The 1981 Listening Post - New Musik - Anywhere

 New Musik - Anywhere

#96

March 6 1981

New Musik 

Anywhere

SynthPop

3.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Churches

While You Wait

Design

Boy does this take a lot to get through because, unlike the lush discovery of the debut, this really feels like one person in a room with a sophisticated (for the time) recording system. But I want to talk about “Churches”. & “Design” Those songs could drop into the Indie Synth Pop in 2015. It could be Future Islands or AwolNation. Or a host of others. It could even be The Postal Service two years prior. 

But I’m not suggesting these bands did or did not listen to New Musik. Just that when you are left to your own devices and those devices are state of the art synth systems and you have the predilection and the talent, this, maybe, is what you come up with. 

Now, this is an actual band so that sort of derails my theory and that’s a shame because I think an actual band could do better. But, that synthpoppy fun I adored on the first album arrives in a Bowie/Ant sounding “While You Wait”. Maybe you won’t hear it. Maybe you hear more Kraftwerk with soul or Gary Numan without the dystopia but, in any case, the early synthwave movement can partially be traced to New Musik’s first two records.

Nowhere near the fun surprise of the first.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/anywhere/1082819322

The 1980 Listening Post - New Musik - From A to B

New Musik - From A to B

#141

April 18 1980 LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

New Musik

From A to B

Genre: SynthPop

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Sanctuary

On Islands

This World of Water

Dead Fish (Don’t Swim Home)

Adventures

Somewhere between The Buggles, Grouplove and 90s Pop is this curious release by New Musik. 

Sometimes playing like a friendly Gary Numan and other times just coming across like a really strong one person vanity project (think: Bleachers)

Listening to the decade’s music out of order sometimes I forget that synth pop had to start somewhere. This album predates Thomas Dolby and Howard Jones and Kajagoogoo and, much of the time, surpasses them. It’s wholly electronic sounding and yet, completely ahead of its time. 

A real treat. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/from-a-to-b/268420854