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Album Review: The Minimal Wave Tape: Vol 2

Bob Baker Fish

There’s a certain innocent charm to the music, built with cheap synths, primitive drum machines and artists who were still teaching themselves to use this new technology.

There's also an industrial thread throbbing through The Minimal Wave Tapes: Vol 2 (Stones Throw), a collection of obscure electronic music with nine of the ten tracks from the '80s. This collection has a raw DIY dance element to the sounds, though it also taps into synth pop and disco. None of them are household names, though Felix Kubin was recently reissued on Omni. There's a certain innocent charm to the music, built with cheap synths, primitive drum machines and artists who were still teaching themselves to use this new technology. While it sounds like a limitation, this immediacy is actually the album's strength.