Heaven 17 - Fantastic Documentary & Luxury Gap Deluxe Edition

Heaven 17's second album, The Luxury Gap is getting the deluxe 3 disc treatment this October which got me thinking and digging about and for all things H17. Lo and behold what did I find? A magnificent and definitive documentary of the Sheffield legends' career from the very early days  in the Steel City,  Human League 1.0, chart success and the British Electric Foundation right through to the present day. It also includes a very rare piece of recent (from  2010) interview footage with Martyn Ware and the League's Phil Oakey  - in the same room! - talking about the split of the original Human League

Fantastic stuff from one (two!) of the most influential electronic pop groups of all time.

Watch all 6 episodes here ...

Part 1 to start you off!



Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

For more H17/BEF goodness, check out our exclusive Elektro Diskow interview with Mr Martyn Ware here.

Human League- Dare/Fascination Reissue

The Human League's masterpiece Dare! is released in remastered and repackaged Deluxe format this week. In addition to the remastered album the package includes the North American only Fascination! EP on CD for the first time alongside several other previously vinyl-only cuts including the Instrumental mix of Sound Of The Crowd (from the original 12") and the stunning Instrumental/Dub version of You Remind Me Of Gold which was an extra track on the Mirror Man 12.

The story of Dare! should be fairly familiar to pop and electronic fans but the tale of the hotly awaited follow up that never came is a case of what might have been... In 1982 with a world-conquering album under their belts, the League reconvened with Dare! producer Martin Rushent to make their next Global smash. The first taster of this new material was the brilliant electro Motown of Mirror Man. A new LP was expected to follow but then nothing for another year when they finally released the stunning (Keep Feeling) Fascination, a transatlantic top 10 smash. Tensions had been rising and Rushent quit the project soon after leaving behind some stunning tracks including the aforementioned You Remind Me Of Gold and I Love You Too Much. Their then US label A&M, desperate for new product, assembled these tracks alongside the two singles and put out the 7 track Fascination! EP in late '83.  It offers a tantalising glimpse of what Dare!'s follow-up might have looked like - we can only speculate as to whether it would have matched (or exceeded!) the 1981 album's success. Essential listening!

Happy Christmas From Elektro Diskow (Human League - Don't You Want Me: Xmas No.1 30 years ago today!)

It's 30 years ago to the day that the Human League were top of the Christmas Tree in the UK with their evergreen elektro classic Don't You Want Me, captured here in a performance from German TV. Merry  Christmas and a happy new year from all at Elektro Diskow!

Human League - Dare: 30 Years Young!

It is nearly 30 years to the day give or take a week or so that one of the most important pop albums ever was released, the Human League's masterpiece Dare.  The LP  influenced not only the mainstream (becoming a blueprint for electronic music in the decade that followed) but also the burgeoning dance underground. The iconic singles The Sound Of The Crowd, Open Your Heart, Love Action and the worldwide smash Don't You Want Me were not only mainstays of the charts they also hit hard in the clubs of Detroit, Chicago (Ron Hardy used to play his own edit of Love Action at the Muzic Box) and throughout Europe.

The echoes of Martin Rushent's immaculate landmark production can still be heard today from the darkest  recesses of clubland to the shiniest modern pop single.

Rushent, who sadly passed away earlier this year, also created the world's first remix album in the shape of Dare's sister album Love & Dancing (its version of The Things Dreams Are Made Of features on Elektro Diskow). A painstakingly created piece of manual tape splicing work, the album featured dubby re-edits of tracks from Dare. The record was a smash hit in its own right, reaching no.3 in the UK and going Platinum in the process.

Sound Of The Crowd (on Top Of The Pops)



Love Action (On Australian TV)



League Unlimited Orchestra - The Things Dreams Are Made Of

Synth Britannia

Fantastic BBC documentary (in all its full 90 minute glory!) featuring the leading British lights of the Elektropop movement  including Phil Oakey from the Human League, Martyn Ware from Heaven 17, Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet from Yazoo  and Daniel Miller from the Normal (and latterly boss of Mute Records).

