ZYX issues limited coloured 2LP ’40 Years Techno Club – The 80s Vinyl Edition’
ZYX issues limited coloured 2LP '40 Years Techno Club – The 80s Vinyl Edition'
ZYX Music marks four decades of Frankfurt’s Techno Club with the limited coloured 2LP “40 Years Techno Club – The 80s Vinyl Edition”, a double-vinyl sampler focusing on the early electronic, synthpop and EBM era that formed the club’s first years. The compilation appears as a multicoloured 2LP set at 33 rpm. The release follows the 4CD box, issued on 14 March 2025 as a career-spanning anniversary compilation covering the 1980s through the 2010s.
The set is pressed on multicoloured vinyl and collects 12 unmixed tracks linked to the club’s roots, ranging from early Kraftwerk and synthpop to proto-EBM and new wave. The selection is a perfect mirror of the first years of the Technoclub parties, which started in Frankfurt in December 1984 and were among the first events in Germany to play only electronic dance music.
Tracklist of ’40 Years Techno Club – The 80s Vinyl Edition’
“40 Years Techno Club – The 80s Vinyl Edition” rearranges part of the material from the 4CD box into a focused 12-track overview of the early Technoclub sound. The A-side opens with “Numbers / Computer World” by Kraftwerk, followed by “Flesh” by A Split Second and IMS’ “Nonline”, tying together electro, EBM and Belgian new beat influences that were central to mid-80s Frankfurt DJ sets.
Side B moves into synthpop and dark wave, combining Soft Cell’s extended “Tainted Love / Where Did Our Love Go?”, Zwischenfall’s “Flucht ’84” (English version) and Front 242’s “Quite Unusual”, three titles that offer wave, industrial and early body music and that were featured heavily in European clubs during the period.
The C-side bridges between synthpop and techno with Heaven 17’s 12″ version of “Let Me Go!”, Moskwa TV’s “Generator 7/8” and Telex’s “Moskow Diskow” (2021 remaster). Moskwa TV and “Generator 7/8” are directly tied to the club’s history as Talla 2XLC worked in the band and the track became a club hit in the mid-1980s.
The D-side centres on more atmospheric and song-driven material with Yello’s “Lost Again” (extended dance version), Tears for Fears’ extended “Shout” and Anne Clark’s “Our Darkness”.
Full tracklist as presented on the 2LP edition:
Side A:
- Kraftwerk “Numbers / Computer World”
- A Split Second “Flesh”
- IMS “Nonline”
Side B:
- Soft Cell “Tainted Love / Where Did Our Love Go?” (extended)
- Zwischenfall “Flucht ’84” (English version)
- Front 242 “Quite Unusual”
Side C:
- Heaven 17 “Let Me Go!” (12″ extended version)
- Moskwa TV “Generator 7/8”
- Telex “Moskow Diskow” (2021 remaster)
Side D:
- Yello “Lost Again” (extended dance version)
- Tears for Fears “Shout” (extended)
- Anne Clark “Our Darkness”
If you want to hear the full collection, the 4CD is still available and the full set can also be streamed.
About ZYX Music
ZYX Music is a German independent record label and music distributor founded in 1971 by Bernhard Mikulski in Merenberg, in the Westerwald region between Cologne and Frankfurt. The company started as Pop-Import Bernhard Mikulski, importing and distributing international pop records across West Germany and neighbouring markets before gradually moving into full-scale label and production activities. In 1992, Pop-Import was renamed ZYX Music.
From the early 1980s onwards, the label focused strongly on disco, Italo disco, early house and later 1990s techno and eurodance, building a catalogue that helped introduce Italian and European electronic dance music to a broad audience. Founder Bernhard Mikulski is widely credited with coining the term “Italo disco” as a marketing label for Italian electronic dance imports in the mid-1980s, a designation that later became a genre name in its own right. After Mikulski’s death in 1997, his wife Christa Mikulski took over the company and expanded it into one of Europe’s leading independent music groups, including in-house publishing and logistics.
Beyond dance music, it built a broad catalogue through acquisitions and licensing deals. The label holds rights to large portions of the catalogues of Krautrock labels such as Ohr, Pilz and Kosmische Kuriere and has reissued free jazz and avant-garde titles from ESP-Disk, while also operating imprints for classical music such as ZYX Classic. In the metal and rock field, sub-labels like Golden Core function as ZYX’s heavy-music arm.
Over the past decade, ZYX has continued to work the catalogue market through series such as “ZYX Italo Disco New Generation” and various Italo Disco LP/CD box sets, as well as through new releases and reissues in rock and metal via Golden Core. The label’s Italo disco activities remain visible in products like “ZYX Italo Disco New Generation Vol. 21” and later volumes, while Golden Core has signed and released bands such as Dygitals and also reissued classic material.
In 2023, ZYX released Kirlian Camera’s mini-LP “Communicate 40th Anniversary 2023 Remixes” on coloured vinyl, revisiting the band’s Italo-influenced early material.
Today, ZYX Music operates from its headquarters in Merenberg with a network of international offices, maintaining online retail operations via its own shop and distributing a catalogue that spans electronic dance music, rock, metal, jazz, classical and spoken-word releases. Techno-oriented and anniversary editions sit alongside Italo disco box sets and new-generation compilations.
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