Surf -- German duo, have an album called 'High Tide and Low Tide' -- tell me more

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Finally picked up this album at my fave local store a couple of weeks ago after seeing it there for a while, it's been on sale for some months. Turns out it's a lovely little confection of an album, a blend of synthpop and breezy pop straight up and early eighties disco/electro with just the right amount of dark undercurrents -- or at least the first disc is, the second disc I'll get to here in a sec and apparently it's the moody/melancholy side. Either way, it's a treat and a half and the brother team behind it (Florian and Gregor Dietz) have definite talent to my ears, they play their cards very well ("Join In," for instance, finds a way to combine both electro Earth Wind and Fire and Daft Punk reinterpretations of same while not being wholly beholden to either). I would throw in a link to their German label Home but apparently they're not on the roster now or something -- of all the artists there, they didn't have an active link. If you know any more or have any links to share, please do, because this is fine stuff!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 23 August 2003 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Also occurs to me that you could draw a link to Junior Senior as well, actually, similar sense of combination/melange though not as explosively giddy.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 23 August 2003 21:56 (twenty-two years ago)

And here's a German language review, at least. Thank you, drive through (I will say that the album keeps getting better the more I hear!).

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 23 August 2003 22:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Okay, one final post for now to say that there's a cover of White Noise's "Firebird" on here (cowritten by Delia Derbyshire!) that really sounds like a tribute to Chicory Tip's "Son of My Father" (and is therefore brilliant) and that I found an official bio here.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 23 August 2003 22:10 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm glad you're satisfied now, because I was going mad with bunk Google results. In the process, though, I became interested in them myself. Slsk is returning nothing...argh!

― Andrew Frye (paul cox), Saturday, 23 August 2003 22:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Some random songtitles, then, if ya need to search -- these are all from the first disc:

"Lost in the Waves" (brilliant sorta-ELO metatribute in disco mode, sorta like what SFA were trying for with "Juxtaposed with U" but even better, maybe?)

"Parallel World" (stern electropop in the chorus but not in the song per se)

"Big Mistake" (the distorted electro sleaze opening alone, shifting into Sparks with Moroder mode immediately following, and then more)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 23 August 2003 22:18 (twenty-two years ago)

twenty-one years pass...

A random search for something else turned up this thread and therefore prompted me to relisten to this album all over again. It retains its charm! A mark of its era in many ways so it's a weird double nostalgia now.

Thankfully at least Discogs allows for something more concrete on what they all did:

https://www.discogs.com/artist/109865-Surf

But also answers the question of what exactly happened to them -- Gregor Dietz died in 2005, and turns out he'd done a lot of stuff in general:

https://www.discogs.com/artist/182243-Gregor-Dietz

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 16 August 2025 17:27 (seven months ago)

Also -- and by sheer chance, it seems all this stuff was updated over the past week -- looks like Surf's work in general is up on streaming. Certainly it's on YouTube at least -- here's the full album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaB9tL27eyw

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 16 August 2025 17:30 (seven months ago)

(Full album at least starting with that track, that should go to the playlist for it.)

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 16 August 2025 17:30 (seven months ago)

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