One record at a time: 563. Sunscreem - Change Or Die

Some records become rare through mystique, others through neglect. Sunscreem’s "Change or Die", released in 1996, appears to have achieved a little of both. Back when this album was released, most of us were buying CDs, so relatively few vinyl copies seem to have escaped into the wild. The LP now sits on more Discogs wantlists than shelves, while Popsike records just two eBay sales, both more than two years ago. Despite this, nobody has thought to repress it in thirty years. It remains difficult to find, although thankfully not yet expensive enough to require a meeting with the bank manager.

I acquired my copy from Discogs a little over a year ago. It is in very good condition, with only the occasional crackle expected from a thirty-year-old record. Better still, I paid considerably less than the Discogs median price, suggesting that the record-collecting gods had smiled upon me once again, or at least briefly looked up from ruining somebody else’s afternoon.

Proceedings begin with the single “Exodus”, which I bought on release more out of loyalty than genuine excitement. It is not a bad song, but it lacks a strong hook and never quite catches fire, despite a pleasing TB-303 riff lurking in the mix. From there, the album slides seamlessly into “Ice Screems”, which has a stronger rave pulse and samples vocals from “Chasing Dreams” on the band’s debut album.

The same vocal sample reappears on “Something”, although this time it is attached to a stronger melody. The album was mixed by a DJ as one continuous programme, so before you have had time to decide whether this is inspired recycling or simply getting your money’s worth from a sample, it segues into “When”.

As you might expect from the album’s lead single, “When” is suitably epic once it gets going. The problem is that it takes rather too long to get there, as though it has misplaced its keys on the way out. Side one closes with “Syclick”, another rave-inspired semi-instrumental that does the band’s credibility as a dance act no harm whatsoever.

Around the time of the album’s release, I received a band newsletter filled with cheerful nonsense about madness and a report that lead singer Lucia had spotted a “critter” in the garden, which she then drew for the front cover. Mental disarray was clearly part of the album’s furniture, as side two begins with “For Maddened Prophets”. It starts with a more laid-back groove before the breakbeats kick into life, but never develops much structure and ends up feeling less like a journey than somebody pacing around while trying to remember why they entered the room.

For me, the album’s standout is “Looking At You”, which combines a memorable melody with some superb synth work. It is probably no coincidence that it is also the closest the album comes to a conventional song structure. That sense of shape makes it sound more assured than much of what surrounds it. Its laid-back approach may not satisfy anyone waiting for the next breakbeat to kick down the door, but to my ears it is an unqualified success. “No Angel” follows and takes a couple of minutes to get moving, but once it does, it becomes thoroughly entertaining.

I am less persuaded by “Secrets” and “White Skies”, the album’s other two singles. Both favour more conventional song structures, yet somehow fall between two stools, lacking either the atmosphere or the full-blooded rave sensibility that characterises Sunscreem’s best material. They are neither bad enough to resent nor good enough to seek out, which may be an even crueller fate.

“Change or Die” is therefore a frustrating album rather than a failed one. Its best moments show that Sunscreem could combine rave energy, melody and genuine songwriting flair, but too often the music drifts when it should be driving forward. Perhaps its scarcity has given it a little more mystique than the contents entirely justify. Even so, I am glad to own it. It is an intriguing snapshot of a band caught between the dance floor and the songbook, occasionally standing in the doorway and blocking access to both. 2.5/5

One record at a time: 562. Soulwax - All Systems Are Lying

After the success of “From Deewee”, I had high hopes for Soulwax’s 2025 album “All Systems Are Lying”. This limited-edition double album, pressed on  transparent red vinyl, certainly looks impressive. Unfortunately, when I first dropped the needle, the music itself left me feeling rather less excited. It was not an immediate disaster, but neither did it deliver the rush I had been expecting.

The album does not really catch fire until the TB-303 begins to burble through the second track, “Run Free”. At that point, the record briefly finds the sort of pulse and electronic mischief I had been waiting for but relinquishes it too readily. “New Earth Time” also has some appealing touches, but too much of the album settles into repetition without creating enough tension, momentum or surprise. I have no objection to repetitive music. Much of the music I love is built around loops and patterns, but repetition only works when the thing being repeated is interesting enough to justify the attention. Here, the grooves are expertly assembled and the production is undeniably polished, yet too often the songs drift past without leaving much behind.

