I'd like to buy some electronic records more than 3 months old, which ones should I get?

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As a regular buyer of dance/electronic 12"s, I tend to hear only current music. I want to listen to something else, something that doesn't fit into the current dance sub-genres. I suppose its the stuff that pre-imagined techno rather than just any old people who played synths. Some people I have checked out in the past:

Throbbing Gristle
Kraftwerk
SPK (and all that industrial stuff)
Devo
Gary Numan
Arthur Russell
Add N to X
ESG

I think this might have been triggered by listening to early chicago mixes on deephousepage.com. They have stuff from 1978 that sounds like tracky minimal techno, but made using well, I don't know... Anyway, I want to get back that headfuck feeling

― Andy (foopfoop), Friday, 15 April 2005 13:03 (twenty years ago)

cabaret voltaire : the sound of sheffield (i prefer the second one with Sensoria 12" on it)

― mark e (mark e), Friday, 15 April 2005 13:43 (twenty years ago)

cluster - zuckerzeit
manuel göttsching - e2-e4

― peter smith (plsmith), Friday, 15 April 2005 13:47 (twenty years ago)

Scatology and Horse Rotorvator by COIL
You Suck Crap by Babyland

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 15 April 2005 13:48 (twenty years ago)

Some other good German albums if you like Kraftwerk, Cluster, etc.

Moebius and Plank - Rastakrautpasta
Moebius - Tonspuren
Harmonia - Musik Von Harmonia & Deluxe
Cluster - II

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 15 April 2005 15:11 (twenty years ago)

Get Congo Natty reissues! Pick up the "Wardance", "Calling" and "Police in Helicopter" 12"s.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 15 April 2005 15:17 (twenty years ago)

the Morgan Geist 'Unclassics' mix maybe, Tangerine Dream's 'Phaedra', Telex, Can, Funkadelic ('Atomic Dog' etc.), Cybotron's 'Industrial Lies', pre 'Dare' Human League, John Hassell ('Empire' and 'Voiceprint' esp.)

― $V£N! (blueski), Friday, 15 April 2005 15:23 (twenty years ago)

Switched On Bach!

― Ian John50n (orion), Friday, 15 April 2005 15:29 (twenty years ago)

"Switched On Bach!"
This is Bach done on synths right? Moogs?

Is it as cheesy as it sounds?
I almost put Jean Jacques Perry on that list (in a similar vein), but couldn't bring myself to do it...

― Andy (foopfoop), Friday, 15 April 2005 15:38 (twenty years ago)

If you've never heard Switched on Bach you definitely need to start there. And no, it's not cheesy.

And if you're digging back earlier to Perry & Kingsley, Carlos, etc. check out Raymond Scott's "Soothing Sounds for Baby" which has some repetitive, minimal, almost techno parts.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 15 April 2005 15:54 (twenty years ago)

I was going to post Raymond Scott, so I'll second it.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 15 April 2005 15:59 (twenty years ago)

Ideally, I'd like to go back as far as possible. The more disconnected (and yet connected) from club music the better. So Steve Reich could go on the list too (OK, he's not that old), and some of those classical bods - who did the tape loops? Schoenberg? or someone completely different?

― Andy (foopfoop), Friday, 15 April 2005 16:01 (twenty years ago)

In that case you might like Terry Riley. You're Nogood is a tapeloop piece made from a Motown song and it's a good example of an early piece of sample based "club music." It was made for a club but it's hard to imagine dancing to it. Persian Sugery Dervishes is a great set of looong loopy organ riffs run through tape loops resulting in a very hypnotic ambient-synth-arpeggiator type of thing. And Church of Anthrax with Riley and John Cale is another good one in a little bit more of a "pop" vein.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 15 April 2005 16:13 (twenty years ago)

Also, I haven't actually heard the whole thing but there's a box-set of early electronic music by Kid Baltan (Dick Raaijmakers) and Tom Dissevelt that I expect is great. I can't remember how "techno" it is but I remember the bits I heard being amazing.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 15 April 2005 16:16 (twenty years ago)

I recommend INIT Ding by Microstoria ( from 1995).

