Description
DESCRIPTION
2016 four CD set. Two years in the making, Close To The Noise Floor is a 61-track set exploring the origins of electronica in the UK. Featuring tracks from key figures on the cassette label underground alongside early releases by future stars of the movement, this is part primitive rave, part synthesizer porn and part history lesson. Enthralled by the mysterious electronics of Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, Gong and German Kosmische artists such as Tangerine Dream, Harmonia and Cluster, and inspired by the DIY ethos of punk, a quiet revolution took place across the UK in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The rise of the microchip and the advent of affordable synthesizers enabled countless artists for whom guitars, drums and bass had become old hat, and in grubby bedsits, unremarkable living rooms and art school halls across the British Isles, UK electronica was born. The underground, fueled by cassette exchanges, co-operative vinyl compilations and a thriving mail order network, quickly began to stretch the boundaries of sonic experimentation. Close To The Noise Floor explores every corner of this fascinating and often overlooked chapter in our musical history. For proto synth-pop look no further than 100% Manmade Fibre and Spoon Fazer, whilst British Standard Unit and Five Times Of Dust lay out techno templates which wouldn't take full form until many years later. Elsewhere, the synthesizer laden ambient music of Zorch and the found sound collages of A Tent sit comfortably alongside early forays by familiar names - Blancmange, The Human League, OMD and Throbbing Gristle - in over four hours of futurist, entirely modern music.
Tracks
- Disc 1 -
1 Computer Bank - Five Times of Dust
2 R.A.M. - the Klingons
3 Re-Education Through Labour - Chris and Cosey
4 Sedation Strokes - Malcolm Brown
5 Little Bob Minor - Storm Bugs
6 Tight As a Drum - Thomas Leer
7 Holiday Camp - Blancmange
8 Fractured Smile - Inner City Static
9 Sexuality - We Be Echo
10 God with Us - Bourbonese Qualk
11 Faith - Nagamatzu
12 Disco Song - O Yuki Conjugate
13 Optimum Chant - British Electric Foundation
14 All Night Long - Kevin Harrison
15 Stopping and Starting - Voice of Authority
- Disc 2 -
1 I Am Your Shadow - Colin Potter
2 D'ya Think I'm Sexy - British Standard Unit
3 The Single Off the Album - Five Times of Dust
4 Back to Beginning - Spoon Fazer
5 Gerry and the Holograms - Gerry and the Holograms
6 Drugface - the Passage
7 A New Kind of Man - John Foxx
8 Green for Go - 100% Manmade Fibre
9 Sentimental - Those Little Aliens
10 Protect and Survive - Final Program
11 Being Boiled - Human League
12 New Muzak - Instant Automations
13 Materialistic Man - Cultural Amnesia
14 (Leaving Me) Now - Worldbackwards
15 Music to Save the World By - Alan Burnham
16 Almost - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
17 Kodak Ghosts Run Amok - Eyeless in Gaza
18 Broken Vein - Schleimer K
19 The Distance from Koln - Native Europe
- Disc 3 -
1 Adrenalin (Return of the Elohim PT 1) - Zorch
2 Robot Dance - Sea of Wires
3 Sea of Tranquility - Ron Berry
4 Mistral - MFH
5 Joe Goes to New York - Adrian Smith
6 Embryo (Extract) - Mark Shreeve
7 Tripych - Eg Oblique Graph
8 Encounter - Carl Mathews
9 Ynys Scaith - Paul Nagle
10 Sedation - O Yuki Conjugate
11 Western Vein - Konstruktivist
12 Dead of Night (Excerpt) - Attrition
- Disc 4 -
1 What a Day - Throbbing Gristle
2 No Way of Knowing - a Tent
3 Go for the Throat - Portion Control
4 Eco Beat - DC3
5 Dying Inside - Renaldo and the Loaf
6 In the Army - Blah Blah Blah
7 God Speed - Legendary Pink Dots
8 Muslin Gauze Muslim Prayer - Muslimgauze
9 Live at Longborne - Suisse
10 Menial Disorders, Extract B2 - Alien Brains
11 Himeal (And She Blew) - Storm Bugs
12 In the Room - Third Door from the Left
13 Dignity of Labour - Al Robertson
14 Mzui (Extract) - Bcgilbert, Glewis, Russell Mills
