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Various Artists
All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985
released on Night School, catno# RVSN003
24 tracks with a total size of 189.43 mb
published in 2025 and pred on 2025-07-11
file under Electronic
encoded from WEB FLAC with MPEG-1 Audio Layer III
using LAME 3.100 with 320 kbps, 44.1 kHz, Joint Stereo
source is https://night-school.bandcamp.com/album/
all-the-young-droids-junkshop-synth-pop-1978-1985
t r a c k s
01. Design - Premonition 03:43
02. Vision - Lucifer's Friend 04:04
03. Richard Bone - Alien Girl 03:04
04. John Howard - I Tune Into You 03:28
05. Ian North - We're Not Lonely 02:13
06. Selwin Image - The Unknown 03:01
07. Harry Kakouli - I'm On A Rocket 03:26
08. Rich Wilde - The Lady Wants To Be Alone 03:38
09. Billy London - Woman 03:23
10. Alan Burnham - Science Fiction 03:50
11. The Microbes - Computer 02:40
12. The Goo-Q - I'm A Computer 03:21
13. Gerry & The Holograms - Gerry & The Holograms 04:12
14. The Warlord - The Ultimate Warlord 03:29
15. Die Marinas - Fred From Jupiter 02:44
16. Dee Jay Bert and Eagle - I Am Your Master 02:41
17. Peta Lily & Michael Process - I Am A Timebomb 03:19
18. Sole Sister - It's Not Who You Are But How You Are 03:34
19. Alastair Riddell - Do You Read Me 03:41
20. Karel Fialka - Armband 03:02
21. John Springate - My Life 04:27
22. Incandescent Luminaire - Famous Names 03:22
23. Disco Volante - No Motion 04:02
24. Dream Unit - A Drop In The Ocean 04:10
total: 01:22:34
p r o m o s h e e t
All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 is a new
compilation that charts the underbelly of the epoch-defining
sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music. Compiled by
Philip King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs,
Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop Glam Discotheque), the
music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts
grappling with new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of
punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new
music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel
Miller's Mute Records.
Featuring rare tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop
music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-g-
utter chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics,
School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure. Complete
with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before
seen imagery, all 24 tracks were remastered by RPM in-house
engineer Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost
master tapes.
The story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning
opportunity presented by both the emergence to the market of
cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks
plus indie labels that exploded with the advent of punk
music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over
the globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake,
plastic, a refutation of punk's guitar-led revolution, it's
telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids...
was created in bedrooms, ramshackle studios and home-made
set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record
labels jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex
Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course) these
artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with
next to no budget or PR team. With radio and labels
desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament
to necessity being the mother of invention.
At the time, the synthesiser was the music of the future, a
shiny new machine that could paint like an orchestra with a
single finger and a 4 track. In the hands of Manchester
avant-pranksters Gerry & The Holograms it's a pulsing,
sardonic weapon... the only instrument on the Messthetics
classic lampooning of New Wave fashion. In Hamburg, a 16
year old Andreas Dorau used it to write and record (with his
female classmates on vocals) a global smash in Fred Vom
Jupiter (later licensed to Mute Records). The hard-to-find
English version (Fred From Jupiter, natch) is included here.
Many artists with already-storied careers caught the bug and
recorded synthesiser-fuelled peons to space, computers, the
future and, of course, love-interests. Harry Kakoulli, late
of Squeeze, recorded a solo album in 1979 that included the
incredible power-synth-pop smash-that-never-smashed I'm On A
Rocket. Similarly, Ian North of Neo and American Power Pop
stalwarts Milk 'n' Cookies bought a Korg MS20 and used a
tape machine to record We're Not Lonely, an absolute
lost-classic of minimal synth pop.
There are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole
Sister were a mysterious trio who were featured on the
Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adja-
cent post-punk / underground music that also featured The
Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and
featured members of the recently defunct power pop/punk
group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy The Unknown fizzes
with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains
unreleased until now. Dream Unit's A Drop In The Ocean is an
early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division
instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgott-
en and super rare, self-released EP. Incandescent
Luminaire's Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a
small-town trying to make it in a cruel industry but is a
thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD
gloominess that's a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track
I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist Peta Lilly and
Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult
status. It was released on 7" and lost until now.
The flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop
mentioned above are the ambitious, even fruity attempts at
success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence.
New Jersey-ite Billy London (real name Ed Barth) tried to
cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major
label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie
rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reed-style sleazy vocal
before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed
but with a chorus like this, you have to wonder why?
Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate's My Life is truly
epic, with doomed chord progressions and massive sounding
drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the course
of the track. Before you wonder what's going on the song
resolves with a glorious return to the main refrain.
The dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too.
Design's Premonition and Vision's Lucifer's Friend are
stone-cold minimal synth bangers, well loved but given a new
lease of life here. The Warlord's The Ultimate Warlord was
released in 1978, a homespun proto Hi NRG banger that was
later re-recorded by The Immortals in Canada who had a club
hit with it. One-man-band Disco Volante's No Motion was
re-issued by Synth wave label Medical in 2012 but makes its
first vinyl compilation appearance here. Close your eyes and
you can imagine what Lawrence of Felt would have sounded
like with some cheap Korgs a little earlier in his career.
Gibraltar-based trio The Microbes imagined a computer
programming people to dance - how prescient - and ended up
with a propulsive, robo-funk track with splendid rubbery
bass playing over a tectonic drum machine. Previously picked
up by Belgian label Stroom TV, Dee Jay Bert & Eagle's
heavily Euro-accented I Am Your Master demands the listener
to "come to paradise"! In a frankly terrifying manner.
All The Young Droids is the first compilation to peel away
from the narrative that dour, Minimal Synth and Cold Wave
were the only musical children of the first rush of synth
pop. Philip King and School Daze Records describe a much
more complicated world: along with the austere, Brutalist
children of Daniel Miller (who produced Alan Burnham's
Bowie-Low-influenced Science Fiction here) was a plethora of
desperate cash-ins, accidental mainstream hits, ambitious
pop dramas and major label punts that went nowhere.
Crucially, the compilation blurs the line between junk and
treasure.
What if the two things are interchangeable. What if it's all
science fiction?
r e l e a s e n o t e s
The streaming source does not even contain half of the
tracks that are supposed to be on this compilation, so the
other release is of no interest to us. Now you can enjoy
this fantastic compilation in its entirety.
If you enjoy this record, consider supporting the artists.
B A K L A V A - s u p e r s w e e t - e s t 2 0 2 5