Hooked On Stereophonics

PSB / Underworld

2011-02-19T03:58:00.004-07:00

In the late '90s through the late '00s, it was all the rage among bedroom producers to make dance "remixes" by slapping a sampled percussion track over looping samples of '80s hits. These were usually done without permission and were released on white-label vinyl in small quantities. Here's one of the more well-done examples:

West End Girls 2002

I also really like this 2004 white-label techno remix of the song from the baby-on-the-ceiling scene in Trainspotting:

Dark [&] Long

(please leave a comment if the download links stop working)

Death of a Disco Dancer

2010-04-26T13:19:00.005-06:00

An old acquaintance of mine made this little edit (well, remix) of "Death of a Disco Dancer" by The Smiths:

FBK - Death of a Disco Dancer

The original (YouTube link) is a great song, but not quite as danceable.

Two from the Material Girl

2010-02-07T23:22:00.007-07:00

Time for some material by the Material Girl. (Surely she must get tired of being called that?)

Please spare me the wrath of unsympathetic media profiteers and kindly omit her name from any links to this post or the files themselves. Thanks.

First up is the wonderful re-edit of "Burnin' Up", a lesser hit from 1983. This lightly updated instrumental dub was crafted in 2009 by Rotciv, who is to be featured in a future post here. I can't get enough of this track.

Rotciv - Burnin'

Next is a 2010 edit of the atrocious Shep Pettibone Re-Remix of "Express Yourself". The original re-remix appeared on the "Justify My Love" CD single in 1990. The creator of this edit would like to remain anonymous.

In the original 9-minute remix, Pettibone had some good ideas which built on what he did with the "Stop & Go Dubs" remix the year before. However, repeatedly dropping out the beat and soloing the backup or lead vocals, obliterating the necessary harmonies of both put together, just did not work out so well; the mix just doesn't work for dancing or listening.

A much shorter, sweeter dub is created by cutting out most of these gratuitous vocal segments. No re-arrangement was done; the removed parts are simply skipped over, and one of the seams was lightly mixed instead of using a straight cut.

Express Yourself 1990 (De-Stupidified Edit)

The end result, while far more listenable than the original, isn't the least bit fashionable — unlike the Rotciv edit, it's no diamond in the rough for your deep house/nu-disco/boogie set — but if you're a fan of the song in general, it'll make a nice addition to your personal shuffle-play rotation.

Bagarre - No Toys

2009-12-24T01:42:00.014-07:00

Italian alterna-disco-pop group Bagarre are mainly known for their semi-hit "Lemonsweet", an upbeat ode to LSD. As much as I love "Lemonsweet", though, my love for the infectiously melodic "No Toys" surpasses it by an order of magnitude. "No Toys" reflects a creative, whimsical side of proto-Italo Disco, and lyrically it's dominated by a theme that crops up in many-an early/mid-'80s tune: imagining what glamour & sophistication must be associated with personal wealth that is just out of reach. The song has a brilliantly off-kilter chant for its chorus, and much like all the great Italo tunes, something's just not quite right about it; certain English words are occasionally mispronounced or incorrectly substituted by the non-native speakers, vocal delivery is heavily accented and in unnatural rhythms, and the arrangement is simultaneously happy-go-lucky yet slightly dreamy and moody.

Bagarre - No Toys (@ MediaFire)
Bagarre - Lemonsweet (@ YouTube)
Bagarre - Lemonsweet (Disco Version) (@ YouTube)

Google turned up no lyrics, so here's my stab at them:

Ain't got no toys
The things that do for girls and boys
A Cadillac smiles
That I can drive for miles and miles

One, two, ain't got no toys
The things that do for girls and boys
Three, four, a Cadillac smiles
That I can drive for miles and miles

Bricks on bricks
So I can make a house that slicks*
Mmm, money
So everybody will call me honey

Five, six, bricks on bricks
So I can make a house that sticks
Seven, eight, money
So everybody will call me honey

