“I don’t like country & western, I don’t like rock music… I don’t like rockabilly! I don’t like much really do I? But what I do like, I love passionately!!”: CHRIS LOWE
After a period of generic darkwave and those of a gothic disposition singing in octaves far too low, hope was provided for dark electronic pop with the emergence of A THOUSAND MAD THINGS in 2025. Another hoping to make a similar impression is Canada’s AVRO.
Now the solo project of Adam Percy, AVRO follows in the lineage of pioneering synth acts such as RATIONAL YOUTH and PSYCHE. Releasing the debut EP ‘Anatomy Act’ in 2016 and an album ‘Futuretroactivism’ in 2022 when Megan Rose was a member, the new mini-album ‘Psychopathé’ certainly has hooks, beats and well-delivered vocals when none of these attributes have been considered particularly important by purveyors of darker forms in recent times.
As the best track on this release, ‘Perfect World’ exudes this wonderful rhythmic bounce where the “air synth” factor is also high. Meanwhile on ‘Insomaniac’, there is a combination of cool IDM inflections and classic synthpop resonances within the verses before proceedings uplift in the choruses while female spoken word en Français in the middle eight add allure. The ‘Psychopathé’ title song’s cold introspection rumbles and rolls nicely with a good use of percussive dynamics.
But while ‘Blue Light, Hot Dreams’ presents an infectious dance flavour and makes good use of synthetic snaps in its backbone, its repetitious nature oversteps by going on far too long despite clocking in at a much shorter length than ‘Insomaniac’. The closing track ‘Liars in Love’ though is perhaps the less immediate and less convincing of the set.
A diagnosis on the corrosive nature of celebrity culture, there are moments to enjoy throughout ‘Psychopathé’ as it offers hints of light amongst the pathological tension.
What of 1986? This was at times, unlike previous years, a difficult one to enjoy musically.
TEARS FOR FEARS and SIMPLE MINDS had shown in 1985 that the most bankable way to break America was to present a new wave sound that had some synthesizers but not too many while big compressed drums and rawk guitars would be the relatable component for FM radio shows to draw in listeners for their commercials in between.
Following the ubiquity of Phil Collins throughout most of 1985, the domination of the GENESIS axis continued with seemingly endless stream of singles from the ‘Invisible Touch’ album while former leader Peter Gabriel achieved international mainstream success with the Staxx-flavoured art funk of ‘Sledgehammer’ on major rotation at MTV.
Elsewhere, WHAM! ended on a high as George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley played their final concert at Wembley Stadium but also playing what turned out to be their last concert with Freddie Mercury at Knebworth Park were QUEEN. Having gone down the dumper in 1984 with their third album ‘Waking Up With The House On Fire’ having been assessed as a “disaster of mediocrity” by Smash Hits’ Tom Hibbert, the long playing attempt to rescue CULTURE CLUB out of the dumper ‘From Luxury To Heartache’ did nothing to change fortunes with Boy George’s then undisclosed heroin addiction affecting its prolonged production.
Hollywood was where is it at in 1986; Giorgio Moroder and his mechanic Tom Whitlock would win an Oscar and Golden Globe for ‘Best Original Song’ with ‘Take My Breath Away’ which provided the love theme for ‘Top Gun’, the highest-grossing film of the year worldwide; although it was credited to BERLIN, it featured none of its members apart from vocalist Terri Nunn and would cause tensions that would split up the band.
THE PSYCHEDELIC FURS re-recorded ‘Pretty In Pink’ for the John Hughes movie of the same name while having already featured discreetly during a mall scene with ‘Tesla Girls’ during another Hughes film ‘Weird Science’ the year before, OMD achieved their biggest hit in America with the specifically written standalone song ‘If You Leave’ which soundtracked the closing prom scene to touch the hearts of many teenagers stateside. However, the act who contributed the most music to the film was NEW ORDER with ‘Shellshock’, ‘Elegia’ and ‘Thieves Like Us’!
In the rush to make things more palatable for the American market, there were lukewarm offerings by THE HUMAN LEAGUE, HEAVEN 17, DURAN DURAN and EURYTHMICS who only a few years before had released some excellent albums. “We were all a bit lost by then” said Phil Oakey later in 2009 on the BBC documentary ‘Synth Britannia’, “we didn’t have anything to prove!”. But the worst one was ‘U-Vox’ by ULTRAVOX; as the lame titled suggested, this was a band with something missing and the record was to 1986 what OMD’s ‘Crush’ was to 1985 as it battled to incorporate orchestras, brass sections, acoustic guitars and the traditional Irish combo THE CHIEFTAINS into its sound.
After the programmed perfection of their Trevor Horn-produced chart toppers ‘Relax’ and ‘Two Tribes’, new producer Stephen J Lipson may well have been misguided in allowing FRANKIE GOES TO HOLLYWOOD to play their own instruments on the second album ‘Liverpool’ as tensions within the band were about to cause implosion. Certainly the programmed Trevor Horn single remix of ‘Warriors Of The Wasteland)’ was far superior to the lame “as live” album version which unsurprisingly sounded like it was performed by a slightly polished-up pub rock combo!
