Really gorgeous, stripped-down new wave and punk-tinged pop rock recorded between 1979 and 1983 and then self-released as a double vinyl in 1984–the trio’s only full-length. Though Dolly Mixture’s sound hits a sweet spot between punk and girl-group pop (unsurprisingly, as the story goes that the band was born from a mutual love of The Undertones and The Shangri-Las), the three actively pushed back against Chrysalis Records’s attempt to market them as a girl group, keeping their sound loose and lo-fi and their songs short and sweet.
This is more rock-centric than what we usually post around here, but that’s what I grew up listening to, and I’ll always love it. Demonstration Tapes has an immediate appeal: swooning harmonies, sophisticated top lines, and a room-tone warmth slightly ahead of The Vaselines and Beat Happening. Disarming in how dry and direct (but still irrefutably pretty) it is. Good for fans of Marine Girls. Kurt Cobain would have loved this. I’m always surprised it doesn’t get tossed around more. Ideal late summer headphones music.
Michael Shrieve with Kevin Shrieve & Klaus Schulze – Transfer Station Blue, 1984
Classic. Michael Shrieve is a drummer who was one of the founding members of the original Santana band and is featured on their first eight records. I haven’t spent enough time with his other work to have a sense for it, but Klaus Schulze feels like the dominant force behind Transfer Station Blue–it sounds squarely like guitary Berlin school, using Shrieve’s insistent percussion as a vessel with which to drive Schulze’s pulsing, icy synth work (as well as guitar from Kevin Shrieve, who may or may not be Michael’s brother). The two long tracks (“Communique – ‘Approach Spiral'” and the title track) are the centerpieces, both using long, tense build-ups and ominous arpeggiations to propel to a particularly anthemic release on the title track. The two shorter tracks, “Nucleotide” and “View From the Window,” explore more kosmische and new age territory, though they’re still plenty sinister. Good for fans of Double Fantasy (guys, that record is so good, go listen to it), or of anything slick and shivery and German.
Alexander Robotnick – Ce N’est Q’un Début, 1984
Classic. Maurizio Dami (aka Alexander Robotnick) went on to collaborate with traditional musicians from India, Algeria, and Kurdistan; release music for transcendental meditation; give Florence its first ambient music festival; and start a label, as well as release a slew of electro and disco records, though it’s his first release that most people remember for its unabashed, almost grotesque dance floor classics. Relentless and completely disinterested in taking itself seriously. Enjoy!
Ray Lynch – Deep Breakfast, 1984
A classic. Deep Breakfast was the first independently produced record to be certified gold (and later platinum) by the RIAA. Lynch is a classically trained guitarist and lutenist with a background in spirituality (the record’s title comes from a line in a book by controversial teacher Adi Da Samraj, under whom Lynch has studied: “You must be starved, old friend. Come into my apartments and we’ll suffer through a deep breakfast of pure sunlight.”).
Deep Breakfast is meticulously produced and instantly likable from beginning to end, so much so that it’s a bit of an eye-roller. From what I understand it served as a new age gateway drug for hordes of listeners, but it’s unusually diverse for the genre. Opener “Celestial Soda Pop” is exactly what it sounds like: plump, bubbly, and candy-sweet with synthetic harp. “The Oh Of Pleasure” is sublime and sounds like what might have happened if Enya were more interested in electric guitar patches (you may recognize it from Grand Theft Auto IV). “Falling In The Garden” is ponderous and pastoral, whereas “Rhythm In The Pews” is unabashedly playful, almost naïve, with hyper-precious baroque-isms (this is one of several tracks in which Lynch’s classical background is most obvious). Closer “Tiny Geometries” is another favorite, with a Charles Cohen-esque shattered crystal introduction that unfolds into more familiar arpeggiations and eventually a searing new age epic. An excellent on-repeat record, and hard not to love.
Hildegard von Bingen – A Feather on the Breath of God, 1984
Saint Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 17 September 1179) was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, poet, doctor, visionary, Christian mystic, and polymath. She founded the practice of scientific natural history in Germany, lived to the age of 81 at a time when the life expectancy was early 40s at best, and wrote the oldest surviving morality play (sometimes called the first musical drama). Despite having no formal musical training, she was responsible for some of the most hauntingly beautiful and enduring music to come out of medieval Catholicism. Her compositions broke many of the existing conventions of plainchant, using extremes of register, dramatic leaps of pitch, melismas and flourishes to express rhapsodic, overflowing emotion. Sublime delivery of this collection of her songs by UK ensemble Gothic Voices and soprano Emma Kirkby, globally renowned early music specialist. Perfect hurricane soundtrack music.
King Sunny & His African Beats – Aura, 1984
Aura was the last album from jùjú music pillar King Sunny Adé before he left Island Records, purportedly because of increasing pressure to westernize his sound. You can hear it, too–Aura is much beefier than his other two Island releases, the classics Juju Music and Synchro System. It’s plumped up and pulsing with drum machines, electro beats, and synth samples–arguably not a bad thing. King Sunny Adé was the first to introduce the pedal steel guitar to Nigerian pop music, and it shines here on top of a dense flurry of percussion, thanks to six percussionists and plenty of talking drum. Featuring a Stevie Wonder harmonica solo on “Ase,” and Tony Allen on drums in “Oremi,” this is not traditional jùjú music, but the endlessly rolling, meditative grooves and the joy are still there in full force. A perfect summer record. Thanks for playing this for me in your car, Kat!
Wally Badarou – Echoes, 1984
Wally Badarou is a legend. Paris-born and Benin-raised, he was part of the Compass Point Studios in-house recording team in the Bahamas; was a session musician for Grace Jones, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Herbie Hancock, Level 42, Black Uhuru, Gwen Guthrie, Robin Scott, Talking Heads, Tom-Tom Club, Robert Palmer, and Manu Dibango; and produced for Fela Kuti, Salif Keita, and Marianne Faithfull, among many, many others. Echoes is an entirely instrumental, almost comically smooth piece of electronic funk wizardry. You’ve probably heard the single “Chief Inspector” in a million DJ sets, but the whole album is mixtape ready. Take it to the beach, y’all.
Steve Roach – Structures From Silence, 1984
An all-time favorite. The most precise new age record I’ve ever heard. Searingly emotive, but without all that sloppy human feelings stuff. It sounds as if Steve Roach didn’t even write this so much as channel it. Not on Youtube. Enjoy :}