Seminal glitch - but not the latter day, high end scrunchy stuff. The samples shift and alter position in a melodic semi-ambient way. Difficult to describe.

― Spoombung (spoombung), Friday, 15 April 2005 16:31 (twenty years ago)

Representing the letter H:

Herbie Hancock - Headhunters, Future Shock and a lot of the stuff in-between

Heldon

Bruce Haack

And earlier I forgot to mention Tangerine Dream / Klaus Shultze

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Friday, 15 April 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

For Steve Reich, you want to hear Drumming. Can, Neu! and Faust all made trancey/dubby/dancey sounds, but not everything they recorded falls into those categories. EARLabs has lots of interesting mp3s, the Electronic Panorama sets of electro-acoustic music from the 60s are recommended.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Friday, 15 April 2005 17:35 (twenty years ago)

You should get the OHM set -- that killer "pioneers of electronic music" box, and then check out the ones you like. That set is incredible. I mean, I don't enjoy everything on it, but what a reference work it is!

― Hurlothrumbo (hurlothrumbo), Friday, 15 April 2005 17:46 (twenty years ago)

I'd try some Morton Subotnick for the roots, 60s (or 50s?) electronic music Silver Apples of the Moon is often cited as the one to get, but I think The Wild Bull is as good. Not really danceable, though.

― nickn (nickn), Friday, 15 April 2005 18:08 (twenty years ago)

Get the OHM box. It was my starting point for early electronics too.

― polyphonic (polyphonic), Friday, 15 April 2005 18:13 (twenty years ago)

"Switched On Bach" is really great.

And I wouldn't call it cheesy. Remember that a lot of Bach's music was head music, not necessarily written with a particular lineup in mind. Basically, it works great with any lineup, not at least including all Moog synths. And his works have survived for more than 250 years, which means one would suppose we are speaking of good music here...

Regarding Herbie Hancock, I would say there is no reason to stop at "Future Schock". At least "Sound System" was truly great.

And then, there is of course the entire synthpop generation of the early 80s. Check out "Dare" by Human League and "Upstairs At Eric's" by Yazoo in particular.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 16 April 2005 00:16 (twenty years ago)

Black Dice - Beaches and Canyons

http://www.monochrom.at/cracked/reviews/C_BlackDice.jpg

Tribal drumming, improvised soundscapes. Pulsing MADNESS!!!

― Open your eyes; you can fly! (ex machina), Saturday, 16 April 2005 00:28 (twenty years ago)

Here's a link to a web station that you need to check out:

http://www.cybernetic-broadcasting.net

lots of late 70's/early-mid 80's electro and italo disco, really really fantastic stuff.

Other than that check out a track by Material (Bill Laswell) called Secret Life, blew me away when I first heard it.

― JohnFoxxsJuno, Saturday, 16 April 2005 09:42 (twenty years ago)

Yep, I have listened to loads of stuff from Cybernetic Broadcasting. It is truly a great site.
Good enough that it deserves that URL again:
http://www.cybernetic-broadcasting.net

And although I mentioned it already at the top of this thread, deephousepage.com, thats:
http://www.deephousepage.com

is also an amazing resource. Despite the name, its not really deep house, its just a collection of mixes from the last 20-odd years, including loads of seminal chicago stuff taped off the radio, complete with station idents ("D-d-d-d-dance music!") and listener shout-outs. And some incredible mixing.

― Andy (foopfoop), Monday, 18 April 2005 09:06 (twenty years ago)

skampler

http://www.kompaktkiste.de/cd/_label/skam/skampler2.jpg

― william (william), Monday, 18 April 2005 15:38 (twenty years ago)

lots of good suggestions here...

― peter smith (plsmith), Monday, 18 April 2005 16:01 (twenty years ago)

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