The departure of Ian Craig Marsh and Martin Ware from the Human League was engineered by their record company and manager to allow the act to develop in more commercial directions. The first two albums from the Sheffield-based electro pioneers had been received with enthusiasm by the cool crowd, but they weren’t paying the bills back at Virgin HQ by themselves. A plan was cooked up, therefore, to kick Ware out of the band he had created and have it continue based around the singer he had brought in.
To his credit, Marsh was prepared to follow Ware out of the door. Instead of creating a new version of the League, they diversified. First, they went into music production, setting up the British Electric Foundation as a vehicle for working with other artists. They also founded their first “client.” Heaven 17, with a mate of theirs who was working as a snapper in London, but that is a story for another day. For our purposes, what matters is that the BEF production team released a cassette of electronic music that continued the lineage that had started with The Future, moved into the Human League, and emerged with the ambition to take synth music into the mainstream.
Music for Stowaways was specifically created for the compact cassette tape. Sony had given their portable music players the name, Stowaway, before settling on the genre-defining Walkman. Ware and Marsh loved the idea of the device, and they went into the studio with some friends – including Adi Newton and Glenn Gregory – to create a single-format release with early adopters in mind. With eight tracks, the original March 1981 release was a glimpse into the future.
In 2023, Music for Stowaways is getting an expanded edition release on two other formats: vinyl and CD. The track listing is set out below.
MUSIC FOR STOWAWAYS
LP | CD REISSUE
TRACKLISTING
A1 | 1 B.E.F. Ident
A2 | 2 The Optimum Chant
A3 | 3 Uptown Apocalypse
A4 | 4 Wipe The Board Clean
A5 | 5 Groove Thang
A6 | 6 Music To Kill Your Parents By
B1 | 7 The Old At Rest
B2 | 8 Rise Of The East
B3 | 9 Decline Of The West
B4 | 10 A Baby Called Billy
B5 | 11 Honeymoon In New York
B6 | 12 B.E.F. Ident
With its grid of video monitors on the cover, Elemental 7 is instantly recognisable as the soundtrack for the film by John Lacy and CTI. It was originally released on the Doublevision, the label set up by Cabaret Voltaire. Truth be told, the visuals were of their time, but the extraordinary soundtrack had more life on the LP. “Dancing Ghosts” is particularly notable for its combination of the Roland TB303 bass sequencer and TR808 drum machine in combination – one of the first tracks to use the gear and one of Chris & Cosey’s best loved songs.
Muzik Fantastique! is an extraordinary album. First released in 1992, it put to shame the acid house pretenders of the day with their newly discovered synth tools. The lead track, “Fantastique,” features one of Cosey’s most iconic vocal performances, while Chris Carter’s instrumentation is in top form. Songs like “Afrakira” and “Apocalypso” venture into world music, while sounding innovative throughout.
The last release in this series, Feral Vapours of the Silver Ether, was the second studio album by Carter Tutti, the act that followed Chris & Cosey. The Carter Tutti material is typically more ambient and down-tempo, compared to the duo’s previous work, and Feral Vapours… marks a step change from the other two albums being pressed by CTI. Not previously available on vinyl, it weaves filigree electro-acoustic sounds with thoroughly sensitive – organic – compositions.
