Back Up: Mexican Tecno Pop 1980-1989
Ferric x fried synthpop and post-punk that cracks open the fertile 1980s Mexican DIY scene. Alternate reality shit that offers a parallel view of a familiar stretch of time - so good.
While the synthpop era has been fully raked over in the US and UK, Mexico's innovative and eccentric contributions have too often been absent from the conversation. Most of the songs presented here were released in 2005 on CD, but Dark Entries has put together the first vinyl edition and added two extra cuts for the heads. It's revelatory material: unlike so much of the music being pumped from the Euro and US industry machine, this handful of tracks showed Mexico's eccentric DIY approach.
These bands used home recording techniques to mirror the shimmering electronic pop of bands like The Human League, Ultravox and Visage, dipping the sound in Mexico's 1980s cultural landscape and infusing it with politics, Latin percussion and dancefloor pressure. Avant Garde's opener 'Pesadillas' is frothy and upbeat, with ruff, saturated drums popping undereneath hi-vis monosynth sugar and raw Spanish vocals; Vandana's 'Cambios En El Tiempo' is brighter and more widescreen and will be familiar to Dark Entries heads, but drives the sound down a left hand path; while Artefacto's 'Mundo Sin Viento' is a real stand-out, adding NY freestyle drums and rolling digi bass.
New addition 'Alfabeto (Cold Version)' from Década 2 is a heads choice, all chugging, Euro rave-adjacent industrial electro, and Silueta Pálida's closer 'El Paso Del Tiempo (Versión Remezclada)' is a dreamy, percussive chunk of Latin pop. Remastered by George Horn, the set also features slick new retro-futurist artwork from Gwenaël Rattke.
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Ferric x fried synthpop and post-punk that cracks open the fertile 1980s Mexican DIY scene. Alternate reality shit that offers a parallel view of a familiar stretch of time - so good.
While the synthpop era has been fully raked over in the US and UK, Mexico's innovative and eccentric contributions have too often been absent from the conversation. Most of the songs presented here were released in 2005 on CD, but Dark Entries has put together the first vinyl edition and added two extra cuts for the heads. It's revelatory material: unlike so much of the music being pumped from the Euro and US industry machine, this handful of tracks showed Mexico's eccentric DIY approach.
These bands used home recording techniques to mirror the shimmering electronic pop of bands like The Human League, Ultravox and Visage, dipping the sound in Mexico's 1980s cultural landscape and infusing it with politics, Latin percussion and dancefloor pressure. Avant Garde's opener 'Pesadillas' is frothy and upbeat, with ruff, saturated drums popping undereneath hi-vis monosynth sugar and raw Spanish vocals; Vandana's 'Cambios En El Tiempo' is brighter and more widescreen and will be familiar to Dark Entries heads, but drives the sound down a left hand path; while Artefacto's 'Mundo Sin Viento' is a real stand-out, adding NY freestyle drums and rolling digi bass.
New addition 'Alfabeto (Cold Version)' from Década 2 is a heads choice, all chugging, Euro rave-adjacent industrial electro, and Silueta Pálida's closer 'El Paso Del Tiempo (Versión Remezclada)' is a dreamy, percussive chunk of Latin pop. Remastered by George Horn, the set also features slick new retro-futurist artwork from Gwenaël Rattke.