Spoons: Nova Heart (Canada, 1982)
At ease with the thought That this nova won’t burn out Spoons are a Canadian New Wave band based around the duo of Gordon Deppe and Sandy Horne, who have remained intermittently active from 1980 to...
View ArticleDaemion: Human Arcade (UK, 1982)
Well the people stand in line behind the glass In the human arcade the image brigade see race and class This one is just a mystery. Discogs.com indexes it as the B-side of a vinyl 7″ single, Dizzy,...
View ArticlePlayer One: Space Invaders (Australia, 1979)
Surrounded by soldiers glued to the screens Hold back the invaders, their infernal machines The years 1977 to 1981 were a watershed of sorts for public interest in space. It was less than a decade...
View ArticleXL Capris: World War Three (Australia, 1980)
Keep me away from the enemy Please leave me out of the war The 1969 Ford Capri 1600XL – ‘the car you always promised yourself!’ – was an extremely popular two-seater sporty coupe designed by Ford to...
View ArticleMainframe: Radio (Will Bring Me Home) (England, 1983)
You think I live on the wild side But it’s just a normal day Mainframe were exactly one of those blink-and-you’ve-missed-it events that, looking back on the ’80s, I find hard to believe were real. Did...
View ArticleModern English: After The Snow (1982, England)
I thought of home and times gone by And laughed aloud at the crimson sky Modern English are a, well, English, yes, 80s New Wave band. In the usual pattern for these things, they hit their stride around...
View ArticleNancy Nova: The Force (1981, England/Italy)
Magnetically pulling my soul through the atmosphere May the 4th… Star Wars had a huge impact no not just cinema and TV, but pop culture in general in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and that of course...
View ArticleTandy Morgan Band: Princeton (1984, England)
But we cast aside the reck’ning for stars they were a-beck’ning Music is a strange odyssey sometimes. In searching ’80s synthpop I came across this little gem: Hiroshima by the German singer Sandra. It...
View ArticleDollar: Videotheque (1982, England)
Slowly senses leaving me Once the two are in 3D we play the game I have a strange relationship with a lot of music. There are bands who are huge names, critically acclaimed cult favourites in the music...
View ArticleFreur: Doot-Doot (1983, Wales)
Look at them fall Flicker and fade There’s a line in the genetics of popular music that goes: 1970s disco -> 1980s synthpop -> 1990s club electronica -> whatever it is came next in the 00s and...
View ArticleBoytronic: Red Chips (1983, Germany)
We crossed the oceans of megabyte When the diskettes start to burn like candles I usually think of William Gibson’s Neuromancer (1984) as the prototypical Cyberpunk work, but of course it wasn’t even...
View ArticleOn the Theme of Star Wars
Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens has opened. Initial indications are that it’s what we suspected it would be: a JJ Abrams film. In other words – to put it somewhat bluntly – a festival of...
View ArticleKnight Rider and Family-Friendly Armageddon
In 1984 I turned thirteen. It was a year of political lightning, like 2016 though perhaps slightly less crazy. In New Zealand, the three-term National government of Rob Muldoon – considered...
View ArticleRogue Dreams and the Singularity Curve
No, my father didn’t fight in the wars. He was a navigator on a spice freighter. That’s what your uncle told you. He didn’t hold with your father’s ideals. Thought he should have stayed here and not...
View ArticleThe Tomorrow Trilogy
In 1977, facing first-time parenthood and an absolute lack of enthusiasm for anything like “career,” I found myself dusting off my twelve-year-old’s interest in science fiction. Simultaneously, weird...
View ArticlePlaylist Notes: Tomorrow
Here are some of my notes on my New Wave music playlists. If this kind of minutiae bores you senseless, feel free to look away. I’m mostly just interested in trying to document my creative process...
View ArticlePlaylist Notes: Radiant Energy
I’d made an 80s playlist and I was done. So here’s how ‘Radiant Energy’ happened. It’s late 2016, Trump still hasn’t been elected, but the world is already screaming in pain. I’d already made a short...
View ArticlePlaylist Notes: Solid State Revolution
Early 2017. Donald Trump has been elected, and from nuclear war my Twitter timeline is turning to thoughts of revolution. My Youtube playlist is now branching from synthpop into punk. I’ve already got...
View ArticleDataspace 0: Those Memex Dreams Again
Computing in the Internet age has a number of inspiring visions: legendary systems, some of which got built, some of which remained hypothetical, “dream machines”. Among them are: Vannevar Bush’s Memex...
View ArticleDataspace 1: In Search of a Data Model
Prelude: Dataspace 0: Those Memex Dreams Again Dataspace 1: In Search of a Data Model Dataspace 2: Revenge of the Data Model Dataspace 3: It Came From The S-Expressions Dataspace 4: The Term-inator I...
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