The Human League - Into The Night

New track from upcoming Human League album, "Credo". Phil sounds in fine voice...

Into The Night

The Human League - (Keep Feeling) Fascination 12"

This 12" issue of classic League track is the one to seek out and indeed, while carrying the flaming torch of the "League Unlimited Orchestra" album into the "Hysteria" campaign, it verily shits from a great height all over the album version.

Although the extended mix is very, very good, the one on which to focus your attention is the "Improvisation" mix, which is properly bonkers and all the better for it. I think this was Martin Rushent's last gasp with the band, but what a way to go.

Ex-Rezillo Jo Callis was still on board and not only providing the music, but also assisting with the vocal duties. I reckon this was their last truly great single for a long, long time. Check out the wonky riff, which I find slightly suffocating on the standard version. Here, it is somehow diminished to greater effect. Less is, if you will, more.

I love the cover of this as well; "Look! We're suddenly a fun-loving band of great mates" (Subtext - we fucking hate each other and success has ruined us).

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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The Human League - Hysteria

And while we're at it...

This is much, much better than I remember it being. I think it suffered from being the album after "Dare".

I might get something else up here later on.

Happy Christmas.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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The Human League - The Sound Of The Crowd/HardTimes/Love Action 12" Singles

Awesome double of early Human League 12" singles, which as far as I know, have never been re-released anywhere. The Sound Of The Crowd was the first one with 'the girls" on and Hard Times/Love Action was when they started to get really good after the split. Quite, quite brilliant. It's all about the space between the beats for me. Absolutely wonderful production from Martin Rushent, who was as much a member of the band as any of them were. If you've heard the raw demos for "Dare", you will understand what a crucial role he played in shaping this stuff into some sort of enduring genius. I am back in my bedroom at my parents house. Floppy fringe obscuring one eye, alive with possibilities and dreams. This was the soundtrack to my youth. Fucking brilliant.

Vinyl rips at 320Kbps.

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The Golden Hour Of The Future: Recordings By The Future And The Human League

Quoted from the excellent Human League site Blind Youth, a complete guide to The Human League 1977-1980.

This album, credited to The Future + The Human League, compiles recordings the two groups made between 1977 and the moment The Human League signed to Virgin Records in 1979. The project began soon after producer and recording artist Richard X contacted this site in early 2001 after noticing it features the sleeve of his first Girls On Top single, Being Scrubbed, which mixes Being Boiled with TLC's No Scrubs. After he expressed an interest in releasing the early works of The Future and The Human League on his Black Melody label, I contacted Martyn and Philip to find out how they felt about the idea, and both seemed interested.

Richard and I then began gathering unreleased recordings from our collection of bootlegs, and following my visit to The Human League's Sheffield studio in October 2001, I was kindly given copies of further unreleased material by the League's long-standing engineer, David Beevers, including a copy of The Future Tapes, some of which had never been bootlegged.

As the project began to gather momentum, David volunteered to explore the many master tapes stored in the League's studio and found many more unreleased recordings, some of which had probably not been played since the 1970s. While David was busy restoring and cleaning up these tapes, many of which were in bad condition, Richard and I met with Martyn and Ian, who also looked through their collections for other recordings and photographs which could be used for the artwork.

After much deliberation, Richard arrived at the tracklisting above, though the album contains some additional snippets of material not listed above or on the sleeve.

Unfortunately, the sound quality is uneven throughout the album; this is due to the variable quality of the tapes available. Of the tracks listed on the sleeve, Philip's The Circus Of Dr Lao is probably the most lo-fi, as the only good quality recording of this track which could be located was missing Philip's vocals. The only available vocal version was actually taken from a bootleg cassette, and this appears on the album. Thankfully, the other recordings were taken, if not directly from the original master tapes, then from good quality DAT backups of those masters.

While many more unreleased recordings remain in the League's archives, this album does provide the listener with a good overall introduction to both The Future and the League's early recordings which led to their publishing and recording contracts with Virgin companies.

Remastered edition. Let me know if anyone wants the original edition as well.

There's also a Wikipedia entry here.

320 Kbps.

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