Electronic

Shriekback “Care” (Y, 1983)

Shriekback’s creative core of keyboardist/vocalist Barry Andrews (ex-XTC, Fripp’s League Of Gentlemen), bassist Dave Allen (ex-Gang Of Four), and guitarist Carl Marsh (Out On Blue Six) could almost qualify as a post-punk supergroup. Their early releases such as 1982’s Tench EP and the “My Spine (Is The Bassline)” single put very interesting spins on funk and atmospheric rock. So expectations were high for the British group’s 1983 debut LP, Care, and they were resoundingly met. (The US version differs from the UK edition, adding “My Spine” and “Accretions.” Get ’em both!)

Care gets on the good foot right away with “Lined Up,” a paragon of subliminal funk, powered by Allen’s steely bass line and stoic disco beats from a disciplined drum machine. Andrews’ stern, confidential lead vocals and the female gospel choir backing add a serious air of impending doom to proceedings. I’d often hear this joint in Detroit clubs during the ’80s, and it was a goddamn mood. With its with lusciously layered synths, chilling, Eno-esque textures, and rock-ribbed clapper beats, “Clear Trails” proves again that understatement is Shriekback’s forte—even with their drum-machine programming. In a decade lousy with clunky, canned percussion, they managed to avoid the robotic awkwardness that marred so many Reagan-era albums. One of Shriekback’s best songs, “Into Method” is a methodical, militant funk jam on a stealth mission. Similarly, “Sway” stands as a minimalist-funk masterpiece.

But Care proves that Shriekback have a weirder side, too. The skeletal, Cubist dub cut “Hapax Legomena” is as strange as its title and pregnant with tension. Unfortunately, the grave mood’s shattered near the end by a guffaw. The cantankerous “Lines From The Library” comes off like a more lightweight ’80s Swans. “Evaporation” is an aptly vaporous tone poem with barely-there vocals. (Andrews never broke a sweat while singing this record’s songs, guaranteed.) On “Brink Of Collapse,” Jon Hassell’s Fourth World Music goes to English art school. It’s an eerie, ritualistic piece within an abstract funk framework—everything in its place, precise and crisp. And what the hell is “In: Amongst”? A field recording of birds panicking as they flail in a whirlwind? Lassos twirling in a hurricane? Whatever the case, it’s one of the strangest endings to an album ever. That Care came out on Warner Bros. in the States shows that the early ’80s were different times, indeed. (Dave Allen passed away on April 5 at age 69. May he rest in peace.) -Buckley Mayfield

Located in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, Jive Time is always looking to buy your unwanted records (provided they are in good condition) or offer credit for trade. We also buy record collections.

Michael Rother “Flammende Herzen” (Sky, 1977)

German guitarist Michael Rother has contributed to three world-class rock/electronic groups, all before he reached 25 years old: Kraftwerk, Neu!, and Harmonia. So, it’s not surprising if his solo albums come off as underwhelming (his career has continued into the 2020s). But the first few records under his own name do have some lovely moments, and they often feature Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit and krautrock studio wizard Conny Plank at the controls and Yamaha synth, so there’s a lot of creative firepower behind these releases.

The solo debut, Flammende Herzen, is probably the most logical starting point for anyone who digs Neu! and Harmonia. (If you don’t like those bands, I have some serious questions for you.) Rother begins Flammende Herzen with the title track, and it reveals his innate gentleness and ability to wring maximal emotional weight from minimal gestures. The tender melody flirts with sentimentality and exudes a lullaby quality, but when Liebezeit’s restrained motorik beats come in, it’s like hearing the laughter of an old friend. Thus prodded, Rother intensifies the main melody into a grand plaint that sounds as if his heart indeed is enflamed, as the title (Flaming Heart in English) suggests.

The intro to “Zyklodrom” boasts a grandiose, almost liturgical beauty in the Popol Vuh vein, plus it’s much proggier than Neu! or Harmonia ever got. Two-and-a-half minutes in, though, the beats kick into gear and we’re off to the bicycle races (“Zyklodrom” means “velodrome” in German). Jaki really slams his kit and Rother’s guitar swells to an orchestral grandeur that would make Daniel Fichelscher drop his plectrum. This track almost matches Neu!’s “Lila Engel” for sheer chugging power. “Karussell” is another exercise in cyclical ascendance, conjuring a gradual escalator-to-heaven sensation. Liebezeit gets quasi funky while Rother generates some of his most icily majestic tones and gorgeously cascading guitar and synth motifs. No wonder American folk-psych guitarist William Tyler covered it.

