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What’s up Sorry Staters?
Every now and then, a record outside of my wheelhouse comes into the store and based purely on the title and how it looks I think to myself: “That’s gotta be good.” This was exactly the case with this comp we just got in stock called Back Up: Mexican Tecnopop 1980-1989. Dom and I decided to crack open the shrink on a copy here at the shop and as we were listening we just kinda realized… wow, every song has been really good so far. That label Dark Entries compiled and released this compilation, and they always seem to be thoughtful with their releases and often put out quality synth-drenched records. As certain songs would play that I particularly liked, I decided to look up whatever information I could on each band. It seems like a lot of these synth-pop/post-punk bands out of Mexico only released music on cassette, all of which I’d imagine are incredibly hard to find. To my surprise, many of the recordings sound like really high-quality studio recordings, but then of course, some of the recordings sounded like the bands made music using whatever tools they had at their disposal haha. Heavy use of corny Casio keyboard sounds. As we were listening, Dom and I would both shout out what artist each band was clearly ripping off. New Order, Depeche Mode, Siouxsie & The Banshees… you name it. The influence of every major new wave group is accounted for. My favorite track is the 2nd track on the record, which is “Cambios En El Tiempo” by a band called Vandana. It’s super melodic and catchy. Vandana is yet another band like I mentioned that only released one cassette in their existence. It has no sales history on discogs.
Short and sweet this week. But if you’re in need of a super well-compiled bunch of catchy new wave/post-punk/whatever songs that you’ve probably never heard before, then I highly recommend this record :)
That’s all I’ve got. As always, thanks for reading.
‘Til next week,
-Jeff