electronica Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

The Human League “Travelogue”

sfilzen — Tue, 14 Jun 2022 18:17:05 +0000

The Human League “Travelogue” 1980. Post-punk, dark and plinky-plunk’d electronica. Not quite new wave or synthpop. Travelogue was The Human League’s second LP and the last to feature founding members Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware (former computer operators, both on vocals and synths) who left to form Heaven 17 in 1980. About a year ago I read the book Rip It Up and Start Again about the origins of the post punk movement and recall that Marsh and Ware were frustrated with Philip Oakley’s desire to take the band in a more pop-orientated direction, which of course he did rather spectacularly with the revamp of Human League and the release of the hit album Dare in ’81. Ironically Heaven 17 also went in a more synthpop direction, veering hard from their anarcho-leftist and synth-purist roots, and released new wave hits “Let Me Go” and “Temptation” in ’82 and ’83.

Travelogue is not pop: it is heavily Kraftwerk-influenced, very techy and, at times, ambient especially on the tracks “Dreams of Leaving” and “Toyota City.” The Human League released two singles from the album. The first was “Being Boiled” which was originally released as a single in ’78 and then re-recorded in ’80 and included both on their Holiday ’80 EP and Travelogue. Weirdly, it was the original ’78 version that charted in the UK Top 10 in ’82. It is the most pop-orientated of the not-really-synthpop record in that it’s actually kinda catchy (“Crow and a Baby” leans pop but it also leans weird). “Only After Dark” which is a cover of Mick Ronson‘s 1974 song that appears on Slaughter on 10th Avenue, was the only other single from the Travelogue but it ended up being just given away for free with a purchase of their reissued ’79 single “Empire State Human.”

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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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Love and Rockets “Body and Soul”

sfilzen — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 17:32:38 +0000

Love and Rockets “Body and Soul” 1994. 12″ single, Beggar’s Banquet. Clocking in at almost 15 minutes, the album version of “Body and Soul” (from their ‘94 Hot Trip to Heaven) on this 12-inch single, plus the 3 remixes of the song, its “Part 2″ single version and one other track makes this release almost an LP. The album and the single both failed to chart, likely because of the abrupt stylistic change from a gothy-industrial guitar sound to a guitar-free, trippy ambient-electronica one, sometimes with serious techno beats. Daniel Ash described it: “I was hoping it was going to be our Dark Side of the Moon. It was either going to be that, or it was going to be a flop. Unfortunately it was a flop. But I’m still proud of the record.”

I’m a pretty big Love and Rockets fan but this song – and the album if I’m being honest – completely escaped my notice. “Body and Soul” is trippy and hypnotic, but definitely danceable. The three remixes include “Body and Soul (Out of Body)” (remixed by Secret Knowledge/Kris Needs, part of a house/techno group) which is pounding techno, “Body and Soul (Delta Lady), ” (also remixed by Secret Knowledge/Needs) which has more of a nod to Love and Rockets prior industrial dance sound, and “Body and Soul (Dark Side of the 12th Moon)” (remixed by Higher Intelligence Agency) which is as spacey and proggy as the remix title suggests. “Coyote” is a non-album track (there IS guitar but it’s acoustic and twangy, spaciously relaxed) and the 12″ closes with “Body and Soul (Part 2)” which is less than half the length of the album version.

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Prince Rama “Trust Now”

sfilzen — Mon, 09 Nov 2020 18:08:20 +0000

Prince Rama “Trust Now” 2011. Paw Tracks Records. Experimental, psychedelic and exotic electronica, Trust Now is Prince Rama’s fifth LP. The vocals (by sisters Taraka and Nimai Larson) are spectacularly unintelligible, I guess they are maybe singing sometimes in Sanskrit? (They were supposedly raised on a Hare Krishna commune farm.) One reviewer calls their style as “hiccuping like Kate Bush and howling like Siouxsie Sioux.” World music brought to its trippiest edge with hypnotic beats and modern synth. The tracks blend seamlessly into one another, making the 6-song LP feel like one giant psychedelic freak-out. My top tracks are the opener “Rest in Peace,” the synth hook in “Trust” is pretty groovy in an almost 80′s new wave synthpop style and “Portaling” has some really lovely melody lines. Trust Now is my only Prince Rama experience so I personally don’t have anything to compare it to. More experienced reviewers had overall negative comments about the release, basing it on the band’s past albums (i.e. Pitchfork: “The music here contains germs of good ideas, but too often they get frittered away through loose and indulgent jams that never go anywhere…Frustratingly, Trust Now doesn’t advance on the better ideas from Shadow Temple, particularly the elements of dance music that occasionally surfaced. Essentially it’s the core Prince Rama sound boiled down to its essence, which means anyone hoping for this band to ‘become something more’ should sit this one out and hope the Larsons can finely trim their vision next time.”)

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