Tape Music 1980-1984
Since the early 1980s the Eureka, California based duo Psyclones freak out in music. As one of the most long-standing DIY duos, Brian Ladd and Julie Frith created a body of work, that flirts with Ambient, experimental industrial sounds, New Wave, Post-Punk, Synth-Pop, and all that electric jazz. Besides a few hard-to-find vinyl releases, they published their music regularly via cassette tapes on labels like their own imprint Ladd-Frith or other famed 1980's underground tape labels like Cause And…
Last Chance
** Edition of 500. The record has been remastered and is pressed on 180-gram black vinyl. Lyric insert sheet. ** Minimal Wave is are excited to announce the reissue of a rare self-released record by Plugpoint Music called 'Last Chance'. Plugpoint Music was the minimal synth project of Reiner Ossmann, who recorded the 12 songs on this album in his home studio in Germany in 1987 and released them as an edition of 200 copies. This gem of a record was never properly distributed and so essentially di…
Underwater Kites
* 2021 Stock* Arriving in the wake of inspirational releases from Joy Division, Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA and Throbbing Gristle, Modern Art’s Underwater Kites pinched those templates into a range of nervy, minimalist styles porous to influence and defined by the moody character of Gary Ramon’s vocals and his feel for expressive, evocative melody. As the founder of Color Discs/Color Tapes, there’s reams of evidence that Ramon was a proper locus for the post-punk scene at that time, and his outp…
Oriental Towers
* 2021 Stock. Edition of 300 * Another entry from the darkly enchanting minimal synth-pop and psych-tinged world of The Modern Art. As an introduction to the world of Coil and Current 93 collaborator (and Sun Dial main man) Gary Ramon and his orbiting bandmates, you can't do better. "From a time when drummers were as rare as a tune with a melody. It could have been made yesterday, by one of those modern bands of foppish young men, whose parents' record collection contained stuff like The Wake an…
The Twelve Secret Hometape Sessions
* Edition of 150 * Experimental improvisations recorded 1983 sound on sound on a Revox A77 two track recorder in Amsterdam. After recording, the tape was lost and forgotten, until after about 25 years the tape was found again. No Honey From These: Robby Horsfall († 2013) & Menko Konings (EM / S.M. Nurse). Vocals track 1, 4, 9, 10: Anneke Stempher (S.M. Nurse). Remaster by Ruud Lekx.
Portray Heads
While remaining predominantly unknown except amongst die-hard collectors, Portray Heads has proven to be one of the best kept secrets of the Japanese electronic underground. Tohru Tomita (冨田徹) formed Portray Heads in 1984 in Matsuyama City, the capital of Shikoku Island, with fellow band members Ayumi Tokunaga (徳永あゆみ) and Mikiharu Doi (土居幹治), just after dissolving his solo bedroom project Onanie Bazooka. The trio entered the studio in August that same year and recorded several songs. Two songs f…
Black Phoebe
* Edition of 300 * Mark Lanegan and his wife, Shelley Brien (Singrid Lund) pursue a gothic wave and washed-out techno muse in a deliciously cranky follow-up to Lanegan’s acclaimed ‘Downwelling’ LP with Not Waving last year. Featuring members of the Mark Lanegan Band including Martyn LeNoble (Porno For Pyros) on bass, the band play up to their passions for the gloomy rumination of PIL, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Sandwell District, Bauhaus and Joy Division across a perfectly unpredicted suite of L…
Different Voices For You. Different Colours For Me.
Robert Rental was a British pioneer of the post-punk DIY industrial electronic music scene in the United Kingdom. Originally from Port Glasgow, Scotland, he moved to the south of England with Thomas Leer in the late 1970s, and became involved with the local music scene. Robert Rental however released very little of his solo music, preferring to collaborate with Thomas Leer, as well as with Daniel Miller.
The only solo recording from The 1970s is the 7" single "Paralysis" first released on the ho…
Khamu (She Sleep Walks)
Second installment in a reissue programme for this excellent UK band. C Cat Trance were formed by multi instrumentalist John Rees Lewis after his departure from Medium Medium, taking the band's drummer Nigel Kingston Stone with him. The band are seen as members of the post-punk movement, but that's not all that is to say about their sound.
C Cat Trance incorporated ethnic music into their compositions before world music became a popular genre. Their influences come mainly from Northern Africa an…
JYL
**Limited 180 gram vinyl LP + booklet** Minimal Wave is honored to present a reissue of Jyl's self-titled full-length album from 1984, originally released on Klaus Schulze's Inteam label. Born and raised in California, Jyl travelled to Europe in her twenties to dance and met several talented and like-minded collaborators along the way. She ended up in Germany, and worked with Ingo Werner, Angela Werner, and Klaus Schulze, on what would become one of the most important and forward thinking electr…
From Backside Japan: Underground Music Scene In Niigata 1980s-90s
**Limited Edition. Including 36 page booklet** The first compilation album from Niigata, the prefecture on the Sea of Japan side. The Niigata underground music scene in 1980 to 90s was quite unique compared to other prefecture, but had never been compiled. Featuring 20 artists from all over the Niigata prefecture like as Ai To Makoto, Hirohito Taneguchi (aka. Seed Mouth).