On “Feuerland,” Rother incorporates some of the album’s strangest and most alluring sounds (chattering birds, motorboat purr) while Liebezeit metronomically and precisely chops time. I recall reading that this was Jim O’Rourke’s favorite song on the album, and that checks out. For LP-closer “Zeni,” the guitar tone is almost candied and tailored to tug your heartstrings till they snap. But then Jaki gets to vigorously thumping his tubs and things take a turn for the Can-ny, circa the quickly percolating percussion on “Chain Reaction” from Soon Over Babaluma. It’s a fitting way to end an album awash in sweet, sweet feelings, as it burns clean, motoring to a vanishing point that’s always out of reach. -Buckley Mayfield

(Heads up: Rother performs March 25 at Seattle’s Neptune Theater.)

Located in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, Jive Time is always looking to buy your unwanted records (provided they are in good condition) or offer credit for trade. We also buy record collections.

Keith LeBlanc “Major Malfunction” (World, 1986)

The music world suffered a serious loss when Keith LeBlanc, the powerful and influential drummer for Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five, Mark Stewart And The Maffia, and many others, passed away on April 4 at age 69. The eulogies for his work behind the kit were effusive and widespread. Understandable, as LeBlanc had lent his rhythmic prowess to two major movements in the 1980s, recording several sessions for artists on the pioneering hip-hop label Sugar Hill and for the innovative UK dub imprint On-U Sound.

Beyond those important contributions, LeBlanc sat in on studio dates for popular artists such as R.E.M., Tina Turner, and Nine Inch Nails. He also maintained an interesting, uncompromising solo career, marked by the galvanizing 1986 debut LP, Major Malfunction. This followed the 1983 underground-club sensation “No Sell Out,” in which LeBlanc spliced snippets of fiery Malcolm X speeches into a rock-ribbed electro/hip-hop jam.

With On-U boss Adrian Sherwood at the controls for Major Malfunction, LeBlanc led a group featuring fellow Sugar Hill/Tackhead badasses Doug Wimbish (bass, guitar) and Skip McDonald (guitar, keyboards, engineer). (The title refers to the description of the Space Shuttle Challenger exploding shortly after liftoff in early 1986.) Finally free to do their own thing, LeBlanc and crew let loose with a sampladelic banger built more for the concrete bunker than for the dance floor.

“Get This” launches the record with sick keyboard warpage that’s like a virulent bug moving through an intestinal tract. Soon, LeBlanc’s huge beats pound through a disorienting miasma of disturbingly slurred vocals and fried guitar riffs. On the brutal industrial funk of “Major Malfunction,” LeBlanc threads samples of broadcasters, then-President Reagan talking about the tragedy mentioned in the previous paragraph, with bonus commentary from the Beat author William S. Burroughs, e.g., “Your planet has been invaded.” More jagged, pugilistic electro funk caroms forth on “Heaven On Earth.” “There ain’t no heaven on Earth nowhere,” growls an angry Black man amid sampled yells of the damned. Clearly, LeBlanc’s m.o. was to overwhelm the listener with spoken-word samples and equilibrium-subverting production techniques applied to militant, club-wrecking tracks.

Reputedly, “M.O.V.E.” was a Ministry song that LeBlanc repurposed for his own record; Keith had worked on that band’s 1986 LP, Twitch. It’s a rugged, polyrhythmic shuffle on which African Head Charge member Bonjo’s bongos really slap the track into overdrive. The funkiest and most psychedelic cut here, “Technology Works Dub” is laced with eerie chants and distorted whooshes, with a robotic voice intoning, “Technology works. Technology delivers. Technology is a modern quasi religion.” LeBlanc obviously was skewering the blind faith corporations put in tech while simultaneously using sonic gear designed with it to prove its value in other fields. The chaotic piece “You Drummers Listen Good” closes the album strangely, as a gravel-voiced preacher rants about young women falling for drummers, before it eases back into a slab of exotic funk rock.

The stilted quality of Major Malfunction‘s rhythms was endemic to a lot of vanguard electronic music and hip-hop in the ’80s. While working within those technological limitations, though, LeBlanc found a way to make his beats funky and timbrally exciting—they hit with the exaggerated THWACK of fists hitting faces in Hollywood blockbusters. There were good reasons why so many musicians—both experimental and mainstream—wanted him to supply beats. RIP, Keith LeBlanc. -Buckley Mayfield

Located in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, Jive Time is always looking to buy your unwanted records (provided they are in good condition) or offer credit for trade. We also buy record collections.

Lou Reed “Hudson River Wind Meditations” (Sounds True, 2007)

Lou Reed’s final album—originally released only on CD, but receiving a vinyl reissue by Light In The Attic on January 12—was as much an outlier in the revolutionary rocker’s catalog as Metal Machine Music. Hudson River Wind Meditations‘ title telegraphs its sonic tranquility; the four-track album’s essentially a 180º counterpoint to the beautifully abrasive 1975 noise opus mentioned above. It’s Reed in “IDGAF about anything but my own peace of mind mode,” and, after all of the groundbreaking work he did with the Velvet Underground and the occasional shafts of brilliance of his solo career, Lou certainly earned the right to go as insular as he did here.