“Gimmie A Reason” is one of the stronger moments, with a catchy melody and synth strings that seem to hang in the ether, giving the track a pleasing sense of atmosphere. It is the sort of song that suggests the album might finally be gathering itself together. Instead, the middle is clogged with disposable avant-garde interludes that feel more like obstacles than experiments. Eventually, we emerge on the other side with more song-based tracks such as “The False Economy” and “Idiots In Love”. These provide some welcome shape, although parts of them sound alarmingly indie and do not contain quite enough electronics for my taste. A couple of shorter tracks bring the set to a close, but they do so in the same underwhelming manner that has come to characterise much of the album. All four sides end in a locked groove, which is a neat physical flourish, even if the music has already spent rather too much time going round in circles.

None of this makes “All Systems Are Lying” a bad record. It is expertly produced, occasionally atmospheric and home to a handful of genuinely good songs. The problem is that the highlights are too few and the material between them rarely demands another listen. Everything sounds carefully constructed, but the album lacks the irresistible hook, strange detail or sudden jolt of energy that might pull me fully into its world. For all its craft, it remains a record I admire more than I enjoy. 2/5

One record at a time: 561. Soft Cell - Danceteria

Following the tragic death of Dave Ball, Soft Cell ceased to exist as an active band. Their music will endure, but Marc Almond has made it clear that, without his writing partner of fifty years, there can be no further Soft Cell releases. Completed just two days before Dave died, “Danceteria” will therefore stand as the final album the pair made together. That knowledge gives the record an unavoidable poignancy, but it deserves to be heard as more than a farewell. It is also a vivid, inventive Soft Cell album in its own right.

I am playing the limited-edition gold version, originally available through the band’s website, although collectors are hardly short of alternatives. Depending on the retailer, the album can also be found on white, black, red, orange and two-tone sparkle vinyl. In other words, you pays your money and you takes your choice, although anyone determined to collect the lot may first need a quiet word with their bank manager.

The album opens with “Elusive”, a suitably electronic and vampy introduction, before moving into the title track, which bounces along on a well-judged mixture of nostalgia and contemporary dance production. “Danceteria” is not a concept album as such, but much of it looks back to early 1980s New York, where Soft Cell first found fame. “Times Square” and the ballad “The Rainbow Room” revisit the pair’s time in the city, yet Marc’s lyrics are less interested in the landmarks themselves than in the people who once filled them and are now conspicuous by their absence. The result is nostalgic without becoming cosy, haunted by the sense that the places remain even when the people do not.

That tension between past and present continues on “The Space Inside”, which sounds so much like Pet Shop Boys that resistance is almost pointless. Its cool electronic pulse and poised melody feel instantly familiar, but the track retains enough of Soft Cell’s own character to avoid becoming mere imitation. Marc’s unmistakable vocal ensures that, however polished the surroundings, there is still something slightly unsettling at the centre.

Not everything lands quite as well. “In Heaven (When I Dance With You)” feels a little too twee and "Wave To America" just feels like a repeat of a sentiment we've heard on other songs. Disappointingly two of my favourite tracks from these sessions are dropped from the vinyl, but I encourage you to check out the gloriously subversive sleaze of “Crackland” and my favourite track “What Is Your Morality” on streaming or other formats.

The album closes with a cover of Was (Not Was)’s “Out Come the Freaks”. Until relatively recently, I had little interest in the band because my knowledge of them began and ended with the dreadful hit “Walk the Dinosaur”. Exploring more of their back catalogue has at least made me more familiar with this song, and its parade of outsiders fits comfortably with the world “Danceteria” creates. Even so, the source material is not strong enough to make the closing track especially compelling for me. It is thematically appropriate, but musically it feels like a slight anticlimax after the album’s stronger original material.

Whether intended or not, “Danceteria” brings Soft Cell neatly full circle from their debut, “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret”. We may be in a different city, but we are still wandering through questionable nightspots, watching colourful characters and questioning our morality. The album is uneven in places, and its final cover does not quite provide the ending it deserves, yet the best songs show Almond and Ball were still capable of turning sleaze, sadness and electronic pop into something unmistakably their own. The doors of the Pink Flamingo may have closed, but the neon is still glowing. 3.5/5

The Records That Survived Being Left Alone

During a short break last week, I acquired a pleasing little haul of preowned vinyl from charity shops and market stalls. I did not spend a great deal. The most expensive record was £15, but every purchase had one thing in common: it was filthy.

