Various Artists DJ Morpheus: I Can’t Live Without My Radio
Tracked by DJ Morpheus (a.k.a. Samy Birnbach)-former singer of early-’80s post-punks Minimal Compact- Can’t Live […]
Tracked by DJ Morpheus (a.k.a. Samy Birnbach)-former singer of early-’80s post-punks Minimal Compact- Can’t Live Without My Radio is from/for the cassette generation. Featuring artists like Virgin Prunes, Love & Rockets, Heaven 17, Shriekback, Head, Timezone feat. John Lydon & Afrika Bambaataa, Thrill Kill Kult, 23 Skidoo, and Einst¸rzende Neubauten, this compilation (not “mix”) embodies the dry, oblique architecture of ’80s college radio captured to Dolby Noise Reduction tape during a Goth-meets-“glam savage” overnight slot. Here, rigid, rhythmic underpinnings vie with murky collages under scorched gloss, coagulating in industrial punk-funk New Wave/New Beat. Urban and humid, while sinister and sterile, songs such as Age of Chance’s appropriation of Prince’s “Kiss” are as much about gleefully marring pop’s veneer as they are calculated designs for social and stylistic change.