I’m a fan of the postal service. True, sometimes the postie can be a bit surly; but in general it’s a well-oiled, and reliable, machine. But of course there can be blips in the system. I recently befell one of these blips.
“Er, do you have any undelivered post for me?”
“Do you have a slip?”
“No, but I thought you might. Think it’ll be records.”
“Ah, you the fella who gets the records. Yeah, there’s one here.”
When the “slip” doesn’t arrive your package won’t either. Crystal clear. This is what happened with Medical Records latest duet of releases.
Mathématiques Modernes are a French synthesizer duo that was active in the early 80s. This seminal synth pop outfit of Claude Arto and Edwige Braun-Belmore merge sounds in a very original manner. Aspects of Disco are present throughout Les Visiteurs Du Soir, but electrified and warped. “Atheletical Mystery” and “Boy Be My Toy” take the mirrorball and compress its sparkle into wafer thin shards of light, emitting jolting and serrated judders of spasmodic pop. Industrial and EBM are part of this cocktail of contrast, as in the 4/4 body wave of “Disco Rough.” “Paris Tokyo” emits a light show of future gazing whilst “Responds Moi” is a Francophile lament in the style of barroom operetta. Mathématiques Modernes have taken familiar structures and rewired them for an electronic world, one where the machine is the driving force for expression.
Medical stays in Europe to revive Gina X Performance and Nice Mover. The group were formed in Cologne in 1978 with Gina Kikoine fronting. Nice Mover was first released in the same year and is back on remastered vinyl. As the needle hits a discofied synthesizer sound meets the listener, the title piece being a sleazy and stymied work of Electro-Disco. “Plastic Surprise Box” has a steady beat and more of a Synth-Pop lean. The track, and sound, is akin to Poeme Electronique, and an excellent early example of the genre. Pop is part of the musical product of ‘Nice Mover’, but also indignation as imbedded in Kikoine’s clipped vocals. Tempos rise and fall across the record as energy is expended and regained through rumbling synth chords. Experimentation is at the album’s core, the duo of Kikoine and Held trailblazing and unheard sound in the late 70s. “Exhibitionism” is a slow piece of weirded out longue before “Tropical Comic Strip” closes an LP of pioneering electronics.
It’s said life has few guarantees, but one is that the price of stamps will rise. With that is the other axiom, post will be mislaid. Another might be added to the Minimal Synth revival, a truth based on the laws of positivism. Medical Records will release quality obscurities from the past. Hopefully next time they’ll make it all the way through the letterbox.
Both releases are available on Medical.