Ain't got no toys
An orange Porsche and pink Rolls Royce
Flowers in spring
Diamond bracelets and golden rings

One, two, ain't got no toys
An orange Porsche, pink Rolls Royce
Three, four, flowers in spring
Diamond bracelets, golden rings

(repeat all of the above again)

Ain't got no toys
An orange Porsche and pink Rolls Royce
Flowers in spring
Diamond bracelets and golden rings

One, two, ain't got no toys
An orange Porsche, pink Rolls Royce
Three, four, flowers in spring
Diamond bracelets, golden rings

Dine at The Ritz
Long fur coats and swocker on mitts**
Ginny fizz
And anything that will make me whiz

Five, six, dine at the ritz
Long fur coats and swocker on mitts**
Seven, eight, ginny fizz
And anything that will make me whiz

Ain't got no toys
The things that do for girls and boys
A Cadillac smiles
That I can drive for miles and miles

One, two, ain't got no toys
The things that do for girls and boys
Three, four, a Cadillac smiles
That I can drive for miles and miles

Five, six, bricks on bricks
So I can make a house that sticks
Seven, eight, money
So everybody will call me …honey

*In the 2nd verse it's definitely not "house that sticks", but in the
chanted chorus, it definitely is. I'm pretty sure she's saying "slicks".

**In the last original verse, "swocker on" is my phonetic approximation of what they're
saying. It's definitely not "sparkling". Maybe some brand of designer gloves?

Progressive House: born in 1988?

2009-08-27T22:35:00.005-06:00

One of the things I've been doing over the last couple years has been painstakingly refining how I organize my digital music collection, which at this point is over 14,000 hand-selected tracks I like. It has no blind rips of full releases — otherwise it'd be 5 times as big, with lots of duplicates. So this means getting things filed away into a smarter system than just alphabetically.

Right now what I have is three main categories: DJ sets, Artists, and Genres. The first, DJ sets, is self-explanatory, and is still kind of a shambles. The second, Artists, is for artists that I have a lot of releases by, and who with only a few exceptions tend to cross genre boundaries (Orbital being a prime example). The third, Genres, is where the majority of the music lives.

The more music I sort into genres, the better picture I get of the history and nature of each one. For example, what used to be simply an Acid House folder evolved into three subfolders to partition the songs by decade - 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Then the 1980s folder became more specifically 1986-1990 because some of the made-in-1990 tracks I had filed under 1990s were more closely tied, musically, to the original movement. Unlike in other genres, I haven't split this period any further by years because acid house didn't evolve very quickly; that is, 1986 acid house really doesn't sound different enough from 1989 acid house to make it worth separating. Nevertheless, it became apparent that the decade-ish division wasn't good enough, either, because there's a distinct but difficult-to-describe difference in the acid house sounds created by geographically isolated producers. So the 1986-1990 folder now has subfolders: one for tracks originating in the genre's birthplace of Chicago, one for New York, and one for the UK & Europe. If I queue up one of these folders and "drop the needle" on a selection of tracks within them, it's astonishing how these seemingly pedantic divisions really make sense.

Also fascinating is that as I'm exposed to more music, I'm finding that some genres have histories going back earlier than I ever realized. Progressive house is a good example. There's no good definition of this genre on the web, but generally speaking it's house music that incorporates elements of trance and/or dub and/or breakbeat, and it has a plodding, smoothed out, not so 'bumpin' sound (although there are exceptions). People usually know it when they hear it, but it's hard to say what makes it 'progressive'. Perhaps it's defined more by what it's not (it's not regular booty-shakin' house music) than by what it actually is.

Most folks who know about progressive house are aware it was associated with, if not partly defined by, the music on William Orbit's Guerilla label during its heyday in the UK in 1991–1993; they know that 'progressive trance' and 'progressive breaks' are roughly the same style of music but with bass & percussion resembling trance or breaks moreso than house; and they know that by the late 1990s the word 'progressive' was being used by itself as a catch-all for these plus music that wasn't any more trancey than it was breaky or housey.

