Chewing hides the sound.

September 25, 2011 10:39 PM

MetaPandora: Recommend me some more songs like French Film Blurred, Sinister Exaggerator, When It's War, Golden Hours, Burning Skies.

I am in need of further songs with a 1978-1982 aesthetic and consisting of a bare minimum of instruments, a slightly ominous melody, some kind of pulse, and a synthetic aspect (yet still largely organic). Songs with vocals are preferable (...but oh boy, could they be problematic during this era). What would you add to this discomfiting mix tape?

I prefer stuff from the era itself, but if you really, really want to make the case for a contemporary/retro act, make it good.

posted by mykescipark to media & arts (12 answers total)

....and oh yes, i am aware that one could make endless box sets of all the plaintive skeletal post-punk out there, but let's assume I'm after the very best. Songs on a calibre with those above the fold.
posted by mykescipark at 10:41 PM on September 25, 2011

Eno collaborated on several albums with Cluster, whose members had at one point or another played in a supergroup named Harmonia, which also involved one of the people from Neu!, some of whose output you might like: 1, 2, 3.
posted by Nomyte at 11:03 PM on September 25, 2011

Young Marble Giants comes to mind
posted by gijsvs at 2:00 AM on September 26, 2011

Suicide?
posted by sklero at 4:52 AM on September 26, 2011

M83
posted by empath at 5:46 AM on September 26, 2011

You're describing every radio show I did in the late 1980s!

Bushido Lament (an LP well worth seeking out if you're into this style. OOP, never made it to digital)

Yello Reverse Lion

Severed Heads Now An Explosive New Movie, Voices Of The Dead

German Shepherds Communist Control

Coil Ostia (The Death of Pasolini)

Legendary Pink Dots Golden Dawn, Belladonna

Alien Sex Fiend Breakdown and Cry, Lay Down and Die, Goodbye!

Cindytalk Disintegrate

Gelatinous Citizen Lust For Larvae
posted by the matching mole at 7:36 AM on September 26, 2011

Bowie, Art Decade? No vox, but nevertheless. In fact, there are a few tracks on "Low" that might work for you. Same goes for Wire's "Chairs Missing", since you like French Film Blurred.
posted by Decani at 8:03 AM on September 26, 2011

How creepy do you want to get?

Look into Nurse With Wound, Birdsongs of the Mesozoic (the same guy was in a band called Space Negros that I can't find much on YouTube for, but meets your criteria — though their Christmas album is amazingly, unlistenably bad), Zoviet France, Foetus, 23 Skidoo, Current 93, Death In June, Coil, Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Sun City Girls, African Head Charge, Chrome, Hafler Trio, Le Forte Four, Golden Palominos (only their s/t; the rest is very good but very different), PiL… I'm sorry, this is getting kind of far afield.

If you find yourself liking this sort of thing, take a look around for the Nurse With Wound list. There's usually someone seeding it somewhere, and it's full of this sort of thing.
posted by klangklangston at 10:51 AM on September 26, 2011

Great suggestions, y'all!

I have a wholesale appreciation for a lot of the artists mentioned, but I guess I'm looking for a very particular (and, I suspect, very narrow) subset of songs which live just enough on this side of "pop" to be considered proper melodic songs, and whose application of dread is a bit less heavy-handed than some of the above.

Eno was the most consistently spot-on in terms of locating and mining this particular vein. I thought of Luneburg Heath (with Harmonia 76) as another perfect example. In Dark Trees is close, but doesn't have enough of a song structure. I also think of the first two minutes of Matching Mole's Gloria Gloom, if it had gone on to become the backbone of the song. And the bridge of 10cc's I'm Not In Love. Some of Stina Nordenstam's work might have qualified, were it 15 years older, but her recording and production values are too modern.

Yello's Solid Pleasure has a lot of this kind of stuff, thanks for the reminder! I initially thought of She's Got a Gun from Claro Que Si as a possibility, but Reverse Lion is a good pick too.
posted by mykescipark at 6:25 PM on September 27, 2011

I did forget Marc and the Mambas, whose Sleaze fits. Neon Judgement too.
posted by klangklangston at 6:54 PM on September 27, 2011

OK, I think I'm understanding it better, mykescipark. This is an awesome thread. (And thanks for turning me on to that Harmonia 76 track.)

Off the top of my head, the closest match is the *amazing* record Title in Limbo, by The Residents and Renaldo and The Loaf. The opening to "Gloria Gloom" immediately made me think of this record. And it's way, way creepy.

Here's Monkey and Bunny and The Sailor Song from that album.

Edward Ka-Spel's early solo work comes close, too: Lady Sunshine, Requiem, both from the Laugh China Doll LP, 1984.

If you want to go back a fifteen years, Mort Garson is well worth checking out: Lucifer, or Plantasia.
posted by the matching mole at 11:12 AM on September 28, 2011

I'm adding the B-52s' Deep Sleep; The Raincoats' Shouting Out Loud; Family Fodder's Darling. And I suppose O Superman is the grandaddy of them all, but if I had to choose a shorter Laurie Anderson track, I'd go with Big Science.
posted by mykescipark at 5:01 PM on September 28, 2011