(03.01.09) A HAMBURG imprint has been gazing into the shimmering ball of electronics. Some labels center around one style, be it electro or techno or whatever. This has its good points, but can put tight limits on artists and stifle creativity. Anna Logue records is not a label that skips from genre to genre, what it does is focus on a small number of electronic music styles and plucks out the sounds they want: electro pop, synth pop, new wave, cold wave, no wave and post punk. Such a remit may look limited; this is far from the truth.
Car Crash Set are an outfit that reflect the Anna Logue style almost perfectly. On listening to their new LP Join The Car Crash Set, it seems as though this group are going to fit nicely into a no wave or post punk pigeonhole. Robert Smith style vocals and 80s guitars, keyboards and drums are the bones of the first two tracks and it looks like the rest of the record will follow from its beginnings; this is not the case. Car Crash Set steer the listener down a diverse route of post punk guitars, synth pop analogue movements, new wave and no wave synthesizer harmonies.
Minimal Wave have found favor with their compilations of lost and unheard synth pop and new wave compilations Lost Tapes and Found Tapes. There is a reason for this, they are quality releases. Anna Logue Records have cause to boast and be proud of a similar project: Echoes from the Past; This lovingly gathered compilation brings together an array of artists, such as Informatics, Valek and Gilded Youth, splitting genres across the vinyl. The artists featured are from the obscure, and often forgotten, world of 1980s synth pop, with Anna Logue imbibing all the passion and despair of that sound back into this flagship album.
The Silicon Scientist, Stefan Bornhorst, brings another side of sound to the Anna Logue catalog. Electro pop, bordering into the deepness of electronica, is where Silicon Scientist lies. His Colourblind EP, title mockingly released on a blue wax 7″, moves in waves of lightly vocodered lyrics and lulling synthesizer warmth. His full length album, Windows of the World, follows in similar movements. Vocoders and anagloue cosiness, supplied through the tones of vintage Roland machines such as the SH-101 and CR-78, waft over the listener to produce an autumnal haze of electronics. The tracks have a similar feel to some of Bochum Welt’s musings, but perhaps venture into greater complexity; the album’s title track being a good example. Yet Bornhorst is willing to gaze into the less rosy side, such as in the distanced shuffles of “Solitary Dancer.”
It is hard to discover new labels that are producing true quality; Anna Logue can only be described as one that is. It is an imprint looking into the past whilst uncovering artists that are putting their own spin on the past. Inspiration from the past for the present and future is what Anna Logue are releasing, and hopefully will continue to do so.
For more information about Anna Logue Records, visit their website at annaloguerecords.com
