Links: The Pop Group, the Birthday Party, Plastic Bertrand, Düsseldorf.

 

• There’s a new album from The Pop Group. Here’s an interview, video and Spotify stream. Doesn’t sound like they did in 1980, but it’s what that would have sounded like done in 2016. It’s a really good one, best they’ve done since their return. Below is “Zipperface”, which is a catchy bugger.

• Below: a documentary by Heiner Mühlenbrock on the recording of “Mutiny!” by the Birthday Party in April 1983.

• Turns out Plastic Bertrand didn’t sing on any of his records — not “Ça Plane Pour Moi”, not any of the four albums following. (And “Jet Boy, Jet Girl” is not a cover or a translation, but the same backing track with completely different lyrics.) Here’s a collection of versions. The Telex rendition wins for me.

• A feature on Rudi Esch’s book Electri_City: Electronic Music from Düsseldorf, and just what was going on here with Kraftwerk and lots of Neue Deutsche Welle.

picture at top: Mark Stewart ^{[citation needed]}