Factor 10-Ever Since You Went Away

D.H.S.S.-Together

Synthetic Romance is chalk full of emerging synth-pop artists from the early 80’s. Dark Entries has digitalized the origianl LP and has made it available for download below.  The back cover of the album reads:

“Synthetic Romance – for people wanting a collection of modern and futuristic music. The groups are varied, from all parts of the country and all walks of life, with one thing in common – the synthesizer – perhaps the most sophisticated instrument of our century.”

Synthetic Romance can be downloaded in its entirety Here

Here’s World Domination Enterprises with their unique brand of hillbilly industrial rock. Sounds like two VW Beetles, filled with sneering, be-mulleted youths, colliding head-on, cigarettes and empty spray cans everywhere. WDE were actually infamous for covering L.L. Cool James’s “I Can’t Live Without My Radio”, but the track is impossible to hunt down. I’m sure the meeting of dissonant guitars and the dope rhymes of “Ladies Love Cool James” was glorious. Any clues as to its whereabouts are welcome.

Richard Greenan.

Like electro-punk luminaries Suicide, Dutch darkwavers Minny Pops were part electronic rock band, part art project. Their first single, “Kojak”, a combo of old school Korg drum machine, new wave bassline and darkly humorous, noiry spoken word, established their reputation in the art-rock scene. Soon after, they’d be supporting Joy Division in Eindhoven and the Factory Club in Manchester.

Check out this video for the song “Time”, a pretty trivial song name considering Wally Van Middendorp, the dark brains behind Minny Pops, has released songs with names like “We’re Glad Elvis Is Dead” and “Daddy Is My Pusher”:

Mx-80 sound are the band no one has heard about but everyone rips off–I’m looking at you Sonic Youth. Hailing from the culturally insular area of Indiana in the 70’s, Mx-80 sound created the blue print for the now famous No-Wave scene in new york. For a band from Indiana, one wouldn’t expect all the paranoia and dread that these guys manage to wrangle out of their guitars. Although the vocals are a little flat, often spoken, Mx-80’s start and stop guitars coupled with the occasional skronking sax sounds just as fresh as it did thirty years ago.

Jasmine_Love_Bomb-From_Last_Summer

The Psychedelic post-punk outfit Jasmine Love Bomb formed in the late 80’s (86′-89′) in Lowell, Massachusetts. At their first rehearsal they broke out into a version of Pink Floyd’s “Astronomy Domian” later realizing they had all knew the song prior. They put out a four song tape in 89′ that was somewhat sucessful winning”Tape Of The Year” in The Bob magazine. Their music has also appeared on the compilations ‘A Psychedelic Psauna’ and ‘Fun With Mushrooms’, both on the Uk label Delerium Records.
Open the post to download 4 of their tracks and listen to their take on acid-soaked post-punk.

Nine Circles-What’s there left

Piture Book-Success

Our buddy Unkle Alex over at the blog Death Wears White Socks puts together these cool mixes of a bunch of rad obscured 80’s groups, stream a few tracks  from the mix above, and download the whole thing below. Im a sucker for vintage analog sounds and had to download this one myself, Unkle Alex keep em’ coming!!!

Download DWWS RIGHTNOW 2 HERE

Crutchfield’s post DNA outfit Dark Day recorded the incredible Window and released it back in 1982 a very rare release featuring dark minimal synths and aggressive wet timbres. Windows has been compared to the Martin Rev’s first solo album but cleaner sounding, you can download a portion of the album and buy the whole thing through Darken Tries Records here.

Single Bullet Theory-There is the Boy

(Open post to download full album)

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‘Hello. My name is Ohama, and I live on a potato farm in Western Canada.’ It’s hard not to smile during the deadpan opening of Tona Walt Ohama’s ‘The Drum’, but Ohama is deadly serious. Composing entirely from an underground studio beneath his parents’ potato farm in Rainier, Alberta, Ohama formed a one-man synthpop tour de force, putting out a handful of records in the mid 80s that became cult classics. Using then state-of-the-art keyboards, drum machines, vocoders and analogue reel tape, Ohama created complex, evolving songs. Found sounds such as dogs barking, lapping waves, and industrial machinery were blended with audio lifted from news reports and chatshows. Ohama then added his own abstract, cynical lyrics. The result was futuristic, paranoid, ’80s techno.