Medical Records is celebrating it’s 5 year anniversary as well as 50th release! Medical Records was founded sometime in 2007/2008 but released it’s first double header of reissues in May 2010 with the (at the time) little known Deutsche Wertarbeit (MR-001) and the first album by famed Italo/synthpop guru Alexander Robotnick (MR-002). Since the beginning, Medical has pledged to bring back long out of print and lost new wave, synth, and disco LPs from the 70s and 80s. With an emphasis on high quality heavy vinyl (with a dizzying array of colored wax), these essential records have been made available again at a reasonable price for collectors and new fans to cherish once again. Over time, we expanded our palette to include new artists with a similar aesthetic to our vision as well as crucial 90s reissues in the shoegaze and other unclassifiable genres.
With collaborations with Crispy Nuggets, Light In The Attic, and Portland’s 2010 Records, the back catalog of releases have spanned much ground. For this 50th release (MR-050), we have chosen to release our first retrospective with a twist. This double LP features a hand-picked selection of tracks intended to highlight our past reissues on the first 3 sides. Featuring such standouts as Lou Champagne System, Tony Carey, Gay Cat Park, and many more, it is a very nice representative collection. The 4th side of the double LP is a unique collection of our new (contemporary) artists performing specially selected cover versions of tracks featured on our past reissues. Examples include the sultry “We R” performed by Roladex (originally by Chrisma on “Hibernation”) and “Click” performed by Kline Coma Xero (originally by Disco Volante).
This collection will surely be a treat for the fans who have been following our evolution over time and will especially prove to be a staple in anyone’s collection who would like some of our reissued hits on one concise compilation. All reissue tracks and new tracks have received additional remastering and mastering (the new tracks) by Martin Bowes at the Cage Studios, UK. This collection will appeal to aforementioned lovers/collectors of rare new wave, private press synth, cosmic/italo disco, vinyl djs, and many more!
This double LP is housed in a specially designed gatefold heavy sleeve featuring the Medical logo in a “color blindness test” on the front with the gatefold filled with thumbnails of all 50 past releases. Presented on high-quality 160gram colored vinyl.
Listen and order here.
Medical Records is very pleased to present the debut album by U/V Light. U/V Light sounds more than a bit like Cloudland Canyon at times. This is because it is the first “solo,” effort from Kip Uhlhorn of CC. Kip played, sang on, engineered, mixed, and collaborated with Gabby Weiss on this new recording. Eschewing standard German comparisons that CC usually receives, U/V LIGHT often sounds like either early electro or dance-pop but without the typical blueprint so commonly replicated these days. Kip’s rockist tendencies make this recording more interesting and fresher than those usual reference points. However, after Gabby’s vocals kick in, some of the band’s influences can be discerned such as Desire, or Uffie fuzed with Sylvester, Bobby O, Jonzun Crew, Space “Magic Fly”, etc. One could also draw some comparisons to Primal Scream’s “Screamadelica”, Seefeel, or Craig Leon at times. Despite hints at motorik tempos and/or beats., U/V Light is more of a pop affair. It is also not a simple continuation of Cloudland Canyon. Dance-pop seems the clearest reference point here, but Cenotaph does not have a standard dance beat feel.
Recorded quickly, the record has a consistent sonic approach that makes individual tracks sound like a suite of songs. God no, it is not a rock opera, but it has a singular sonic identity which makes it differ from previous Cloudland outings. Enough comparisons already, U/V Light’s Cenotaph mostly equates to a Kip Uhlhorn solo recording. Influences are felt, but they don’t dominate here. Sometimes a hybrid like this one is not easily categorized. If you like Cloudland Canyon then you will most likely enjoy Cenotaph. Or even if you do not prefer them (or have never even heard of them for that matter), this recording stands on its own. Six propulsive tracks ebb and flow with a continuous feel that takes the listener down a hypnotic wormhole.
This album was recorded using impressive arsenal of vintage analog synths as well as modern modular equipment. For fans of aforementioned influences as well as others (Grosskopf, Schultze, Slowdive) and especially those who enjoyed the most recent of the Cloudland Canyon 12” series. Mastered by Martin Bowes at the Cage Studios, UK. Presented on high-quality 180gram heavyweight colored vinyl.
Listen and order here.
Geometric Vision Is a band formed by A.Giordano. He starts composing songs and lyrics reflecting dark and nostalgic atmospheres typical of dark and cold wave but with a modern attitude which draws inspiration from contemporaneous berlin’s and British minimal synth experiments.
After a while he decides to create a real band which takes more substantial form after having experienced several line up changes… With Gennaro Campanile playing bass guitar and Roberto Amato on guitar everything seems to work out.
Listen and order here.
A kind of utopia. Just like the one found hidden away between the lines and pages of a few books, a few records that were born around the late sixties, early seventies. Those that spring in mind are by Terry Riley, Bridget Riley, Daniel Caux, Ariel Kalma. That sense of utopia which permeated their works is the one that was also found in the ideas and designs of the Bauhaus movement. Straight lines that, through a strange correspondance, are a reminder of the strong sound lines made by analog synthesizers. Those played by Model Alpha, aka Jonathan Fitoussi & Julie Freyri. Synth names full of wonders, like a sesame password to an unknown hidden world : Sequential Circuits Pro-One or Ems Synthi AKS, Philicorda or Ondioline, Roland TR-606, TR-707… Model Alpha makes them all vibrate, hiss, swirl, using them as they should (very clear sequences, straightforward percussions) but also as they shouldn’t.
Synth and drumboxes heard on this record act as if they were taking you on a psychedelic drift, making you feel that they are almost playing themselves, creating their own melodies out of their used circuitry. The great Anni Albers design used for the sleeve is another way of percceiving the duo’s electronic fluctuations : as straight hard lines that by sheer power of design and assemblage create illusions, make optic and audio nerves flutter away gently. Sound op art, in a subliminal way. Sometimes, Kraftwerk overshadows the whole music and one can only feel that the young French duo shares with their German model that same sense of making electronic music as modern ragas, nurtured by urban sounds and decays as well as an Indian sense of timing. Something for eternity, that goes on as long as electricity will be available.
As with the best techno, the best minimalist records, the best krautrock ventures, this first Model Alpha LP hints at a weird sense of time, not totally of the past, not totally of the future, not at all of the present. Something in between, a time travel machine that can take you on a random journey. Listening to those tracks is a bit like making time’s flow stop. Right now.
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Ambient guitar, minimalist rhythms and new wave voice, Love in Prague is an UFO somewhere between Interpol, And Also The Trees, Slowdive or Little Nemo. Since 2009, the band has given concerts in France in clubs and bigger halls, they have especially made the first part of the UK band Lebanon Hanover in 2015.Their new songs, still drawing on cold wave, dream pop + post-punk genre, moved on on a more electronic approach with the use of synthesizers creating an ethereal and gloomy atmosphere.
Listen and order here.
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