Magic Marmalade 29th Mar 2023
| | ReviewSuper electro-techno nugget!
This is what I'm after when I go out on the dig for records in charity shops and the like...
...An inscrutable plain white sleeve, with only: "Telex" and "Test", concealing, as hoped for, and expected, a white label test pressing with the same on label, but also: SRK 6062, in biro.
(Actually gives that wrong cat number with a 6 instead of the 7, which made for a temporary problem in trying to search online to find out what it was.)
While the name is of course a familiar one, and it certainly alludes to what may be inside, and on the disc, I didn't know this group, or what the were about when I found it, so only thing left to do was play it! :)
Delightfully surprised, for although the opening track is a bit so-so, fairly bland typical eighties electronica, it did have a vague scent of Kratwerk style about it, a good indicator, of what was to come, I thought...
...But it even exceeded these expectations, as although this very much comes from the same place as Kraftwerk, with a very strong whiff of them, it has much more besides!
For the next track: Pakmovast, is a stonker!
...Right from the get go, it's heavy, pronounced beat which continues at a fair nodding pace, conjured heavy aromas of later electro-dance demi-gods Daft Punk, and I also detected a powerful sense of Jean Michel Jarre throughout the album too.
But there's another note I caught in my audio nostrils too, that of certain instruments, and melodic phrases and motifs of the kind that Boards Of Canada would later allude to in their work, of a kind of undefined nostalgia for a fuzzy, out there, seventies electronic wildlife documentary vibe.
If I had to guess, I I could easily say this may be one the albums that inspired them!
(Especially, in the brief outro track to Side 2: Ca Plane Pour Moi)
The Opening to Side 2 ise very strong, and sung in English: Something to Say, and the final track: Twist A Saint Tropez is a very jaunty upbeat piece of electronica (research show this to have been a single, and quite a well known one too!)...
...These two, bookending the other two tracks on Side 2; The... um... er... interesting take on Rock Around The Clock, which a slower, meditative, almost mesmeric version of the Rock and Roll classic (barely recognisable to begin with), and also another corker of a track: Victime De La Societe, which sounds like a low, evocative, work which might be suited to the opening or closing credits of a movie like the Ryan Gosling mood piece: Drive, or some other nightscape and neon based, city noir thriller soundtrack.
Taking my tp as representative of the retail issue of this, I can report that unlike those aforementioned artists, this has a comparatively stripped down, minimalist approach to the same kind of music, which comes through excellently on this pressing, very solid, definite, fat bass, and broad sounding synths across the audio horizon and all on fairly standard 125g-ish vinyl. but lovely a press.
In all, an absolute nugget of a find for me, and what I live to find among the neglected crates of dingy nooks in charity shops. :)
(Should those RSD peeple happen upon this review perchance, I'd suggest this is a good pick for a new issue - certainly, I'd like a swanky new issue of it with the artwork, and maybe some guff about the band / group etc. - white labels are nice, but don't really tell a lot!)
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