Is anyone going? I'm not a big fan, but I'm keen to check it out.

The only danger with a band like Neon Neon is when you evoke the spirit of Depeche Mode, all it will do is make the listener want to listen to Depeche Mode.

Depeche Mode? Are you serious?

Not all of their songs, but Raquel is a dead-ringer.

It's like all of their songs are a project. Trick for Treat and Luxury Pool was "hey, let's make a dirty south song !" Some are Depeche Mode songs. Others are "hey, let's make a whatever fill-in-the-blank synth band was good 25 years ago."

From what I've heard so far (which isn't the entire album) if I was to put Neon Neon in the same area as anyone it would possibly be Zoot Woman. Possibly.

Depeche Mode were the last band to come to mind when I listen to Neon Neon. A lot of synth sounds (which are bloody difficult to get right for some reason!) from 'Metamatic' and 'Pleasure Principle' and melodic and song structures from 'Human League', 'Afrika Bambatta' (and other street sounds series) and'Heaven 17'.

Nope, I don't get the Depeche Mode thing either.

It always amazes me with synthesizers, and 80's synth bands in particular, that given they were all using basically the same kit, or at least the same method of producing noise, they all sound so unique. I mean, Depeche Mode's multi-layered, very intricate style was a long way from The Human League's (circa Dare, at least) much more raw, caustic sound.

But Raquel is 98% Erasure.

King Mob wrote:

QUOTE:
...given they were all using basically the same kit...

Oooh! Oooh! <splutter> Fuck!

Alot of the synths at the time were very different. You had Numan and Richard Barbieri with the Oberheim OBX(a), Thomas Dolby with the PPG Wave, John Foxx with the ...whatever it was that he used to get those stunning sounds on 'Metamatic' - Bah! I've forgotten!

Anyway, my point is that you could buy a synth then and know you were getting a particular range of sounds. These days, with computers able to imitate (almost) every synth on the planet, we forget that.

Actually, expanding on that, it's weird to think that in that period - 1970 to, say, 1983* - a whole new range of instrument was made available to the public.

(Obviously synths had existed in some form or another for decades, but I'm talking about ordinary people being able to get their hands on them.)

That is most likely the very last time that that will ever happen.

(* - I use 1983 as the cut-off point there, as I think that was the year that the Yamaha DX7 introduced affordable digital synthesis - and a whole unique sound palette of its own - to the masses. Since then, we've pretty much just been re-hashing the sounds and techniques of that era I mention. Even the use of samplers seems to have come and gone to a large extent, with computers making them pretty much obsolete.)

Well, by 'the same kit' I mean, you know, a synthesizer, rather than a guitar or a Japanese nasal spoon. It's just my convoluted way of paying testament to the versatility of something most people think just gets plugged in and goes 'beeeeeoooowww'.

Like those orchestras - strings, blowy things and stuff you hit.

"That is most likely the very last time that that will ever happen."

File that one under "no one will ever watch films with sound".

Well, hands up on my 80s synth band knowledge.