As with most genres, these names came into existence after a fair number of examples had already been produced, so it's not surprising that the 1990 subfolder of my progressive trance/house/breaks meta-folder has been filling up with examples of music that was all just filed under 'house' at the time it came out. What is surprising, though, is that not only is there now a 1989 subfolder that's just as full as the 1990 one, but I've also had to start a 1988 subfolder. Progressive house in 1988? Heresy! How could it be true? Well, so far, the folder has one track in it: UK producer Richie Rich's B-side "Salsa House", modest remixes of which comprised a hit single in the following year. Listening to it, there's no doubt in my mind: it does not belong anywhere else but in the progressive house folder. Now I'm wondering if this folder will fill up, too, and whether a 1987 folder is on the horizon.

Richie Rich - Salsa House

Free ambient/downtempo music from Ishq / Ishvara / Indigo Egg

2009-07-21T01:49:00.007-06:00

Despite my rant the other day, sometimes creators & rights holders need no persuasion, because they're already on board. Cornwall's psychedelic ambient/downtempo prodigies Matt Hillier & Jacqueline Kersley, for example, are proponents of digital sharing, and Matt was kind enough to give his permission for my favorite selections from their repertoire to be made available here.

Ishq - "Sky Blue (Live)"
This track was on the Ishq website for a while in the mid-2000s. It's very similar to the studio version which appears on the 2002 Orchid album, but I just prefer this one a little better because of the way it builds in the beginning. This song is rather unusual for Ishq, as it uses a straightforward Balearic-style breakbeat sample and prominent bass riff throughout. Between the bass and synths, there's an actual melody. I think of this as "their disco record." Maybe not their deepest, but it's still one of my favorites.
Ishvara - "Nomad (Arabiq Mix)"
This, too, was on the Ishq website. It's a nice, long building track with churning percussion throughout. It never got a full release, but an edited version, "Nomad (Arabian Remix)" was released on the Vampire Sunrise compilation in 2009. The edited version doesn't have the long ambient intro and outro, but is otherwise the same as this one.
Elemental Journey - "Air"
This is Hillier in collaboration with Matt Coldrick. The 2005 album it comes from is rather trancey in a way that's not my cup of tea, but this beatless track is much different from the others and is more in line with Ishq's catalog.
Indigo Egg - "Clouds of Indigo" / "Shamballa" / "Smiling Buddha"
All three of these tracks were enhanced, remastered, and released on the official 2008 release of Ixland. What I'm giving you here are pre-release versions from around 1998. Another mix of "Clouds of Indigo" first officially appeared on a compilation in 2000. Other mixes of "Smiling Buddha" appared as Ishq - "Happiness" on a compilation in 2004, and also on the Ishq website in 2005. "Shamballa" was retitled to the pair of songs "Clearlight" and "Home" on the 2008 release of Ixland.
Ishq - "Opal (Opaque Mix)"
This is a c. 2000 pre-release mix, slightly different than the one which later appeared on Orchid.

And here are some links for further research:

Discographies: Ishq / Indigo Egg / Ishvara / Matt Hillier
Ishq's MySpace
Ishq's music blog
Ishq's website
Ishq's label website
Hi-res cover art for Indigo Egg - Ixland (2008 release): outside cover / inside cover

Accept & leverage unauthorized distribution networks now!

2009-07-02T20:38:00.006-06:00

If you like the song, support the artist and buy the record!

Oh wait, you can't, because the Cesarez record, for example, has been out of print for 26 years. A secondhand copy of the 12" was sold on eBay earlier this year for US $50. The artist, label, and publisher aren't entitled to any of that money, due to the 'first sale' doctrine of copyright law, which is as it should be.

The only way anyone would even know that these tracks might have a market for a reissue is for savvy A&R people to do research and find out what the DJs are playing, what's hot in niche radio markets, what the critics are playing for each other, what's being shared on the 'Net, what's being talked about and posted in the blogs. Well, we are right here, and we are doing this work for you for free.

So...

Attention labels, artists, and publishers: Music bloggers, including those who provide audio downloads, are your free market research services and your free publicity hounds. We tell you which tracks to remaster and reissue. We generate buzz in niche markets. We are part of the new face of radio.

People are willing to pay for good music, if only you'd make it available for fair prices, without a handover of personal information! Stop holding music for ransom. Accept the reality that all music is making its way into the underground distribution networks. Accept the reality that people who download music with no intention of ever paying for it wouldn't have paid for it anyway; they would've bought a secondhand copy, copied it from some other source, heard inferior-quality clips on radio or in DJ sets, or simply gone without. Accept the reality that peer-to-peer sharing and direct downloading is the new radio; people try out tracks en masse and discard what they don't want, and re-acquire "legally" what they can, depending on how convenient it is and how much it costs.

You'll never eliminate the underground market, and you'll never completely monetize it. But right now, you're not getting anything out of it. Free publicity is going completely to waste. You probably didn't even know until now that your deep catalog music, which you thought no one cared about anymore, is generating interest again. It could be reissued in a limited edition physical media, and sold digitally through a site like juno.co.uk, netting you at least some income, even while it's simultaneously freely available elsewhere. You could even ask music bloggers to take their clips offline once you've made the reissues available, and you'd be surprised that most of them would oblige because they want to support you.

But instead, you're committed to letting the music languish in your archives, lamenting the fact that people aren't paying you a living wage each & every time they copy & distribute their mediocre "rips" in the secondhand & digital sharing marketplace, angry that bloggers didn't ask your permission even though they had naturally feared you would've come after them or placed unreasonable limitations on them.

It's your choice. Do you want a piece of the action or not? Get on board and take advantage of the market and services that are right here in front of your eyes. Reissue lost tracks. Contact music bloggers to ask them to talk about your music, post free tracks, and direct folks to your authorized distributors, rather than ordering them to cease & desist. We are not your enemy.

Cesarez - Si Tu Sais Compter… (Crazy Mix)

2009-07-02T20:22:00.003-06:00

I had a little trouble finding a complete copy of this fun little French Canadian synth-pop song. It's part of the long tradition of French singers who are either children or just sound like children.

There are apparently 3 versions:

· 4:19 version from the 7" and 12"
· 3:31 version from the 7" only
· 6:04 Crazy Mix from the 12" only

Enjoy!

Others who have posted about this song:
· Overfitting Disco

MP3.com to die, replaced by what it could've been

2009-03-26T17:15:00.003-06:00

It looks like MP3.com is finally shutting down. They're going to redirect most of their site to Last.fm.

Wow, the irony.

Back in 2001, MP3.com got sued into oblivion for trying to start up my.MP3.com, an ad-revenue-supported streaming service that had a brilliant, built-in scheme protecting against the one thing that makes the music industry scared of streaming audio: people "downloading" and sharing permanent copies they wouldn't otherwise have bought already.

Then Universal/Vivendi, the company that won the suit, bought them out. But rather than exploiting the my.MP3.com cash cow themselves or setting up an iTunes-like store, either of which would've netted them $billions by now, they milked what they could from its back-end technology, and let its public-facing site languish before selling it to CNET, who continued to run it into the ground. And now it finally shuts down, declaring its successor to be Last.fm (now owned by CBS, which also bought CNET)...Last.fm being an ad-revenue-supported streaming service & successful revenue stream catalyst for the music companies who allow their music to be transmitted, a service not at all unlike what MP3.com was and could have been.

Imagine if they had gone down this road in 2000-2001, rather than sending an army of lawyers to destroy, destroy, destroy, even after being embarrassed by the success of iTunes. It's utter failure on the part of Universal and the other Big Four, who continue to assault potential revenue stream catalysts, be they Internet radio stations, YouTubers, music discovery bloggers, P2P networkers, or independent startups in music marketing & distribution. And yet slowly, inevitably, they inch toward embracing the conclusions that pragmatists like Michael Robertson saw all along.

William "Boogie Knight" / "Kid Delight" Stroman, R.I.P.

2009-03-26T14:46:00.005-06:00

I didn't intend to post anything hip-hop related in this blog, but I was doing some research on The Boogie Boys (known for their 1985 hit "A Fly Girl") and stumbled across a number of touching posts by people who knew the group's central figure, William Darrell Stroman, a.k.a. "Boogie Knight" / "Kid Delight" on wax, then "Delight" / "9×Delight" / "Boogie Knight Kid Delight". Stroman was murdered on October 9, 2001.

Everyone who wrote about him had such good things to say about him. If you have a minute, spend some time reading at these sites and get to know him.

July 2001 interview with William Stroman.
October 2001 announcement of Stroman's passing, posted by DJ Yoda (Crash Crew/Zulu Nation).
2004 Boogie Boys / William Stroman mini-bio by DJ Yoda in a message board thread.
2005 remembrance / memorial post by a friend/Army buddy of Stroman. The comments on that post contain further remembrances by more friends, ex-girlfriends, and others who loved him. If you knew him and want to comment, I recommend you post there, so they'll all be in one place and more easily found in searches.
2007 Boogie Boys bio

I had linked to some posts on The Brothers Music blog which featured the following great tracks by the Boogie Boys, but the posts have since been removed, I assume due to legal threats. Perhaps you could search for them on FilesTube:

Rappin Ain't No Thing
A Fly Girl
You Ain't Fresh

If you only get one track, I recommend "A Fly Girl" although I really like the ultra-old-school (1981!) party vibe of "Rappin Ain't No Thing".

Florio Time D.J. - Time Out

2008-12-27T23:14:00.018-07:00

Time Out was an hour-long dance music radio show primarily hosted by Florio "Florio Time D.J." Imparata. It was broadcast from 1980 to 1989 on Radio Piombino, an FM radio station in the small city of Piombino in Italy.

Someone has set up a tribute for the show at http://xoomer.alice.it/fivedance/. The site is mostly in Italian, a language which seems to defy intelligibility when translated with automated services like Google Translate. The site contains a few sound files in the venerable VQF format. I had images and transcoded versions of the audio files here in this post, but the owner of the site asked me to remove them.

Florio Time D.J. (where has he gone?) apparently released only one song of his own: the silly, druggy, theme "Time Out".

~~Florio Time D.J. - Time Out (Vocal)~~
~~Florio Time D.J. - Time Out (Instrumental)~~

This 1983 melodic electro cut is perhaps one of the greatest examples of pure Italo Disco, naïvely flaunting several defining traits of the genre, including heavily accented, speak-sung English lyrics — which, even when deciphered correctly, don't entirely make sense.

Behold:

Time Out is not the most story
Time Out is not which is own yours
Time Out the fable becames reality

A wonderful story
I come here today
And here's a story of Time Out
Three years ago
There was a DJ
That liked funky music
Just as we do
So one day
As a play
He had an idea
And say to house
My dear friend
I want to make a program
A program with the music
We all love!

Come on girls
Come on boys
Let's all dance
With the music of tomorrow
And every day
If your television's on
A new sensation
You'll be feel
But eat the cereal
It's good for you
There is a disco
For a night under the moon
The moon like it too
That's why you dancing
With your music
The electronic sound!

Time Out
Music in my heart
Time Out, Time Out
Music in your heart
Time Out, Time Out
Music in my heart
Time Out, Time Out
Music in your heart

Turntables mix
A one headphone
And any way good
This is Time Out
The sound you will like
It gives you a shock
This is the music
Of the Time

Turntable mix
And one headphone
And many record
This is Time Out
The sound you like
And give you a shock
This is the music
Of the Time

Time Out
Music in my heart
Time Out, Time Out
Music in your heart
Time Out, Time Out
Music in my heart
Time Out, Time Out
Music in your heart

Come on girls
Come on boys
Let's all dance
With the music of tomorrow
And every day
If your television's on
A new sensation
You'll be feel
But eat the cereal
It's good for you
There is a disco
For a night under the moon
The moon like it too
That's why you dancing
With your music
The electronic sound!

