British Electric Foundation

http://www.discogs.com/BEF-Music-For-Stowaways/release/106655

http://www.discogs.com/British-Electric-Foundation-Music-For-Listening-To/release/190428

This is one of the coolest finds for myself in a while.

There should be rips of the whole cassette or the vinyl release somewhere, the whole thing is amazing.

Enjoy.

And does anyone have any recommendations on music like this from this time period?

only ones I can think of are the Cluster records, with and without Eno, Harmonia, Harald Grosskopf, Eno with Bowie, and a lot of Krautrock from 68 to 75......

B.E.F as i'm sure you know is Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh (aka The Human League mk1, The Future and Heaven 17). More tracks from the same time period as those BEF albums are available on Human League's 'Dignity Of Labour', 'Reproduction' & 'Travelogue' and the retrospective compilation 'The Golden Hour Of The Future'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTFMrNGCKjI

Yeah just go buy Reproduction + Travelogue because they're essential to any electronic music collection. Penthouse & Pavement's cool but pales in comparison to the Human League albums in my opinion.

Check out Vice Versa who were ABC before ABC. Similar to early Human League but possibly more madcap.

  On 7/3/2014 at 10:46 AM, Bambi said:

B.E.F as i'm sure you know is Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh (aka The Human League mk1, The Future and Heaven 17). More tracks from the same time period as those BEF albums are available on Human League's 'Dignity Of Labour', 'Reproduction' & 'Travelogue' and the retrospective compilation 'The Golden Hour Of The Future'

thanks Bambi for the lowdown on great Human League tracks, needed someone to filter the synthpop from the experimental synth works for me. You would be the man to do that.

Album like Decal's 404 not Found, Konx Om Pax's Regional Surrealism, Polysick's Digital Native, Ambulence's The Curse of Vale do Lobo, Sunken Foal, Ekoplekz.....they all have this raw experimental sound, with very definite confines set up for themselves, and I love that.

I have Travelogue but not the other two records. Will look for them used.

And none of the Heaven 17 stuff is as interesting?

and thanks for your input futureimage, I I dig those tracks but not as experimental as I am wanting.

Looking for stuff not as much synth pop but the tracks that were made in between genres, more tribal, primordial:

how about this from 1974:

or some cool H17 tracks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJs3-ULCRNI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xDAnPoL6O0

I love Harmonia/Cluster/Roedelius so much.......

These Heaven 17 tracks are wonderful....

Thanks man!

Now I want to make tunes instead of going to work.

AHHHHH!

  On 7/3/2014 at 11:23 AM, futureimage said:

Check out Vice Versa who were ABC before ABC. Similar to early Human League but possibly more madcap.

 

 

Wow, that's a really really great find! Thanks a lot futureimage!

I strongly recommend The Human League's Reproduction if you haven't listened to it yet. It's starker than Travelogue and more futuristic. Even the cover of "You've lost that loving feeling" (lol) is cold and Ballardian. The Dignity of Labour is pretty good too (comes as bonus tracks on the CD reissue if you're getting that). OMD also did some stuff like that, I think besides Dazzle Ships there's some similar stuff on some B-sides that got added as bonus tracks to some reissue as well. For example "I betray my friends".

Heaven 17 aren't bad, Penthouse and Pavement is OK but on the one hand it's much more commercial than earlier Human League, and on the other hand I think Dare is a much better album if that's what you're going for. Still worth a listen.

You might also like early Esplendor Geométrico before they went industrial, although only a handful of tracks from this period exist (sorry for the distasteful cover art):

BTW I found a BEF vinyl yesterday, but it was a mix of other artist's tracks so I didn't buy it in the end, maybe I made a mistake there?

extremely well known, but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUZdv2z-KNM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI_nHh1b5Ps

sorry about the triple posting

Btw, did Daniel Miller do anything else besides Warm Leatherette/T.V.O.D.? I'd love to hear more stuff in that vein.

some great music in this thread, keep it comin!

Wow, how could they turn Living on a Bomb Site into that affected piece of shite Marianne with that horrible saccharine chorus? Mindblowing track...