![\"electro.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/electro.jpg\")
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I spent much of the summer of 1983 playing games on a very primitive ZX Spectrum computer while listening to the first couple of Street Sounds Electro<\/em> compilations. Those mix albums were among the best releases that year and remain highly sought after, seeing as they’ve never been reissued on CD.<\/p>\n The musical reputation of the compilations has overshadowed the sleeve design which was very distinctive for the time and undoubtedly a factor in their success. The vertical ELECTRO type was inspired by Neville Brody’s design for The Face<\/em> which had turned the magazine’s title through ninety degrees the year before. Also very Brodyish was the use of photocopier-processed graphics and narrow typography although it should be pointed out that Brody hand-drew nearly all his headlines which left his imitators searching through type catalogues for approximations. The sleeve designs are credited to \u201cRed Ranch for Carver’s\u201d about whom I can find no information whatever. Things came full-circle when The Face<\/em> ran a feature on the electro scene in 1984 giving Brody the opportunity to do a cover with his own variant on the sleeve layouts.<\/p>\n Essential Electro 9-album box, HBOX 1 (1984). <\/em><\/p>\n One of the big attractions of these albums for me was the new directions they were opening up for electronic music. Outside the mainstream pop world electronica in the early Eighties meant either the polite fare of Tangerine Dream or the dreary sludge of minor industrial acts such as Portion Control. Cabaret Voltaire were still vital in the early 1980s: their thundering Crackdown<\/em><\/a> single (with sleeve design by Neville Brody) was remixed for its 12-inch incarnation by dance producer John Luongo while electro producer John Robie (whose production is featured on Electro 1<\/em>) remixed their Yashar<\/em><\/a> single for Factory Records. But nothing matched the excitement of a bunch of NYC kids lifting Kraftwerk riffs and playing in a very unselfconscious manner with new and relatively cheap equipment, especially the Roland TR-808<\/a> drum machine which provides the backbone for many of these recordings.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Crucial Electro, ELCST 999 (1984). <\/em><\/p>\n A1 Tyrone Brunson\u2014The Smurf Although this came later in the series it’s probably the best single collection. Lots of classic tracks with John \u201cJellybean\u201d Benitez’s Warp 9, Man Parrish, 43 year-old Herbie Hancock (assisted by Bill Laswell and DST) showing he could still rock with the kids, Cybotron aka Juan Atkins riffing on Kraftwerk, Hashim’s great Al-Naafiysh<\/em> (one of my all-time favourites) and Afrika Bambaataa’s Time Zone. Crucial indeed.<\/p>\n Electro 1, ELCST 01 (1983). <\/em><\/p>\n A1 The Packman\u2014I’m The Packman (Eat Everything I Can) \u201cAs seen on TV\u201d, Electro 1<\/em> was dominated by breaks and raps and which means it sounds more conventionally hip hop than some of its neighbours. The Newcleus track was a real gem, however, a very infectious chipmunk-voiced rap whose Wikki-Wikki<\/em> subtitle refers to the sound of record scratching, still a big deal in 1983.<\/p>\n Electro 2, ELCST 02 (1983).<\/em><\/p>\n A1 The B-Boys\u2014Two, Three, Break Along with Crucial Electro<\/em>, the other high point of the series. This starts out in a very minimal manner with two tracks of simple break stuff (Cuttin’ Herbie<\/em> is a scratch mix of Rockit<\/em>) then explodes into colour with Xena’s anthem and Hashim’s Al-Naafiysh<\/em>. Beat Bop<\/em> is a slow Message<\/em>-style rap which undergoes another explosion as Two Sisters burst into a tremendous girl-power rap. Al-Naafiysh<\/em> remains for me the definitive TR-808 track but B-Boys Beware<\/em> gives it a run for its money.<\/p>\n Electro 3, ELCST 03 (1984).