Close to the Noise Floor - Formative UK Electronica 1975 - 1984

Two years in the making, Close To The Noise Floor is a 4CD, 61-track set exploring the origins of electronica in the UK.

Featuring tracks from key figures on the cassette label underground alongside early releases by future stars of the movement, this is part primitive rave, part synthesiser porn, and part history lesson.

Enthralled by the mysterious electronics of Pink Floyd, