Five essential Minimal Wave excavations
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(Credits: Far Out / Album Covers)
Upon first hearing the obscure synthpop single ‘Devil’s Dancers’ by UK electronic duo Oppenheimer Analysis, DJ and East Village Radio resident Veronica Vasicka was immediately struck by its austere urgency and skeletal fizz. A crackling slice of buried lo-fi pop that surged with hooky infection amid its frigid and glacial atmosphere. Spinning the long-lost relic one night in Brooklyn to a crowd that immediately hit the dancefloor the moment its somatic sequencer shot off the speakers, Vasicka began dreaming up her Minimal Wave Records project.
Launched in 2005 to issue ‘Devil’s Dancers’ on a limited vinyl along with three other cuts, Vasicka dusted off an old 1980s home-Xeroxed zine filled with contact details of the related bedroom synth artists and sought to unearth more tapes and home recordings for the new minimal wave label. A revision of her Minimal-Electronik Plus radio show, Minimal Wave proved to be the perfect umbrella term for her electronic reissue and restoration label, honing in on two essential sonic components of synthpop’s chillier satellite—pared-down primitivity in its arrangements that dwell in an icy terrain of nonchalant detachment.
The UK fared better with the colder end of synthpop, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, John Foxx, and early Human League all enjoying cult yet respectably commercial success, but numerous post-punk adjacent new wavers in Europe, Japan, and odd corners of America became lost by the wayside. Bal Paré, Das Ding, Jyl, and In Trance 95 gleaning at best local success before disappearing as electronic music’s minor footnotes, only ever heard by the dedicated online blogs and old-fashioned mailing communities keeping the blue flame alive.
Yet, Vasicka had launched Minimal Wave Records at the perfect time. For a few years previously, the coldwave gems had been spun in select Brooklyn music circles, shared via Soulseek file exchanges and enjoyed through extremely limited imports from Germany’s Genetic Music. Soon enough, minimal synth had arrived, heralded by the Wierd Records label and party nights, propelling the likes of Xeno & Oaklander and Led Er Est to electronic fame—the renewed veneration for analogue synthesisers perfectly married with Minimal Wave’s expanding roster of forgotten synth pioneers.
With such an incredible back-catalogue of vital artists, not to mention the crucial Cititrax sub-label specialising in techno and modern variants, we take a look at Vasicka’s minimal wave excavations and in no order, present five releases for the intrepid newcomer.
Five essential Minimal Wave Records excavations
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