The Sparks That Fired The Elektro Revolution

While previous recordings had hinted at an electronic future to come, two records came along in 1977 that changed the direction of music inspiring the next generation of electro producers. Donna Summer's I Feel Love (masterminded by Giorgio Moroder) and Kraftwerk's Trans Europe Express were responsible for turning open-minded punkers on to the possibilities of machine music. On the day Martyn Ware (later of B.E.F. /Heaven 17) went to Phil Oakey's house and formed what became the Human League, he brought two records:  I Feel Love and TEE. Playing these two landmark discs, Martyn told Phil  "We can do this!"  David Bowie remembers Brian Eno bursting into the studio while they were recording Low in Berlin putting the single of I Feel Love on the deck and declaring, 'I have heard the sound of the future.'  From house to hip hop (Afrika Bambaataa and Arthur Baker famously sampled TEE on the game-changing Planet Rock), pop to dubstep, r 'n' b to d 'n' b, all owe a debt to these visionary records.

This is Elektro Diskow!

Released on October 17^th on EMI Gold and with an exclusive tie in with Mixmag, Elektro Diskow is a 2 CD comp which takes the listener on a musical journey through the darker recesses of the 80s. Elektro Diskow celebrates the heroes of a movement whose innovations continue to inspire music makers today.

At the end of the 70s a musical landscape emerged that would inform and influence music for the next 10 years and beyond. A new digital underground based on the electronics of Moroder and Kraftwerk created its own subterranean club scene on both sides of the Atlantic. 

In the US, New York led the way with club playlists taking in the latest European 12”s alongside the freshest post and mutant disco. In Chicago, Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles blazed a trail forging what would eventually become House. Running parallel with Chi-Town was the Detroit scene which eventually gave birth to Techno. Motor City clubbers were to dub these Eurodisco sounds ‘Progressive’.



Meanwhile, back in Europe, London’s Blitz club became the breeding ground for a generation of electropop and New Wave stars that cut their clubbing teeth listening to and then creating these new dance sounds. In Italy, disco evolved into Italodisco, Belgium developed its own weird and wonderful musical subset based around the Ghent and Antwerp scenes and on a island in the Mediterranean, a DJ called Alfredo developed an all-inclusive style that would include early 80s synthpop mixed with early House, to create a new genre - Balearic

CD1

01. Telex - Moskow Diskow (French Extended Version) **

02. Roxy Music - Angel Eyes (Extended Remix)

03. The Normal - Warm Leatherette

04. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Messages (10” Single Version)

05. Our Daughter’s Wedding - Lawn Chairs

06. Silicon Teens - State Of Shock (Part 2)

07. Rheingold - Dreiklangsdimensionen

08. Telex - Réalité

09. B.E.F - Groove Thang

10. The League Unlimited Orchestra - Things That Dreams Are Made Of (Instrumental) (Remix)

11. Heaven 17 - Play (7” Version) *

12. Devo - Out Of Sync

13. Fad Gadget - King Of The Flies

14. Talk Talk - Talk Talk (Extended Mix)

15. Snowy Red - Euroshima (Wardance) **

CD2

01. Yazoo - Situation (Original US Dub)

02. The Assembly - Stop Start

03. Fad Gadget - Collapsing New People (Berlin Mix)

04. Duet Emmo - Heart Of Hearts (Or So It Seems)

05. Japan - Visions Of China

06. Laid Back - White Horse (U.S. Edit)

07. The Human League - (Keep Feeling) Fascination (Improvisation)

08. Vicious Pink Phenomena - Cccan’t You See

09. Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Tesla Girls (Extended Mix)

10. Nacht Und Nebel - Beats Of Love

11. Arto Lindsay - Let’s Be Adult **

12. Savage Progress - Heart Begin To Beat (Extended Mad Mix) *

13. Pet Shop Boys - In The Night (Extended)

14. Nitzer Ebb - Join In The Chant (Lies! Instrumental)

* First time on CD

** First digital release