Poeme Electronique – The Echoes Fade (Digital/CD/Vinyl Album – Anna Logue Records)
Poeme Electronique – The Echoes Fade
Poeme Electronique is a British band formed in 1980, featuring the quartet Dave Hewson, Sharon Abbott, Julie Ruler, and Les Hewson. “The Echoes Fade” was originally released as a single. In 2009, a self-titled album was released, featuring many other songs from the early years. Now, many years later, comes this reissue with exactly the same number of tracks.
The 16 tracks take us back in time, and in that sense, Poeme Electronique sounds truly magical: synth music from a bygone era. This is pure Electro-Wave with indescribable space-like sounds, but also Psychedelic elements. The main course remains Electro-Wave, supported by slow yet danceable rhythms and female vocals. The music is not an ode to the 80s, but simply the 80s itself, with very recognizable sounds and effects. This is vintage Electro, featuring some strong tracks as well. However, I find the eight tracks on the second vinyl somewhat weaker, sometimes even a bit bland, as if the inspiration had run out.
“The Echoes Fade” seems to me primarily an album for insiders and collectors of the golden age of 80s electro. (Rating:7).
Listen to “She’s An Image”:
About Poeme Electronique
Poeme Electronique was formed in South London, UK, in 1980 by Dave Hewson (synthesizers, production), together with Sharon Abbott (lead and backing vocals), Julie Ruler (backing vocals), and Dave’s brother Les Hewson (bass). Julie Ruler and Les Hewson had previously played together in the South London band Stagestruk, with Les on bass; when Stagestruk folded in 1981, he joined Poeme Electronique. The quartet mixed technopop and minimal synth with electro-wave textures.
The band’s only single, “The Echoes Fade” backed with “Voice”, was released as a 7″ on Carrere Records in 1982, and went on to become a sought-after collector’s item among synth-wave and minimal-wave collectors. Poeme Electronique’s early-1980s recordings, made on 4- and 16-track tape, were rediscovered decades later.
In 2009, Dave Hewson returned to the original master tapes and remastered them in Pro Tools for a compilation, released as a 16-track, limited hand-numbered 2LP on Anna Logue Records under the same title, “The Echoes Fade”, carrying 14 previously unreleased recordings from 1980 to 1983 alongside the original 1982 versions of “The Echoes Fade” and “Voice”. Anna Logue Records now reissues that compilation, again as a limited 2LP.
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