Most looked as though they had last been played forty years ago, then stored beneath a sofa in a damp house full of moulting pets. Between them they carried hairs, fingerprints, a thin film of unidentified fluid and several promising species of mould. Yet beneath all that domestic archaeology, the records had survived. It occurred to me that the dirt might not just be evidence of neglect. It might also be evidence of restraint.

Cleaning records simply was not regarded as essential in the past. Records were ephemera, not precious artefacts to be treasured, catalogued and handled like medieval manuscripts. A colleague once told me that in her youth she wiped dust from records with her clothing and routinely put a penny on the head shell to stop the needle jumping. My father owned a fairly expensive stereo system in the seventies and eighties, yet relied solely on a Zerostat antistatic gun. No cloth or cleaning fluid came anywhere near his opera records. “The needle is the best cleaning apparatus” seems to have been the prevailing wisdom.

As a modern youth, I believed I knew better. I cleaned my records with specialist fluids that promised magical restorative powers and hinted at secret formulas known only to audio alchemists. I now realise that most were merely isopropyl alcohol concoctions that were about as magical as the zip that kept my trousers shut; a headstrong teenager and his money are soon parted.

My faith in chemistry did not end well. Tired of the clicks and pops on several Jean Michel Jarre LPs, I cleaned them en masse with one of these potions and somehow covered nearly all of them in micro scratches (I'm still not really sure what I did wrong to this day). Further cleaning only made matters worse. I was also a clumsy teenager, so repeated playing added scratches and dinks until some discs became less a listening experience than an endurance test. Many of the records from my youth did not survive the eighties, not because I neglected them, but because I played them relentlessly and tried far too enthusiastically to look after them.

Which brings me back to my recent haul. These records survived for forty years partly because they weren’t played much and also because nobody attacked them with a miracle fluid and the confidence of a teenager. I will still clean them, of course, but carefully, with the humility experience provides. Then I will lower the needle, hear the first stubborn crackle and remind myself that sometimes the safest form of record care is simply leaving the poor thing alone.

One record at a time: 560. Soft Cell - *Happiness Now Completed

It seems that the sessions for the album “*Happiness Not Included” were so fruitful that there was enough material left over for another album. Initially released on compact disc and as digital files, “*Happiness Now Complete” eventually made its way onto vinyl for Record Store Day 2025. As is now my habit, I didn’t join the lines of middle-aged men queuing outside record shops at an hour normally witnessed only by bakers and people regretting a night out. Instead, I waited until the band’s official webstore gathered up the unsold stock and offered it at a hefty discount. One in the eye for Record Store Day, and two in the eyes of the eBay scalpers.

The opening track on “*Happiness Now Complete” is one of my favourite Soft Cell recordings of all time. “First Hand Experience in Second Hand Love” was written and originally recorded by Giorgio Moroder in 1977, and the Soft Cell version manages the difficult trick of remaining faithful to the original while reinventing it in a more modern style. It has the pulse and atmosphere you would expect, but Marc Almond gives it that unmistakable mixture of glamour, longing and mild emotional peril. In other words, it fits Soft Cell perfectly.

Unfortunately, the second track, “Jukebox Head”, sounds very much like a reject, although it is a rather likeable one. “Quiet Rebellion” fares better. It is a shimmering electronic piece that feels like what Soft Cell should sound like in 2023, full of atmosphere without straining too hard to prove the point. Much like contemporaries Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Soft Cell seemed to move away from electronics for a while, only to end up even more firmly entrenched in the sound they started with. Fingers crossed for Depeche Mode, eh? There must be some rule that the older an electronic band becomes, the more synthesisers it is legally required to own.

Another highlight for me is “Night and the City (2023 Version)”, which takes the original 2018 song and beefs up the drums, with Dave’s backing vocals adding to the effect. It is not a wholesale reinvention, but it gives the track a little more muscle and reminds you how good the song was in the first place. An oddity I also enjoy is another cover version, this time of Fad Gadget’s “Back to Nature”. Although the band did not have the best relationship with fellow Leeds Poly alumnus Frank Tovey, they admired his work, and this rendition pays homage with subtle dignity rather than barging in wearing a novelty synth tie.

