Thee Hyphen – Incidental Tools Of Confusion (Album – BOREDOMproduct)
Genre/Influences: Electro-Pop.
Format: Digital, CD.
Background/Info: BOREDOMproduct brings us back in time, to one of the label’s first releases. Thee Hyphen was the solo-project of Member U-0176 who got later on involved with Celluloide and Signal Bruit. This album was originally released in 1994 on cassette and CDR and has been now remastered and released on CD for the very first time.
Content: Thee Hyphen can be best defined as Electro-Pop, but clearly an atypical format for its particular bleeps (sometimes reminding me of Celluloide) and Experimental treatments. It sometimes makes me think of an ‘outer-space’ edit of Depeche Mode. Analogue effects and subtle, metallic sound treatments are running through the work with some string parts on top. The vocals have something sweet. The last song is a kind of ‘bonus’ remix of “Into Dirt”.
+ + + : If you consider this album is nearly 30 years old, it’s simply amazing to see how visionary this album was. The songs don’t suffer from any weight of time and still have a refreshing touch because of the bleeping sequences and refined metallic sound treatments. It has been a great work to clean up all the sound impurities of the original edit to get this professional result.
– – – : I think some parts of the vocals could have been a bit more passionate.
Conclusion: I think it was a great idea to recover this album from dust, which is an amazing opportunity to rediscover this project.
Best songs: “Into Dirt – Remix”, “Into Dirt”, “Plea Of Grief”, “This Aching Kiss”.
Rate: 7½.
Artist: www.theehyphen.online.fr / www.facebook.com/theehyphen
Label: www.boredomproduct.online.fr / www.facebook.com/boredomproduct Read the news on ‘Incidental Tools Of Confusion’.
About Thee Hyphen
Thee Hyphen is the French electro-pop project of Member U-0176, who later co-founded Celluloide and is also active in Signal Bruit. The first album, “Incidental Tools Of Confusion”, was recorded in 1994 and released that year on cassette and CDr through Boredom Product. “Re.Sound” followed in 1996, “Organique” in 1998 and “Consolidated Green” in 2004, the last one on the BOREDOMproduct label.
The 2021 edition was restored from the original 4-track analog tapes and remastered, with the vocals stripped of their original effects, according to the label notes. BOREDOMproduct released it on CD and as a download; the label’s Bandcamp page dates the reissue to 25 May 2021, the artist’s own Bandcamp page to 25 June 2021. The ten tracks are “Into Dirt”, “Plea Of Grief”, “It’s Diseased”, “Obscenity”, “A Thousand Pieces”, “Purify”, “Dark Echo Elegy”, “Being Dead”, “This Aching Kiss” and the bonus “Into Dirt (remix)”. The label states that “This Aching Kiss” was later re-recorded for Celluloide.
The companion reissue of Re.Sound was reviewed on Side-Line in November 2021. BOREDOMproduct reissued Organique with four bonus tracks in December 2024, reviewed in January 2025, and Thee Hyphen followed with the five-track ‘Digital’ EP in January 2025. “Incidental Tools Of Confusion” is the earliest title in the catalogue.
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