Eight - X, (12)

Eight-X, continues in the new year with an artist who's sadly no longer with us , he died 14 years ago of cancer, he left us some great music, best known the album here, Wild Places. Blancmange back in the days scored several alternative dancefloor hits, i certainly lost some sweat there. Godley + Creme created their own niche and in the end took up creating music vids, certainly after their masterpiece cry, nobody could deny their skill. Ismism is a great album, where their lyrics make up a large part of the fun listening.

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Duncan Browne - The Wild Places ( 78 ^ 91mb )

As a boy, Duncan Browne intended to join the Royal Air Force, but his poor health even as a youth precluded this as a possibility. Instead, he chose to pursue his interests as an actor -- he played the clarinet and studied music theory, but wasn't possessed to consider a career in music until, at age 17, he saw Bob Dylan in an appearance, during the American folk-rock star's first tour of the U.K. It was Dylan's guitar playing rather than his singing that served as Browne's inspiration and entryway to rock music. In response, he bought a Yamaha acoustic model and taught himself to play in a technique that was heavily classically influenced. During his three years at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art,in addition to studying drama, he kept up with his guitar playing and developed a greater command of music theory.Together with a former student friend of his, David Bretton, serving as lyricist, the two composed a dozen songs together. The resulting album, Give Me Take You, a quietly dazzling work that embraced elements of folk, rock, pop, and classical, all wrapped around some surprisingly well-crafted poetry and Browne's stunning voice. Despite its many virtues, the album died a commercial death, largely as a result of its label's financial difficulties.

Browne spent the next several years as a session musician, working on a pair of albums by Colin Blunstone and one album by Tom Yates. In the mid-'70s, he moved into a full electric rock mode in collaboration with Peter Godwin, ultimately forming the power pop band Metro, whose recordings were issued on Sire Records in America. Suddenly, Browne was near the cutting edge of music again, and in addition to his work with Metro he released a pair of solo albums, The Wild Places and Streets of Fire, which were also issued on Sire in the early '80s. This was as close as Duncan Browne ever got to rock stardom, his records sought after in locales like New York's East Village and played on American college radio stations.

Despite some beautiful and surprisingly hard-rocking music that was sort of new wave melodic, however, there wasn't enough interest or activity to sustain this phase of Browne's career. By the middle of the decade, Browne had moved into the field of film and television scoring, and worked on Jonathan Miller's series Madness, among other productions. He was pleasantly surprised at the outset of the 1990s when the CD boom led to new interest in his 1960s and 1970s rock efforts -- Browne was gratified, in particular, to learn that Sony Music Special Products was preparing a CD reissue of Give Me Take You in the United States. Alas, he was stricken with cancer in the early '90s, and died in the spring of 1993. In the years since, most of his catalog, including his early-'80s solo albums, has been re-released and Browne's music may well have a larger following in now than it ever did in the 1960s and 1970s.



01 - The Wild Places (6:00)
02 - Roman Vécu (4:43)
03 - Camino Real (Parts 1, 2, 3) (8:24)
04 - Samurai (4:25)
05 - Kisarazu (7:04)
06 - The Crash (3:53)
07 - Planet Earth (6:17)

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Blancmange - Happy Families (82 ^ 135mb)
Taking their name from a type of cooked pudding, the electronic duo Blancmange interlaced the arty, exotic dance rhythms of Talking Heads with the quirky melodrama of early-'80s British synth pop. Consisting of Neil Arthur (vocals, guitar) and Stephen Luscombe (keyboards), Blancmange formed in London, England, in the late '70s. Originally called L360, Blancmange received immediate recognition when they sent the song "Sad Day" to DJ Stevo, who added it to a compilation LP of then-unsigned new wave groups including future alternative icons like Depeche Mode and Soft Cell. Drummer Laurence Stevens was a member of the band for a short while, but they eventually replaced him with a drum machine. Signed to London Records, Blancmange released their first two singles, "God's Kitchen" and "Feel Me," in 1982. Both records were moderate hits in the U.K., the latter barely missing the Top 40 charts.