Reed generated these ambient compositions to soundtrack his recited meditations that his acupuncturist had recorded for him. Gradually, they morphed into music to score his Tai Chi and yoga sessions. Wind Meditations‘ value lies primarily in its two longest pieces, totaling an hour of beatless peacemongering. “Move Your Heart” consists of nearly 29 minutes of wombient swells that wax and wane with solemn dignity. The track is, in fact, meditative as well as a soothing soundbath to ease you into slumber. There’s a desolation at the core of “Move Your Heart” that makes me think it could have come out on Pete Namlook’s ambient label, FAX, if Reed had released it in the mid ’90s. The piece changes very minutely throughout its epic duration, so those with short attention spans or who thought that “Sister Ray” was a grueling endurance test will bow out well before its end.

“Find Your Note” offers yet another marathon listen (31:35—make yourself comfortable). Its interiorized drones, refrigerator-on-the-fritz hum, and microbial feedback sculpting recall Coil’s Time Machines project, all of whose tracks were named after hallucinogenic drugs. It also reminds me of Folke Rabe’s What??, which I’ve used for many an acid-trip comedown. “Find Your Note” is a supreme zone-out performance, to be sure.

The final two much shorter works somewhat come off as afterthoughts. “Hudson River Wind (Blend The Ambience)” combines recordings of sea breezes with wisps of piercing synth or guitar tones while “Wind Coda” is a striated and muted chiaroscuro of high and low frequencies that’s as austere as an Éliane Radigue piece, with waves of aquatic ambience gradually overtaking the composition.

Let’s not kid ourselves: Hudson River Wind Meditations will only appeal to a small fraction of Reed’s rock-loving fan base. The main audience for this record? Those who appreciate Metal Machine Music‘s conceptual perversity, hardcore ambient heads, and Lou completists. It’s a fascinating curio in the career of an artist whose creative restlessness yielded many more interesting experiments than uninspired flubs. -Buckley Mayfield

Located in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, Jive Time is always looking to buy your unwanted records (provided they are in good condition) or offer credit for trade. We also buy record collections.

Telex “This Is Telex” (Mute, 2021)

I’m not in the habit of reviewing greatest-hits and best-of releases for this blog, but sometimes the curation is so strong and the discography of the artist diffuse enough in quality that it makes sense to do so. Such is the case with This Is Telex, a 14-song overview of the influential Brussels trio Telex.

Belgium’s answer to Yellow Magic Orchestra and Yello, Telex consisted of of Marc Moulin, Dan Lacksman, and Michel Moers. Before he formed Telex, Moulin was a prog-jazz genius in the group Placebo, whom crate-diggers/hip-hop producers worship with a reverence usually reserved for the likes of Melvin Bliss and Incredible Bongo Band. Few musicians from Moulin’s realm made the transition to synthwave-pop/cult status, which in itself is innately fascinating. (Rainbow keyboardist Tony Carey comes to mind, but even that’s a stretch; Kraftwerk obviously were influential on synthwave, but were never of it.)

Telex come across as arch keyboard/drum-machine virtuosos slumming it in the nascent synth-pop scene (they even entered that bastion of fromage overload, the Eurovision contest) and then realized that, “Hey, we’re enjoying this more than we thought and the hipsters are slurping it up.” It seems like this comp should’ve come out 10-12 years ago, the better to capitalize on the renewed interest in minimal/synthwave, but better late than never—Mute probably had to cut through thickets of record-company red tape to seal the deal.

This Is Telex begins grandly with a a radical reinvention of Sonny Bono’s ubiquitous 1967 hit “The Beat Goes On,” turning the groovy pop nugget into a chunky, bleepy slab of electro-funk, its rhythm uncannily foreshadowing Soul II Soul’s 1989 hit, “Back To Life.” (This album’s the only place you can find “The Beat Goes On/Off.”) The interpretation establishes Telex as masters of transformative covers. Another excellent example of this is “Dance To The Music,” in which the trio transform Sly &The Family Stone’s 1968 hit into silver-lamé’d robo-disco with diseased talkbox vocals. Telex excised the soul and funk from the original, but their makeover is still a riot that’ll have crowds laughing as much as they’re dancing. They’ve reproduced the absurdist, poker-faced effect that Flying Lizards had with “Money” and Devo had with “Satisfaction.”

More alchemy occurs on “La Bamba,” as Telex convert this traditional Mexican folk song into laggard trip-hop—no easy feat. On “The Number One Song In Heaven,” they bring a dash of poignancy to Sparks’ ebullient, Giorgio Moroder-produced original while slowing the tempo to an elegant shuffle. Speaking of Sparks, this comp features two collabs with the Mael brothers: “Drama Drama” and “ Exercise Is Good For You.” This joint venture—the Maels wrote the lyrics, Moers composed the music—makes sense as both groups revel in camp and humor, flamboyant melodies, and sly dance beats. Trivia: ZZ Top, of all people, used to cover “Exercise” live, often using it to close out their shows. One diversion from Telex’s usual tongue-in-cheekiness is “Dear Prudence” (which is exclusive to this compilation). Telex appear to be playing it straight, exhibiting authentic love for one of the Beatles’ most sublime psychedelic ballads. Their version’s synthetic to the core yet still hits deeply in the heart.