Making a successful transition to organic instrumentation were TALK TALK with ‘The Colour Of Spring’, probably one of the best albums of 1986 regardless of genre. In E&MM, Mark Hollis said “I absolutely hate synthesizers” despite the band having had their breakthrough using them; while the sleeve credits did much to appease more rockcentric audiences with the vague acknowledgement of “instrumental” for Ian Curnow’s synth solos, the enjoyable long player did feature an electronic wind instrument called a Variophon and the state-of-the-art Kurweil on ‘Happiness Is Easy’!
Also heading into more organic territory with an ambitious double album divided into song-based and ambient instrumental records was David Sylvian; bringing in a number of guest guitarists like Robert Fripp, Phil Palmer and Bill Nelson, ‘Gone To Earth’ required more effort from listeners as the former leader of JAPAN distanced himself further from his old band although former bandmates Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri made contributions on a number of tracks.
As DAF went disco, Electronic Body Music influenced by the German duo’s imperial years on Virgin Records was emerging as a harder and darker alternative to the sanitised American-friendly sound that was now prevalent, with FRONT 242 and NITZER EBB issuing important singles that would trigger a new cult movement.
Overall, 1986 was a massive disappointment and confirmation of a wider downward spiral towards electronic creativity in pop music. House and dance would point towards the future but these sub-genres often lacked songs. Meanwhile, the emergence of Stock, Aitken & Waterman as a pop production factory would change the face of Top Of The Pops, Smash Hits and even the Independent Charts after years of delightful oddness but that is another story for others to tell…
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK has somehow managed to assemble a list of 20 albums to represent The Electronic Legacy of 1986, although it must be highlighted that a fair number of those included would not have made the cut in previous years which had their embarrassment of riches. Not a “best of” list by any means, as usual, these are presented in alphabetical order by artist…
A-HA Scoundrel Days
While Morten Harket, Magne Furuholmen and Pål Waaktaar were being perceived as a teenybop band thanks to the success of ‘Take On Me’, there was always an inherent Nordic gloom lurking within A-HA. Mostly produced by Alan Tarney, the blistering title song was swathed in a chilling melancholy. Then there were the hit singles but while ‘Cry Wolf’ was bouncy pop, there were snarls of frustration present in ‘I’ve Been Losing You’ and ‘Manhattan Skyline’.
ALPHAVILLE were under pressure on their second album ‘Afternoons in Utopia’, especially with the departure of founder member Frank Mertens. Ricky Echolette joined Marian Gold and Bernhard Lloyd but after the gritty commentary on heroin addiction of ‘Big In Japan’ in 1984, songs like ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘Dance With Me’ possessed an anthemic optimism while on ‘Red Rose’, Gold moved from his Robert Smith impersonation into Bryan Ferry territory.
Having flown the ZTT nest, Anne Dudley, JJ Jeczalik and Gary Langan took their Fairlighted musique concrète to China Records and came up with ‘In Visible Silence’. With more variety and more polish, ‘Legs’ was classic AoN while a rework of ‘Peter Gunn’ with Duane Eddy and ‘Paranoimia’ would provide the hits, although the latter’s album version would be without Max Headroom. Although Langan would depart, a high profile collaboration with Tom Jones beckoned…
A quartet comprising of Susan Ottaviano, the unrelated Ted Ottaviano, Jade Lee and Lauren Roselli, BOOK OF LOVE signed to Sire Records and opened for DEPECHE MODE on two US successive tours. Their self-titled debut LP contained lively synthpop tunes such as ‘You Make Me Feel So Good’, ‘Boy’ and ‘I Touch Roses’ but it was a song named after the Italian artist ‘Modigliani’ that had most impact, appearing in an episode of ‘Miami Vice’ and the film ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’.
With CHINA CRISIS now more of a band than the original duo concept fronted by Gary Daly and Eddie Lundon, ‘What Price Paradise’ had less of a Trans-Atlantic flavour compared to its predecessor ‘Flaunt The Imperfection’. Still featuring great songs such as ‘It’s Everything’, ‘Best Kept Secret’, ‘The Understudy’ and ‘Hampton Beach’, it is still one of life’s great mysteries that the magnificent ‘Arizona’ never got beyond No47 in the UK charts!
Although THE COMMUNARDS, Jimmy Somerville’s venture with future TV vicar Richard Coles was intended to have more traditional musical values, the electronic sound of his previous band BRONSKI BEAT could not be left totally behind. With Mike Thorne still at the production helm, ‘Disenchanted’ crossed ‘Why?’ with ‘Smalltown Boy’ while the spirited Hi-NRG cover of ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ with Sarah-Jane Morris would be the UK’s biggest selling single of 1986.
‘Communards’ is still available via London Records
When Robert Görl and Gabi Delgado reunited in 1985 to record ‘1st Step To Heaven’, they opted not only to stop wearing back but to sing in English. Less aggressive than previous DAF works with a more electronic disco sound, ‘Voulez-Vous Coucher Avec Moi’ quoted from LADY MARMALADE despite being an original while ‘Pure Joy’ was inspired by Prince’s ‘1999’. But best of all was the joyous ‘Brothers’ which celebrated Görl and Delgado’s friendship.
Producer Daniel Miller wanted a dystopian intensity to the fifth DEPECHE MODE album ‘Black Celebration’ and with Gareth Jones acting as Tonmeister, Martin Gore’s increasingly bleaker songs found the perfect sonic backdrop. The 7 track segue from the opening title song to ‘Stripped’ that included ‘Fly On The Windscreen’ and ‘It Doesn’t Matter Two’ remains DEPECHE MODE’s most outstanding sequence of music.
