electronic pop Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

Yves Tumor “Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)”

sfilzen — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 18:48:49 +0000

Yves Tumor “Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)” 2023. Warp records on clear yellow vinyl. Electronic, experimental indie pop with a rock edge. This is a new acquisition, a “hmm, this looks interesting and it’s Bandcamp Friday” find (by Joe). Yves Tumor (aka Sean Lee Bowie) is a Knoxville native who left the South for California and began recording in mid-teens, the first release an EP in 2015. Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) – from now on referred to as Hot Between Worlds – is Yves Tumor’s fifth LP and it received very positive critical reviews and while I’m positive it didn’t chart (it’s way too unusual) it ranked on all the cool kids’ best-of lists of 2023 (Alternative Press, NME, Brooklyn Vegan, etc). It’s hard to pinpoint any top picks as the album arcs and flows along dreamily and seamlessly despite the wildly disparate sounds, influences and vibes. There’s an edgy industrial sound at times (“God Is a Circle”), trippy dreamscapes with a beat at others (honestly a lot of the tracks but “Heaven Surrounds Us Like A Hood” is a good representation) and Gary Numan/Tubeway Army synthpop weirdness at others (“Operator“). It’s a challenging listen, but in the very best way.

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M|A|R|R|S “Pump Up the Volume”

sfilzen — Thu, 04 Jan 2024 21:06:34 +0000

M|A|R|R|S “Pump Up the Volume” 1987. 4AD Records. 12″ single, US version. British house music/electronic pop with about a million samples. Ok maybe not a million but Wiki lists close to 30, from Run DMC to Fab 5 Freddy to James Brown to the trailer from the 1968 film Mars Needs Women; the track is considered a “milestone in the world of sampling culture the development of British house culture.” “Pump Up the Volume” was the only release for the studio-conceived “band” M|A|R|R|S (a collaboration – that failed quickly – between two groups: Colourbox and A.R. Kane) that hit #13 in the US (#1 on the dance charts) and went to #1 in the UK. The single is technically a double A-side release with “Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance)” as the other track, which is more dreamy noise-pop, less stompy hard-dance house than “Pump Up the Volume.” One of the many tensions between the collaborators was which track would be the “single” or A-side but “Pump Up the Volume” – or more specifically the remix – won the dance-floor hearts. Our US 12″ single does not have the song that was relentlessly played on the radio in ’87, but rather the original 7 + minute original “Pump Up the Volume” track, plus an almost 5 minute “Bonus Beats” version and the instrumental variant (really not too different from the other versions), and of course “Anitina (The First Time I See She Dance).”

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Kraftwerk “Autobahn”

sfilzen — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 17:25:42 +0000

Kraftwerk “Autobahn” 1974. Today, April 7th, would have been Kraftwerk co-founder Florian Schneider’s 75th birthday (b. 1947, d. 2020). While generally panned or ignored by critics at the time of its release in ’74, the US release of Autobahn in ’75 and its success (it went to #5 on the US charts and to #4 in the UK) eventually made the pioneering electronic record a pivotal point in the evolution of synth-pop. David Bowie has cited it as an influence and pretty much the whole synth-pop/new wave sound of the late 70’s and early 80’s would not have existed without it.

The title track “Autobahn,” which takes up the entirety of Side 1, went to #25 in the US and #11 in the UK, though in its highly edited 3-1/2 minute format vs. the 22-plus minute version that appears on the LP. Sung in German (of course), the lyrics translate as “We drive drive drive on the Autobahn” but the word for “drive” in German, “fahren,” sounds like “fun” in English. Kraftwerk’s Wolfgang Flür said, “That is wrong. But it works. Driving is fun. We had no speed limit on the autobahn, we could race through the highways, through the Alps, so yes, fahren fahren fahren, fun fun fun. We used to drive a lot, we used to listen to the sound of driving, the wind, passing cars and lorries, the rain, every moment the sounds around you are changing, and the idea was to rebuild those sounds on the synth.”

Kraftwerk released one other track as a single from Autobahn, “Komentenmelodie 2,” I think only in Germany and I do not believe it charted. It translates to “Comet Melody 2” and its name refers to Comet Kohoutek, a comet discovered by Lubos Kohoutek that was supposed to be the “comet of the century” in 1973 (it turned out to not be that spectacular) and one that Children of God cult founder David Berg thought was the doomsday event (it turned out not to be).

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