There’s a new entry in Cherry Red’s exhaustive Close To The Noise Floor series of proto electronica: Third Noise Principle: Formative North American Electronica 1975-1984 explores early (late 70s/early 80s) US and Canadian efforts, including a previously unreleased track from The Residents and music from Suicide, Philip Glass, Terry Riley, Patrick Cowley, NON, Laurie Spiegel, Chrome, Ministry, Moev, John Bender and dozens more. As always in the series, the music ranges from early techno and electro to synth-pop, industrial music, ambient soundscapes and noise experiments. This time there are 60 tracks spread across across 4CDs cased in a 48 page hardback book containing 10,000 words of artists’ sleevenotes and an introductory essay by Dave Henderson.
Patrick Cowley
Like its popular predecessors, Close To The Noise Floor: Formative UK Electronica 1975-1984 and Noise Reduction System: Formative European Electronica 1974-1984, Third Noise Principle covers the gamut from lesser known gems and underground classics from experimenters, innovators, composers and “outsider” musicians. As the press release puts it “Part primitive rave, part synthesiser porn, part history lesson!” and “Some wanted to dance, some to relax and others to confuse and confront – all are represented here.”
Terry Riley
Thankfully this time around there’s somewhat less of an emphasis on the history lesson aspect to the compilation as some of the material on the earlier volumes (covering early synthesizer music from UK and Europe) could sound a bit, well, educational at times (if not outright attempts at mind control). And it’s not like I’m rooting for the home team, either, I think the reason is that the American electro experimentalists simply seemed to have been able to afford better equipment than their British and continental counterparts. I felt like too much of the earlier sets just sounded like people fucking around with presets—not everyone who picked up a synth in the late 70s was ready for prime time, or even Cabaret Voltaire for that matter—but the ratio of something that is a pleasure to listen to, to tracks charitably described as being “of historical interest” gets much better this time and there are some real gems to discover here. A vinyl box set compiled from all three volumes has been announced and that seems like it might be the favored iteration of this material for me.
Have a listen to a sample selection from Third Noise Principle courtesy of Cherry Red Records.
Full track list after the jump…