As for Telex’s original tunes, “L’amour Toujours” sounds at once like a parody and a genuine specimen of suave continental disco; Yello pulled the same trick. It exemplifies Telex’s penchant for creating music of artful ambiguity, as does “Eurovision,” a sincere-seeming stab at trying to win the titular songwriting contest in 1980. The result is more like a saccharine homage to Kraftwerk’s “Neon Lights,” though, and it nearly came in last place—which was the group’s goal. The wonky electro-funk of “Radio-Radio” slaps hard, proving itself to be a Belgian counterpart to Zapp’s “More Bounce To The Ounce.” Telex’s best-known song is “Moskow Diskow” from 1979’s Looking For Saint Tropez. An influence on techno, it zips through the club like a speedier “Trans-Europe Express,” replete with a synth mimicking a train whistle and percussion emulating said vehicle’s rhythmic chug. No wonder Detroit techno great Carl Craig jumped at the chance to remix it on the 1998 remix album of Telex cuts, I Don’t Like Music.

A cursory listen to Telex may lead some to regard them as a quasi-novelty band, but the impact that their deceptively advanced and detailed music had on electronic music from the ’80s onward is no joke. -Buckley Mayfield

Located in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, Jive Time is always looking to buy your unwanted records (provided they are in good condition) or offer credit for trade. We also buy record collections.

Doug McKechnie “San Francisco Moog 1968-72: Vol. 2” (VG+ Records, 2023)

Better late than never, the 2020 archival release San Francisco Moog 1968-72: Vol. 1 introduced a lot of people to Bay Area synthesist/composer Doug McKechnie. Now 80, McKechnie somehow had gone barely noticed as a Moog pioneer, despite opening for the Rolling Stones at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival in 1969 and appearing in the Maysles brothers’ documentary of said tragic event, Gimme Shelter. Although McKechnie performed often during the years outlined by the title of this second collection of his largely improvised electronic works, he only released a couple of cassettes back then. The Moog craze of those days somehow did not sweep up Mr. McKechnie.

Perhaps Doug’s music didn’t draw much attention in those days because it lacked a gimmicky concept, which was typical of vintage Moog-centric records. Plus, he didn’t have the academic imprimatur that some of his peers enjoyed. Rather, McKechnie was a lone-wolf hippie, relying on his instincts to create extraordinary sounds on the Moog Modular Series III synth, to which he fortuitously gained access because his audiophile/electronics wiz roommate, Bruce Hatch, owned one. McKechnie became so adept with the new instrument, he gave lectures about it and demonstrations of it in colleges and other schools.

San Francisco Moog 1968-72: Vol. 2 further delves into McKechnie’s vaults from that heady era. The first volume’s rippling drones, grand melodies, ominous throbs, and eerie drifts predated and resembled some of the things happening with the work of German artists such as Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream, and Ashra. The second one skews a bit weirder and more introspective. “Search For An Honest Man” recalls Moog superstar Mort Garson’s peak-era winsome melodiousness and bleak chirpiness. “Live At The Family Dog” offers a premonition of minimal techno, with its pinprick percussion and spaciousness, before it shifts into a wickedly warped k-hole of Doppler-effected “wow”s and “whoa”s.

If you’re a fan of Keith Emerson’s flamboyant flourishes in ELP, you’ll dig the bold, spasmodic piece “Moving.” “Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride” is a wildly oscillating excursion, like Tonto’s Expanding Head Band experiencing an anxiety attack while “Rumble Ramp Explosion,” as the title helpfully discloses, is an extreme display of tone dispersion and simulated rocket ascension and explosion. True mindfuckery. The best track here is also the longest: over its 11-plus minutes, the meticulously designed “Glide” features a main Moog motif that icily radiates over insistent pulsations, and thus enters the massive pantheon of intense sci-fi-film suspense-builders.

The VG+ label has compiled both San Francisco Moog LPs onto one CD, if you prefer that format. One way or another, you should get this music into your ears for easy transport out of this mundane reality. -Buckley Mayfield

Located in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, Jive Time is always looking to buy your unwanted records (provided they are in good condition) or offer credit for trade. We also buy record collections

Cluster “Cluster II” (Brain, 1972)

Cluster 71—German geniuses Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius’ first album without Conrad Schnitzler, with whom they formed Kluster in 1969—stands as an important landmark in the formation of industrial ambient music, forging forbidding expanses of desolation and agitation. Similar to Tangerine Dream’s Electronic Meditation, 71 did not rock at all, although it often got categorized as “krautrock.” Rather, it sprawled and glowered in dank space like a malignant satellite. This was head music par excellence, but only for the headstrong who can deal with no beats or hooks whatsoever.

