__ i n t e r n a t i o n a l m u s i c p r o m o t i o n / \ _____ _____ \__// /____ ______ _____/ / ______ _____\_ _ / _ /__\_ \____/ / /_______\_ \ ___ ___\_ \ / / / _ / / / / / _ /__ / \/ _ / _ _\________/ / / / \________/ / / \/ / / /__ \ \________/ \______/ \________/ / /\________// \ \______/ \________/ \__/ Various Artists All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 released on Night School, catno# RVSN003 24 tracks with a total size of 189.43 mb published in 2025 and pred on 2025-07-11 file under Electronic encoded from WEB FLAC with MPEG-1 Audio Layer III using LAME 3.100 with 320 kbps, 44.1 kHz, Joint Stereo source is https://night-school.bandcamp.com/album/ all-the-young-droids-junkshop-synth-pop-1978-1985 t r a c k s 01. Design - Premonition 03:43 02. Vision - Lucifer's Friend 04:04 03. Richard Bone - Alien Girl 03:04 04. John Howard - I Tune Into You 03:28 05. Ian North - We're Not Lonely 02:13 06. Selwin Image - The Unknown 03:01 07. Harry Kakouli - I'm On A Rocket 03:26 08. Rich Wilde - The Lady Wants To Be Alone 03:38 09. Billy London - Woman 03:23 10. Alan Burnham - Science Fiction 03:50 11. The Microbes - Computer 02:40 12. The Goo-Q - I'm A Computer 03:21 13. Gerry & The Holograms - Gerry & The Holograms 04:12 14. The Warlord - The Ultimate Warlord 03:29 15. Die Marinas - Fred From Jupiter 02:44 16. Dee Jay Bert and Eagle - I Am Your Master 02:41 17. Peta Lily & Michael Process - I Am A Timebomb 03:19 18. Sole Sister - It's Not Who You Are But How You Are 03:34 19. Alastair Riddell - Do You Read Me 03:41 20. Karel Fialka - Armband 03:02 21. John Springate - My Life 04:27 22. Incandescent Luminaire - Famous Names 03:22 23. Disco Volante - No Motion 04:02 24. Dream Unit - A Drop In The Ocean 04:10 total: 01:22:34 p r o m o s h e e t All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new compilation that charts the underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by Philip King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller's Mute Records. Featuring rare tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-g- utter chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure. Complete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks were remastered by RPM in-house engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master tapes. The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk's guitar-led revolution, it's telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids... was created in bedrooms, ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course) these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother of invention. At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a shiny new machine that could paint like an orchestra with a single finger and a 4 track. In the hands of Manchester avant-pranksters Gerry & The Holograms it's a pulsing, sardonic weapon... the only instrument on the Messthetics classic lampooning of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16 year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records). The hard-to-find English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here. Many artists with already-storied careers caught the bug and recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the future and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that included the incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I'm On A Rocket. Similarly, Ian North of Neo and American Power Pop stalwarts Milk 'n' Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a tape machine to record We're Not Lonely, an absolute lost-classic of minimal synth pop. There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adja- cent post-punk / underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now. Dream Unit's A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgott- en and super rare, self-released EP. Incandescent Luminaire's Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD gloominess that's a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7" and lost until now. The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reed-style sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate's My Life is truly epic, with doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the course of the track. Before you wonder what's going on the song resolves with a glorious return to the main refrain. The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. Design's Premonition and Vision's Lucifer's Friend are stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new lease of life here. The Warlord's The Ultimate Warlord was released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club hit with it. One-man-band Disco Volante's No Motion was re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its first vinyl compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have sounded like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career. Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes imagined a computer programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up with a propulsive, robo-funk track with splendid rubbery bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked up by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle's heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master demands the listener to "come to paradise"! In a frankly terrifying manner. All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth and Cold Wave were the only musical children of the first rush of synth pop. Philip King and School Daze Records describe a much more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist children of Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham's Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a plethora of desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious pop dramas and major label punts that went nowhere. Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and treasure. What if the two things are interchangeable. What if it's all science fiction? r e l e a s e n o t e s The streaming source does not even contain half of the tracks that are supposed to be on this compilation, so the other release is of no interest to us. Now you can enjoy this fantastic compilation in its entirety. If you enjoy this record, consider supporting the artists. B A K L A V A - s u p e r s w e e t - e s t 2 0 2 5