have to be deaf.

Listen in good health.

The Survival single is "Outboard", and the Imminent 2 track is the lovely "Home's Over." The LP contains ten songs plus eight excerpts of other songs interspersed throughout. I have ripped those to separate tracks, as on the LP, and have preserved the playing order. (So it only makes sense to listen to the whole album start to finish!) I would love to see a CD reissue that includes the excerpted songs in their entirety, but I won't hold my breath. Recipe's sound is not far from Furniture, which is not surprising given both bands' origins on the great Survival Records label. So if you like Furniture, give Recipe a whirl; get the vinly rip here or here.

David Harrow twelve-inches

As a supplement to the previous post of David Harrow's 1983 solo album, The Succession, here are a couple 12-inch singles from his 80s solo career. "Our Little Girl" is taken from The Succession and extended by about a minute via the rather abrupt insertion of a drums-and-slap-bass break; the B-side is the non-LP "Reflections." From 1984, on Ink Records, we have the "No Easy Targets" 12-inch. On "Targets" Harrow adopts Stephen Mallinder's recitative vocal style and adds a snarl to it which makes for his most effective vocal performance, in my opinion. Pinkie Maclure contributes backing vocals. The B-side, "Complete Control (Night-Time Sleaze)" is a long instrumental with samples of movie dialog, and bass played by Mik Corr. Get both vinyl rips zipped together here or here. (Links removed at artist's request: look for reissues!)

David Harrow - The Succession

Before coming up with his James Hardway and Technova aliases in the mid-90s, David Harrow had already been recording under his given name for about 15 years. According to obscure.co.nz:

His first recordings were created in Berlin in 1981/1982 when he was working with a woman called Anne Clark. The sound they created was soon termed new beat or industrial and along with DAF they kick started the European electronic dance scene. When Harrow visits Germany today, he is still hailed "The Godfather Of Techno".

Later in the 80s and into the 90s, Harrow would collaborate heavily with Genesis P-Orridge, Jah Wobble, and Adrian Sherwood. He also recorded an EP with singer Peter Hope of Sheffield band The Box in 1985, posted here. Often overlooked, though, is the solo album he recorded in 1983 for release on Red Flame/10 Records , The Succession. Harrow assembled quite a band for the occasion: John White, a.k.a. U.V. Pop (!), on guitar and saxophone, Roger Quail (of The Box and the original ClockDVA lineup) on drums and percussion, Gary Malkin on bass (who? can't find any more info on him), and Janice Chaplin (?) on backing vocals. Harrow is credited with vocals, keyboards, guitar, and percussion. He is obviously not very comfortable as a singer: he tries out several different singing styles throughout the course of the album, but none quite fit. His compositional and instrumental skills, on the other hand, are already fully developed even on this early record. The track listing is:

• A1 Introduction
• A2 Without Sin
• A3 Driving Force
• A4 Our Little Girl
• A5 Here
• B1 Kick
• B2 Still Optimistic
• B3 Civilised
• B4 Belief

Get the vinyl rip here or here. (Links removed at artist's request: look for reissues!)

The Flowerpot Men (Part 2 of 2)

For their third release, 1986's Alligator Bait EP, The Flowerpot Men expanded to a four-piece.... maybe. Drummer Mark Irving is undoubtedly a real person, but the "Mr. Delmardes" credited with keyboards and programming has never shown up anywhere else. The "foursome" are joined by singers Sam Brown and Margo Buchanan on backing vocals. The two songs on side one, "Alligator Bait" and "Django", fall into the Flowerpots' established formula, but they widen their horizons on the B-side. "Watching the Pharoahs" (sic) has light, boppy verses divided by a rocking chorus, and "Sharpen My Heart" is a slow, creepy ballad. Also recorded in 1986 was The Janice Long Session, a four-song live performance for Radio One. On this record (recorded March 9, 1986, broadcast April 24, 1986, and produced by Barry Andrews) the band consists of the core duo of Ben Watkins and Adam Peters plus the two backup singers from Alligator Bait. What's notable is how close the performances sound to the studio recordings (most of it is programmed), but also how distinctive Peters' electric cello sounds. So that's what those deep whooshing sounds are. The session also introduced a new Flowerpot Men song, the bouncy "Beat City." That song would appear on the Ferris Bueller's Day Off soundtrack, but no soundtrack album was ever released. Does anyone know if that was a studio version, or this live-in-the-studio session? The Janice Long Session was their last record before they signed to Polydor and became Sunsonic, so this concludes my Flowerpot Men posts. Get both 4-song EPs here or here.

