Mutant Sounds Blog

The music from the last two posts I discovered thanks to the magnificent mutant sounds blog - easily the best music blog on the internet. These guys are hardcore prog/DIY punk/New-wave/No-wave/avant/experimental/minimal synth nuts and they have posted thousands of super rare and under-appreciated recordings for download. I found reading it was also a good entertaining way to waste time whenever I was in a boring situation near a computer.

http://mutant-sounds.blogspot.com/

Transparent Illusion - Still Human (1981, U.K.) Minimal Synth

I think of this album as being what Syd Barrett would have recorded had he been born 2 decades later. Transparent Illusion is a one man project by a guy named Roy Young, one man, one synth, one drum machine and a whole lot of amazing music. The melodies here are everything, perfect little ditties, there are no weak songs here just 12 solid songs full of uplifting yet depressing synth music. The music itself is a super simple distant sounding drum beat, a fat Korg MS-20 sound playing harmonies and melodies and distant out of tune drunken englishman vocals. With albums like these though it is the characteristic simplicity that makes it have such a great impact, there is no missing the point, no overlooking anything and you can develop a full appreciation of the sound very quickly and easily. As a result virtually overnight it became one of my favourites, this one is easy to recommend because it is so easy to get into and so good at the same time.

Tracklisting:

1 Sections
2 Incubus
3 Nuclear Release
4 Killing Time
5 The Age Of Ridicule
6 Malice Way
7 Demented
8 The Human Cage (Still Human)
9 We
10 I Dream I'm You
11 Is There Hope
12 Vortex

Download Here: (Transparent Illusion - Still Human, 128kbps - sorry!)

Irsol - First Contact (1983, U.K.) Minimal Synth

True synthesizer music. Relaxed, spatial, lo-fi, waves of psychedelic synth with drum machine backing beats. For what it is this extremely catchy music, the songs are basic in structure with usually a few layers of synth under a drum machine underneath but these guys make their equipment go a long way. The Korg MS-20 is a mainstay of experimental synth recordings and gets a solid workout here with fat bass, the 'whoosh' and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. The beats here are some of my favourites from a drum machine, '11:45' in particular, interestingly a lot of the beats are made using a TR-808 drum machine, and on 'Main Sequence' it almost sounds like a spaced out backing track for 90's rap!

I'm really not sure how to describe the vibe this album gives off it's slightly confusing in a good way because there is quite a bit of territory covered in terms of emotion and melody, from the upbeat to the regimented to the sparse. Loneliness and isolation seem to be a recurring theme through some of the songs musically (there are no vocals) particularly in my favourite track '3rd day'. The 18 minute title track would also make a good soundtrack to being abandonned in space (whereas '3rd day' is more invocative of a desert, and 'before breakfast' an ocean).

This is definitely an album I'd recommend to people who know nothing about minimal synth music - because I know nothing about it and it along with 2 or 3 other albums have really got me interested.

Track Listing:

Tracklisting:
1 Reesoning
2 11:45
3 Before Breakfast
4 Concentration
5 Pleasure Thro' Pain
6 After Tea
7 Main Sequence
8 Anthem
9 3rd Day
10 First Contact
a Emergence
b Gas Giants
c Lifescan
d First Contact

Download Here: (Irsol - First Contact, 128kbps - sorry!)