Andy Bell and Vince Clarke’s debut album ‘Wonderland’ was not an instant hit. The lead single ‘Who Needs Love (Like That)?’ was mistaken by some to be an unreleased YAZOO recording. Among the album’s highlights were the joyous ‘Reunion’ and the funky ‘Push Me… Shove Me’ . The record’s HI-NRG centrepiece ‘Oh L’Amour’ flopped as a single but undeterred, ERASURE toured the college circuit to build up a new fanbase from scratch.
As I START COUNTING, Simon Leonard and Dave Baker finally released their longform debut following two impressive Daniel Miller-produced singles ‘Letters To A Friend’ and ‘Still Smiling’. Both included on the CD edition of ‘My Translucent Hands’, quirky tracks such as ‘Catch That Look’ and maintained the standard if with less immediacy. The duo would open for Mute label mates ERASURE on their 1987 European tour.
‘Rendez-Vous’ had something of a loose space theme but the space shuttle Challenger tragedy tinged the release with sadness as the ‘Last Rendez-Vous (Ron’s Piece)’ was to have featured astronaut Ron McNair playing sax. Meanwhile, the symphonic ‘Second Rendez-Vous’ inspired by Wendy Carlos would become favourite of Pope John Paul II and the rousing ‘Fourth Rendez-Vous’ captured the vein of the classic Jean-Michel Jarre single.
After two hit albums with Rupert Hine, Howard Jones had Arif Mardin on production duties for ‘One To One’ having been impressed by his work with SCRITTI POLITTI. While still very synth-driven, an array of session musicians on drums, guitars, bass and brass featured for a more sophisticated sound. But ‘Little Bit Of Snow’ found him in reflective mood on the ivories as the singles ‘All I Want’ and ‘You Know I Love You… Don’t You?’ failed to crack the UK Top30.
‘One To One’ is still available via Cherry Red Records
Coming after the 5 year wait since 1981’s ‘Computer World’ as the world KRAFTWERK anticipated came true, ‘Electric Café’ was something of a disappointment. Distracted by cycling and technology, there were still delights to be found. ‘The Telephone Call’ featuring Karl Bartos on lead vocals was a highlight along with the voice sample-laden ‘Musique Non Stop’ while the ironic ‘Sex Object’ was fun despite the barrage of DX7 presets like a YouTube tutorial…
‘Electric Café’ is now available as ‘Techno Pop’ via Parlophone Records
NEW ORDER were simultaneously about indie guitar rock and electronic disco, although rarely mixing. On their fourth album ‘Brotherhood’, the band’s schizophrenic musical personalities were separated across two sides. The electronic part was headed by ‘Bizarre Love Triangle’, but there was also the solemn ‘All Day Long’, the sinister ‘Angel Dust’ and the Lou Reed pastiche ‘Every Little Counts’ with its laughter and unforgettable scratching stylus ending!
Things really had got “strange” for Gary Numan as his Numanoids marched on BBC Broadcasting House to protest that ‘This Is Love’ and ‘I Can’t Stop’ had charted yet were not getting radio airplay; however, they were the worst songs on ‘Strange Charm’. Something of an underrated record, the dreamy ‘My Breathing’ and the Vangelis-inspired title song were impressive while there was also a new great Bill Sharpe collaboration ‘New Thing From London Town’.
A much better record than the rotten ‘Crush’, with a heavier synth, choral and live drum edge, one highlight was ‘The Dead Girls’ which revisited the sonics of ‘Architectural & Morality’ but with digital technology. Although the hit came from the Paul Humphreys sung ‘(Forever) Live & Die’, the Andy McCluskey fronted ‘Stay’ and ‘We Love You’ provided the electronic rock disco drive while ‘Flame Of Hope’ clearly fell under the spell of THE ART OF NOISE.
While PET SHOP BOYS debut album wasn’t perfect with ‘Suburbia’ and ‘Violence’ improving in re-recordings, ‘Please’ featured not only ‘West End Girls’ and ‘Love Comes quickly’ but had an array of brilliant track including ‘Two Divided By Zero’ and ‘Tonight Is Forever’. While an ironic observation on the rise of yuppies, the misunderstood ‘Opportunites (Let’s Make Lots Of Money)’ proved to be quite prophetic for Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, but who was the brains?
‘Please’ is still available via Parlophone Records
SUICIDE reconfigured for the 21st Century with Giorgio Moroder at the studio helm, behind the hype of cyberpunk combo SIGUE SIGUE SPUTNIK were some decent tracks even if they all sounded the same! The throbbing drive of ‘Love Missile F1-11’, ‘21st Century Boy’ and ‘Sex-Bomb-Boogie’ provided the fun but the flow was spoiled by novelty effects and samples while there were paid adverts between tracks as an honest statement on commercialism.
Inspired by a London Records A&R muttering “why can’t you make music that you can dance to?” after the avant pop of ‘Change’, SPARKS took inspiration for their lively if underrated 14th album, recorded in Brussels with old pal Dan Lacksman of TELEX engineering. The title song echoed ERASURE’s ‘Oh L’Amour’ while Ron Mael played with bursts of Fairlight and Roland Jupiter 8 on the falsetto soul of ‘Fingertips’ and Russell got to impersonate Gene Pitney on ‘Rosebud’.
