When punk first emerged in the mid 1970s, it promised revolution in the simplicity of three chords and the revelation that you too could start your own band. But as punk’s energy grew increasingly diffuse by the start of the 1980s, other musicians realized that even without three chords—much less a guitar—making music remained a graspable possibility. With the increasing affordability of drum machines and 4-track recorders, anyone, skilled player or otherwise, might press up a single or three. A new world of self-expression lay within easy reach, even if success remained as elusive as ever.
An array of peculiar pop fusions, fascinating detours, inconsequential blips, and woeful failures comprises the Amsterdam label Music From Memory’s latest compilation, Uneven Paths: Deviant Pop From Europe 1980-1991, which digs across the continent for square pegs and songs that briefly asked “What if this could be pop?” before dropping off the map. Last year’s Brazilian set Outro Tempo, which covered the same era, provided a similar sense of a parallel world. Compiled by MFM main man Jamie Tiller and fellow DJ Raphael Top Secret, Uneven Paths is equally ambitious, though ultimately not quite as evocative as its predecessor’s track-by-track chain of alternate universes.
Across its 21 songs, this vision of ’80s pop embeds strands of mutant DNA from genres like bossa nova, jazz, folk, new wave, spoken word, and world music. Mixing violin, heavy drums, a Peruvian melody, jazz saxophone, and murmured longing, Pete Brandt’s “What You Are” evokes Arthur Russell, a far more famous proponent of deviant pop’s DIY approach. Similarly open-ended approaches lead to oddities such as “Nomad Song,” credited to a German jazz-fusion group called Ströer Duo and the American spoken-word performer Howard Fine. With his dry, vocoded delivery, the song at times verges on turning into “O Superman,” though flutters of harmonica and references to Occam’s razor keep the song decidedly off-kilter.
Chance personal encounters and happy accidents abound. The French poet Lou Blic made the acquaintance of saxophonist Philippe de Lacroix-Herpin through a mutual friend but lost touch after recording one 7”. “Minéralité” pairs Blic’s words with hiccupping downtempo jazz and a looped snippet of tribal chant. Belgian new-wave group Nightfall in Camp met vocalist Marie Mandi right before recording at their flat, inviting her to purr lines about her daily routine for the ethereal “Cada Dia.” And the rattling rhythms of “Happy New Year” came about after a glitch erased all the programmed beats and samples on the German trio Härte 10’s completed album, requiring them to try to recreate it all in a night.
Not every jumble of sounds works out. Some of these paths are, indeed, uneven, and when they fail, they make for some wincing face plants. A faux-tribal beat on Miko & Mubare’s “Komoma Ya-Ya-Ya” might appeal to DJs, but the overly dramatic proclamation that “We must all speak in one tongue” ruptures its rhythmic spell. Frenchman Patrick Forgas’ lecherous growl about “sexy move” might work better were it not repeated incessantly against a backdrop of monkey noises. And some songs just plain fizzle. The French fusion band Nonobstant’s wobbly pop song “Jessica” falls flat, and John Makin’s “No Lie” is just a live track from an English singer tackling Brazilian samba.
But some hybrids are just too enticing to ignore. Violet Eves’ “Listen Over the Ocean” is a simmering Italo ballad that reimagines what shoegaze might have been had it consisted of shimmering vibraphones instead of guitars. A recording of the Greek musician George Vanakos talking about how much he hates disco makes for a woozy, lo-fi outsider disco track in “I Hate Disco… Not the Dance.” British post-punk Brenda Ray melts melodica, dub effects, and doo-wop vocals into a heady confection on “Dancing Thru’ the Night.” And Xavier Jouvelet’s “Oeuf En Clock” posits perhaps the most intriguing “what if” of the set: What would Sade’s quiet-storm sultriness have sounded like had they arisen in France instead of Britain? The unanswered questions raised by Uneven Paths might be the most intriguing of all.
