Day 0891 - Darkdancer

Les Rythmes Digitales “Darkdancer” (1999)

More dance music, *le sigh*

No, this was actually pretty enjoyable.  Much like Mark Ronson’s “Record Collection” album some 10 years later, this album draws on a 1980s synth pop sound and features singers from that era/genre.   Singer Shannon features on track “Take a Little Time”, and the catchy “Sometimes” features singer and multi-instrumentalist Nik Kershaw.

Les Rythmes is Stuart Price, an English lad with a soft spot for French electro-pop.   Price has done production and remixing work for a number of artists including Pet Shop Boys, the Killers, Madonna, Kylie Minogue and Coldplay.

This album features upbeat, vibrant synthesizer pop that feels like it’s dripping with fluro 80s colour.   The track “Soft Machine” has a nice jittery, off-kilter rhythm and raspy rock vocal that I quite enjoyed.   "Music Makes You Lose Control" has the kind of repetitive loop-based approach to making music, has a fairly musical synth/bass line running throughout.  

Day 0459 - Peter Gabriel III (AKA "Melt")

Peter Gabriel "Peter Gabriel III" (AKA "Melt") (1980)

 
Gabriel was well clear of his Genesis 'Prog' sound, and with his first two relatively quirky and eccentric solo albums also behind him, he seemed content to settle into a groove as a purveyor of interesting and innovative art pop-rock in the vein of Berlin-Bowie and Brian Eno. He even uses Eno-regular Robert Fripp on guitar, along with his Genesis bandmate (and vocal replacement) Phil Collins.

PG experiments with world music (sampling African chants for one song) and new technology, playing around with drum machines, and studio trickery to produce an album that seems a collision of human with machine.