The front woman of synthpop act SSQ who had a US dance hit with ‘Synthicide’ in 1983, Stacey Q may have begun as a ‘Shy Girl’ but with its fair number of tunes as good as ‘Two Of Hearts’ like sister song ‘Insecurity’ and the more Jam & Lewis influenced ‘Music Out Of Bounds’, her debut album ‘Better Than Heaven’ is a reminder how fun and carefree pop music once was and should still be. The album remains a collection of wonderfully innocent escapism.
‘Cry & Dance’, the debut EP by A THOUSAND MAD THINGS was the best long form release of 2025.
The solo synth vehicle of William Barradale, ‘Cry & Dance’ captured the lot of the tortured outsider navigating young manhood while threatened by homophobic ‘Local Guys’ as documented in the emotive tension of the same named song. The EP’s opening salvo ‘Wide Awake’ was an uplifting triumph that showed purveyors of generic darkwave a thing or two about songwriting and production, while ‘She’s On The Run’ brought ‘The Sound Of The Crowd’ into the 21st Century in a fitting artistic gesture having opened for THE HUMAN LEAGUE on Brighton Beach.
A THOUSAND MAD THINGS begins 2026 with a brand new single ‘Promises’ as a trailer to his new EP out later this year. Its 5 tracks were premiered live at the London new music evening Release Me last November. Although a natural progression from ‘Cry & Dance’, it dials down on its more obvious nostalgic reminiscences.
While William Barradale can count TEARS FOR FEARS, THE HUMAN LEAGUE, DEPECHE MODE, THE BLUE NILE, ASSOCIATES and the less well-known VITAMIN Z (who opened for Midge Ure on ‘The Gift’ tour in 1985) among his influences, ‘Promises’ goes a bit deeper and catches the bouncy rhythmic snap of THE CURE during their fantasy phase to exude an artful pop demeanour. Despite being hurt once and hurt twice, the visual accompaniment shows Barradale fingers crossed in a disused warehouse, mournfully reflecting that “I’d never break the promises I chose to make that night”.
With the likes of Ricky Wilde and Andy Bell’s Torsten collaborator Barney Ashton-Bullock offering their compliments to A THOUSAND MAD THINGS on social media, things are looking promising for William Barradale in his shadowy journey through adolescent memories, doomed romances and loneliness.
1979 was a significant year where the sound of synth truly hit the mainstream.
TUBEWAY ARMY reached No1 with ‘Are Friends Electric?’ while the Giorgio Moroder produced ‘No1 Song In Heaven’ by SPARKS had actually got to No14 a few months earlier. Synths were no longer the novelty gimmick as perceived when ‘Popcorn’ and ‘Autobahn’ became hits. As synths became more affordable, they became a worthy mode of expression, especially for the younger generation seeking something new.
From Cherry Red comes an unexpected addition to their ‘Musik Music Musique’ series; subtitled ‘1979: The Roots of Synth Pop, this 3CD 60 track collection is a prequel tracing how outsider aesthetics, prog rock, post-punk and a willingness to experimental clashed with pop sensibilities to produce a sonic sandwich of accessible electronic music.
The two gamechanging UK No1s ‘Are Friends Electric?’ and ‘Cars’ are both included and even today, how Gary Numan changed the musical landscape cannot be understated although notably absent are SPARKS. It is not insignificant that both continue to fill theatres today.
The sound of synth being the next big thing would be confirmed by THE BUGGLES also hitting the UK top spot not long after ‘Cars’ while ‘Living By Numbers’ by NEW MUSIK issued as 1979 was concluding would just miss out on the Top10 in the New Year; but both their respective leaders Trevor Horn and Tony Mansfield were astute enough to recognise their longevity as unlikely popstars would be short and they would make their fortune as record producers. Incidentally, the first released version of ‘Video Killed The Radio Star’ by Bruce Woolley featuring Thomas Dolby on keyboards in a welcome inclusion and while it is good, THE BUGGLES’ sharper futuristic vision gives it the edge.
Another future producer figuring in this 1979 set is Zeus B Held with his self-referencing ‘Held It’ timestamping the transitional use of synths and vocoders in prog rock to new wave pop, something which his production for Gina X on ‘Nice Mover’ would more than wonderfully compute in its Marlene-inspired disco lento.
THE HUMAN LEAGUE are represented by the mighty ‘Blind Youth’, the best track from their debut album ‘Reproduction’ which attacked the raincoat wearing gloom merchants of England’s North West. But the pointer to the futures of original members Philip Oakey, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh comes with ‘I Don’t Depend On You’, their one-off as THE MEN which came out a few months before ‘Reproduction’; a fairly commercial slice of disco pop, it featured real guitar, bass, drums and female backing singers in a prescient experiment that after the split of the band shaped the next incarnation of Ver League and HEAVEN 17.
While acknowledged cult classics such OMD’s ‘Almost’, ‘Rock Around The Clock’ by TELEX, SILICON TEENS’ cover of ‘Memphis Tennessee’, FAD GADGET’s ‘Back To Nature’ and ‘Attack Decay’ from Thomas Leer & Robert Rental are present and correct, the joy from these boxed sets comes with the inclusion of rare tracks.