“Murder Your Darlings” is one of the more lyrically striking moments where a former lover is discarded like rubbish so that the survivor can concentrate only on what is needed to carry on. It is a cold idea dressed in elegant language. Few bands can make emotional devastation sound quite so well accessorised.

The only track whose rhinestones do not sparkle quite as brightly is “Defiant”. Its melody is rammed down your throat by intrusive backing vocals that Marc really does not need. The song is not dreadful, but it keeps nudging you in the ribs to make sure you have noticed it, long after you have politely confirmed that you have.

Otherwise, “*Happiness Now Complete” is an amusing and worthwhile diversion, with a few genuine diamonds among the interesting but less essential tracks surrounding them. It inevitably feels like a companion piece rather than a major Soft Cell statement, but that is hardly a criticism when the leftovers include one of my favourite recordings the band has ever made. Not everything here is indispensable, yet even the weaker moments have enough character to justify their place. Bought at full Record Store Day price, I might have felt slightly less charitable. At a hefty webstore discount, however, it feels less like clearing the shelves and more like getting away with something. 3/5

One record at a time: 559. Röyksopp - True Electric

When I saw Röyksopp live back in 2009, they played with additional musicians wielding traditional instruments such as bass and lead guitar. I still cannot understand why electronic bands feel the need to do this, but it is a common affliction. For their 2023 “True Electric” tour, however, Svein and Torbjørn presented their music as club-focused, electronic versions that largely did away with traditional or acoustic instruments. Having enjoyed creating these new versions, the band went back to the studio and decided to package them as an album. What emerged was not so much a remix album as a reimagining of their back catalogue.

I ordered this limited-edition, numbered triple-vinyl set from the band’s own webstore in 2025 and was very pleased when it arrived safe and sound. However, my enthusiasm was soon dampened by the sticker every vinyl enthusiast dreads seeing on their latest purchase: “Made in Czech Republic”. All the hallmarks of a GZ Media pressing were present: filthy, dust covered records, absurdly tight inner bags and enough static to power a small village. Yet, after a thorough clean and a swap to replacement poly-lined inner sleeves, it became perfectly possible to live with. The vinyl actually sounds rather good, and the music is wonderful enough to transcend the deficiencies of the pressing.

The opening stretch draws heavily on “Profound Mysteries” and immediately establishes the album’s purpose. “The Ladder” remains an atmospheric opener, while the Alison Goldfrapp collaboration “Impossible” adds a beautiful bassline and enough electronic fireworks to justify the title. Best of all, “This Time, This Place” is transformed from an already excellent song into a relentless, uplifting club track fit for any dance floor with functioning foundations.

That approach continues across the older material. Familiar tracks like "The Girl and the Robot" and "Here She Comes Again" are pushed towards the dance floor without losing their identities, vocals are twisted into new shapes and the bass is generally given permission to rearrange the furniture. Some reinventions improve markedly on their originals, while others simply offer a different route through songs that were already difficult to better. Even when a version is slightly more pedestrian, it remains beautifully produced and never feels like filler.

The longer club mixes are where “True Electric” really earns its name. Rumbling basslines, spine-tingling synths and dramatically heightened drums turn the album into something more physical than a conventional retrospective. “Oh Lover” expands into a seven-and-a-half-minute monster, while “Unity” becomes tighter and more direct. Elsewhere, sweetness is stripped away in favour of pulsating tech-house momentum, making the set feel coherent rather than like a collection of unrelated remixes.

The trade-off is that a triple album built for sustained club momentum leaves less room for the quieter melancholy and delicate detail that make parts of Röyksopp’s catalogue so affecting. A few of these versions are more impressive than essential, and I can only imagine how good this vinyl would have sounded if it had been given to someone like Optimal rather than GZ. None of that matters much once the music takes hold. “True Electric” is bold, immersive and frequently exhilarating, a loving reimagining of the band’s past rather than a routine remix collection. I absolutely love it. 4/5

One record at a time: 558. Propaganda - A Secret Wish

Back in the eighties, when I was young, television did not seem especially troubled by an excess of sport. Therefore a programme I naturally gravitated towards was the BBC’s coverage of the annual Lombard RAC Rally, then the United Kingdom’s premier international motor rally. The cars were exciting, of course, but a particular highlight for me was the theme music used for the highlights programmes. I loved it so much that I recorded it by holding a cassette recorder next to the television speaker, a sophisticated audio capture technique chiefly distinguished by its inclusion of every noise in the room. I would play the tape back and marvel at the music. As I was not an avid student of the charts, I had no idea that it was a record by an actual artist, I just thought it was the theme music to the programme. 

