Synth. Noir.

Hey, you got your Dark Minimal Synth in my Film Noir!   Scads of mp3s below the flip.

In March 1984, 2 Dutch avant-synth musicians known as Ignit and Ed van Kasteren (aka Van Kaye) released on their own Ding Dong label a fantastic theme cassette called "Film Noir American Style". It was limited to 2000 copies, one of which no doubt fell into Tony Coulter's hands, and another of which has now fallen into ours.

The big idea behind this gorgeous twin-cassette-plus-booklet set was a sense on the part of the compilers that social conditions in the mid-1980s reflected in many ways the Cold War paranoia that fed the Noir era (very roughly 1940-1955).  Roping in like-minded artists throughout the US and Europe with the call to contribute music inspired by Film Noir, they were thus able to present an international contrast in interpretations and musical approaches to Film Noir.  And really, what is Film Noir all about if not one's own interpretations and abstract impressions of it?  I dunno, but we're not getting into all that here. 

This was the second (and apparently last) in a series of Ding Dong theme cassettes, the first being "Turkish Delights", limited to only 300 copies.  I don't know much of anything about that first tape except that Bene Gesserit and Legendary Pink Dots both were on it.  Neither shows up on "Film Noir American Style", but a fine smattering of mid-80s cassette underground heros do - highest profile honors go to, ha ha, The Residents.  Also appearing are a bunch of Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) members, as well as Vincent Gallo, Der Plan, Clock DVA, and some kids from just on the Jersey side of the Delaware River.  And many more.

Before jumping the flip and grabbing the mp3s, here's a bunch of links to Noir discussions sites.  But heed the words of Peter Hankoff, from his essay "Film Noir, Life Noir:

"So what do you want to hear: some pretty college-boy critic telling you in flowery English about how Norma Desmond (Sunset Boulevard) is really the personification of a decaying system, or the plain facts about Film Noir?  Film Noir is Film Noir: black.  Or maybe black & blue."

* Alain Silver and James Ursini are what you might call noir-thorities; many of their anthologized articles are reprinted here.
* Here's a reliably excellent Wikipedia article on the genre.
* Here's way too much info and analysis on a particular fave, "Kiss Me Deadly". (that's 3 separate links, mind you, and the 1st one's pretty pop-up heavy)
* And here's "Kiss Me Deadly"'s notorious atomic ending, as an animated gif.

The web is totally saturated with synthesizer sites - hell, you can't even get a cheap Korg micro-preset M500 on ebay anymore!  But here's a nice site for starters -- lots of sound clips.

Here's a fantastic 1983 article / index on the Ding Dong label and related artists dedicated to synth minimalism, industrial and other great nihilistic musical urges of the time.

OK, go get yourself some mp3s...

Tape 1, American Contributions

(Intro - Casablanca)

The Doodooettes (Los Angeles CA) "Zombi"
(major stars of the LAFMS)

The Fibonaccis (Los Angeles CA) "Looking for Eddie"

Craig Leon (Los Angeles CA) "In The Eye of The Hurricane"
(this dude is, no lie, the missing link between Suicide and Luciano Pavarotti!)

Kerry Leimer (Seattle WA) "A Spiritual Life"

Port Said (NYC) "Countdown to Midnight"

The Residents (San Francisco CA) "Edweena"
(this one originally turned up on their "forgotten" album "Not Available".)

Naùx (NYC) "The Deepest Parts"

Richard Bone (NYC) "Far From Yesterday Part 1 & 2" 
(here's another guy, like Craig Leon, whose career has totally overshadowed his involvement in the Film Noir project)

Voice Farm (San Francisco CA) "12th Street" 
(SF synthpunks have also turned up on Ralph Records' "Potatoes" comp)

Tom Recchion (Los Angeles CA) "Limelight"
(Tom's "Chaotica" is a longtime FMU fave)

Bomis Prendin (Washington DC) "Hell's Little Ransom"

The Ghostwriters (Riverton NJ) "The Middle Distance"
(NJ representing!)

Vincent Gallo (NYC) "The Killer's Kiss"
(Best known today for Bunny, Buffalo and a BJ (NSFW!), once you knew him from Bohack.)

