The Gary Numan of Manhattan's first Dark Day LP is from the time when electronic acts still used real drummers and guitars like The Numiester himself. Mainly due to a lack of a decent drum machine and syncing problems. On his second album, "Window" he uses that cheapo organists drum module with the preset rhythms we have heard on hundreds of tunes of that epoch. So this debut outing, after the end of his tenure in DNA, steers towards the doomy synth punk end of the woods.
A transitional record which would lead to a purer, and darker, form of minimal synth pop.
Tracklist:
| A1 | Raven's Wing |
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| A2 | Forced Landing |
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| A3 | Arp's Carpet |
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| A4 | Chameleon |
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| A5 | Crown Of Thorns |
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| A6 | No, Nothing, Never |
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| B1 | Laughing Up Your Sleeve |
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| B2 | Flightless Birds |
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| B3 | Crib Death |
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| B4 | Diving Belle |
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| B5 | Me, Myself, & I |
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| B6 | Univited Guests | |
| B7 | Trapped |
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As the technology era progresses to the point where we all carry around our brains, now renamed as 'Smart hand Held devices' or 'Phones'. Tech took over pop Music's Brain, if it ever had one, years ago. Dancing to a machine was a rather intriguing Avant garde concept in the late seventies, but that is now music for the masses, thumping its hypnotic beat in every hideous meat market disco around our dying planet. Before MIDI,or Musical Instrument Digital Interface was standardised, so machines could talk to each other, we had the rather unstable Controlled Voltage and gate method of sequencing a synthesiser, or play it by hand. The result of which preserved the much missed human factor that is glaringly missing from today's disco tunes.Even the singer gets 'auto-tuned' on what seems like every record.
So, as you unwrap your new brain replacement device and government tracking and data collection system.....ie your new smart phone. Slip this years Xmas mixtape on your iPhone and marvel at the wobbly, unsyncopated beats and melodies of these 30 ditties from a time when not being a primordial cyborg was normal.
Tracklisting:
1.Ausgang Verboten - "Consumer"
2.Unovidual & Tara Cross - "Comme Je Suis"
3.Les Yeux Interdit - "Prison"
4.Ptose - "Boule(Viens Ici!)
5.Etat des Stocks - "She's Got Big Tits"
6.Dark Day - "Nudes In The Forest"
7.Danton's Voice - "Magic Mushroom"
8.Andi Arroganti - "Hom-O-Hetero"
9.Das Kabinette - "Fudge It"
10.Deux - "Ministry Of Love"
11.Duotronic Synterror - "Liebe Auf Den Ersten Blick"
12.MAP - "You've Lost That Loving Feeling"
13.Years On Earth - "And I Dream"
14.Sympathy Nervous - "Khaki Cloud"
15.Nine Circles - "The Rose"
16. Das Ding - "Reassurance Ritual"
17.John Bender - "57-1/Dance"
18.Robert Lawrence - "Japanese Brain warning"
19.Sentimentale Jugend - "Tote Kammer"
20.AD - "Conspiracy"
21.Synthefall - "Abzahlreim"
22.Zirkel Junger Musiker - "Hochwasser"
23.Treibeis - "Vinylbabies"
24.The Klingons - "Temptation"
25.Machines At Last - "The Colony"
26.High Bias - "The Killing Of The Cats"
27.Gen Ken Montgomery - "When I'm walking"
28.Another View - "Power Station"
29.Suisse - "Live At Longbourn"
30.Modern Art - "Hello-Goodbye"
DOWNLOAD something naughty but nice HERE!
Not all American Synth Pop was clueless of course,although I'm not too great a fan of the first dark Day LP,the second, 'Window', could have easily been from the reject pile in Mute records office, or an underground cassette from Frankfurt.
You would never believe that the main protagonist of Dark Day was in legendary No-wavers DNA!
Robin Crutchfield's voice could easily pass for one of those androgynous English chaps in those electro-pop duo's of the early eighties.Hopefully this is natural,and not an attempt to be mistaken for English so he gets signed up? Undoubtedly Robin enjoyed having his Crutchfield (geddit?) by male groupies ; or by his collaborator, a certain Mr B. Sack (The 'B' could stand for Ball, but its misspelled as Bill, how boring!).
Dunno what it is that attracts Homosexual Men to synth pop,but they seem to be essential to make a listenable dark pop tune with synthesisers.
Pretty good stuff,and as a 'Metal Bender' myself, as in one actually bends metal into art/craft pieces,not the other English slang term for a Gay,(ie 'Bender'); I will be using track three,"Metal Benders", as my work website theme tune.High praise indeed?
Basically, they sound like a doomy, slowed down,lo-budget Depeche Mode(Post Vince Clarke) fronted by a depressed English public school boy, or drama student.
Tracklist:
| A1 | Window |
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| A2 | Don't Bother |
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| A3 | The Metal Benders |
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| A4 | Mr. Potatohead |
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| B1 | Nudes In The Forest |
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| B2 | Sleep |
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| B3 | Danger/Dancer |
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| B4 | Eternal Return |
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| B5 | Second Warning |
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DOWNLOAD to brighten your day HERE!
or
DOWNLOAD for a brighter day HERE!
