The Units (of "Warm Moving Bodies" and "High Pressure Days" fame)!

There was talk of starting a Units thread a while ago - see the Screamers thread here: The Screamers, The Thread - but I couldn't find one, and I think they deserve their own thread...

So, yes - these California synth punk legends finally have a proper release for their stuff: "The History of the Units: The Early Years, 1977-1983," on Community Library records. It's great. 21 tracks; good booklet with interesting essay and cool old show flyers (they played with everyone from The Dead Boys and Dead Kennedys to The Police and Soft Cell!)

It's been a pretty cool year for re-issues (the talked-about Death and Wicked Witch ones have stood out) - this is another one that's highly recommended...

This is great to hear! Really wish they got more attention.

i am totally buying this when i see it.

seconded

Wasn't there a box set coming out too?

Everyone remembers the English Industrial scene that revolved around Throbbing Gristle, but few people remember the groups that came out of California at the same time. The Units, Factrix, and Nervous Gender should be a lot better known than they are.

also Voice Farm, though they were a bit more synth-poppy then industrial.

CD is out but not the LP or download, far as I can tell. I will download it soon as it's available. In the meantime, there's a digital ep release single with the song High Pressure Days featuring remixes/reworks by Headman and Rory Phillips. Sounds great. I bought that on iTunes to tide me over.

This band is fucking incredible. More discussion, plz.!

this band is possibly the most underrated band of their era. so fucking amazing.

also this:
http://www.archive.org/details/Unit_Training_Film_1

I interviewed Scott Ryser last year. A fascinating guy and a really cool group.

Always glad to see the Units be discussed even a little bit.

how is the "New Ways to Move" album? i had it in a store one time and the dude told me it wasn't very good so i put it back. kinda kicking myself

I don't like spamming here but you can google the interview I did with him pretty easily on tQ. It's about 8,000 words long! But he's easily interesting enough to justify such a word count. With something like this I'm keen that the few people who are actually aware of the band get to see it if they want.

Love these guys. So ahead of their time, if that's not a totally lame thing to say.

Are they REALLY ahead of their time?

They genuinely do sound ahead of the curve for a band using synths in the late 70s. The only thing that's really dated on the 'High Pressure Days' single is the terrible pub rock drumming. Two of the members used to be in metal groups and they applied stuff they'd learned about amplification and use of effects to synthesizers instead of just having them run through the mixing desk, giving them a massive sound. I'd sooner listen to them than DEVO, even though I know this is heresy to say so.

Yeah, the basic songwriting etc may not be so far ahead of Devo (still a few years ahead of synthpunk becoming a thing though, especially US-side), but the immenseness of the sound (and compare the 7" version of HPD to the album version a year later) made the release date pretty surprising to me - I heard the 00s remix first and thought "ok, this has been seriously fattened up by the remixer", and then it turned out that it hadn't

anyway, it was a pretty lame thing to say, so forget the chronology, these guys would have been great for any year

(I enjoyed the interview, Doran, even if I can't agree with your opinion of Devo or Ryser's of Kraftwerk. Thanks! I was really surprised and delighted to see such an in-depth interview. Wish I could somehow get a time machine back for one evening to have seen them live.)

heresy indeed. I like...LOVE The Units, but Devo are in another league! One with few peers and few predecessors.

Being British I don't understand Devo or think any of the things that they are referencing are really that relevant to me.

(Cue lots of angry British people going on about how Devo speak volumes to them.) There's a whackiness to Devo that I just cannot abide, although I've found them to be fascinating in interviews.

I'm British. I like things I don't understand. If I understood Devo or their references they'd be a lot less interesting to me.

I don't really know what is so bitchin' about the Mission but I still like the Units. (Er, ok, that might be my least favourite track on the album, mainly because of the lyrics, so maybe a bad example.)

Though - when I first heard High Pressure Days, I picked out the words "bubble car" and thought it was some kind of sci-fi and, yes, possibly wacky tale of life in 2010 now that we're all hoverboarding in silver jumpsuits etc. Turns out it is a look at social interaction as Brownian motion, a wacky sci-fi look at the mundane, and I like that even better.

um, uh...i feel weird saying this, but that song refers to The Mission district of San Francisco...and if you live here, it is immensely funny.

even now

Loving the remix of high pressure days. Very New Order esque

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5rcFBTjPK8

Try the Headman remix as well. Both are superb.

wow this comp is great

Oh yes.

was totally sucked in by the liner notes/sleeve design - I am a sucker for this kind of Marxist/Situationist collage stuff

^ better than the lp, imho.

was that strictly a reprint/reissue thing or were their original releases like that too...?

SO FUCKING AWESOME

I was rewatching the Jandek on Corwood documentary the other day and I love the bit from him in the John Trubee interview talking about his first album (released as the Units) and then getting these really pissed off letters from the Bay Area...

i feel like the siren sound in "cannibals" is a sound i hear a lot in j dilla huhu.

um, uh...i feel weird saying this, but that song refers to The Mission district of San Francisco...and if you live here, it is immensely funny.

I'm a year late but yeah, I got that much, that's why it doesn't mean much to people who've never lived in SF. But the alien references add to the charm.

I love the reissue but I wish they'd put the album versions on as well as the demo/7" versions. I know the demos are scratchier and punker, and maybe that's the image they wanted to portray or maybe someone (the band? Community Library?) didn't like the album production so much, but there's a real pleasing and ahead-of-its-time plumpness to the production on the original LP rips you can find on the internet which I miss on the reissue. (Thinking especially of the two tracks in the thread title here iirc.)

Possible ulterior reason: Digital Stimulation came out on 415, which is now owned by Sony. Releasing those versions may have involved a great deal of licensing hassle.

Ah yeah, that would do it! I did consider licensing reasons when first contemplating this, but didn't realise 415 was Sony-owned.

Well, it's too bad, the DS version of Warm Moving Bodies is immense

this band is possibly the most underrated band of their era. so fucking amazing.

― The Portrait of a Lady of BJs (the table is the table), Sunday, July 4, 2010 12:40 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Love these guys. So ahead of their time, if that's not a totally lame thing to say.

― atoms breaking heart (a passing spacecadet), Monday, July 5, 2010 11:06 AM (5 years ago)

came across 'history of' while researching some light in the attic artists on spotify and holy shit. some of these have songwriting satan will ferrell vibes, but i mean that in the nicest way. it's all great.

I picked up the reissue of "Digital Stimulation" a few years ago, not really sure how I discovered them in the first place but I was astounded that I had never heard of them before, and I've beaten the new wave underbrush for decades. It's a remarkable album, very reminiscent of early Devo. Parallel evolution, perhaps?

I have the 45 of "High Pressure Days" and was a little disappointed at the Digital Stimulation LP, as it smoothed the rough edges out. Is the single version (with B side) available on any of these releases?

I don’t know if it’s the exact one you’re looking for but there’s a comp of early Units material with a decidedly rougher version of “High Pressure Days” on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt3LiTubILM

The vocal sounds the same but I remember the synths being harsher. I'll try to find my 45.

I listened to some samples of the studio albums, and I also missed the more abrasive sound of the earlier stuff on History of... Hard to tell if Animals They Dream About is worth picking up. 'Straight Lines' is definitely killer.