Tape 2, European Contributions

Van Kaye & Ignit (Arnhem, NL) "Behind Venetian Blinds"
(our hosts) 

Arthur Brown & Craig Leon (Austin TX) "Morning Was Cold"
(not positive, but I think it might be THAT Arthur Brown!) 

Benjamin Lew (Brussels BEL) "Apothèose de B"   

Twice a Man (Göteborg, SWE) "Sharp the Voice"

Ptôse (Niort, FRA) "Martine on the Docks"
(their "Women in the Moon" might just've been my favorite new old song last year.)

Clock DVA (Sheffield UK) "We Cast Tall Shadows"
(From their ranks ultimately emerged The Human League; but how do you properly pronounce their name??  Is it "diva"?  Or is it "D.V.A."??)

Mick Hobbs / Officer (London UK) "Girl in a Red Dress"
(of 1/2 Japanese)

Hero Wouters (Amsterdam NL) "Strangers on a Train"   

Der Plan (Düsseldorf GER) "Film Noir Programm 2"
(they're still hugees here - hell, Ken played 'em just today)

The Hi-Tones (Willemstad, Curaçao) "Shadow of a Doubt"

Utilisation du Vieux Port (Marseille FRA) "Fuite Point Joliette"
(they've also shown up on a tribute cassette to Ptôse)

Muslimgauze (Manchester UK) "The Asphalt Jungle" 
(RIP)

Genetic Factor (Amsterdam NL) "Don't Enter the Poolroom Now"

Anne Gillis (Bordeaux FRA) "Dernières Images et Generique"
(aka Manon Anne Gillis)

Comments

[Cedric]

I heard about this compilation-tape a few months and I'm really delighted to hear it!
Yet, I'm writing about a slight historical mistake: Human League didn't emerge from Clock DVA. We could say it's rather the opposite. Adi Newton, Clock DVA's leader played with a band called The Future, whith the... future musicians of Human League.
For the pronunciation of the band's name, I suppose it's would be "Dee-Vee-Ay", but some think "DVA" stands for the russian translation of the number "two". Go figure why... For my part, I never understood the signification of the name.
That's all, Folks.

[poesboes]

Wow! Great list! Thanks for sharing that!

I'm an avid Clock DVA collector and i've always thought it was a militairy term denoting timezone offset; Clock deviation?

Ha.. And just bought a synthesizer on eBay. It's a remarkable bright orange though...

[toober]

Keen eyes will note that the little clock in ClockDVA's logo points to two.

[Lawrence J. Patti]

Do we have to hear Vincent "Kill a commie for mommy" Gallo again?

[Steve PMX]

I just picked up a Korg Poly-800 from my buddy last week (http://www.synthmania.com/poly-800.htm) - about to add a Moog Slayer mod, which gives it 2 knobs on the front panel for real-time filter Cutoff + Resonance control. You can find a Poly-800 for $100 and this mod costs like $5 to put together. Check it out: http://synthmod.net/korg/moog_slayer/

This Crumar looks awesome - the Bit One is totally Tron'd out. Very 1984.
(http://www.synthmania.com/bit_one.htm)

[Steve PMX]

fans of rare/vintage musical toys should check out www.miniorgan.com - its full of killer stuff from all over the world. The 60s/70s/80s stuff is my favorite...

[Lawrence J. Patti]

Ah yes! The Korg Poly 800 was my first serious synth. Good find there.

[Rich]

Really excellent stuff, I haven't come across it before. And Der Plan are included! I've had an NDW blog going for a week now. So, for more dark synth noir click here

[Mister Oxide]

I remember seeing (but not hearing) a friend's copy of this 2-tape set back in the day. Thanks for giving those of us without the megabucks to spend on an overpriced ebay copy (assuming that one even exists!) a chance to hear it! Putting obscure, unfindable music on the web for all to hear is definitely a humanitarian act!

[Bomis Prendin]

Something is out of kilter. "Hell's Little Ransom" by Bomis Prendin isn't what it's supposed to be, and "The Middle Distance" by The Ghostwriters is really "Hell's Little Ransom" by Bomis Prendin.

[Veronica]

Take a look at the booklet pages with track listings here:

http://www.minimal-wave.org/site/modules.php?full=1&set_albumName=Cassettes&id=filmnoir_europe&op=modload&name=gallery&file=index&include=view_photo.php

Another interesting fact: Ignit Van Kasteren had her own radio show in 1983-1984 called Spleen... and what a great show it was!

