Le Demón de la Musique Africain Once upon a time many thought that Ali Baba would be the next big thing in African music. With his flashy stage show and eclectic, cosmopolitan style it was thought that he could give King Sunny Ade and Fela Anikulapo-Kuti a run for their money. His premier disc Ali Baba '85 drew a lot of attention, and an appearance in London later that year seemed to herald bigger and better things.
Empire of the Sun are an electronic music duo based in Australia. Formed in 2006, the duo is composed of Nick Littlemore of Pnau and Luke Steele of The Sleepy Jackson. Their debut album, Walking On A Dream, was released on the 4th of October 2008. The first single from the album is also called Walking On A Dream and the second single was We Are the People. The video for Walking On A Dream was shot in Shanghai and We Are the People was shot in Mexico. The song Standing On The Shore was used in the credits for Entourage season 6 and followed as the albums 3rd single.
Pseudo Echo are an Australian new wave band. Formed in the early eighties by school friends Brian Canham (vocals, guitars, and keyboards) and Pierre Gigliotti (bass and keyboards), the band completed its lineup with Anthony Agiro (drums) and Tony Lugton (guitars and keyboards).
Their first album Autumnal Park was an Ultravox-influenced album that yielded the Australian singles "Listening" (produced by Peter Dawkins) , "Stranger in Me", "Dancing Till Midnight", and "Beat for You". It was a mature album that gave little indication of their youth.
Their climb to success in the summer of 1984 was rapid, and they quickly became the second biggest band in Australia after INXS.
"His Eyes", a track from their first album, received exposure overseas as it was used in the movie Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.
There was a lineup change before their second album with Tony Lugton being replaced by James Leigh (real surname: Dingli) after a dispute between Lugton and Canham over money, and another lineup change during the making of the second album with Agiro being replaced by James's brother Vince.
Their second album, Love an Adventure (1986), was also a success with several singles from that album topping the Australian charts including the title track, "Don't Go", "Try", and "Living in a Dream". The album was re-released the following year to include their remake of the Lipps, Inc. song "Funky Town", which brought the group their biggest international success, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA in 1987, as well as spending six weeks at #1 in Australia.
The overseas release of Love an Adventure featured a somewhat different track listing which included re-mixed versions of 3 singles from Autumnal Park: "Listening", "A Beat for You", and "Destination Unknown". These were remixed to sound more rock-oriented, to better-match the other tracks on the album. Brian Canham even re-recorded the vocals for a slicker sound to compliment these rock remixes. Once again, the overseas version of Love an Adventure was re-released to include the re-make of "Funkytown", replacing "Don't Go" in the original track list.
In 1987, the band re-released "Listening" for the movie North Shore starring Nia Peeples.
Their third album, Race (1989), went further in the direction of pop rock and metal. The album featured the Australian singles "Fooled Again", "Over Tomorrow", "Eye of the Storm", and "Don't You Forget". The album wasn't very successful, as the band's move to a more rock/metal genre had apparently alienated a good portion of their established fanbase. Pseudo Echo disbanded shortly after touring for Race in 1990.
The band reunited in 1999 to produce the EP Funkytown Y2K: RMX, which included 6 new remixes of "Funkytown". A year later, they released the double-CD Teleporter (2000), which featured 4 all-new tracks, 5 re-mixed tracks, and a live performance in Melbourne. The live performance featured all the tracks from Autumnal Park except for "From the Shore", along with a few tracks from Love an Adventure and a performance of the rare B-side "In Their Time".
Since reuniting in 1999, the band has been touring constantly in Australia, and were last seen touring with the "Idols of the 80s" in 2005.
In 2014 they released Ultraviolet, their first album in 14 years. Ultraviolet came about after Pseudo Echo gathered for shows in 2012 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of their first hit song ‘Listening’.
To fund recording of the new album singer Brian Canham approached PledgeMusic to use fan-power to finance the album’s recording and manufacturing. Via pledgemusic.com, Pseudo Echo fans could nominate the level they were comfortable with in supporting the funding of ‘Ultraviolet’.
The Pseudo Echo campaign turned out to be one of the most successful take-ups for Pledgemusic generating 126% of the financial goal and guaranteeing the release of the album.
Pseudo Echo has stated they were originally influenced by Simple Minds, Ultravox, Japan and then later Duran Duran and Human League.
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"Assemblage 23" is a one-man futurepop/ebm project, whose sole member is musician Tom Shear, based in Seattle, Washington, USA. Prior to starting Assemblage 23, Shear experimented with music under the name "Man on a Stage", beginning in the early 1980s. Most of Shear's music at this point was instrumental, as he lacked the confidence to sing; the quality of the music itself was highly questionable by his own admission. Shear eventually began to add vocals to his music; at the same time, Shear was also playing bass in a punk band called the "Advocates".
Heaven 17 is a British synthpop band originating in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom formed in 1980. Taking their name from a fictional pop group mentioned in Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange (where 'The Heaven Seventeen' are at number 4 in the charts with 'Inside' [1]), Heaven 17 formed when Ian Craig Marsh and Martyn Ware split from their earlier group The Human League and formed production company British Electric Foundation (BEF). Shortly after, they recruited their good friend and photographer Glenn Gregory on vocals to complete their lineup for Heaven 17.
After years in the making here at last is Illumination, the fully realised debut album from Melbourne’s favourite psychedelic indie-electronic adventurers Miami Horror. With Illumination, Miami Horror has delivered on two years of teeth-cutting live shows and an ever escalating wave of buzz that’s made the group bonafide blog darlings the world over. But what’s most amazing about the grand arrival of Illumination is that the roots of the record stretch back countless moons to when Miami Horror began...