These blogs also posted about the song "Time Out":
Italo Deviance (September 2008); Kontrapunkt (June 2008); My Secret Playlist (December 2008)

Flemming Dalum - Italo Classix

2008-12-27T11:51:00.007-07:00

Flemming Dalum's expertly crafted "Italo Classix" mix straddles the line between DJ set and megamix, briefly visiting the essence of nearly every above-par Italo Disco track from the genre's heyday. Although it's packed with hits, he thankfully sticks to the relatively edgy songs that have the most longevity, steering mostly clear of the guilty-pleasure, overt pop and Hi-NRG side of Italo that would sound dated and jarring in a modern set. With 100 tracks in 80 minutes, it's the best mix of '08, for sure. Original post and link to the mix are at http://djhistory.com/forum/showthread.php?p=411156

Magic Waves posted an interesting interview of Flemming Dalum, probably one of very few people in the world with nearly every Italo Disco record ever made.

He's also posted another set recently: The Dark Side of Italo: http://www.djhistory.com/forum/showthread.php?p=416708. This one is shorter but is mostly instrumental, built from Italo loops, plus effects.

C-B-S and Intergalactic FM

2008-09-04T23:00:00.007-06:00

The Cybernetic Broadcasting System (C-B-S), located at cbs.nu, shut down this past July, ending a 5½ year run.

C-B-S was mainly two things:

A collaborative Internet radio station overseen by Ferenc van der Sluijs, a.k.a. electro recording artist I-F (Interr-Ference). It featured vast amounts of synthesizer music, most of it either techno, electro, or Italo disco, sometimes ambient, sometimes synth-pop.
A forum / community of C-B-S listeners & synth music junkies affectionately called "robots." The name of the forum was Robots For Robots.

When the station shut down, Robots For Robots posts were removed and replaced with a single thread announcing the station's demise. Immediately, a new version of the forum, nearly identical to the old, was launched by users on another site. However, the original Robots For Robots posts were eventually restored on the original site, and some new posting does seem to be occurring. Both forums are linked to in the Forums section at left.

The C-B-S broadcasts DJed and hosted by Ferenc himself were highly entertaining. His on-air style was humorous and full of energy. It was immediately obvious that he loves all the music, and yet doesn't take things too seriously. He invested thousands of hours and probably tons of money into keeping the stream going, but according to his farewell post, the station just wasn't getting enough listeners to make it worthwhile.

Archives of some of the broadcasts can be found on file sharing networks. The year-end Top 100 countdowns, based on votes from listeners, are especially popular. These shows are full of cuts from Ferenc's library, interspersed with clever station IDs submitted by the "robots". Some of the countdown tracks are so rare, the records they come from (when they can be found) trade for hundreds of Euros, and the only copies to be found on the file sharing networks were ripped from C-B-S.

Now there is word of a C-B-S radio's successor: Intergalactic FM. Not much is known about it yet, but it looks promising.

Also: This blog is not dead, just somewhat dormant. Music and information is being hoarded, sorted, organized and prepared for dissemination, don't worry. And the links along the left side have been getting updated. Mainly the changes have been in the Tastemakers section, which features music blogs -- i.e., free music sources -- you should be checking out if you're into space/synth/Italo disco and other interesting/weird tracks found by fellow crate diggers. The sites are in order with the disco-oriented ones coming first, more general ones last.

Please bookmark or link to hookedonstereophonics.blogspot.com, if you haven't already.

Thanks for visiting and reading. As a reward for getting this far, here's something you might enjoy: Evidence - Explosion of a Planet

Oppenheimer Analysis

2008-05-14T23:44:00.014-06:00

Oppenheimer Analysis is a Cold Wave duo consisting of weapons of mass destruction expert Andy Oppenheimer and Brighton musician Martin Lloyd.