<\/em><\/p>\n A1 Divine Sounds\u2014Dollar Bill This for me was the last good collection (although side two was rather weak) including the welcome return of Newcleus. The series continued up to #10 in 1985 but #4 lacked the magic of the earlier editions and the expediency of limited resources moved my attention elsewhere. Much of electro’s original momentum was lost by the mid-Eighties as the rap quotient gradually went mainstream and artists outside the scene such as New Order began co-opting the producers. Some artists stayed with the underground, however, Juan Atkins in particular moving electro forward into Detroit Techno. It’s (very) arguable that much of the music you’ve been hearing over the past twenty years can be traced back to these few singles. And if you want some equally spurious contemporary relevance, Xeni Jardin<\/a> insists that Newcleus’s \u201cwikki-wikki\u201d refrain is the Wikipedia theme tune.<\/p>\n Nearly everything here has been reissued on compilation CDs although those collections lack the juxtaposition you get from the Street Sounds mixes. Try to hear the original vinyl if you can.<\/p>\n Elsewhere on { feuilleton } I spent much of the summer of 1983 playing games on a very primitive ZX Spectrum computer while listening to the first couple of Street Sounds Electro compilations. Those mix albums were among the best releases that year and remain highly sought after, seeing as they’ve never been reissued on CD. The musical reputation of … Continue reading “Street Sounds Electro”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,29,43,3,10],"tags":[86,466,909,150,1944,4261,3252,3068,3070,5646,1459,122,149,1458,889,3590],"class_list":["post-2386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-electronica","category-magazines","category-music","category-typography","tag-barney-bubbles","tag-bill-laswell","tag-bob-pepper","tag-cabaret-voltaire","tag-charles-mingus","tag-cybotron","tag-herbie-hancock","tag-john-luongo","tag-john-robie","tag-juan-atkins","tag-k-rob","tag-kraftwerk","tag-neville-brody","tag-rammellzee","tag-tangerine-dream","tag-tr-808"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-Cu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"face.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/face.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"essential.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/essential.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"crucial.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/crucial.jpg\")
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\nA2 Warp 9\u2014Light Years Away
\nA3 Warp 9\u2014Nunk (New Wave Funk)
\nA4 Man Parrish\u2014Hip Hop, Be Bop (Don’t Stop)<\/a>
\nA5 Herbie Hancock\u2014Rockit<\/a>
\nB1 Twilight 22\u2014Electric Kingdom<\/a>
\nB2 Cybotron\u2014Clear<\/a>
\nB3 Hashim\u2014Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)<\/a>
\nB4 Captain Rock\u2014Return Of Captain Rock
\nB5 Time Zone\u2014Wild Style<\/p>\n![\"electro1.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/electro1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nA2 Newcleus\u2014Jam On Revenge (The Wikki-Wikki Song)<\/a>
\nA3 West Street Mob\u2014Break Dancin’\u2014Electric Boogie<\/a>
\nA4 C-Bank\u2014Get Wet
\nB1 K-9 Corp\u2014Dog Talk
\nB2 G. Force\u2014Feel The Force
\nB3 Project Future\u2014Ray-Gun-Omics
\nB4 Captain Rock\u2014Return Of Captain Rock<\/p>\n![\"electro2.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/electro2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nA2 The B-Boys\u2014Cuttin’ Herbie
\nA3 Xena\u2014On The Upside
\nA4 Hashim\u2014Al-Naafiysh (The Soul)<\/a>
\nB1 Rammellzee Vs K-Rob\u2014Beat Bop
\nB2 Two Sisters\u2014B-Boys Beware (Club Mix)
\nB3 Grandmaster Flash & Melle Mel\u2014White Lines (Don’t Don’t Do It)<\/p>\n![\"electro3.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/09\/electro3.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nA2 Imperial Brothers\u2014We Come To Rock
\nA3 Newcleus\u2014Jam On It<\/a>
\nB1 Boogie Boys\u2014Zodiac
\nB2 Pumpkin\u2014King Of The Beat
\nB3 Davy DMX\u2014One For The Treble (Fresh)
\nB4 Fresh 3\u2014MC’s Fresh<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 The album covers archive<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"