The Flowerpot Men (Part 1 of 2)

Ben Watkins and Adam Peters first recorded together on the sessions for Watkins' first album with Martin "Youth" Glover, The Empty Quarter, in 1983. Thereafter they began recording together as The Flowerpot Men, releasing their first single (on 12" only), "Jo's So Mean (to Josephine)", in 1984 on their own Compost Records label. It's an odd song, carrying over the sequencer from The Empty Quarter, adding lyrics and a drum machine with an undanceable beat and a general goth feel. The B-side contains two songs, "Rapids," which mostly duplicates the A-side's formula but with a slightly more conventional beat, and the odd atmospheric instrumental "UG", which is built around a repeating guttural growl. For their follow-up single in 1985 they recorded an epic cover of Dr. John's "Walk On Gilded Splinters," with a guest vocal from Dr. John himself! The Flowerpot Men's high-octane synth-based version is a far cry from Dr. John's spooky original (check it out here), but its energy is irresistible and there are some striking beat changes sprinkled throughout. The B-side, "Melting Down On Motor Angel" (later to be the title of their Polydor album as Sunsonic, although not actually on the album) returns to the style of their first record, which now that I think about it is pretty close to early Nitzer Ebb, but more arty than aggressive. Get both records here or here.

Sunsonic - Melting Down On Motor Angel

As The Flowerpot Men, Ben Watkins and Adam Peters brought a dark edge to 80s synthpop. Upon signing to Polydor they changed their name to Sunsonic (presumably because there had already been a band called the Flowerpot Men in the 60s) and released a single album, Melting Down On Motor Angel (a Flowerpot Men track that did not appear on the album, oddly enough) in 1990, before they split up and Ben Watkins went on to become Juno Reactor. Melting Down marks the middle ground between the rock-influenced synthpop of the 80s and the full-fledged techno of the 90s. Here is that album, the first of several projected Ben Watkins Before Juno Reactor posts. (Or here.)

VA - The Art of Survival

A visitor to one of the previous Survival Records posts asked for the Richard Bone album; I haven't found that yet (there are those who make fun of people who shelve their records in order, but it really does help, since having one's records all out of order makes it hard to find a particular record, as I am reminded every day), but I did turn up another Survival Records sampler LP. The Art of Survival is from 1984 and includes:

A1 Hard Corps Respirer (To Breathe)
A2 Thirteen At Midnight Time Is Tight
A3 Eddie & Sunshine All I See Is You
A4 Tik & Tok Screen Me (I'm Yours)
A5 Play In My Mind
A6 Furniture Dancing The Hard Bargain
B1 Tik & Tok Higher Ground
B2 Eddie & Sunshine There's Someone Following Me
B3 Faith Global Earth Report
B4 Jeanette In The Morning
B5 Richard Bone Living In Party Town
B6 Thirteen At Midnight Skin Deep

This is simply one of the best original collections of indie synthpop ever, and the fact that all these acts were on the same label is is pretty amazing. Vinyl rip, get it here or here.

Survival Records - Mind & Matter/Megamix

How about another LP from 80s minimal techno label Survival Records? This 1983 label sampler is divided into "Mind & Matter" (Side A) and "Megamix" (Side B), with each track of the Megamix running straight into the next one with no gap on the LP. Track listing:

A1 Faith Global - Knowing The Way
A2 Drinking Electricity - Superstition
A3 Richard Bone - Monster Movie
A4 Play - Deeper Than Blue
A5 Jeanette - Sunny Side
B1 Play - Chasing The Sun
B2 Richard Bone - The Quantum Hop
B3 Drinking Electricity - Breakout
B4 Do It - Do It

("Do It" is label sleeve designer and Drinking Electricity bassist P.K. (Paul) Edgely. ) Get it here or here.

Growing Up Different: A+B=C

After the (first) breakup of Maryland AOR faves Face Dancer, Billy Trainor and Scott McGinn teamed up with D.J. Long to form the synth-based new wave band Growing Up Different. They recorded one EP, A+B=C; there's no date on it but I think it's 1983. Here it is.