Two of the most interesting come via the ULTRAVOX axis although neither could be considered the best works from those concerned. From VISAGE comes the less familiar vocal version of ‘Frequency 7’ which was the B-side of their first single ‘Tar’ and would be turned into a far superior instrumental dance mix. John Foxx presents a curio documenting him still finding his solo feet on ‘Young Love’, a bizarre track which was actually pressed as an acetate in 1979. It was even assigned a Virgin catalogue number but was later abandoned as a possible single, superseded first by ‘A New Kind Of Man’ which itself was ultimately dropped as a singular release in favour of ‘Underpass’.
Two enjoyable tracks which perhaps would now be accused of racial insensitivity are by QUANTUM JUMP and BLACK ROD; the former’s ‘Lone Ranger’ with its unforgettable Maori vocal intro was championed by Kenny Everett who used it on his TV show while the frantic electropop of ‘Going To The Country’ by the latter with its faux Jamaican accents is revealed to be the novelty cod reggae duo TYPICALLY TROPICAL who had a No1 in 1975 with ‘Barbados’!!! Less successful in the mock accent stakes is ‘Herr Wunderbar’ by St Albans-based Tanya Hyde which plays on the electro Weimar Cabaret theme but unfortunately, she is no Amanda Lear and the song is no ‘Follow Me’… it was to be her only solo single…
There is a nice surprise in the vocoder-laden DOLLAR B-side ‘Star Control’ while from the first “live to digital” album ‘E=MC²’ by Giorgio Moroder is the robotic disco delight of the closing title track with its vocodered credits that include “tea and coffee by Lori”. The adoption of devices such an rhythm units was something of an anti-rock ‘n’ roll statement and nothing can sum up this sentiment more than ‘Making Love With My Wife’, a quirky ode to the joys of marital sex by Henry Badowski that later appeared on Virgin Records electronic music collection ‘Machines’. Another artist appearing on that same 1980 compilation was Karel Fialka and he is represented by ‘Armband’, a track co-produced by Wally Brill who did the same duties for, yes, you’ve guessed it, Henry Badowski!
There are lesser known offerings by M, YELLO and the first line-up of FASHIØN but from the US comes an interesting quartet of tracks that shows the other side of the Atlantic was not all about the horrendous AOR of BOSTON and JOURNEY; THE CARS always had synths as a rogue element of their initial new wave sound and that is encapsulated by ‘Night Spots’, but produced by their leader Ric Ocasek, SUICIDE’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’ is still glorious.
‘Strange Pursuit’ is a good example of DEVO’s move towards more electronic instrumentation, but heavily influenced by Akron’s finest and not to be confused with the late member of German duo CLUSTER, ‘Mirror Of Infinity’ by American art rock band MOEBIUS is something of an icy jewel and deserves this recusing from obscurity.
Sweden would become a major adopter of synths in pop and the start of that nation’s journey is represented by ‘Oh Susie’, the debut single by SECRET SERVICE; setting the template for Europop, it was a Top10 in West Germany, Norway and Denmark as well as reaching No1 in their own country. Lead singer Ola Håkansson would later go on to duet with Agnetha Fältskog of ABBA on her own synth-laden solo songs ‘The Way You Are’ and ‘Fly Like The Eagle’.
Before ‘Miami Vice’, Jan Hammer had his self-referencing rock combo and he provides the spacey curio ‘Forever Tonight’ voiced by Glen Burtnick while having already left prog rockers GONG in 1975, Steve Hillage was incorporating more electronics alongside his guitar as exemplified by ‘Don’t Dither Do It’. Reinforcing the connection between prog and synth, another former GONG member Tim Blake teams up with Jean Phillipe Rykiel for the mystic and frankly bizarre ‘New Jerusalem’!
Tucked away towards the end of the set but undoubtedly the most epic even in single edit form, ‘Rheinita’ by NEU! offshoot LA DÜSSELDORF went Top3 in West Germany and is basically the OMD blueprint for ‘Architecture & Morality’ album; as Andy McCluskey himself said “People always talk to us about KRAFTWERK, and obviously, they were hugely important. But there was another element from Düsseldorf that influenced us, and that was the organic side which was firstly NEU! and then LA DÜSSELDORF…”
As with the previous ‘Musik Music Musique’ sets, there are a few clangers so it would be remiss not to mention these; the main audio one in this 1979 collection is the inclusion of the 1982 single remix of JAPAN’s ‘Life In Tokyo’ with the more prominent fretless bass overdubs by Mick Karn. On the Japanese “theme”, lessons still have not been learnt from previous booklets with regards photos and LANDSCAPE are pictured in their hit futurist jumpsuit guise as opposed to the jazz rock band seen in transition on ‘Tomorrow’s World’ at the time performing ‘Japan’, the track included in this set. Incidentally, the band who influenced this track YELLOW MAGIC ORCHESTRA deserved inclusion, especially as the iconic trio were featured in a previous set and released their best album ‘Solid State Survivor’ in 1979 as well.
Meanwhile, a blond ‘Replicas’ era Gary Numan when he would have been suited and dark haired by the time of ‘Cars’ is in the booklet while the 1978 punk quartet incarnation of TUBEWAY ARMY represents the ‘Are Friends Electric?’ period which is totally wrong! And the quintet line-up of VISAGE from 1982 is pictured rather than the original 1979 septet who appeared in the now iconic Blitz Club photo taken by Sheila Rock.