Including 36 page booklet: Geographical overview, consideration of the music scene and explanation of each artist (Japanese/E…
Familie Hesselbach
**400 copies, release date postponed to November 2020** It was sold out for a long time. Until now. The first LP by Familie Hesselbach from Tübingen. Recorded and produced in the summer of 1982 with 17 tracks and an edition of 1000 copies, with hand-sprayed, hand-glued and stamped covers. The South German punk and new wave band caused a sensation between 1980 and 1985, first regionally and then nationwide. They indulged in a deliberate eclecticism from the musical preferences of the individual f…
The Invitation of the Dead
Minimal Wave proudly presents an exquisite double LP release by obscure Japanese artist Tomo Akikawabaya. As long time admirers of Akikawabaya’s 1980s releases on his own label Castle Records, we had attempted to reach him for many years without any luck. Finally at some point in 2014, a conversation was struck and one thing lead to the next. It was through Nao Katafuchi that we finally made contact with the legend himself, and began speaking about the proposed release idea. It turned out that t…
Earlier / Later
**Red vinyl** Minimal Wave proudly presents an LP of selections from the prolific Belgian synthpop band Polyphonic Size. Headed by Roger-Marc Vande Voorde, Polyphonic Size formed in 1979. In December of that year, they released their first record, the Algorhythmic EP on Sandwich Records, an independent label founded by Michel Lambot. After a second EP (Pragmatic Songs), Roger-Marc got in touch with Jean-Jacques Burnel, who offered to produce the next single, Nagasaki Mon Amour. This first musica…
Decadence
Minimal Wave is proud to present a full length LP by French duo Deux. Gérard Pelletier and Cati Tete formed Deux after meeting in Lyon in 1981. Their music can be described as minimal synth with stripped down rhythm compositions and suitably cold duets. Their influences are a perfect blend of Kraftwerk and French synthpop. Between 1983 and 1992, they released a cassette and several rare singles : Felicita / Game & Performance and Europe / Paris / Orly. They also appeared on the V/A BIPP LP (2006…
Freedom of Choice
Finally, after all that waiting, The Future arrived in 1980. Ohio art-rockers Devo had plainly prepared with their 1979 second LP Duty Now for the Future, and now it was go time. Propelled by the new decade's high-tech, free-market, pre-AIDS promise, 1980's Freedom of Choice would rocket what Devo co-founder Gerald Casale calls his "alternate universe, hermetically sealed, alien band" both into the arms of the Earthlings and back to their home planet in one scenic trip.Before an artistic and com…
The Early Days
Early Days maps out Nine Circles interpretation of Cold Wave and Minimal Synth. Unbelievably the tracks are mostly from a brief time period, ’80—’82. Alienation and uncertainty course through the 2LP with heavy Yamaha chords, metallic machine beats and brittle vocals.Nine circles was formed in the early '80s by Peter Van Garderen and Lidia Fiala. In 1980 there was a band called Genetic Factor. This band split up when their three members got girlfriends and they started to make music together wit…
Berlin Super 80
2011 repress, originally released in 2005. This double LP compilation presents insights into the outstanding artistic means of expression of late '70s/ early '80s Berlin, which left their mark on subsequent generations of artists and bands alike, bringing the walled-in city's special attitude back to life. 16 groundbreaking tracks that speak across the Germanic spectrum, from performance art / noise to post-punk / new wave, post-industrial, post-prog electronic, etc., from artists such as: Mona …
The Signal To Noise Set
Trading Places present a reissue of The Signal To Noise Set, originally released in small numbers in 1984 on London's short-lived Only A Revolution label. The ultra-rare various artists release showcased the Australian variant of minimalist wave AND analog synth-pop. The eleven exclusives featured on the compilation are all prime examples of Australia's synth band underground, and although each group was totally unknown outside of their sphere of influence, some have gone on to attain legendary …
Don't Believe It's Over
Mannequin Records is elated to present a rare lost demo tape recording of Caroline K - real name Caroline Kaye Walters - founder member of Nocturnal Emissions, one of the best UK experimental / industrial music groups in the 1980s. When we asked Nigel Ayers about the possibility to press a small batch of the edit made by Mannequin Records's head Alessandro Adriani, we would never expect to find more material from her solo productions. The only production of Caroline available is in fact her LP N…