This day 44 years ago Jean-Michel Jarre released the electro-ambient masterpiece known as Oxygène (5 December 1976, Les Disques Motors / Polydor).

It was the French-composers first release which was not intended as a soundtrack, a front-runner in electronic music, the album which brought Jarre into the mainstream almost overnight was also overlooked in certain parts of the world upon release, as it coincided with the surge in the punk-movement but unmistakable in the delivery and synth advances.

Though it did go on to sell fifteen-million copies, a remarkable feat for an album without a singer, lyrics or even a guitar, in the nineteen-seventies this was almost unheard-of, Kraftwerk had incorporated guitar, drums and violins into their work as to did Tangerine Dream, then again these are bands and Oxygène was composed, constructed and produced by a single individual.

The modern-day Mozart created a landscape of sound embedded with his own unique charm, created through the VCS synthesizers, mellophonium, mellotron and programmed rhythms it was a complete electronic production unlike those of his counterparts such as Mike Oldfield, this was a record relying solely on technical advances. However, the studio used to record the album was Jean-Michel Jarre’s own kitchen in his apartment using an eight-track recorder,

Without a track-list as such only a breakdown of six-segments (Parts I-VI) the most famous of course the dance-floor filling “Part IV” released as a single in 1977 and going top-ten in most European-territories, this joyous crescendo is another instantly recognized piece of music.

The inspiration for the album came from a painting by Michel Granger, that painting adorns the album cover, instantly recognized , a precursor to the climate-change movement revealing death as the earth is ravaged, as resounding an image as it is, Jarre also foretold the future in the very-fresh sounding album.


Oxygène (Original 1976 Track List)

Side One
Oxygène (Part I) – 7:40
Oxygène (Part II) – 7:39
Oxygène (Part III) – 3:20
Side two
Oxygène (Part IV) – 4:03
Oxygène (Part V) – 10:26
Oxygène (Part VI) – 6:22

DISCOGS

This month it's 33 years since Canadian industrial band Front Line Assembly released their first official album The Initial Command (December 1987) on the since discontinued Belgian cult label KK Records. In fact it was also the first KK record release bearing the catalogue number KK001.
Before this album the band released only two demo tapes called Nerve War and Total Terror. The music on this release was mainly composed by Bill Leeb, but also with help from his future partners in crime Rhys Fulber and Michael Balch on some tracks.

On The Initial Command we can hear a very dark and deep EBM sounding Front Line Assembly which may remind you of the sound of Cabaret Voltaire during their Crackdown era but even more deep and dark. The tracks Black March and No Control are certainly a sort of forecast of the harder tracks they were about to release in the following decades.

Since the 1987 release of The Initial Command, the album has been re-issued twice. The first re-release, in 1992 by Third Mind Records, contained no changes. The second re-release, in 1997 by Cleopatra Records, contained two new tracks and new cover art.

The Initial Command (1987)

The Initial Command (1997)

DISCOGS

This month it’s 36 years ago Canadian industrial act Skinny Puppy released their very first EP Remission, a six track record, on Nettwerk Records (December 1984). In 1986, after their first full album Bites was released, Skinny Puppy released a cassette version of Remission with additional tracks expanding the release to a full-length album. In 1987 both albums Remission and Bites ended up together on one single CD album called Bites And Remission containing 17 tracks while the European PIAS version named Remission & Bites had only 14 tracks on it.

Besides the already recognizable and typical Skinny Puppy style the EP is filled with vocal samples taken from, amongst others, the 1943 Hitchcock movie Shadow Of A Doubt and even a sample of president Ronald Reagan’s speech about pornography as art.

The original release already contained some of Skinny Puppy’s classics songs like Smothered Hope, Far Too Frail and Solvent, tracks that still can be heard at many underground parties today.

Remission (original 12" vinyl version)

Back (Side A)
A1 Smothered Hope
A2 Glass Houses
A3 Far Too Frail
Side B -

Forth (Side B)
B1 Solvent
B2 Sleeping Beast
B3 Brap...

DISCOGS

RDC is working on a new collection for the Russian community, which will be called "DARK VIRUS X-MAS".

The Russian label releases material through their Bandcamp-page and is expanding through their network.

Like the past 2 years, they are releasing a new X-mas sampler and maybe YOU can cooperate!

Release is for December 25th.

What do you need to do?

Send RDC one (1) track in.WAV with a link to your project on social networking.

Deadline is December 22nd.

You can contact them through mail on this click!

Genres they are interested in: EBM, Dark electro, Industrial, Synthpop, Futurepop and other related darkness...

Maybe this is you chance to have a breakthrough in the land of Putin?

russiandarkcommunity.bandcamp.com

On this day, 50 years ago, Kraftwerk released their self-titled debut studio album (1 December 1970). The album was produced by Konrad "Conny" Plank and is often refered to as 'Kraftwerk 1'.

On this album Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider used two drummers, Andreas Hohmann and Klaus Dinger. Their drumming provides the album a rock-ish edge, making it sound quite distinctive from Hütter and Schneider's previous work. The album contains instrumentals only.

The cover design, credited to Ralf Hütter, is a curious nod to the influence of Andy Warhol and the then contemporary pop art movement, featuring a fluorescent-coloured traffic cone drawn in a Warhol-esque manner.

No material from this album has been performed in the band's live set since the Autobahn tour of 1975 and, to date, the album has not been officially reissued. The band is seemingly reluctant to consider the album a part of its canon and in later interviews, Schneider referred to the first three Kraftwerk albums as "archaeology".

In 1971 the album peaked in the German album charts at position 30.

KRAFTWERK

All tracks are written by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben.

Kraftwerk (1970)

• Ralf Hütter – organ, guitar, tubon, cover design
• Florian Schneider-Esleben – flute, violin, percussion
• Andreas Hohmann – drums on "Ruckzuck" and "Stratovarius"
• Klaus Dinger – drums on "Vom Himmel hoch"

DISCOGS