Elsewhere, QUANTUM JUMP are mysteriously represented by a trio including bassist John G Perry but which does not include key members Rupert Hine and Trevor Morais who would both later go on to work with Howard Jones! At least there, one member was featured because whoever the quintet are in the photo of DALEK I, none are Alan Gill or Dave Hughes! Unlike in 1979, there is the internet now available as an initial info source and numerous real life experts around to fact check with, so this really doesn’t not take much effort to get right! If in doubt, then don’t use the photo!?!
In 1979, “Synth Pop” was yet to be a thing and with over 60 tracks, there is a mish-mash of styles with the common factor of the synth making itself heard to explore how the form was developing. For that eclectic reason alone, ‘Musik Music Musique: 1979 – The Roots of Synth Pop’ is probably the most fascinating of the four volumes to date.
They were DIE UNBEKANNTEN but in 1984, they were no longer “unknown” as they changed their name to SHARK VEGAS ahead of a European tour opening for NEW ORDER.
Founded by Berlin-based Englanders Mark Reeder and Alistair Gray, SHARK VEGAS moved towards a more electronic HI-NRG disco direction after the doom-laden post-punk excursions of DIE UNBEKANNTEN, freshly influenced by Die Mauerstadt’s domestic club scene.
Adding Leo Walter and Helmut Wittler from the German band SOIF DE LA VIE to the line-up, the one and only SHARK VEGAS single ‘You Hurt Me’ was released on DIE TOTEN HOSEN’s label Totenkopf in 1984 before being remixed by Bernard Sumner for release by Factory Records in 1986.
The very immediate ‘Love Habit’ was premiered with a special video in 1985 on Berlin’s Glienicke Brücke which had a checkpoint that divided East and West; the occasion was to launch the new British cable music channel Music Box, but the song itself would remain unavailable until the soundtrack to Reeder’s documentary film ‘B-Movie (Lust & Sound in West Berlin 79-89)’ was issued in 2015.
SHARK VEGAS material has been scarce until now… the Japanese label Suezan Studio has issued an albums worth of material on CD as a tie in with their release of DIE UNBEKANNTEN’s ‘Don’t Tell Me Stories’ packaged in a 7” x 7” 130 page full-colour book; the SHARK VEGAS CD ‘You Hurt Me’ contains live tracks and original demos of songs, some of which were most recently re-recorded by Reeder with Lithuanian singer Alanas Chosnau and solo for the soundtrack to Hermann Vaske’s documentary film ‘Can Creativity Save the World?’; both available separately, if ordered together as a bundle, there is a bonus CD-R gathering further mixes of ‘You Hurt Me’ included.
Having previously discussed DIE UNBEKANNTEN in 2023 as part of the ‘Missing In Action’ series, Mark Reeder chatted to ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK about swimming the turbulent waters with SHARK VEGAS in his role as The Mancunian Candidate…
How does it finally feel to get a SHARK VEGAS long form release? there’s 11 songs and a KISS cover, but was there much material in your archives?
It was a lovely surprise and a great honour to be asked by Kaoru of Suezan Studio if I would allow him to release DIE UNBEKANNTEN and SHARK VEGAS in Japan on CD. Initially, he thought it would be just one CD album of our 12” inch singles, coupled with a few live tracks, but I had some demos, and I had already written an extensive booklet about our Cold War escapades of trying to be a band and our activities playing in the Eastern Bloc.
So, I suggested that he make a special edition 100-page booklet, with photos and text to accompany the CD. This has become the limited deluxe edition of ‘Don’t Tell Me Stories’, which had only been previously released by Vinyl-on-Demand in 2007 as an LP, and because I now had more room, I could expand the track-list on the CD to include upgraded versions and demos. That also meant that SHARK VEGAS would also get its own CD release.
Although, apart from the two 12” inch Singles and one compilation track, we didn’t have that much SHARK VEGAS material to be honest, we did have plenty of dodgy demo tapes, and a few live sets on cassettes, and generally their quality varied from bad to worse. A lot of restoration work was required.
Photo by Irmgard Schmitz
How did the Japanese Suezan label become interested in releasing it?
I had been performing in Osaka as the opening DJ for NEW ORDER, and was scheduled to DJ in Alffo Record Shop… naturally being a vinyl junkie, I also went around to as many record shops as I could find, and I was browsing in the amazing Forever Records in the Shinsaibashi-Namba area of downtown Osaka, when the owner Satoru Higashiseto politely asked me if I was Mark Reeder, and then said, his friend had a label called Suezan Studio (who I actually knew about from his CD releases of other Berlin artists like DIE TÖDLICHER DORIS or DIN-A-TESTBILD). He said his pal was interested in licensing DIE UNBEKANNTEN and SHARK VEGAS for Japan.
The label owner Kaoru was apparently very proud to have original copies of all our EPs. He contacted me, and we discovered we had many mutual friends. He definitely knew his stuff and it just felt like Suezan Studio was the right home for my records.
When do you consider the moment that SHARK VEGAS became an actual entity?
Well, we changed our band name from DIE UNBEKANNTEN to SHARK VEGAS specifically for the NEW ORDER European Tour in 1984, so I guess our inception was March 1984. We also acquired two new members for that tour in Leo Walter and Helmut Wittler, both formerly of SOIF DE LA VIE, who had previously released their Hi-NRG song ‘Goddess of Love’, which had become a club hit, but they got stitched-up by their singer and she took all the credit, which deflated their hit-seeking ego somewhat. Joining SHARK VEGAS was a welcome escape for them.
