Infrastition, a daughter label of Cynfeirdd, was founded in 2004 as an outlet for (re)releasing classic wave/gothic music by bands from France. Some of the artists on their roster are Baroque Bordello, Clair Obscur and Norma Loy. Their first compilation Transmission has the subtitle ’81-89 The French Cold Wave’, which says it all. There are legendary bands present, but also completely obscure names.
Of course not all tracks equally appeal to my personal taste, but there a certainly a few gems. The atmospheric synth and typical wave guitars of Asylum Party are very nice, making me curious about their upcoming releases on Infrastition. Baroque Bordello is mostly appealing because of the excellent female vocals, somewhere between Siouxsie and Lush. ‘Demain Berlin’ is an cold minimal synth classic by Guerre Froide, sung in a combination of languages. Addictive! Leitmotiv offers rather theatrical but convincing batcave sounds in the vein of Bauhaus with uptemp drumming. Martin Dupont offers a pleasantly light song in line with Siouxsie’s poppier work More avantgarde sounds are contributed by Clair Obscur and Opera Multi Steel.
The booklet contains some pictures of the bands, info about the original releases the tracks were taken from and an introductory text in French. The 80’s were clearly a fruitful period for darker underground music, also in France. Most tracks on this quite varied cd are of a good quality, therefore this Transmission compilation is very enjoyable for lovers of wave / postpunk music.
