Label: Vanity Records – vanity 0009 Format: Vinyl, LP Country: Japan Released: 1981 Genre: Electronic Style: Minimal, Experimental
M-U-S-I-C… music.Normal Brain’s one-off DIY oddball cut in 1981 on Yuzuru Agi’s extremely influential Vanity label.A major collectable.
Landing as the ninth instalment to the cult label’s catalogue, Normal Brain (a trio of Ayumi Torii, Satoshi Shimura, Yukio Fujimoto) best exemplifies the early stages of increased access to consumer electronics and musical equipment.Suddenly the need to blag free studio time was replaced by low-cost gear that could be used (and abused) from the comfort of one’s home.It’s hard to know exactly what the root inspiration of this is.A nihilistic vision of future pop music?Or just a happy accident.Either way, the stripped-bear use of Dr Roland rhythm box, vocoder and Korg MS-20 is a strikingly prescient blueprint which would later bloom and mutate into various strains of synth-pop, techno and other experimental music.Bolstering their already mutant sound, the group joyfully employ an early Texas Instruments Speak & Spell, giving a dead-pan edge to a sound already devoid of any discernible human emotion.They also cover The Beatles.Yeah it’s a strange one, now over 50 years old and only getting weirder.An insanely hard to find piece of electronic music history.(NM - top copy with insert)
Tracklist
A1 M-U-S-I-C A2 Frottage "One Way" A3 Thrift A4 You Are Busy, I Am Easy A5 Tomorrow Never Knows B1 Mist