Moebius and Roedelius’ follow-up, Cluster II (produced by Conny Plank with his usual magically maniacal touch), found the ever-questing duo bringing in guitar to their synth-heavy miasmas, but still not rocking in any conventional way. In some regards, it’s a bit less alien and alienating than 71, but still kilometers beyond the concise, melodious synth songs on their next full-length, 1974’s Zuckerzeit.

“Plas” begins 71 with a series of grainy synth throbs and billows that accumulate mass and ominousness, before strange pulsations and shrill, panicky fanfares enter the frame, like a deflated trumpet blurt arcing across the night sky. It’s a precarious, hallucinogenic trip and a helluva bold way to open an album. On “Im Süden,” Moebius’ crispy-fried guitar riff pierces through Roedelius’ bassy synth borborygmus for nearly 13 minutes, and the effect is both hypnotic and fraught as hell. Everything intensifies and gets denser as the track progresses, until you feel as if you’re churning in the guts of a massive cement mixer, with Moebius’ chiming guitar motif tolling like a farewell message… imminent-catastrophe vibes for days. You can definitely hear this track’s influence on Austrian guitarist/laptop composer Fennesz’s early releases.

After this incredible 1-2 punch, the quality dips slightly, but the material is still deeply dissonant. “Für Die Katz” is subtly turbulent space musik for imperiled astronauts while “Live In Der Fabrik” is the sound of infinity in a circuit board or maybe the world’s most sinister video game going on the fritz… or simply mad scientists going rogue in the lab. “Georgel” consists of an enveloping drone that’s pregnant with menace and “Nabitte” ushers us to the exits with chaotic keyboard clusters, distressing groans, and slamming of unknown metal objects.

These Übermenschen didn’t let up for one second on II. Their motto seemed to be “if you’re not overcome by paranoia, we’re doing something wrong.” Truly, an unsettling bleakness pervades the entire album, one entirely at odds with the brilliant constellation cover art. You have to respect such relentless journeying to the heart of darkness.

Bureau B reissued Cluster II in 2022 and Superior Viaduct did so in 2023, so the album should be easy to find and to afford. -Buckley Mayfield

Located in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, Jive Time is always looking to buy your unwanted records (provided they are in good condition) or offer credit for trade. We also buy record collections.

Fifty Foot Hose “Cauldron” (Limelight, 1968)

Cauldron by Bay Area freaks Fifty Foot Hose exists in that minuscule niche of far-out ’60s albums that fused electronics with psychedelic rock: The United States Of America’s self-titled LP, the Silver Apples’ self-titled album, Lothar And The Hand People’s Presenting… and Space Hymn, and Spoils Of War. Recorded in 1967, Cauldron may have predated them all. Even in that lysergic-friendly era, most heads could not grok Fifty Foot Hose. And though it’s been reissued many times, the album still flies under most music fans’ radar.

Mainly the brainchild of electronics wizard/inventor Cork Marcheschi, Cauldron is split between semi-conventional songs riddled with DIY sound-FX tomfoolery (and even a bleep-augmented cover of Billie Holiday’s 1942 jazz standard “God Bless The Child”) and form-busting experiments geared to blow minds. In the former category, “If Not This Time” is a midtempo slice of Jefferson Airplane-style songcraft that transcends Grace Slick & company’s popular psychedelic machinations, thanks to an unconventionally tuned guitar intro/motif that alerts you to the weirdness that lies ahead. Nancy Blossom may not be as powerful a vocalist as Slick, but her enigmatic delivery and defiant demeanor suit Fifty Foot Hose’s skewed compositions and improvs.

In the rather conventional love song “The Things That Concern You,” guitarist Larry Evans sings, “I love you I love you I love you you/Please love me, too” with surprising sincerity and banality. But thankfully, the track possesses the loopy aura of the United States Of America’s “I Won’t Leave My Wooden Wife For You, Sugar,” complete with zonked electronics that sound like a Moog suffering a nervous breakdown. “Rose” is essentially a more psychedelic variation on Classic IV’s “Spooky”—lounge pop embellished with all manner of electronic frippery that would impress Beaver & Krause. The album’s ominous psych-rock zenith is “Red The Sign Post,” whose marauding, fuzz-toned guitar riff prefigures Deep Purple’s “Space Truckin’.” Add in some 13th Floor Elevators-esque bass mesmerism and Nancy Blossom’s strident declarations and swirling-down-the-vortex screams, and you have a classic that’s too heavy and traumatic for a Nuggets comp.

