LISFRANK was an obscure one-man project from Savona area, Italy, active from 1980 onwards but not releasing much music ever since apart from a few tracks via the own Mask Productions label in 1982 and 1983. The first and only LISFRANK stand-alone release was the 12”EP “Man Mask” (Mask Productions, MKX 01, 1982), definitely one of the best and rarest early 80’s minimal electro 12”s ever and on top of most want lists ever since, including the super hit “It’s Life”, as well as “Violence in my Mind”. “Man without Limits” appeared on the label’s equally rare and sought-after vinyl LP sampler “First Relation” (Mask Productions, MKLP 02, 1983). Another very experimental track called “Ombre” was released on the cassette compilation “The Voice/La Voce” (Area Condizionata AC2, 1983). That was the official story so far, even though LISFRANK was truly a pioneering project with a live appearance at the so-called “New Wave Party” in Savona, already in November 1980! So they were almost as early as Florentine stars Neon. Anyway, it took Anna almost a lifetime to track down LISFRANK, but with the key hint by Fulvio Delprato (thank you so much again!), he was finally found and convinced to release an album which has been entitled “Mask Rewind”. It captures the majority of available recordings from 1980 onwards. LISFRANK’s music is completely analogue electronics with drum machine (or real drums on two tracks), very unique and each a track a classic of its own kind. The early tracks until 1983 are rough and dark, and form the 12” album together with similar early composed but later recorded tracks thus creating an overall and coherent dark atmosphere throughout the whole album. As the 1984/85 tracks “Stay with me” and “My Toy” were more pop-oriented they didn’t perfectly fit to the album’s atmosphere and were thus put onto the accompanying 7”. LISFRANK’s lyrics are very dark and full of despair, dealing with personal fears, self-perception and the problems arising from this and other human interactions (“My mind is like a stormy sea – violent”, “Here is all my bitterness”, “Man without limits – Sees hope die - Man without limits – Sees darkness fall within”, “Imprisoned in a nightmare - My terror becomes desperation” or “Your true identity upsets me”), or other topics like ecological pollution (e.g. “I don’t want to breathe your smog - I don’t want to breathe your poison”). All in all, this release is maybe one of the most important and interesting albums coming out of Italy, made by an intelligent person and great composer who is now occasionally recording again. An alternative mix of “Identity” is also going to be released these days on the LP sampler “Danza Meccanica – Italian Synth Wave 1982-1987” (Mannequin/In The Nighttime, MNQ 005/NT012, 2009).

POEME ELECTRONIQUE was Dave Hewson (synthesisers, production), Sharon Abbott (lyrics, lead and backing vocals), Julie Ruler (backing vocals) and Les Hewson (bass), formed in 1980 by Dave Hewson in South London, UK, in 1980. Dave was studying music and as a rare kind of student species he had a deep fascination for New Wave and electronic music thus also playing and recording electronic music ever since like using the Boss DR-55, Cosmo Sound Super Drum, Elka Rhapsody 610, EMS Synthi AKS, Korg MS-20(X2)/Polysix/Polyphonic Ensemble 1000/VC-10 Vocoder, Linn Electronics LM-1, Octave Kitten, Roland RS-09/VP-330 Vocoder Plus, Simmons SDS-V Kit and Yamaha CS-80 on this retrospective POEME ELECTRONIQUE album with original material from 1981/82 only. Over the period of more than two years, Dave has remastered these tracks using the latest high-end tools making them sound better than ever before. The deluxe 2LP vinyl album comprises 16 tracks of which 14 have never been published before. “The Echoes Fade” and “Voice” are the original versions taken off their original 7” from 1982. The album “The Echoes Fade” cannot be described other than being a masterpiece and one of the best-ever early 80’s electropop records ever, and it surely has to be lined up with Rational Youth or Experimental Products’ cult albums (in terms of being minimal synth/wave scene reference albums), but to be frank, Anna thinks that POEME ELECTRONIQUE were even above their level. Truly, they had deserved to go on the successful path like Depeche Mode, OMD or Soft Cell, but fate was against them as it seems. The main difference to other electropop groups of the time was definitely that Dave did not only master his synths technically-wise, no, he also knew how to actually play, and when you hear his amazing multi-track ‘manual sequencing’, programming skills, great harmonies and melodies throughout the tracks, along with the two girls’ performances - well they can really sing! – you will agree there is some something remarkably extraordinary in these tracks. You will find minimal electropop super hits like “Rendezvous”, “She’s an Image”, “Fragile”, or “Dilemma”; hauntingly beautiful melancholic tracks like “A Mourner’s Lament”, “This Night” or “It’s in the Atmosphere”; darkest minimal electronics on “Inside his Head”; and even more poppier tracks like “Follow”. This record will hopefully be loved by any electronic music lover and most probably marks the highlight in the growing Anna Logue Records catalogue – therefore Anna did not shy away from any costs and the album is truly an outstanding release in every single aspect including sound and artwork presentation. Apart from the bonus tracks you will find in the 2LP deluxe vinyl edition glossy inner sleeves with lyrics to all songs, as well as individual mini 7” sleeves for each song designed by our dear graphic designer Steve Lippert plus many additional group photos on the gatefold sleeves’ inner. After so many efforts and more than two years passing by, Anna is so over the moon to see this release being ready now and we have done all we could to make this an outstanding release, so now it’s up to you to give the band their final glory, but Anna is in no doubt that – at least after hearing the sound samples - you will.

