Last week saw the London launches of the new Fad Gadget 2CD/2DVD box set issued by Mute. Watching the documentary and seeing the range of people present, FG's influence on electronic pop(ular) music was more obvious than ever. The rich selection of live performances from the early to mid eighties finally give a chance to see why these shows were so influential and talked about. The CD tracks are a fairly obvious selection of career highlights, but the demo tracks are worth listening to for an understanding of Tovey's earliest efforts. If well selected, what might be interesting now would be a remix album or some vinyl issues with contemporary artists taking on FG tracks. In any case, this collection is a useful document cementing FG's place in the history of electronic music (and of course of Mute).
Thanks to all who watched the event on Friday, we all enjoyed it and were really pleased with the response, we were only sorry not to have more time for questions and discussion. Ludmilla Andrews did a great job of executing the film at great speed in lockdown conditions. My commentary for the film was written in haste over the New Year and recorded in the following week. It's a snapshot of the transition from 2020 to 2021 through the prism of Test Dept's work and Fisher's response to it.
Comments