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April 28, 2008
Ripping Vinyl, part 2
After many years of musical obsession completely removed from a record player, my pile of vinyl now grows incrementally, aided by the quality LP sellers of New York City. Baubles from the treasure chest will be posted here whenever it seems appropriate...
It's a bit obvious to remark that without a record player one can't investigate vinyl-only record labels. The racks of Other Music's east wall had intrigued me for quite a while, though, and no single release more than the strikingly packaged compilation pictured above, a 2006 effort from tireless excavators of my beloved Euro synth sounds from the early 80s, Minimal Wave. Complicating the format fetishism is the fact that all of the LPs songs come from mainly forgotten cassette releases. Funny now to think of blocky little cassettes as a thrilling glimpse into the future when viewed from 1983. While the entire record (and the label's entire back catalog, really) is worth some in-depth investigation, for my abridged purposes I have to go with the unstoppable pop song.
"The Game" by Belgian band Linear Movement is much much catchier than you'd think given its intense obscurity and the barriers thrown up in front of its discovery. It's billed in the Lost Tapes liner notes as being taken from an "unreleased album." The band would only produce a single proper release in its meager two-year existence, and its difficult to imagine this being topped. Band mastermind Peter Bonne had recently left the equally obscure, and majorly obtuse, synths-trumental band Autumn to cozy up with a "rhythm box" and some appealing female vocals courtesy of a lady named Lieve van Steerteghem. The sound is akin to the Human League keeping the experimental flavor of their underrated "Dignity of Human Labour" instrumentals intact as they morphed into new-wave floor fillers (and had also negotiated their contracts to mandate that all vocals should be recorded in a cave of some sort). There are plenty of legitimate reasons beyond, you know, the lack of an actual release, that this song wasn't a smash on the pop charts. There are far fewer obstacles to it becoming a hit at your next house party,
Previously: the Raincoats, live @ the BBC
Posted by Jeff Klingman at April 28, 2008 01:10 PM
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Comments
And finally, coming very soon... is the full Linear Movement LP :-)
Posted by: V at June 19, 2008 07:39 PM
