Analog Bubblebath

Bottom/ Arguably Depeche Mode's "worst album" according to then-chief songwriter Martin Gore, A Broken Frame (Mute Records, 1982) is the British synthpop band's second proper studio album. Depeche Mode are one of the longest-lived, most successful and influential bands to have emerged from the New Romantic and New Wave era. According to their record company, they have sold over 72 million records worldwide. Top/ Orbital was an English techno duo who took their name from Greater London's orbital motorway, the M25, which was central to the early rave scene and party network in the South East during the early days of acid house. One of the biggest names in British electronica during the 1990s, Orbital sometimes incorporated political and environmental commentary into their music. Samples used in songs occasionally lambast humankind for its destructive ways or suggest concern with genetic engineering. The band recorded The Girl With The Sun In Her Head from In Sides using Greenpeace's mobile solar power generator CYRUS. Top/ Construction Time Again (Mute Records) is the third proper studio album by Depeche Mode. Released on August 22, 1983, it saw two shifts in DM's sound. First, the lyrical content started to deepen, featuring lyrics dealing with more worldly issues, and secondly, their instrumentation started to take on darker textures, moving away from pure analog synthesizer sounds and instead making use of new digital sampling techniques. Black Celebration, released three years later, took this flavouring and cemented it as a permanent feature in DM's future works. The album was recorded at John Foxx's Garden studios in London, engineered by Gareth Jones (who had also engineered Foxx's seminal electronic album, Metamatic). It was mixed in the famous Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin (where much of David Bowie's trilogy of seminal electronic albums featuring Brian Eno had been produced). The album's cover photo features the Matterhorn mountain.

Tower Of Song

Tehillim (ECM, 1982) is a piece of music by American composer Steve Reich, written in 1981 and recorded by his own ensemble. The title comes from the Hebrew word for "psalms", and the work was the first major composition by Reich to reference explicitly his new-found interest in his Jewish heritage, and his Judaism as such. Typically, Reich's music is characterised by a steady pulse and the repetition of a comparatively small amount of melodic material emanating from a clear tonal centre (a style of writing which is called 'minimalist'). Quotes taken from the liner notes written by the composer, Steve Reich, include: 'The use of extended melodies, imitative counterpoint, functional harmony and full orchestration may well suggest renewed interest in Classical, or more accurately Baroque, and earlier Western musical practice. The non-vibrato, non-operatic vocal production will also remind listeners a singing style derived from outside the tradition of 'Western Art Music'. (...) Tehillim may thus be heard as traditional and new at the same time'

Sons Of The Silent Age

Middle/ Described as "haunting and beautiful" —not least for it's cover art, a still from the Nicholas Roeg movie The Man Who Fell to Earth, for which the music was originally intended—, Low (RCA, 1977) by British musician David Bowie is widely regarded as one of his most influential releases. Low was the first of the "Berlin Trilogy", a series of collaborations with Brian Eno. Although the music was influenced by German "krautrock" bands such as Kraftwerk and Neu!, Low has been acclaimed for its originality and is considered far ahead of its time. As late as 2000, Radiohead looked to be attempting a similar concept and sound with their album Kid A. Bowie himself has said "cut me and I bleed Low". Top/ Star Rise: Remixed (Real World, 1997) is the last release by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brook. It was released posthumously for Khan, as he died just before the album was due to be completed. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a Pakistani musician, primarily a singer of Qawwali, the devotional music of the Sufis (a mystical tradition within Islam). Bottom/ My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (Sire Records) is a 1981 album by Brian Eno and David Byrne, titled after Amos Tutuola's 1954 novel of the same name. Eno and Byrne thought the title reflected their interest in African music, and also had an evocative, vaguely sinister quality that also referenced the voices sampled for the album. Receiving strong reviews upon its release, My Life is now regarded as a high point in the discographies of Eno and Byrne. Critic John Bush describes the album as "[a] pioneering work for countless styles connected to electronics, ambience, and Third World music. Rather than featuring conventional pop or rock singing, most of the vocals are sampled from other sources, such as commercial recordings of Arabic singers, radio disk jockeys and an exorcist. Musicians had previously used similarly sampling techniques, but critic Dave Simpson declares it had never before been used "to such cataclysmic effect" as on My Life. The album was rereleased in expanded form in 2006.

Trip Through Sound

Secret World Live (Real World, 1994) is the second live and tenth album overall released by Peter Gabriel, who first came to fame as the founder and lead vocalist of the progressive rock group Genesis. More recently he has focused on producing and promoting world music, most notably through his Real World record label and studios. He has also been involved in various humanitarian efforts. Gabriel's "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)" from So refers to Milgram's experiment. In 1989, Gabriel released Passion, the soundtrack for Martin Scorsese's movie The Last Temptation of Christ.

It's More Fun To Compute

Kraftwerk redefined the dancefloors yet again with Computerworld (Kling Klang, 1981). Like many other Krautrock bands, Kraftwerk was heavily influenced by the pioneering compositions of Karlheinz Stockhausen; the minimalism and non-R&B rhythms of the Velvet Underground, as well as other radicals, such as Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, and the hyper-adrenalized Stooges. Replacing drums and guitars with synthesized pulses and programmed beats, Kraftwerk expertly diverted the Velvets' speed rush into the metronomic rhythm for which it is so well known. Ralf Hütter has also listed The Beach Boys as a major influence, which is apparent in Kraftwerk's 1975 chart smash, "Autobahn." Hütter stated that the Beach Boys made music that sounded like California, and that Kraftwerk wanted to make music that sounded like Germany. Many of Kraftwerk's songs express the paradoxical nature of modern urban life—a strong sense of alienation existing side-by-side with a celebration of the joys
of modern technology.

Medicine Man's Other Room

Bottom/ Aligning soul, mind and body with Powerlight (Sony, 1983) by funk/disco supergroup Earth, Wind & Fire. Illustration by Shusei Nagaoka. Earth, Wind & Fire is an American funk band led by Maurice White that achieved worldwide success in the 1970s. The group was formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1969. They are known for a number of hit singles, including "Shining Star" "September" "Fantasy" "Boogie Wonderland" and "Let's Groove". The band's name turned into Earth, Wind & Fire based on the fact that White's astrological sign being Sagittarius, had a primary elemental quality of Fire but also had seasonal qualities which are Earth, and Air, hence the omission of water. Earth, Wind & Fire was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. On December 11th 2007, the band's live performance at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, was broadcasted to over 100 countries. Middle/ File under "Post-rock" or "Avant-jazz": It's All Around You (Thrill Jockey, 2004) by Chicago instrumental band Tortoise defies easy categorization. Tortoise was among the first American indie rock bands to incorporate styles close to Krautrock, dub, minimalism, electronica, and various jazz styles. Top/ Pieces of Eight (A&M, 1978) by American progressive rock band Styx is the follow-up to their Triple Platinum selling breakthrough album The Grand Illusion. Pieces of Eight found the group moving in a more straight-ahead pop-rock direction. The album cover was done by British art design group Hipgnosis.