Later that year, Blancmange's debut album, Happy Families, sold well on the strength of their first Top Ten hit, "Living on the Ceiling," which peaked at number seven in Britain. "Living on the Ceiling" captured Blancmange's unique take on synth pop, throwing heavy Middle-Eastern flavors into their very European style of club music. "Living on the Ceiling" was the beginning of a string of U.K. smashes; "Blind Vision" and "Don't Tell Me" both reached the Top Ten in England. Their cover of ABBA's "The Day Before You Came" was actually even more successful than the original, peaking at number 22. Blancmange's 1984 LP, Mange Tout, further established the group as one of Britain's most popular electronic artists; however, unlike many of their peers, the band weren't afraid of experimenting with real instruments, incorporating sitars, strings, woodwinds, and horns into their synthesized sound. But Blancmange's third album, 1985's Believe You Me, was a flopped and they broke up a year later. Arthur went solo while Luscombe formed the West India Company.



01 - I Can't Explain (3:58)
02 - Feel Me (5:03)
02 - I've Seen The Word (3:00)
04 - Wasted (4:13)
05 - Living On The Ceiling (4:07)
06 - Waves (4:22)
07 - Kind (3:57)
08 - Sad Day (3:54)
09 - Cruel (4:42)
10 - God's Kitchen (2:50)
--Xs--
11 - Game Above My Head (3:59)
12 - Blind Vision (3:59)
13 - Don't Tell Me (3:31)
14 - The Day Before You Came (4:25)

diet version
Blancmange - Happy Families (82 * 90mb)

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Godley + Creme - Ismism (81 ^ 99mb)

Godley and Creme met in the late 1950s and for a brief time were in a band together.The pair began their music career together proper in 1969, performing bubblegum music in Strawberry Studios at Stockport near Manchester with Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman. Their first chart success, Neanderthal Man, was as members of the short-lived Hotlegs, which evolved into 10cc in 1972. 10cc enjoyed strong chart success, most notably with their 1975 single "I'm Not in Love"

After the recording of 10cc's fourth LP, How Dare You!, Godley & Creme left the band to work on a device they called "The Gizmo", which attached to the bridge of a guitar to create a wide variety of sonic textures. The Gizmo was featured heavily on their poorly received concept album Consequences (' 77). The (meanwhile cult) album was savaged by critics, the bad press and poor sales generated by Consequences nearly destroyed the duo's career.

The duo gradually regained critical favour with a trio of innovative albums in the late 1970s and early 1980s – L, Freeze Frame and Ismism (released as Snack Attack in the United States). The single "Snack Attack" was also a minor hit, they also made the UK Top Ten with the singles "Under Your Thumb" and "Wedding Bells", both from Ismism. In 1983 they released Birds of Prey which took their music in a more electronic direction, using electronic drum machines for the entire album.

1985's The History Mix Volume 1 album celebrated 25 years of recording together, the record, co-produced by J. J. Jeczalik of Art of Noise, remixed samples of their previous recordings to a disco beat. The album also contained the single "Cry" which, much helped by the video, became their biggest US hit. Godley & Creme released their final album, Goodbye Blue Sky, in 1988. This album abandoned electronic instruments and used harmonicas, organs, and guitars to tell the story of the earth on the brink of nuclear war.The duo ended their working relationship soon after the release of Goodbye Blue Sky.

Godley & Creme directed MTV clips for the Police, Duran Duran, and Frankie Goes to Hollywood that stretched the boundaries of music video and proved that the form was capable of producing art. In 1985, Godley & Crème had their only American smash with "Cry." Not surprisingly, it had an eye-popping video with groundbreaking special effects that showed featured faces blended into each other using analog cross-fading, anticipating the digital effect of morphing, a not uncommon feature these days.
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Creme joined the band Art of Noise in 1998. Kevin Godley continued to direct music videos. In 2006 he teamed up with Graham Gouldman again, and they released four new tracks under the name GG06



01 - Snack Attack (7:16)
02 - Under Your Thumb (4:39)
03 - Joey's Camel (5:24)
04 - The Problem (4:03)
05 - Ready For Ralph (2:18)
06 - Wedding Bells (3:22)
07 - Lonnie (4:46)
08 - Sale Of The Century (4:22)
09 - The Party (7:57)

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