I still don’t remember it ever being called ‘cold wave’ or ‘minimal synth’ but I am glad that the early pioneers of SynthPop are getting a bit of attention these past few months (and that the sound is being carried on by a new batch of artists!). Angular Recording Corporation has enlisted the help of two men who spearheaded this revival, Pieter Schoolwerth, founder of Wired Records and Angular’s own Joe Daniel to compile 17 tracks of classic Futurist Pop for their forthcoming ‘Cold Waves And Minimal Electronics Vol.1’.
Spanning 1981-1985 and digging out some severely rare 7”s and demo tapes the compilation perfectly captures the underground electronic sound of the early 80’s northern Europe. Check the track list:
01. Absolute Body Control – Figures
02. Nine Circles – Twinkling Stars
03. Linear Movement – Night In June
04. Opera Multi Steel – Ills S’eloigent
05. Bal Paré – Palais D’Amour
06. Eleven Pond – Watching Trees
07. The Vyllies – Babylon
08. End Of Data – Dans Votre Monde
09. The Actor – Lights
10. Ausgang Verboten – Consumer
11. Jeunesse D’Ivoire – A Gift Of Tears
12. OTO – Anyway
13. Ruth – Polaroïd/Roman/Photo
14. Stereo – Somewhere In The Night
15. The Neon Judgement – The Fashion Party
16. Land Of Giants – Cannibal Dolls
17. Days Of Sorrow – Travel
To give you a taste of what to expect I’ve dug into my archive to bring you two tracks that appear on the compilation. End Of Data’s ‘Dans Votre Monde’ from the LP of the same name and The Neon Judgement’s classic ‘The Fashion Party’, two amazing slices of raw, early electronic Pop.
♫ End Of Data – Dans Votre Monde (zShare) (MediaFire)
♫ The Neon Judgement – The Fashion Party (zShare) (MediaFire)
‘Cold Waves And Minimal Electronics Vol.1’ is released 8th March.
Cold Waves And Minimal Electronics Vol.1 @ Amazon
electronic rumors 
What’s with the let’s-invent-a-new-genre-name crap? This is proto New Beat stuff, or “Industrial” (Neon Judgement). I’m friends with half of Absolute Body Control and lived through that whole period, just because someone can dredge up some obscure French proto-New Beat records doesn’t make it a genre.
I kinda’ agree with you, hell I’m not even that keen on the term ‘New Wave’, that was just invented by David Geffen ‘cos he didn’t think he could sell British electronic music to Americans without packaging it up with post-punk bands and selling it as the ‘New Wave of British artists’! BUT I figure if exposes a new generation of listeners to the music (and there is a whole scene, especially in New York, getting into these bands and creating new music) then at the end of the day it can only be a good thing.
As long as people are respectful of the history of the music they like then it’s all just semantics.
I agree that exposure is good/important – I try to do it whenever possible. But I got here to this page after seeing this podcast about it on the (UK) Guardian’s music page today, and a mere 9 minutes in, some dude is saying how this music is “totally buried” and “no one knows about it” – I’m 51 and lived through this shit in real-time, it’s not like we’re all dead or something! I realize I’m sounding like the equivalent of a 1964 Brighton Beach Mod grousing about the 1979 Mod revival, but still – it sounds patronizing to those of us who were around back then. I have a problem with the attitude, not the exposure.