Issue 113: Pet Shop Boys Issue + ‘Love Comes Quickly’ / ‘Paninaro’ / ‘Always On My Mind’
This month's Electronic Sound cover stars are the one and only Pet Shop Boys and we're bundling the issue with a gorgeous gold vinyl seven-inch featuring previously unreleased live versions of three of the duo's best and biggest tracks.
Eisbaer
*2024 repress* WRWTFWW Records is very honored to announce the official reissue of Grauzone’s essential 1981 maxi single with timeless classic "Eisbär", proto-techno beast "FILM 2", and romantic synth ballad "Ich Lieb Sie", just in time for the 40th anniversary of the Swiss band’s formation. The three-track vinyl is sourced from the original reels, cut at 45rpm, and comes with its iconic artwork on a 350gsm sleeve. Ich möchte ein Eisbär sein…Written by Martin Eicher after a nightmare in which he…
Noho EP: Turning The Crank
*300 copies limited edtion* With this EP an attempt is made at documenting the vibrant action happening during the late 1970s and early 1980s in the Pioneer Valley area of Western Massachusetts, US. The story is richer than the snapshot we present here, The Five Colleges in Hampshire County congregated a vast student population that inevitably interacted with the towns in the area. Bars, music and record stores, live music and a lot of experimentation and free thinking. Hampshire College, especi…
13.13
Recorded in Los Angeles in 1982, 13.13 exists as document to the pandemonium of specters and potential serial killers who twisted the California Dream into a waking nightmare as they snaked through the boulevards, back yards and basements of a sun stroked paradise turning into a blood soaked inferno of fear, paranoia, panic and lust killings. Lush musical textures provided by members of seminal art punks The Weirdos - Dix Denney, Cliff Martinez and Greg Williams create a hypnotic backdrop to Lun…
Der Aufstand Der Chemiker
The very first solo album from Der Plan member Moritz R® as an exclusive, original Japanese release on Suezan Studio!
The 80s Archives
2024 Stock. 300 copies limited edition. Japan release only. ** “It all started in 1979 when the punk scene was in full bloom and we, the youthful dilletants believed that changing the world included a hit on a cooking pot, some weird strumming of a distorted acoustic guitar or screaming from the top of the lungs. We were anti Art, but Dadaists, hated politics but were political, anti-pretty but extremely vain, anti-Rock and anti-conformist.” This is how Jürgen Schweighart describes the beginning…
Freuziel
2024 Stock. 300 copies limited edition. Japan release only. ** The Hamburg New Wave duo Ti-Tho, consisting of ChrisTIna Marisa Calcagno, who was still in her teens at the time, and Thomas Stelter, made a brilliant debut in 1982 with the single “Traumtäumer” on Alfred Hilsberg's legendary Zick Zack label. Further singles were released by the industry before they went their separate ways in the mid-eighties in the waning Neue Deutsche Welle without ever releasing the long-awaited debut album.
To m…
Geld Her!
2024 Stock. Limited to 300 copies, Japan release only. ** Founded in 1978, the Croox consisted of graphic designer and Ink Records founder Mike Schmidt (who also worked for Kraftwerk, Sandra, Hubert Kah, Michael Cretu, Münchner Freiheit and Spider Murphy Gang, among others), Sabine “Bine” Niedergassel and Gerd Gaida aka Crashman , Clemenz and Kay Wolde and were a fixture in the New Wave scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s from the artistically fertile Düsseldorf. In addition to Croox, Ink Re…
A
2024 Stock. Limited to 300 copies, Japan release only. ** Founded in 1978, the Croox consisted of graphic designer and Ink Records founder Mike Schmidt (who also worked for Kraftwerk, Sandra, Hubert Kah, Michael Cretu, Münchner Freiheit and Spider Murphy Gang, among others), Sabine “Bine” Niedergassel and Gerd Gaida aka Crashman , Clemenz and Kay Wolde and were a fixture in the New Wave scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s from the artistically fertile Düsseldorf. In addition to Croox, Ink Re…
Rex
2024 Stock. Limited to 300 copies, Japan release only.** The new wave/experimental duo Reifenstahl was founded in 1979 by PA distributor and Croox member Gerd Gaida together with Matthias Rapp. In 1981, the debut album was released on Ink Records by Mike Schmidt, who was temporarily active with Reifenstahl alongside bandmate Michael Reinhardt. The band has been broken up and revived several times, the last sign of life so far is the second album “Rex”, released in 1986 on the Ink Records success…
Die Wunderwaffe
2024 Stock. Limited to 300 copies, Japan release only.** The new wave/experimental duo Reifenstahl was founded in 1979 by PA distributor and Croox member Gerd Gaida together with Matthias Rapp. In 1981, the debut album was released on Ink Records by Mike Schmidt, who was temporarily active with Reifenstahl alongside bandmate Michael Reinhardt. The band has been broken up and revived several times, the last sign of life so far is the second album “Rex”, released in 1986 on the Ink Records success…
Soft Selection 84 - A Nippon DIY Wave compilation
A much-cherished gem from the 1980s underground Japanese music scene returns as Soft Selection 84 is reissued by Glossy Mistakes for its 40th anniversary. Originally released on DIY label Soft, the compilation sees 13 tracks from nine acts spanning minimal, ambient, zolo and more for a beguiling listen.