I thought being a foursome would make for a better live presentation. Leo had performed the percussion on our original studio demo of ‘You Hurt Me’ and it seemed natural to ask him if he wanted to accompany us on tour. Helmut could play bass and keyboards, and he looked good with his shirt off, and he was the only one of us who had a driving license.
The collection contains numerous versions of the only official SHARK VEGAS single ‘You Hurt Me’, why was that chosen to be recorded? It has a story on its own which involves Conny Plank and then Bernard Sumner?
Yes. We had already recorded a studio demo of ‘You Hurt Me’ as DIE UNBEKANNTEN with Leo on percussion, that was a few months before we were asked to go on tour with NEW ORDER. I sent this fresh studio demo to Bernard Sumner, who really liked it and he offered to produce it, and said maybe Factory Records would release it. It all sounded promising. Rob Gretton suggested we could do the mixdown during the few days break we had on the tour, and he booked us into Conny Plank’s legendary studio near Cologne. We were all so excited. All my favourite Krautrock artists had recorded something with Conny Plank and I was secretly hoping he would spread some of his magic over our music.
The session was a painful nightmare, and in the end, Bernard spent most of the time trying to get his mix to sound like our demo. We made about six mixes and none were what we really wanted. It was very frustrating. I always wanted the song to sound more like our original “Unbekannten” first draft, which we recorded in our practice room. It had lashings of Korg Poly6 arpeggiator sequencers and synths, but by the time we got it into Musiclab studio, we had a new synth and 808 drum machine, and the song had become more professional – which is the studio demo mix which was eventually released on the Factory version 12” Single.
In the end, after the disastrous Conny Plank experience, we made the final mixdown in Strawberry Studio in Stockport, Manchester with Bernard and Donald Johnson from A CERTAIN RATIO. All the mix versions were then split between Totenkopf Records and Factory. While compiling tracks for these CDs, I discovered our original practice-room demo version, which I included on DIE UNBEKANNTEN ‘Don’t Tell Me Stories’ CD.
Would ‘Love Habit’ not have been a better choice as a debut single as that was more immediate or did you not think in commercial terms? How close did ‘Love Habit’ come to getting an official release at the time?
Probably, but we hadn’t finished writing ‘Love Habit’ by that point. After the NEW ORDER tour, we recorded a very shoddy demo of ‘Love Habit’ at Musiclab studio, which we used for the Musicbox video performance on the Glienicke Brücke (Bridge of Spies), but by then Leo and Helmut were already planning on leaving the band. The song would only be properly recorded and produced after Michael Schamberg asked us to contribute a song to his forthcoming FACTUS compilation ‘Young Popular & Sexy’.
When you were asked to tour with NEW ORDER, do you think you were ready? The live recordings included on the album indicate that you sounded ok at the time?
I suppose we were as ready as we were ever going to be, given the amount of time we had to prepare. We acquired our two new members in Leo and Helmut only a few weeks before the tour and we wrote a few new songs with them and practiced every day. I recorded all our drum machine sounds and sequencers onto 4 track tape, as the MC202 sequencer was far too temperamental to take on tour. As we didn’t really have that many new songs, we padded out our set with a couple of reworks of DIE UNBEKANNTEN’s old songs like ‘Perfect Love’ and ‘Don’t Tell Me Stories’. After our first gig on this tour, Karl Bartos told us, he thought we were better than the main act, he might have just been sarcastic, but it encouraged us immensely.
Photo by Wayne Arents
What synths and things were you using in SHARK VEGAS? Was the technology was enabling you to get more sophisticated sounds and ideas down quicker?
Not really. Preset sound synths were becoming more and more popular and I wasn’t a fan. It was fashionable to have a DX7 or Korg Poly800, but I liked to discover or create my own synth sounds by fiddling about. We had gone from just having the Roland 606, an MS20, a Moog and a Transcendent 2000, to more polyphonic synths like Korg Poly 6, Roland 106, MC202 and SH9 but we also had a Korg Poly800, a Casio and a Roland 808 drum machine and clap trap. Later, we had a proper Korg sequencer and a Roland 707 + 727, but we didn’t use them live, Leo used a Simmons kit with a click track, I played the Poly6, or Roland 106 and Helmut played the Poly800.
The “disco time” of ‘Undercover Lover’ showed a lot of potential, how did that come together and why the “006” reference?
We lived in the ultimate Cold War city. Berlin was the spy capital of the World. The place where the Third World War was supposedly, going to start. Our lives were constantly running against this narrative. Being Brits in Berlin and not in the Army, we were shrouded in suspicion and constantly aware that people considered us agents of some sort, and they didn’t know what the hell to make of us, especially in the East half of the city, where we spent a lot of time.
The East German Stasi thought my agenda was to subvert the youth of East Germany. ‘Undercover Lover’ is about falling victim to the honey-trap. Which we had personally encountered. 006 is a play on words. In German it is pronounced “Oh-Oh-Sex”. It is a hidden warning!
We were also regulars at the Metropol, Europe’s biggest gay disco at the time. We went every Friday and Saturday night. It was a very inspiring place. I had taken Bernard Sumner there in the early 80s and a while later, ‘Blue Monday’ was born. We too were inspired by the emerging Hi-NRG scene and we wanted to upgrade our sound and style, to make it more amusing and not as depressive as DIE UNBEKANNTEN.
Whose idea was it to do ‘I Was Made For Loving You’, what was the process of arranging it?