Side two is where things get really crazy. “Fantasy” starts with obsessive guitar riffing, tom-tom-hitting, and frittering bleeps, then shifts into a groovy hippy-rock jam of the sort that you’ve heard in a dozen psychsploitation movies—so it fucking rules. Then the song shifts into a creepy Nancy-sung ballad before evolving into a seriously horrific, occult-rock march. It’s a helluva trip, any way you cut it. The aforementioned “God Bless The Child” provides a little respite before “Cauldron” assaults the senses with some mushroom-trip-gone-horribly-awry rock. This witchy nightmare makes just about everything else that was touted as “psychedelic” in the SF’s ’60s psych scene sound as buttoned-up as William F. Buckley. Only White Noise’s “The Black Mass: An Electric Storm In Hell” comes close to “Cauldron”’s disturbing disorientation.

Fifty Foot Hose came back in 1998 with a shockingly good LP, Sing Like Scaffold, but even if they’d only released Cauldron, they’d be underground stars worthy of lifelong devotion. -Buckley Mayfield

Located in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, Jive Time is always looking to buy your unwanted records (provided they are in good condition) or offer credit for trade. We also buy record collections.

Heldon “Interface” (Cobra, 1977)

When someone opines that “French music is weak” or some such uninformed blather, you should drop a dose of Heldon on them—specifically Interface, guitar/synth master Richard Pinhas and company’s most devastating platter. There are many other such records from France with which you could hit said ignorami, but Interface‘s payload might be the most effective. The album’s dominated by Moog synthesizer emissions, but there’s nothing trendy or whimsical about these tracks. Interface might be the mother of all bombs from the fecund ’70s French underground.

Pinhas helmed a nearly flawless seven-album run from 1974 to 1978, moving from cosmique Fripp-ian guitar drones and pensive pastoralism to futuristic electronic brutality, peaking in the latter mode on 1977’s Interface—although 1976’s Un Rêve Sans Conséquence Spéciale gives it a run for its laser beams. With their later LPs, Heldon, according to The Stranger, “invented a kind of end-times proto-techno that the French military should’ve enlisted for defense purposes.” Can’t argue with that.

“Les Soucoupes Volantes Vertes”—which was written by drummer François Auger—instantly tingles your nerves and puts you on your toes, prepping you for combat with aliens as it fades in with a throbbing Moog bass, skewed beats, and elasticated Moog III and Moog B riffs. “Which freakin’ planet am I on?” you’ll wonder, as your adrenaline dangerously spikes. On the two-part “Jet Girl,” Pinhas’ obsession with Robert Fripp resurfaces in the form of elephantine guitar wails amid rolling and thumping drums and ominously oscillating Moog bass. The track’s an approximation of a chaotic, cyborgian King Crimson, as cold and terrifying as an Antarctic ice storm.

Bandleader Pinhas lets bassist Patrick Gauthier take the reins for “Le Retour Des Soucoupes Volanes”; it’s some rugged man-machine shit, powered by Moog bass and drums, but with radiant ostinatos around the edges—a weird blend of contrasts. Another showcase for Auger, “Bal-A-Fou” is a spacey tantalizer with unusual percussion timbres and accents that recall Herbie Hancock’s early-’70s groups at their farthest out. When Auger’s drums enter, things build to a momentous tumult. By song’s end, you’re convinced that Heldon should’ve been scoring blockbuster interstellar-war movies instead of John Williams and his ilk. “Le Fils Des Soucoupes Volantes (Vertes)” reprises the opening track’s steamrolling menace, but is even more intense.

All of this great stuff is but a prelude for the pièce de résistance, “Interface.” The mother(fucker) of all dystopian, automatons-dueling-to-the-death epics, it’s a 19-minute ordeal of panned, flanged, and deranged drums, airlock synthesized percussion, pitched-down cymbal splashes, strident guitar anguish, and a Moog bass part so springy it makes you think of trampolines the size of football fields. The way the bass interacts with Auger’s slanted martial beats and manic fills is utterly hypnotic. Every element’s geared to make you feel as if the walls are closing in, the heat is rising, the end is near. Seemingly no one here gets out alive, until… Pinhas ruins the doom-laden vibe with a glammed-up, ’50s-vintage guitar riff in the final 10 seconds. I get the joke, but resent how it disrupts the riveting spell the preceding 18 minutes had cast. “Interface”’s relentless terminal march found an analog in Billy Cobham’s “Inner Conflicts,” even though the legendary fusion drummer claims not to have heard it. Whatever the case, if you crave more of that infernal Heldon vibe, check out Cobham’s unintentional tribute.

