ART INTERFACE - Secretaries from Heaven/Wild Card

"Art Interface was a synth band uninfluenced by the direction of mainstream European synth stylings. A band from the American Midwest (except for the Swedish drummer), it was initiated in 1979 by Douglas Vasey, Steven Curran, and Claes Roswall, with Roger Deason joining later. They disdained Kraftwerk but loved NEU! and bands like The Stooges. Propelled by live drums instead of marching lockstep to the beat of a drum machine, they twisted knobs on impulse with no idea of what would happen. They recorded many songs in the studio with all members playing at once but recording on separate tracks, which gives them a looseness and a life contrary to the more robotic feel of the time. Some songs had a sociopolitical bent and thus a purpose; others were merely wild, unexpected accidents of immediate creation, ranging from melodic to ambient to noise to all of the above. Unlike many synth bands, guitar often figured into the mix -- sometimes in the background, and sometimes as a striking accen