[Scott]

Thanks Bomis - OK, thanks for the clarification. I've got the tracklist, and everything is (I think!) chronologically accurate - but side 2 of tape 1 apparently had 1 more track than was listed. So obviously one track had a good deal of silence, and this being a cassette, it was left to me to figure out who did what after a certain point. So I'm gonna make some fixes, will update soon, hopefully get it right.

[Scott]

OK, it's all fixed! My apologies - all the tracks on Tape 1, Side 2 were mistitled (but in correct order) due to 2 misperceptions on my part: 1. I couldn't believe Richard Bone (and only Richard Bone) was given a full 10 minutes (!); and 2. That Voice Farm track sounds just like Tom Recchion to my ears. Thanks to Tony Coulter and Jason Elbogen for guidance. And you Bomis.

[Flores Campbell]

Have you hear about the “ Tijuana Noir” marketing story?

Flores Campbell became widely known when excerpts of his ‘Tijuana Noir” appeared on the Google blogspot ‘Tijuana Noir” in late 2005 and caught the public’s fancy. By January 2006 a few chapters on the Ares search engine brought Flores Campbell a global audience.
Technorati.com top 100 Blogs in the blogsphere, sorted by unique links or most favorites named “Tijuana Noir” one of the biggest blogs in the last six months.

So that’s the question, find out why?

[Theo Arango]

The narrative voice for the novel “Tijuana Noir” alternates between a conventional third-person narrative and a first-person narrator, Dorotheo Arango, normally called "Theo". He is an private detective working for the catholic church, whose wife left and divorced him after he accidentally ran over and killed their infant daughter.
The novel begins with the first entry in Theo's detective notebook. It is the beginning of the 1990’s, but the novel's events have their origin in the late 1980’s. Theo writes the story in his little moleskin black book. TO BE COUNINUE…

[Andrew]

The missing link between New Wave and Darkwave.

[CL]

Arthur Brown, who appears on " Morning Was Cold" is indeed the same one who recorded "Fire", etc.

[ignit van kaye]

This was the last project we did, me (Ignit) and Ed, while I was hosting the Spleen radio show. Soon after we split up - after 14 years of heaven and hell. He moved to Hamburg, Germany, and I moved across the ocean to Suriname, South America, where I earn my living as a writer. A befriended artist painted our portraits for the cover of Film Noir. :-)

I literally burnt everything when I moved from europa to south america and i am surprised to find Film Noir on this website.

Kindly,
Ignit van Kaye

[moon]

here is a complete scan of the box and booklet, made for my own post

http://rapidshare.com/files/79383532/noirart.zip

[kris]

hi ignit,

so nice to hear of you on this forum...i already heard from someone in arnhem you and ed vanished from the face of the earth in the early 90ies, probably to suriname indeed. also in a brief correspondance with r.zeilstra he had no contact whatsoever with the two of you anymore.
anyways a bit late to find out perhaps, but nice to have a sign of life and the mystery resolved!

[kris]

hi ignit,

so nice to hear of you on this forum...i already heard from someone in arnhem you and ed vanished from the face of the earth in the early 90ies, probably to suriname indeed. also in a brief correspondance with r.zeilstra he had no contact whatsoever with the two of you anymore.
anyways a bit late to find out perhaps, but nice to have a sign of life and the mystery resolved!

[Ulf Kjell Gür]

Watch "Film Noir" by NOWlab...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tHtn5NSQwI

[Egbert]

Arthur "I am the God of hellfire" Brown did also create a complete album with Craig Leon called 'The complete tapes of Atoya'. In the style as the mentioned "Morning was cold"
it also contains a splendid rework of "Not fade away" by the Stones.
Unfortunately no record label has picked up this forgotten gem and put it on cd.

I'm also sorry to hear that Ignit has burned all she did with Spleen, I am trying to get hold of a list with the original artists that where broadcasted between 1983 and 1985 on the program. VPRO radio has only a couple of cards with those lists left...

[Egbert]

The Residents album 'Not available' was literally not available in 1974 when they recorded it. That was the joke...
Later on in 1978 the record company decided to put it on the market, by then the Residents didn't mind that the album became available.

[Facebook]

@Egbert: Sorry for the late comment, but i think i still have most of the Spleen playlist cards! I'll look into digitizing those..