el! ef! oh!

What with Warp rereleasing 1991’s “Frequencies” by LFO, here’s some LFO rarities …The studio tracks all date from 1991, the live tracks were recorded 1992-01-18 @ “la Rave de la grande Arche – La défense – Paris” which also featured Laurent Garnier, Eric Rug and Jérôme Pacman. Co-organisers Libération & Fnac Music later launched “Live In Paris 18.1.1992 (La Grande Arche De La Défense)“, a six track mcd “hors commerce” in a rouge & noir sleeve by the Designers’ Republic™. Sadly, the boundary between tracks 4 & 5 wasn’t mastered properly on that mcd, with the intro of “LFO” starting at the end of “Sam & Dave“. The 5’43” version below does feature the correct intro, though, as reassembled from the original aiff files. Hey and do check Luke Vibert’s 2009 version of “LFO” as well, won’t you?

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bleep exorcist

It’s been over twenty years ago today when Richard H Kirk of Cabaret Voltaire teamed up with Richard Barratt aka dj Parrott for the Sweet Exorcist duo … where LFO met TAGC on acid … The duo’s 1990 & 1991 recordings for Warp – cat. no. WARP1 is their classic “Clonk’s Coming” album – have now been compiled on the “RetroActivity (When Everything’s Ready On The Dark Side Of The Moon Play The Five Tones)” 2cd (WARPCD218, 2011) which adds another six previously unreleased tracks from the same era, mostly early versions or alternate takes. The lyrics to “Per clonk 6 alt.” quote the Temptations’ “Message from a black man” (1969, written by Norman Whitfield & Barrett Strong). Hey and this is interesting too!

carol with snowy red and a machine or two

Absolutely wanted to play Carol‘s “Breakdown” for ya – a track I’d already mentioned in my Snowy Red post, as he’s backing her on this one. The track is also on the very excellent “A Man & A Machine III” v/a 2cd. The tracks by the Cabs, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Drinking Electricity are presented here in the compilers’ original sequence, just to show how well Stéphane Ritzenthaler and Philippe Pierre-Adolphe can create a musical flow, apart from having impeccable taste in eighties wave and avantgarde … Do check their “A Man & A Machine” series, I urge thee!

ye early human league

“Seconds” aside, the Rushent era Human League isn’t my favourite incarnation of the band. To, me that’s the Human League mk. 1 – the one that recorded “The Dignity Of Labour Pts. 1-4” and “The black hit of space” and a few odd covers (cf. the tracks below), predating the sound of Boards of Canada and other Warp acts by some twenty years – and all the acts that preceded it in the 1973-1978 period, e.g. the Future featuring Adi Newton. For more about the band’s history, check some of the videos here, there and everywhere, or retrieve my review of “The Golden Hour Of The Future” (Black Melody MELCD4) and accompanying 12″ (Black Melody MEL3, both 2002) in [uzine] 02.24 (U0224.txt in the zip / the reprint here isn’t complete at all) … Or consult any of these sites, obviously:
http://www.blindyouth.co.uk/
http://www.league-online.com/biography1.html
http://www.the-black-hit-of-space.dk/menu.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_League