Prime 80s work from Tears For Fears – a duo who manage to mix new romantic charms with some surprisingly strong electro pop styles! This set has the group rivalling Human League on their first few tuneful records – with maybe even some darker echoes around the edges – and though the album was part of a big flurry of electric UK pop that was coming out over the space of a few short years, it's also got more depth than most – which has given the album a surprisingly strong run over the decades. Titles include Change", "Mad World", and "Pale Shelter" – plus "Watch Me Bleed", "The Prisoner", "The Hurting", "Suffer The Children", "Ideas As Opiates", and "Start Of The Breakdown". LP, Vinyl record album

A rare early chapter in the long legacy of Human League and Heaven 17 – a group of musicians who'd partly go on to form the latter, recently departed from the former – yet still working strongly in the dark, electronic style of the earliest releases from the Sheffield scene! There's plenty of moody analogue sounds going on here – and as a cassette only release back in the day, the whole thing is a key slice of that cold wave underground of the early 80s, even though its members reached later fame – definitely working in territory that's more avant and electronic at times, but with more rhythmic instrumentals as well! Titles include "Music To Kill Your Parents By", "Decline Of The West", "Honeymoon In New York", "A Baby Called Billy", "Wipe The Board Clean", "Uptown Apocalypse", and "The Optimum Chant". LP, Vinyl record album

A second entry in this very cool series, but one that's very different than the first – as the "driving" in the title means that most of these tracks have a very cool groove – kind of the darker side of new club music styles of the time, with maybe just a hint of the cold wave generation to come! Given how far back this material goes, the set shows just how much German experiments influenced the rise of UK electronic work in the post-punk generation of early Human League and Cabaret Voltaire – as there's a link here with some of the darker sounds on Rough Trade during that period, and much of the material serves as a great bridge between Krautrock of earlier days and the German new wave of the 80s. Electronics are in full effect, with plenty of keyboards and electric rhythms – and titles include "Fur Dich (bureau b edit)" by Thomas Singer, "Time Machine" by Adelbert Von Deyen, "Puls (bureau b edit)" by Gunter Schickert, "Juggernaut" by Faust, "Phonique" by Serge Blenner, "Subito" by Moebius & Beerbohm, "180" by Pyrolator, "Auf Engelsfugeln (bureau b edit)" by Deutsch Wertarbeit, "Eve On The Hill (bureau b edit)" by Harald Grosskopf, and "Bockwurst A La Maitresse" by Asmus Tietchens. LP, Vinyl record album