Various - Some Bizzare Album

Crijevo, Jul 31, 2004

One of the earliest examples in the labels history, Some Bizzare Album collects various artists of which Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Blancmange and The The proved most accessible later on. The rest however remains forgotten either in time or on this compilation. Still it indulges the listener as much as it indulged the artists - synthesizers of all sorts pierce through, sometimes irresistably catchy and sometimes irritatingly repetitive... Here is a small reminder:

1. Blancmange - Sad Day; a nice moody instrumental owing much to Kraftwerks 70s ambiental pieces. Smoothing synth over a drum machine with occasional guitar sentiments. 5/5

2. Soft Cell - The Girl With the Patent Leather Face; a song continuing more in the avant-garde fashion of the duos previous, self-distributed Mutant Moments EP rather than the likes of Tainted Love. Raw and energetic with Almond and Balls sound escapades alike, the song reflects S/M imagery. Or so it seems anyway. 5/5

3. Neu Electrikk - Lust of Berlin; whether it is intentional or accidentally identical to Bauhaus, Neu Electrikk so desperately want to be another Bowie/Peter Murphy clones... Or at least thats the impression forced upon you by the singer. Interesting music, obscure enough to reflect its atmosphere of some pseudo-Gothic but in the end you get funk in a dead end street. 3/5

4. Naked Lunch - La Femme; albeit the most intriguing by the choice of name and starting a promising race of sequencers and melodies, La Femme is the most pretentious of the lot in here. By the time you counted it one minute it develops into a track similar to the likes of Ultravox/John Foxx. It carries constant lines like shes a follower of fashion, ... and shes got lot of clothes... well shes kind of sado-masochistic, wearing bright red surreal lipstick... which tries to be provocative but fails to intrigue the way it actually suggests. In the end you get bored. 2.4/5

5. The Fast Set - King of the Rumbling Spires; the choice of covering Marc Bolans song was explained by The Fast Sets Pete Farrugia that when they were going through a recording process, they werent sure they trusted Stevo - The Fast Set gave respectable gigs but it was Soft Cell Stevo decided to manage so The Fast Set felt deserted in the promotion area. For those who didnt know, The Fast Set were the first EVER band releasing a record for Ivo Watts-Russell (a pre-4AD single as Axis1 - Junction One) before settling into this sampler. King of the Rumbling Spires is a catchy synth-popper, reminding of early OMD experiments. A nice take with Farrugias neurotic voice which most of the time seems indecipherable as losing behind a wall of noise caused by the guitars. 4/5

6. The Loved One - Observations; respectfully, one of the darker sides to Some Bizzare, the group using found objects rather than standard instruments to list - nice, drowning ambience as if describing a lazy, suicidal Sunday afternoon. 5/5

7. Illustration - Tidal Flow; rather conventional quasi-New Romantic but equally as charming piece of music. Somewhere between Modern English, Ultravox and Our Daughters Wedding attempts. Nothing special but at least trying to be honest in their inspiration. 3/5

8. Depeche Mode - Photographic; for years this was a real obscurity and then, the re-release of The singles 1981-85 prostitued the Some Bizzare Version which became more accessible than the Speak & Spell version previously available to millions. Its quite funny listening to DM in such demonstrational way now - Photographic the way it sounds in here, proves more irritating than Just Cant Get Enough ever was, its obviously a demo and for the time I first collected it, I thought it was Vince Clarke singing, but they already recruited Dave Gahan. So distinction between the two existing official versions of Photographic lies somewhere in production - personally I rather prefer their debut album version, it definitely sounds more mature. But who am I to blame them, they were only seventeen when they recorded this... 3.2/5

8. The The; an untitled song of which legend has it Matt Johnson hates its guts - well, artists sometimes arent the great judges of their work, this is a confusing piece indeed, makes you wonder what the hell its supposed to be about but thats also the beauty of the experiment. A rather grey take, sinister bass along a synthdrum with Matts recognisably abstract frases. 4.4/5

9. B-Movie - Moles; B-Movie were about to become another of the successful UK acts in the wake of New Romantics but appearently their sound seems somewhat a copycat of already established bands I mentioned here and plan of mentioning them no more... Bouncingly poppy song without sense of adventure. 2.9/5

10. Jell - I Dare Say Itll Hurt a Little; probably a project by session musicians of sorts, Jell features Eric Random, who collaborated regularly with Cabaret Voltaire and Clock DVA. I cannot say for certain the same regarding Lynn Seed, although Richard H. Kirks girlfriend named Lynn guested on his solo cassette Disposable Half Truths. But this is one of the tracks that sends shiver down the spine - much in the same category as The Loved Ones, Jell sound desperate and apeealing at the same time. Albeit slow, the song is exploding with lethal drum programs and deep resonating bass sound along dreamy, erotic female voice. 5/5

11: Blah Blah Blah - Central Park; a song that concludes the sampler, very interesting in its approach although not particularly getting anywhere. Probably intentional to annoy you rather than satisfy your listeners needs - depends on what youre looking for. A strange story, and probably the most conceptually inaugurated song on this album - about a guy walking in the park in an 18 century clothes. A possible hint of travesty? Maybe. Musically it is quite at random, synthesizer noise while the only thing that keeps it in some order is the bass and clock-ticking percussion in the background. In itself, Blah Blah Blah seem interesting enough to be explored elsewhere although at this moment I am not sure of any other of their record whereabouts. So Happy searching.

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