Anna is incredibly proud that Stefan / THE SILICON SCIENTIST has chosen to release his second album entitled “Poly” again with Anna Logue Records. His first album “Windows on the World” has received wonderful feedback, from both fans and other musicians worldwide, and he is nowadays recognized as a great influence to many other contemporary electronic music artists. Stefan is indeed one of Germany’s most talented contemporary composers of electronic pop music and taking into account that his time for music is rather limited and that his efforts in playing and finalizing the debut album with SONNENBRANDT in 2008 also took away much of his time for his solo project, his high quality output on all fronts is outstanding. With “Poly” he proves his continuous ability to write substantial and timeless melancholic electropop and electronic wave songs while most of the album’s sounds have been generated on the wonderful Polymoog synthesisers, hence the title! “Silicon Beach” shows the Polymoog’s great versatility to even create lovely South American flute sounds along the all analogue warm and dark synth sounds. On “Meltdown”, fans of The Cure’s Disintegration album will almost get a heart attack from joy – what a wonderful track with real bass and acoustic guitar accompaniment! The album versions of "Oceans of Green" and "Lost City" are reworked and remixed versions of the tracks previously released on the “Colourblind EP”. This time Anna and THE SILICON SCIENTIST are the CD "Bookmarks II" to all copies which is definitely more than just a bonus: it contains 72 minutes of outtakes from the "Poly" recording sessions, tracks from samplers, early mixes of tracks from the previous album and tracks from the very first THE SILICON SCIENTIST album "Inselwinter" which was never released. "Seven" is based upon a demo recording by Marc Schaffer and was accordingly co-written and solely recorded by Stefan. All synthesiser sounds on “Poly” and most of “Bookmarks II” have been generated on real analogue synthesisers (among them Korg MS-10, MS-20, Multimoog, Roland CR-78, SH-101, Solina String Ensemble, Waldorf Pulse Plus) - no virtual machines or plug-ins! The only exception is "Inselwinter I" which contains some sounds from the virtual analogue Access Virus synth... "Poly"/"Bookmarks II" is a masterpiece of melancholic electropop and can hardly be imagined that anyone out there will not love it!

The second Projekt:Archive release of THE ARMS OF SOMEONE NEW material brings together previously unreleased tracks and demos, alternative versions and rare compilation tracks from around 1985 to 1987. Since the release of their first album they had acquired a new drum machine (Roland TR-707) as well as some new synths (Casio CZ-101, Yamaha DX-100) which gave their sound an even softer tone. With some contributions by The Moon Seven Times members Brendan Gamble (also in !Ack-Ack!), Henry Frayne (also in Lanterna) and Lynn Canfield (also in Area together with Steve), “Love, Power & Justice” was meant to become an album on its own in 1986, and marks in Anna’s opinion in this CD format the groups’ best release, with some of their most wonderful tracks, eg. “Next Year in Jerusalem”, “Your Evening at Home”, “The Sense of an Ending”, “Everything at once”, etc… Has been getting regular rotation at Anna’s place since years, so truly recommended!

