The Suburbs had already displayed a deep knowledge of the history of Rock & Roll, wild technical skills, as well as a desire to experiment in their debut In Combo. However in Credit In Heaven they broadened the palette further by incorporating these elements in a civic mural, thus moving from the snapshot of an era to a panorama of an expanded timeline.
It starts with the restless Talking Heads-ian Dance-Punk "Tired Of My Plans" (albeit with more urban flavors) while "Faith" adds an evocative Rhythm & Blues tinge, and "Tape Your Wife To The Ceiling" a neurotic (but humorous) Boogie Rock quality. The same sound is simultaneously more epic and deranged in "Macho Drunk", while "Ghoul Of Goodwill" shows further refinements, whereas their nerdy robotic Funk is accentuated by an airy feel and a light Ska touch.
Similarly, "Dish It Up" starts discordant and jerky, but ends emotional and breezy. "Mommy" is another oxymoron, robotic and calculated on one hand, feverish R&B on the other. The urban Lounge-Rock "Cigarette In Backwards" however painted a different picture, that of a tired metropolis. "Girl Ache" verified the new ambitious plot: by now the listener seemed to be getting past the hung-up dance, and instead was losing himself in a megalopolis vertigo.
"Drinking With An Angel" confirmed the impression with another expressionist post-modern dance, carefully constructed to imply a warm sense of nostalgia. The urban-rock waft of "Spring Came" also elapsed this passage from the ephemeral to the timeless, from the modern to the classic. It is a landscape into which the bittersweet piano ballad - with a masterful epic coda - "Girlfriend" fits perfectly, while brainy excursions into calculated and catchy funk like "Postcard" also traverse a route that reaches from the classic Folk Dance, to the Progressive Rock of the 70's, and the dispassionate Post-Punk, to form an existential future that's yet to come (the "mathematical" Post-Rock).
It is the same for "Music For Boys", a superb framework which breezes through in a catchy way and remembers the past in a soulful manner. In the meantime, "Idiot Voodoo" returns to an R&B apotheosis, and "Pipsqueak Millionaire" presents another three dimensional postcard taken with extraordinary precision, another intellectual attack mixed with the colors of a dazzling theatrical show. However, "Credit In Heaven" ends the album with a feel of dislocation and ongoing sense of adventure rather than settling for repose.
A wonderful record that is still being left undiscovered. Get it here.
Neat fusion of lounge-jazz and funk with cold-wave and electronics, predating acid-jazz by about five years, and occasionally managing quite impressive atmospheres ("Maison Neuve", "Existe En Rouge"). Get it here (vinyl rip, includes photographs of the sleeve and vinyl).
The Garden is a return to Systems of Romance's futuristic romantic pop, running the gamut of elegant atmospheres, from the epic flair of "Europe After The Rain" (modeled after The Names' Spectators Of Life), to Roxy Music-like post-modern glam ("Systems of Romance"), sci-fi suspense ("When I Was A Man", "Fusion-Fission"), Orwellian religious music ("Pater Noster", "The Garden"), bombastic symphonic synth-glam ("Night Suit", "You Were There") etc. The general impression is of a European aristocrat dandy transported to the future. Get it here.
The Bpeople were one of these Post-Punk/ Art Punk bands that inherited the theatrical atmospheres of the Progressive Rock of the 70's (similar to Magazine and UK Decay) as depicted in the dense and frosty "Can Can't" and "I Am The Sky" (modeled after Magazine's "Definitive Gaze" from Real Life), the epic and grandiose "In The Mind" and "Time" (again modeled after Magazine's "Cut-Out Shapes" from Secondhand Daylight), but also the pretentious and boring "The Dark" and "Song Of The Children". The most impressive tracks were actually the brief gothic atmospheres of "Betrayal" and "Masquerade". Get it here.
Peter Frohmader's Nekropolis pioneers a number of genres, and also creates a highly original stylistic fusion in Music Aus Dem Schattenreich.
"Holle Im Angesicht" and "Fegefeuer" predate slow-motion doom-metal (and also pair it with the hyper-psychedelic vortex of the keyboards), while "Krypta" predates the dark ambient of bands like Brighter Death Now. At the same time, "Unendliche Qual" uses a kraut groove (but the eerie keyboards submerge it in the realm of the dead) and "Ghul" oozes with disintegrating symphonics. The ever unpredictable Frohmader even uses proto electro beats in "Inquanok".
This is a different kind of horror to, say, Throbbing Gristle's. Whereas TB's is psychological, this is physical: a descendant of the Teutonic Gothic spirit, German expressionism, of kraut rock, HP Lovecraft, of the occult. The resulting atmosphere evokes images of endless time in some kind of netherworld, of a forbidden mass taking place in a cathedral there.
Get it here.
The Vyllies' synth-punk already reeked of catacomb atmospheres, but the inclusion of string arrangements in the Velvet Tales EP added a whole new dimension to their music.
The witches' incantation starts with the litany "Ahia". "Sky Is Full Of Stiches" introduces the black magic ceremony, that leads to a frenetic waltz accompanying a story of murder. Then the witches' voices introduce the intoxicating medieval atmosphere of "Agrainir", finally culminating to the metaphysical vortex of "Exquisite Carcass".
This majestic record feels more like a metaphysical thriller. Get it here (vinyl rip, includes photographs of the sleeve and vinyl).
This forgotten EP by this forgotten French new-wave band starts with "Cannibal", which reveals a fascinating brew: cold-wave, manic funk, fragmented jazz rhythms, cosmic synthesizers. Using the same basic recipe, "King Kong Talk" plunges in a tense and paranoid atmosphere, while the performance hinges in a cubist deconstruction. "Tsi Zawa" is pure groove, a paralytic tribal dance, the epitome of cold-wave. "Ioti" features the most dense and climactic atmosphere yet: a robotic ceremony which slowly explodes and hangs by a thread. "Manana" retains the tension, but in a more mournful way. "Nageuse" is pure intrigue: thick layers of theatrical suspense and elegant tippy toes, until it expands in an ever denser threatening pantomime. Get it here (vinyl rip, includes photographs of the sleeve, inner sleeve, and the vinyl).
