Listening to...

[Andrew Robinson]

Hello 'barians

Inspired by Tom's post, here's what's been on heavy rotation in Worcester
UK recently:

Ambidextrous "Armchair Raver" - I'm not really sure how to describe this.
Melodic rave, perhaps? Arovane with breakbeats and a 303? Energetic
ambient? All I can really say is that when It finishes, I tend to put it on
again.
Listen here: https://pulse-state.bandcamp.com/album/armchair-raver

Information Society "Synthesiser" - recently I've been digging through what
bands I half-liked in the 80s have been doing in the intervening decades,
and I found this gem from 2007. Unapologetic anthemic retro synth pop,
catchy melodies and a feeling that this is a band that's made their peace
with not having top 10 hits and are just making music that they want to
make. If you're fed up with diminishing returns from each new Erasure,
Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys album, give this a spin:
https://informationsociety.bandcamp.com/album/synthesizer

xPropaganda "The Heart is Strange" - Propaganda's Claudia and Suzanne are
reunited with Steve Lipson for an album released on ZTT after a 38 year
gap. This might have been a disaster, but I'm happy to report that if, like
me, you're still hankering for a truly worthy follow-up to 1985's "A Secret
Wish", then this is it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LbjI2bJrhE&list=OLAK5uy_kFtUvZ8aGl76MakbdHRZimtLdwIByCdrA
...and of course being ZTT there's a choice of red or black vinyl (with or
without limited edition print) CD, CD with bonus tracks (signed or
unsigned), double CD with instrumental mixes, or surround sound SACD. Or
all the above. And the separately released booklet. And the limited edition
t-shirts...

Hybrid 'Patreon Pack 1 and 2'
https://www.patreon.com/HybridBandUK/posts
I can't share the music for this one but I still wanted to share how great
Hybrid's patreon is - The band's work-rate is incredible, there are discord
chats on a regular basis (the band are literally on first name terms with
their patreons), you get all their new stuff, first, in 24-bit, exclusive
tracks, mixes, bootlegs, video tours of their farm, drunken cocktail recipe
live-streams, studio tours and gear chat. Last month, we got the raw audio
from their orchestral recording sessions for the last album, in 24-bit.
This month though they have exceeded all expectations. The fans had a
discussion on 'lost tracks' that Hybrid have remixed over the 20 or so
years, some of which were unreleased, others only heard once in a DJ set 15
years ago, others only ever appeared as promos or as 128k mp3s... the band
have spent 2 weeks going through their archives and have given us two
massive data dumps containing everything we asked for and more from their
archives, over 5 Gb of data, 50 tracks totalling 7 hours of music, all at
master quality, and they are not done yet!
If you're a fan, sign up. If not, give their mix of Losers "Summertime
Rolls" a listen here:
https://soundcloud.com/hybridbanduk/losers-summertime-rolls for a taste of
what you're missing.

I'll wrap this up with an honourable mention for "Say No!" by Wolfgang Flür
featuring Maps. I could have put Kraftwerk in my diminishing returns list
above, after forking out for a double CD of remixes to get 1 decent new
track (an alternate, much slower take on Music Non-stop), and I've given up
following most of their ex-members output. Wolfgang's album "Magazine 1"
was a bit patchy, predictably cheesy sub-kraftwerk noodling mostly, but
tucked away at the end of the album is a collaboration with an ambient
guitarist that somehow manages to recapture the brilliance of Kraftwerk at
their best:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PsZMLCfzQA

- Andy_R
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