Thus far they've produced only two sets of tracks: the New Mexico sessions from 1982, and the Der Wissenschaftler sessions from 2005. Their discography is rather short:

1982 Andie Oppenheimer - demo tape
1982 Andie Oppenheimer - New Mexico tape
2005 Oppenheimer Analysis - New Mexico reissue on private CDR
2005 Oppenheimer Analysis - s/t 12" of 4 tracks from New Mexico (500 numbered copies)
2005 Oppenheimer Analysis - Songs From The Atomic Age compilation of tracks from New Mexico + unreleased '82 material
2005 Oppenheimer Analysis - Der Wissenschaftler EP 4 new tracks + 2 remixes thereof
2007 Oppenheimer Analysis - 2005 s/t 12" repress (500 numbered copies)

In both sessions, Andy Oppenheimer's disaffected, feminine vocals are reminiscent of those of Jenny "Looking From A Hilltop" Ross, perhaps with a hint of Neil Tennant and Alison Moyet. They fit neatly into the bed of transportive electro-disco pop supplied by Lloyd. The overall sound is moody early/mid-'80s in the style of early Pet Shop Boys, if PSB had only been a bit more like Yazoo, but bleak. It's very white, but steers clear of the excesses and clichés that dominated the latter half of the decade. A nice find.

Full track: Oppenheimer Analysis - The Devil's Dancers (Dance With Us)

The 2005 material sounds new but surprisingly recaptures the essence of the original sessions. One track, however, is dressed with a buzzy, inauthentic lead synth, the kind that has been an electroclash staple since the late '90s and really can't die soon enough.

Clips (direct MP3 links):

1. The Devil's Dancers (Dance With Us)
2. Radiance
3. Men In White Coats
4. from the 2005 sessions, Science

In 1981, an instrumental single was released by Martin Lloyd with Paul Ashley, under the name Analysis. It, too, is a lost gem for the retro synth heads. The two tracks from the 7" ("Surface Tension" and "Connect") can be heard on Lloyd's MySpace.

Moebius - "Urth"

2008-05-12T21:34:00.012-06:00

Atlanteans, Lumanians, Lemurians, Welcome to Earth!

This is the first post in Hooked On Stereophonics, a music blog.

Moebius - "Urth": I was turned on to this over-the-top, vocal/vocoded synth disco track when I heard it in a Beppe Loda DJ mix on the Cosmic Disco and Beats In Space sites, but I had a hard time finding out the name of the song by Googling for the lyrics. To help other people who might find themselves in the same boat, I'm posting the lyrics here.

The song is apparently about ancient, lost, legendary civilizations of spacefaring superhumans returning to Earth. It was released on the group's self-titled album in Canada in 1979. The album was released 2 years later in Germany with the title Mirror Of Infinity. It's long out of print, of course.

In February 2008, Mutant Sounds made a post about the album which pointed to a place where you can download a rip of the whole thing (as MP3s in a .rar, hosted on RapidShare). The post attracted the attention of surviving band member Doug Lynner, who apparently is cool with it, although he'd like you to buy his recent album to show your support. The other band member, Bryce Robbley, is no longer living.

Anyway, to download "Urth", just get the whole album via the Mutant Sounds post. It includes "Urth" and their hit version of "Light My Fire", as well as some not-so-great tracks.

Welcome to Urth
Home of our birth
Welcome to home
We're not alone
Welcome to Urth
Home of our birth
Welcome to home
We're on our own

Lumanian
Woman and man
Children to be
Children of g
Supermen know
Super ego
Atlantean
Catch as catch can

Welcome to Urth
Home of our birth
Welcome to home
We're on our own
Welcome to Urth
Home of our birth
Welcome to home
We're not alone

Welcome to Urth
Home of our birth
Welcome to home
We're in the zone
Welcome to Urth
Home of our birth
Welcome to home
We're not alone

Lemurian
Lend me your hand
I am the moon
Welcome to you
Now that we're here
No need to fear
We hold the key
Be what will be

Welcome to Urth
Home of our birth
Welcome back home
We're in the zone
Welcome to Urth
Home of our birth
Welcome to home