Well, I must confess that was my idea. I had seen KISS perform in Manchester in 1976, which was the first time they had ever played in the UK, and from that moment I was hooked. My fascination stopped after their ‘Dynasty’ album though, as I thought that was their pinnacle.
I loved ‘I Was Made for Loving You’ and I still think it is their best song. I thought it might be a laugh to make a high-energy-DEAD-OR-ALIVEy version for our live sets, as we had always had a cover version of something in our sets as DIE UNBEKANNTEN. We unleashed our corrupted cover versions of songs like; ‘When You’re Young and In Love’, or ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ and with SHARK VEGAS, we either performed our version of ‘Heaven’s in the Back Seat of My Cadillac’ or… ‘I Was Made for Loving You’; No live version of ‘Heaven’s in the Back Seat…’ has survived.
We first performed ‘I Was Made for Loving You’ at the Weisse Rose in Berlin as an encore, and the audience went completely bonkers, thereafter it became a permanent fixture in our live sets. Sadly, that first Weisse Rose recording was far too poor to restore, maybe one day AI will be able to dissect it enough and I will be able to reconstruct it to sound presentable. We recorded a studio demo of ‘I Was Made…’ just to see if it would work as a cover version. It was nowhere near where I really wanted to take it, as my ability was compromised by my lack of producer knowledge. It was basically our live version, recorded.
Photo by Irmgard Schmitz
‘Pretenders Of Love’ was the only other SHARK VEGAS track that got officially released back in the day? How did that come to be fully formed and included on that Factory US compilation ‘Young, Popular & Sexy’?
To present the Factory US label in America, Michael Schamberg was putting a compilation together of new or lesser-known Factory artists like; THE HAPPY MONDAYS, DURUTTI COLUMN, ACR or STOCKHOLM MONSTERS, and after the positive reception of ‘You Hurt Me’ in the USA, he wanted something new and unreleased from us for ‘Young, Popular & Sexy’.
We produced two songs in the studio, and he had the choice between ‘Pretenders Of Love’ or ‘Love Habit’, and he chose ‘Pretenders’. I guess he thought American audiences would be able to identify with it easier; ‘Love Habit’ was far too Hi-NRG for his tastes.
Of the previously unreleased tracks included, which ones have stood up in your opinion after 40 years?
Probably ‘Love Habit’, ‘Undercover Lover’ and ‘Ice’, but also other songs that initially never left the practice demo stage like ‘I Can’t Share This Feeling’ and ‘Lovers of the World’ have seemingly stood the test of time, which I recorded recently for the albums ‘Children of Nature’ or ‘Can Creativity Save the World?’.
How was the reconstruction aspect for you and your studio partner Micha Adam, were there any rules you set yourselves or did you let a few modern-day tweaks come in like artificial intelligence?
Micha and I just wanted to try and get it to sound as good as we could from the sources we had to use. We only had the cassette tapes to work from, as all the original 16 track and 2 track master tapes had been destroyed in 1990. Although I had kept the cassettes in fairly favourable conditions, they still had never been played for 40 years, and when the tapes are degraded and riddled with blips, breaks and drop-outs, it is very time consuming trying to find ways to reconstruct the sound. We didn’t use any AI on any of the restoration work though, everything was done by hand.
Was SHARK VEGAS more challenging than DIE UNBEKANNTEN with 4 people involved? When and how did it all come to an end?
It was more of a collaboration effort to write songs like ‘Undercover Lover’ or ‘Heartbeat’ and there were a lot of compromises involved. I don’t mind making compromises if it is to the benefit of the song, but to be honest, I personally wasn’t too happy with the sound direction we were heading, especially after Helmut and Leo wanted a sax solo on ‘Heartbeat’. It was far too Kenny G conventional and coffee-table for my musical tastes.
We were already drifting away from the synth-rock-disco sound that I thought gave us a particular individual sound-style. I didn’t mind being poppy, but Leo and Helmut desperately wanted a hit, and they thought we could create one by making that compromise. They seemed prepared to do anything in the hope of being accepted by the radio stations. I thought it was like clutching at straws. I liked being in our synth-rock-disco niche.
This naturally caused a rift between us and what is usually described as so-called “musical differences” ended up dismembering the band. Helmut and Leo were still members of SOIF DE LA VIE and they wanted to pursue their own musical agenda. So, they left the week after we controversially won the Berlin Senat’s Rock Wettbewerb (rock competition). Alistair stuck it out for a while longer in Berlin, but after the release of ‘Young Popular & Sexy’, he too, eventually decided to return to the UK. After which, I started ALIEN NATION with Leo in 1987 to make Acid House.
If you had a time machine, how might you have approached SHARK VEGAS differently?
If I would be able to take the insight and knowledge as a producer from today with me, I would definitely want SHARK VEGAS to be more sequencer-synth driven, with dramatic disco-drums, and arpeggiators. In fact, just like the sound and style of the music I make today.
ELECTRICITYCLUB.CO.UK gives its warmest thanks to Mark Reeder
Mark Reeder will be DJing with Gudrun Gutat as part of ‘David Bowie in Time: Just a Cabaret’, a special celebratory event at The British Library in London on Saturday 17th January 2026, also appearing will be Blixa Bargeld, Nikko Weidemann, Daniel Brandt and Jehnny Beth – tickets are available from https://events.bl.uk/events/david-bowie-in-time-just-a-cabaret
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