When I finally gained unfettered access to the internet in the late nineties, I used the search engines of the day, including Lycos and Ask Jeeves, to identify music I loved but could not name. Eventually I discovered that the music used on the rally coverage of the eighties was in fact “Duel” by Propaganda. This being the period it was, I downloaded it from Napster immediately. Respectability followed: I bought its parent album, “A Secret Wish” on compact disc a few years later, and this reissued 180g LP joined my collection in 2018. It then disappeared into the shelves and escaped my first trawl through the collection, which is either a comment on my filing system or proof that records can hide when sufficiently motivated. According to Amazon, I paid only £11.87 for it, so at least my administrative shortcomings came as a bargain.

The album is now regarded as a classic, with era-defining production from Stephen Lipson. Opener “Dream Within a Dream” drifts in on bass guitar and PPG Waveterm textures while Susanne Freytag recites Edgar Allan Poe’s 1849 poem “A Dream Within a Dream”. A recurring trumpet refrain is interrupted by drums, synthesiser solos and flashes of guitar. The result is an eight-minute subversion of conventional eighties synthpop, the sort of opening track that politely informs the inquisitive pop fan that the album has no intention of behaving itself.

The sampled slap bass of “The Murder of Love” could hardly sound more eighties if it arrived wearing shoulder pads and carrying a Filofax. As Claudia Brücken sings of being strangled by charm, resistance to the groove is futile. Much as I love “Duel”, I am less taken with its aggressive, brutal counterpart, “Jewel”. For me, the majesty of “Duel” lies in the counterpoint between the buoyant PPG Waveterm bass and the Roland Jupiter-8 chords, not rocking guitars. 

The second side opens with another single, “P:Machinery”, a suitably imposing piece shaped by contributions from figures as varied as David Sylvian of Japan, Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17 and Derek Forbes of Simple Minds. It was not a spectacular chart success, but it has become an undeniable cult classic and deserves the retrospective praise now routinely bestowed upon it. History may have been late, but at least it eventually turned up.

I am less enamoured of “Sorry for Laughing”, although I suspect the muddy production is more at fault than the songwriting. There is probably a sharper song buried in there somewhere, wearing a headlamp and waiting to be rescued.

“Dr Mabuse” is something of an outlier, drawing on two sources not encountered much elsewhere on the album: Trevor Horn and the Fairlight CMI. I think the version included here is the “First Life” mix, but I am not venturing into the differences between the various mixes and running times. The bewildering number of versions makes advanced mathematics look like a relaxing alternative. What matters is that I like the track, particularly the Fairlight samples that were shared with recordings by The Art of Noise.

“The Chase” is more relaxed and melodious, but it retains that immaculate eighties production sheen and the wonderful sounds created by synth wizard and programmer Andy Richards. The album ends with two separately listed tracks that function as a single joined piece. “The Last Word” is an instrumental remix of “Dr Mabuse”, while the internet informs me that a thunderclap and the sound of rain announce the beginning of “Strength to Dream”. Together they form an instrumental coda filled with brooding textures and majestic strings, ending the record not so much with a tidy full stop as with an ominous bank of weather rolling in.

It may be illegal in certain synthpop circles to speak disparagingly of “A Secret Wish”, so perhaps a favourable verdict is compulsory. Fortunately, it is also deserved. This is unquestionably a classic of the genre, made with wit, ambition and immaculate production. It was a critical triumph, although retrospective accounts can make it sound as if everybody bought a copy on release and immediately recognised its genius. I certainly did not. I had never heard of Propaganda until 1999, when I finally identified the theme from the BBC rally coverage, and I did not buy the album until 2006. I may have arrived late, but at least I got there before the vinyl vanished into my own shelves. 4/5