Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark Sugar Tax

With the split between McCluskey and the rest of the band resolved by the former's decision to carry on with the band's name on his own, the question before Sugar Tax's appearance was whether the change would spark a new era of success for someone who clearly could balance artistic and commercial impulses in a winning fashion. The answer, based on the album - not entirely. The era of Architecture and Morality wouldn't be revisited anyway, for better or for worse, but instead of delightful confections with subtle heft like "Enola Gay" and "Tesla Girls," on Sugar Tax McCluskey is comfortably settled into a less-spectacular range of songs that only occasionally connect. Like fellow refugees from the early '80s such as Billy Mackenzie and Marc Almond, McCluskey found himself bedeviled in the early '90s with an artistic block that resulted in his fine singing style surrounded by pedestrian arrangements and indifferent songs…

With the split between McCluskey and the rest of the band resolved by the former's decision to carry on with the band's name on his own, the question before Sugar Tax's appearance was whether the change would spark a new era of success for someone who clearly could balance artistic and commercial impulses in a winning fashion. The answer, based on the album - not entirely. The era of Architecture and Morality wouldn't be revisited anyway, for better or for worse, but instead of delightful confections with subtle heft like "Enola Gay" and "Tesla Girls," on Sugar Tax McCluskey is comfortably settled into a less-spectacular range of songs that only occasionally connect. Like fellow refugees from the early '80s such as Billy Mackenzie and Marc Almond, McCluskey found himself bedeviled in the early '90s with an artistic block that resulted in his fine singing style surrounded by pedestrian arrangements and indifferent songs…

Recorded across two shows with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in October 2018.
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark are one of the earliest, most commercially successful, and enduring synth pop groups. Inspired most by the advancements of Kraftwerk and striving at one point "to be ABBA and Stockhausen," they've continually drawn from early electronic music as they've alternately disregarded, mutated, or embraced the conventions of the three-minute pop song. Outside their native England, OMD are known primarily for "Maid of Orleans" and the Pretty in Pink soundtrack smash "If You Leave," yet they scored 18 additional charting U.K. singles in the '80s alone. These hits supported inventive albums such as Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (1980), Architecture & Morality (1981), and commercial suicide-turned-cult classic Dazzle Ships (1983)…

This is the third, and apparently, the last single of OMD taken from their 2013 album "English Electric". The CD is divided in two parts: "Night Café" in five different versions and… five non-album B-Sides, including the never released before "Kill Me". As per "Night Café", we have of course, the album version that really didn't need any further editing or remixing as the song in itself is just brilliant. A pure typical OMD songs in the vein of ‘Secret’ or "If You Leave", with a more melancholic and darker side probably. The four remixes are just what a New Wave fan expect from a remix: just enough experimentation and twittering, extending and fresh production with great respect of the artist's work, keeping some synth lines and not playing too much with vocals.

On their second album since their 2005 reunion, synth pop pioneers Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark rekindle the spirit of two new wave classics, the first being their own "slept on" masterpiece from 1983, Dazzle Ships, an album that pushed the boundaries sonically. From the blippy, robotic, and almost musique concrète opener "Please Remain Seated" to the geometric sleeve that credits DZ designer Peter Saville with Executive Art Design, English Electric carries on the pop-meets-avant-garde spirit of that fan favorite album. It gives up a love song like "Night Café" that's so glossed and polished that it could be used in a John Hughes film, and then it offers an edgy swerve like "Decimal," where answering machine messages, countdowns, and other disembodied voices provided some kind of silicon chorus that's equally majestic and precise…

The tracklisting collects together all of the B sides, radio edits, extended 12″ mixes and remixes from The Punishment of Luxury era and brings them to CD for the very first time.
This B Sides & Bonus Material release effectively rounds up three singles, delivering ten tracks made up of three non-album B-sides, three single mixes and four extended mixes.

Looking back on 20 years of creative growth since the electro-pop band's inception, The OMD Singles is logically and chronologically arranged. The earliest recordings, 1980's "Electricity" and "Messages," prove electric messages were being channeled from such German pioneers as Kraftwerk and Neu! These English boys were enamored of melody, though, and it was not long before such dulcet, song-like structure became self-evident, as in 1984's "Tesla Girls." From then on, it is a steady climb in coherence, with synth rhythms downplayed in order to bring the melodic theme to the front. The pinnacle of this progression is OMD's memorable "So in Love" (1985) and "If You Leave" (from 1986's Pretty in Pink). The album closes with their last hit, 1996's glam-influenced autobiography "Walking on the Milky Way"…

Curated by DJ/production duo Blank & Jones, the So80s ("So Eighties") series compiles 12" versions and rare B-sides of artists who had their heyday in the '80s. This collection features classic extended mixes of some of OMD's biggest tracks including 'If You Leave', 'Telegraph', 'Dreaming', 'So in Love', 'Tesla Girls' and many others. While the tracks were selected by Blank & Jones, none of the titles were mixed by them.

A 2005 appearance on a German television program, followed by a tour - throughout which the original four members performed 1981's Architecture & Morality in its entirety - culminated in the first OMD album since 1996 (and this particular quartet’s first since 1986). History of Modern, for the most part, sounds like OMD. There are two alarming exceptions: “Sometimes” incorporates turntable scratching and guest vocalist Jennifer John, who interjects with lines from “Motherless Child,” while “Pulse” is oversexed and awkward neo-electro sleaze, full of bedroom whispers, moans, and yearning yelps. Most updates to the group’s sound are natural, though only a handful of the songs - the placid ballad “New Holy Ground” and the somehow cathartic and pensive “Green” especially - rate with the earlier material…

With 2013's English Electric, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark made a record that paid tribute to their heroes Kraftwerk, while also embracing their own mid-'80s sound, which made them the darlings of the John Hughes set. They must have liked the formula they used to get that result, because they repeat it on 2017's The Punishment of Luxury. Now down to the duo of Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, they've once again crafted a sleek and shiny synth pop album that has all the clean lines of their original incarnation and all the gloss of their poppiest era. It makes for a very nostalgic listening experience, but it never feels like a museum piece, especially since neither man's voice sounds like it has aged a day…