Close To The Noise Floor: Formative Uk Electronica Close To The Noise Floor: Formative Uk Electronica CD

2016 four CD set. Two years in the making, Close To The Noise Floor is a 61-track set exploring the origins of electronica in the UK. Featuring tracks from key figures on the cassette label underground alongside early releases by future stars of the movement, this is part primitive rave, part synthesizer porn and part history lesson. Enthralled by the mysterious electronics of Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, Gong and German Kosmische artists such as Tangerine Dream, Harmonia and Cluster, and inspired by the DIY ethos of punk, a quiet revolution took place across the UK in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The rise of the microchip and the advent of affordable synthesizers enabled countless artists for whom guitars, drums and bass had become old hat, and in grubby bedsits, unremarkable living rooms and art school halls across the British Isles, UK electronica was born. The underground, fueled by cassette exchanges, co-operative vinyl compilations and a thriving mail order network, quickly began to stretch the boundaries of sonic experimentation. Close To The Noise Floor explores every corner of this fascinating and often overlooked chapter in our musical history. For proto synth-pop look no further than 100% Manmade Fibre and Spoon Fazer, whilst British Standard Unit and Five Times Of Dust lay out techno templates which wouldn't take full form until many years later. Elsewhere, the synthesizer laden ambient music of Zorch and the found sound collages of A Tent sit comfortably alongside early forays by familiar names - Blancmange, The Human League, OMD and Throbbing Gristle - in over four hours of futurist, entirely modern music.

1. Computer Bank - Five Times of Dust 2. R.A.M. - the Klingons 3. Re-Education Through Labour - Chris and Cosey 4. Sedation Strokes - Malcolm Brown 5. Little Bob Minor - Storm Bugs 6. Tight As a Drum - Thomas Leer 7. Holiday Camp - Blancmange 8. Fractured Smile - Inner City Static 9. Sexuality - We Be Echo 10. God with Us - Bourbonese Qualk 11. Faith - Nagamatzu 12. Disco Song - O Yuki Conjugate 13. Optimum Chant - British Electric Foundation 14. All Night Long - Kevin Harrison 15. Stopping and Starting - Voice of Authority 16. I Am Your Shadow - Colin Potter 17. D'ya Think I'm Sexy - British Standard Unit 18. The Single Off the Album - Five Times of Dust 19. Back to Beginning - Spoon Fazer 20. Gerry and the Holograms - Gerry and the Holograms 21. Drugface - the Passage 22. A New Kind of Man - John Foxx 23. Green for Go - 100% Manmade Fibre 24. Sentimental - Those Little Aliens 25. Protect and Survive - Final Program 26. Being Boiled - Human League 27. New Muzak - Instant Automations 28. Materialistic Man - Cultural Amnesia 29. (Leaving Me) Now - Worldbackwards 30. Music to Save the World By - Alan Burnham 31. Almost - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark 32. Kodak Ghosts Run Amok - Eyeless in Gaza 33. Broken Vein - Schleimer K 34. The Distance from Koln - Native Europe 35. Adrenalin (Return of the Elohim PT 1) - Zorch 36. Robot Dance - Sea of Wires 37. Sea of Tranquility - Ron Berry 38. Mistral - MFH 39. Joe Goes to New York - Adrian Smith 40. Embryo (Extract) - Mark Shreeve 41. Tripych - Eg Oblique Graph 42. Encounter - Carl Mathews 43. Ynys Scaith - Paul Nagle 44. Sedation - O Yuki Conjugate 45. Western Vein - Konstruktivist 46. Dead of Night (Excerpt) - Attrition 47. What a Day - Throbbing Gristle 48. No Way of Knowing - a Tent 49. Go for the Throat - Portion Control 50. Eco Beat - DC3 51. Dying Inside - Renaldo and the Loaf 52. In the Army - Blah Blah Blah 53. God Speed - Legendary Pink Dots 54. Muslin Gauze Muslim Prayer - Muslimgauze 55. Live at Longborne - Suisse 56. Menial Disorders, Extract B2 - Alien Brains 57. Himeal (And She Blew) - Storm Bugs 58. In the Room - Third Door from the Left 59. Dignity of Labour - Al Robertson 60. Mzui (Extract) - Bcgilbert, Glewis, Russell Mills