Album Review: The Dadacomputer - The Birth Of 5XOD

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this reissue of a 1981 cassette from UK duo The Dadacomputer is that it sounds like it could easily have been made last week in Melbourne. Whether this means that experimental electronic music has barely progressed in the last three decades or that The Birth Of 5XOD was ahead of its time is difficult to say though.

There's a certain joyful feeling of experimentation here, a real love of pushing electronic sound into strange and uncomfortable directions. It's simultaneously groundbreaking in structure yet feels retro thanks to the ingredients. Though it's often lumped alongside synth punk, we're a long way from Suicide here, though you can hear elements of Throbbing Gristle, Chrome and perhaps, at a stretch, a similarly robotic but much less melodic Kraftwerk in their music. It feels computer based, but it was made with a Korg MS20, basic drum machines, messing with the speed of reel-to-reel tape machines, and vinyl manipulations. The cassette was then posted 40 miles from Cardiff to Bristol and overdubs like guitars, vocals and keys were added via a double-cassette deck. With 12 tracks, there's equal attention paid to strange sounds and textures as there is to musicality. The duo are at their best when they combine noise with melody, as on the driving, repetitive instrumental, Multinational, and the white boy computer geek funk of Computer Bank.

The music is filled with deep, loud oscillations, difficult pitches and an almost metronomic funk lilt. Some of the vocals sound like public service announcements. But it's clear there's no recipe here. These guys are way out on the ledge, discovering it as they go.