THE ARMS OF SOMEONE NEW was Mel Eberle and Steve Jones originally from Champaign, USA, with a little support from Nick Rudd. They formed in 1983 and with a limited amount of gear and recording equipment they composed some beautiful music in a genre of its own at that time, giving ways of what Projekt Records soon was about to release, like a sort of atmospheric, ethereal sound combining beautiful soft vocals, sparse simple bass and guitars with synthesiser/keyboard/organ and drum machine (Boss DR-110) accompaniment. This CD release in the Projekt:Archive series compiles the groups first three and nowadays very rare vinyl releases on the groups on label Office Records: “Susan Sleepwalking” LP (1985), “Burying the Carnival” MLP, 1984” and the “Holy Dance” 7” (1984). This compilation might appeal to those into minimal wave as well as those into sort of Alex Fergusson/Psychic TV/Current 93 style.

STRANGE DEVOTION is Dominic Butler from the UK who recorded a single demo cassette in April 1982. “Again the new Formation” sounds perfectly like a mixture of VICE VERSA and TRANSPARENT ILLUSION using Korg MS10 and Sound Master Memory Rhythm SR-88. “Danger Line” sounds like the perfect mixture of HUMAN LEAGUE’s “Being boiled” and VICE VERSA, pure minimal analogue electronics heaven!!! Can’t wait to see VOICE PATROL being released, oh boy … TIPP!!

A half a year after the release of “Apples & Synthesizers”, Ghostly International put another log in the fire by releasing this compilation with six new compositions plus seven remixes of SOLVENT tracks. It is almost embarrassing how often the words “wonderful” and “beautiful” have been used recently to describe SOLVENT’s (or Lowfish’s) music, but how would you do it ?!? The first track “Wish” is simply nothing but ……ful, and “Devices and Strategies”, too... Then, to Anna’s big surprise, all the remixes/remakes (but one) are very good as well: THE MITGANG AUDIO’s easy chilling “My Radio”, LOWFISH’s standard brilliance in “For You”, LEGOWELT’s anarcho remake of “My Radio”, ISAN’s typical warm and organic interpretation of “For You”, or SCHNEIDER TM MUSTANG’s cool version of “My Radio”. Anna just thinks you need this one, too, so go fot it!

SOLITAIREN EFFEKTEN is the German language alter ego of SOLITUDE FX releasing exclusively on Enfant Terrible. Due to the limited equipment and experience in recording back then you will want to expect a very rough and very early 80’s sounding minimalistic uptempo Electropop with considerable influences from the Neue Deutsche Welle, maybe basically due to the use of the German language. The artwork or the whole release package is just awesome: white 10” vinyl, gold imprinting, double-sided lyricsheet and an oh-so-matching-the-concept sleeve design.

Falco Invernale Records say it “focus on the exploration of various faces and interpretations of contemporary electronic music with artists displaying their own personal world” and with this second release they prove themselves right. After the rather italo-influenced electropop of the first FIR release (Tobias Bernstrup 12”, see below), SHEMALE is much more dark, with great reminiscence to Sleep Museum, using analog synths and drum machines (Roland TR-606). The tracks one here range from dark minimal to industrial soundscapes (“Evil Winds”) and psycho killer movie soundtracks à la John Carpenter (“North Sea Funeral”). SHEMALE has already released three 12”s on the well known Dutch label Bunker Records, and its story is that “a failed laboratory experiment in the Bio-weapons division of the military-industrial complex known as ManCorp, mysteriously transformed mild-mannered lab technician Pete Plus+ into the SHEMALE a hybrid humanoid robot … SHEMALE retreated from the world into a parallel universe to create dark, dystopian machine-music, influenced by a synthetic dream of Hyperborea the land beyond the North Wind.” Alrighty then…

While RATIONAL YOUTH ceased to exist already within the 80’s their classic album “Cold War Night Life” left an ongoing interest in the group, mainly in Europe and especially in Sweden where they still have had many fans. In the late 90’s this led to the decision to play a few gigs there and also to record some new music. Bill Vorn was unfortunately too busy with his work on robotics to further play in RATIONAL YOUTH, so he was needed to be replaced by Jean-Claude Cutz (Digital Poodle, Din) and Dave Rout (Datafreq). It is clear that a mastermind like Bill Vorn could not be replaced and that the new material shouldn’t be a plagiarism of the early 80’s RATIONAL YOUTH. Anyway, they tried to retain the spirit while transporting RATIONAL YOUTH into the here and now. So “To the Goddess Electricity” turned out to be a great electro-/synthpop album with a modern awareness still with lots of references to old RATIONAL YOUTH and, of course, Kraftwerk. And Tracy’s unique and warm vocals contribute to the fact that this is a justified RATIONAL YOUTH record and worthy follow-up album. Unfortunately, again after this album RATIONAL YOUTH was put to rest, hopefully ready for the next resurrection.