British Electric Foundation - Music For Stowaways

When Sony released the original Walkman portable cassette player (the TPS-L2) in the UK, they named it the “Stowaway”. Although the name didn’t last it does serve as a nice introduction to talk about Music For Stowaways, the first (were there others?) album designed to be listened to on the device.

In 1980, after being dismissed from the Human League, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh formed British Electric Foundation – not a band as such, but a “production company” that planned to oversee a variety of releases they were involved in.

The first products from B.E.F. came out within a few weeks of one another -  one being Heaven 17’s debut single, (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang on 6 March 1981, with the second being its companion piece, an album by B.E.F. called Music For Stowaways (which included an instrumental version of Fascist Groove Thang) on 31 March.

Initially released in limited amounts, this was a cassette only album to be played on the new Sony “Stowaway” – the music was therefore intended to be listened to in solitude through headphones and possibly whilst on the move. A handful of promotional copies were pressed on vinyl, with text on the runout groove hammering home the point: “Put your cans on and take off” on side 1 and “TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND LISTEN AGAIN” on side 2. There is therefore a certain amount of irony in the album now, in 2023, getting a full vinyl release for people to listen to whilst tied to their expensive hi fi setups with floor standing speakers.

You get the impression from the early Heaven 17 releases that they were never intended to be a long term prospect, just one in a number of projects by B.E.F. with no long term plans. The songwriting credits on their early release were even credited to “BEF/Gregory”, making it clear that these were very much a B.E.F. thang, with Glenn Gregory (H17 singer) collaborating on this project. The Fascist Groove Thang and Height of the Fighting singles even had b-sides that were solely by B.E.F. and the inner sleeve of the first two Heaven 17 albums were used to advertise past, present and proposed B.E.F. releases (as well as a handful of the Human League MK1 releases).

   

Anyway, back to Music For Stowaways. The album contained 8 tracks (plus an uncredited track, B.E.F. Ident) and was split between an "Uptown" side and a "Downtown" side - I don't know if their intention was for you to listen to the music in those places, but "Uptempo" and "Downtempo" would start to give you some indication of what to expect from the respective sides. Although it was a cassette only release, some of the tracks did later get a vinyl release under the title “Music For Listening To”, which was intended as an export release for fans outside the UK. Containing 5 of the 8 tracks from Stowaways along with an exclusive track called A Baby Called Billy.

Fast forward to 2023, exactly 42 years from it's oroginal release, this new vinyl issue brings together the original album tracks and the accompanying pieces released in different places around the same time – A Baby Called Billy from Music For Listening To along with Honeymoon in New York from Heaven 17’s Height of the Fighting single. The album, no longer defined by Uptown and Downtown sides, is now bookended by identical version of the B.E.F. Ident – great as they are, this baffles me. There is an uncredited alternative version of this track featured on both the Fascist Groove Thang and I'm Your Money 12" singles that would have made a much better case for being included at the end of the album.

Gripe aside, the album is still an essential listen for anyone who has an interest in the history of electronic music. It was the first solely instrumental album I ever bought, thanks to those adverts on the inner sleeves of Penthouse and Pavement and The Luxury Gap. As an impressionable 12 year old pop fan anything by my favourite pop bands was, to my ears, still pop music, no matter how out-there it might have been. As an owner of a vast amount of instrumental and electronic music I often wonder where those seeds might have been planted and this is certainly one of them. Bands should never underestimate the power they have to change someone's life. 

Heaven 17 - Bigger Than America RSD 2019

I must confess that, despite calling myself a fan, I'd never listened to this album before. After the brilliance of the first three albums, there was a noticeable drop in quality with subsequent releases - sure, 'Pleasure One' and 'Teddy Bear, Duke and Psycho' had their moments, but I found them more miss than hit.

But then sometimes you just can't resist the lure of translucent orange vinyl and so this debut vinyl pressing ended up in my bag as a last minute decision on record store day. It doesn't disappoint. Expecting another Temptation, Fascist Groove Thang or Let Me Go is a bit much (for ANY artist), but there's enough quality over these 12 tracks to draw me in - the band ditching their quest for a more "authentic' soulful sound over the previous two albums and instead offering up a more polished take on the electronic Penthouse side of Penthouse and Pavement.

35 Inches of British Electric Foundation

After releasing the entirely instrumental Music for Stowaways / Music For Listening To album(s), the next step for the British Electric Foundation was an album of cover versions - Music of Quality and Distinction Volume 1. The album, which contained mostly-electronic interpretations of others' songs, featured a host of guest vocalists and also managed  to relaunch the career of Tina Turner (her version of Ball of Confusion here led to a further collaboration with Let's Stay Together).

Best of all - and the reason for me posting here - the album got a limited release as a 7" box set with each of the 10 tracks being split across five 7" singles, which makes it that tiny bit more enjoyable to listen to.

Steel City (Move On Up)

It's not all 'cool' records around here you know. I thought I'd post something about a football record...

The Hillsboro' Crew was a collaboration featuring Martyn Ware & Glenn Gregory from Heaven 17 and Ian Reddington - AKA Eastenders' Tricky Dicky and, for those who survived it during the late '80s, Dr Who's Chief Clown (who was, essentially, a psychotic new romantic).

The verses, a rap by Mr Reddington, eulogise the 1986 high flying (hey, we finished 5th in Division 1) Sheffield Wednesday squad, whilst the chorus is lifted from Little Steven's Sun City. There's also time to squeeze in a bit of Funkadelic and Ollie and Jerry's "No Stopping Us" for good measure because, at that time, there really was no stopping us (except in those matches we lost).

But is it any good? Well it's better than the Owls/Thompson Twins remake of You Take Me Up from the previous year.

Back when we were good.

Endless Heaven 17

I was never a big fan of cassettes - I probably never had a good enough cassette player to do them justice, so all I experienced was relatively low quality sound, which either had too much hiss or was muffled (courtesy of the Dolby button).

Oh, and there was no getting away from the fact that SOME TAPE PLAYERS PLAYED AT DIFFERENT SPEEDS - I got a shock when I first heard Sgt Pepper at the correct speed after a decade of hearing it being played slightly too fast.

Having said that, I still owned a few.

But there are probably only three albums that I have fond memories of on cassette - The Cure's Standing on a Beach (the singles on one side and their b-sides filling up 45 minutes on side 2), New Order's Substance (a whole extra tape of b-sides!) and this from 1986, Endless by Heaven 17.

Housed in a Factory Records style box, this 'best of' album didn't follow the traditional format of including the 7" version of the singles. H17 have always had one eye on the dancefloor ('special fortified dance mixes' and 'remixed to enhance its danceability' their 12”s proclaimed) and so it was  only right that they instead sequenced together an almost continuous mix of the 12" versions of their singles (plus the occasional b-side).  Containing an extra 4 tracks than the CD version - Play To Win, At The Height Of The Fighting, I'm Your Money and Song With No Name - this was the format to get.

The only downside, presumably because it was too slow, was the omission of Come Live With Me.

This was also, allegedly, the first non-vinyl album to chart in the UK, although I can't find any evidence to back this up - just summat I read somewhere.