Thankfully, Interface rarely falls out of print. The excellent German label Bureau B most recently reissued it in 2020. -Buckley Mayfield

Doris Norton “Personal Computer” (Durium, 1984)

Whether it’s down to sexism or her Italian nationality (or perhaps both), composer/musician Doris Norton has gone largely overlooked as a major figure in the computer-based electronic-music world. (Before her solo career, Norton played in the gothic prog-rock group Jacula.) Thankfully, in 2018, Mannequin Records reissued three of Norton’s ’80s albums: 1983’s Norton Computer For Peace, 1984’s Personal Computer, and 1985’s Artificial Intelligence. I bought them all and instantly wondered how they’d escaped my radar, as I’m an avid fan of avant-garde European electronic music. But somehow I’d read nary a word nor heard a note of Norton’s music till three years ago. I’ve been making up for lost time ever since.

My favorite of that trilogy is Personal Computer, her fifth LP overall. During the ’80s, Norton was sponsored by Apple Computer, and made a music program for IBM USA, so the title is no mere superficial signifier. Personal Computer is a wonderful entry point for the Norton novice, although if you’re expecting it to hit with the paradigm-shifting impact of Kraftwerk’s similarly titled 1981 classic Computer World, you’ll be disappointed. Nevertheless, Personal Computer is tonally and melodically sophisticated, with rhythms that can get a floor humming. Created with assistance from Antonius Rex, the record’s a rare blend of heady academia and dance-floor decadence, with a dash of neon-sprayed synth-pop ebullience.

The title track rollicks out of the gate like a dance anthem for video-game geeks, a serious kick-drum pummel propelling everything toward a starry grid in the matrix. The warped, femme-android vocals add a layer of otherness to the storming Yellow Magic Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark hullabaloo happening. “Norton Apple Software” flaunts a sproingy, robotic rhythm that punctuates a swarming and sputtering synth attack, foreshadowing the stardusted turbulence of Detroit electro unit Drexciya. The bombastic synth symphony “Binary Love” creates a huge impression with punishing 4/4 beats, scything hi-hats, and fake wind howls. Forget the noble aim of soundtracking video games; Norton sounds like she’s shooting for Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters. Similarly reaching for the stars is “Parallel Interface,” with its madly hectic riffs spiraling skyward in contrast with elasticated 303 bass palpitations and brutal, methodical beats.

It may not be the most extravagant cut here, but “Caution Radiation Norton” is my favorite on the album. Its beats and hysterically bleepy synths ripple in an odd meter, while sampled male chants serve as both drones and punctuation, showcasing Norton at her most idiosyncratic. “A.D.A. Converter” is an ominous squelcher that marches to battle with a grim, majestic finality, closing the album with an aptly somber mood for the Mutually Assured Destruction vibes that haunted the year 1984. You might say that Norton captured the spirit of George Orwell’s dystopian novel in a novel way, too. -Buckley Mayfield

Ciccone Youth “The Whitey Album” (Enigma/Blast First, 1988)

When The Whitey Album came out, many Sonic Youth fans and critics treated it as a trifling post-modern prank. And yes, it does have its share of shtick, starting with the project name and nudge-wink title. You wondered if Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon, Lee Ranaldo, and Steve Shelley were trolling their underground-rock fan base with two Madonna covers, a karaoke take on Robert Palmer’s MTV smash “Addicted To Love,” a clever-clever homage to John Cage’s “4′ 33”,” and an embarrassing rap fiasco. But while at the time those moments dominated the discourse around The Whitey Album, the record actually contains some of the Youth’s most interesting anomalies.

Remember, the recording of The Whitey Album occurred between 1986’s EVOL and 1987’s Sister—Sonic Youth’s peak period. So even if they were just screwing around, they couldn’t not create fascinating shit. Plus, they had fIREHOSE bassist/vocalist Mike Watt in the studio with them. Back then, Watt was depressed about the tragic vehicular death of long-time Minutemen bandmate D. Boon. When Watt traveled to the East Coast with girlfriend/Black Flag bassist Kira Roessler, who was headed to Yale for an internship, he stayed with Sonic Youth for a bit and ended up recording two songs with them destined for EVOL. The Ciccone Youth side project was part of an effort to inspire Watt to start playing music again and lift him out of his funk. It worked, and in the process SY fans got a nice little curio.

As for the Madonna and Palmer covers, they inspired yuks back in the day, but did Ciccone Youth do it for the lulz or because they genuinely loved the songs? With 20/20 hindsight, I’ll say both. Another goof, the self-explanatory “Two Cool Rock Chicks Listening To Neu,” finds Gordon and Suzanne Sasic talking about managing Dinosaur Jr. while listening to “Negativland.” Near the end, there’s a short burst of grandiose noise rock with what sounds like guitar god J Mascis going the fuck off on his axe. But “Tuff Titty Rap” [insert Beavis & Butthead laugh] is the group’s nadir, with Moore “rapping” over clunky, rudimentary drum-machine beats. 40 seconds of it is too long.