Liaisons Dangereuses
*2023 much needed repress!* The only full-length from the West Germany trio known as Liaisons Dangereuses, this self-titled record (originally released via TIS records in 1981) is somewhat of a Holy Grail for fans of EBM and minimal synth. Thankfully, Soulsherrif Records has reissued this rarity! Comprised of members Beate Bartel, Chrislo Haas, and Krishna Goineau, Liaisons Dangereuses was only active for a couple of years. Beate and Chrislo played in numerous famous German electronic and goth …
391 | Selezione 2
With the 391 project, Spittle shed light on the most recondite and peculiar realities of the italian underground. The Belpaese illustrated in imaginative regional postcards, with all the legacies of off culture: the do-it yourself ethos and the local gestation of phenomena from across the Channel - above all - such as new wave, post-punk and electronic nouvelle vague. Phenomenal little contributions collected on the periphery of the New World, with future stars of the alternative scene to come a…
Good Night
Ian Elms’s cult isolationist synth masterpiece Good Night returns via Dark Entries. Originally released in 1982, Good Night blends Berlin school minimalism and BBC Radiophonic weirdness with the aesthetics of then-nascent DIY punk electronics throughout its fifteen short tracks.
According to Elms, these pieces were composed in two broad but interrelated modes: pieces with voice and synthesizer, which are obliquely narrative, and instrumental synthesizer pieces that aspire to capture fleeting emo…
The Hidden Tapes
A compilation of Minimal Wave from Around the World ‘79-‘85. The Hidden Tapes features rare, unreleased, and licensed tracks from as far as Japan and the former Yugoslavia. Most of the bands on this compilation recorded on 4-track tape in their bedroom studios while two of them went further to collaborate by sending tapes through the mail. The sounds on this record range from raw proto-industrial to naive danceable Belgradian new wave, to filmic synthesizer music to more complex, vocal-driven me…
391 | Selezione 1
A natural compendium to the 391 series, with a strong selection straight to vinyl. Spittle CDs series "391" is filling a void screaming out for revenge. We’re not actually talking about hard to find material, but properly unreleased songs and compositions locked for several decades in some virtual memory lane. A proper distillate from the ongoing series, which showed the hidden roots of the Italian new-wave (with all the possible links to art-rock, goth, post-punk and industrial). Creativity has…
Issue 82: The Genius of Tom Tom Club (Magazine + 7")
It’s been 40 years since the debut Tom Tom Club album brightened up the early 1980s, so we thought it would be a good time to chat with Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz about the making of this much-loved record and the circumstances that led to it.
They don't hold back – particularly when talking about their former Talking Heads bandmate David Byrne – and they've got some great tales to tell. Along the way, Chris reveals that the pair recently played a secret gig and are now getting ready to star…
Issue 102
With her debut solo album rocketing into the UK Top 10 on the week of its release, we are delighted to have Alison Goldfrapp on the cover of the new Electronic Sound. We have a fantastic red vinyl seven-inch by the always stylish and often elusive singer to accompany the issue too.
Trust
Trust, originally released on Play It Again Sam / Nettwerk in 1989, is collection of electro-pop, rinsed through with Chris & Cosey’s unique erotic vision – “Seldom have electronics this glaciated and deep-frozen exuded so much warmth” wrote Dele Fadele in NME.