Now let’s move on to the good parts that compose the majority of The Whitey Album. “G-Force” pits Kim Gordon freestyling a spoken-word story about a brash woman up for adventure against oneiric, slow-motion psychedelia with subliminally funky drum-machine beats. “Platoon II” offers more basic, funky beats, which are swathed with ice-cold guitar feedback and gently delayed klang. It’s a real low-key head-nodder that foreshadows Dälek, who are the only hip-hop crew ever to collaborate with krautrock legends Faust. “Macbeth” is rugged, ruthless funky rock that stands among Sonic Youth’s best songs. “Children Of Satan/Third Fig” excellent hypnotic rock with a pseudo-robotic beat that augments the sonorous clangor and chiming of the guitars, until a bass riff ruptures the mesmerism at song’s end. The revelation here is how damned groovy this unintentional (?) funk comes across.

Some other highlights include “Moby-Dik,” a minute of Dieter Moebius-like electronic weirdness; “March Of The Ciccone Robots,” which sounds like a cover of PiL’s “Chant” with a ton of sludge caked on it and powered by pummeling, quasi-techno beats; and “Making The Nature Scene,” a scouring, beat-heavy rework of a harrowing Confusion Is Sex song that sounds like Big Stick.

So, look beyond the gimmicks and you have a fascinating oddity from an underground band who, when The Whitey Album received its delayed release, were ascending to alt-rock-mainstream success. More than 30 years later, the record stands out not as wry meta-commentary, but as a brilliant lark/tangent in Sonic Youth’s sprawling catalog. -Buckley Mayfield

Seesselberg “Synthetik 1.” (self-released, 1973)

I’m fascinated by artists who release one amazing album and then go quiet, for whatever reason. Examples? Skip Spence, the United States Of America, Tomorrow, Friendsound, Ibliss, McDonald & Giles, Kendra Smith, Young Marble Giants. German brother duo Seesselberg belong in this pantheon, too.

In the early ’70s, Wolf (b. 1941) and Eckhart (b. 1952) Seesselberg self-released some of the most innovative electronic music this side of Conrad Schnitzler and Morton Subotnick, and then vanished in a puff of fried synth circuitry. If you own one of original 1,000 copies pressed, however, you could sell it and travel the world on the earnings.

Thankfully, golden-eared curators have kept the nine precious cuts on Synthetik 1. in circulation over the decades, preserving what sounds like the birth of certain strains of IDM and techno, over 10-20 years before those styles emerged. The Seesselberg bros were clever electronics boffins who built their own synths, which obviously added special sauce to their distinctive sound. These 46 minutes reveal two nerds reveling in the temperamental strangeness of their gear, testing its parameters, and thereby drawing a blueprint for future synth iconoclasts to emulate—assuming they had the keen instincts to find Synthetik 1. and the maverick talent to fuck with its DNA. It is indeed an exclusive cult who have done so.

Synthetik 1. starts spectacularly with “Overture (If Somebody Survives We Will Have A Return Match),” a compendium of burbling, zapping, and oscillating sounds that sets a disorienting tone and warns the listener that Seesselberg are serious about sending you to the craziest quadrants of the omniverse. The 62-second “Eintrachtkreis-Paranoia” is a staccato panic-inducer that resembles the Ronald Frangipane-composed “Fuck Machine” sequence in The Holy Mountain. The equally brief “Verhütungsfreudenwalzer (Kontinenzmusik Für Eine Akademie)” sounds like a computer stuttering a disturbing mantra. These two snippets come off like the brothers playfully fucking about with their equipment. The more focused “Speedy Achmed (Verhaltensanweisung)” offers low-key, sinister pulsations and eldritch screeches that foreshadow Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey. The A-side closes with a nearly 11-minute track bearing an absurdly long German title. Its ominous whirs, distant abattoir emissions, and eerie avian whistles make it a close cousin of Tonto’s Expanding Head Band‘s “Jetsex.”

The flip side begins with Synthetik 1.‘s highlight, “Phönix,” a 10-minute piece Wolf composed for a 1972 film of the same name. It’s a dazzling menagerie of high-pitched synth discombobulations ruptured by pulsating spaceship-door percussion, emergency-warning bleeps, and weaponized drones. I imagine the track scoring the movie’s climactic scenes in which astronauts meet terminal doom. There’s no way anyone gets out of this piece alive. The last two tracks (both with long German titles you’ll instantly forget) reiterate Synthetik 1.‘s m.o.: creating bizarre electronic abstractions that “go nowhere” in the traditional sense that dull people expect them to venture to. Essentially, Seesselberg are all about generating an interesting array of tones for its own sake—escapism with a sense of danger about it.

Some will complain that Synthetik 1. lacks “humanity” or “warmth,” but sometimes it feels great simply to immerse oneself in the alien sonography of custom-built synthesizers and lose all sense of reality. Seesselberg made that scenario a breathtaking certainty nearly 50 years ago. Enter their secret society.

[Synthetik 1. has been reissued officially on CD by Plate Lunch (2001) and on LP by Wah Wah (2013). Both are pricey imports, but totally worth it.] -Buckley Mayfield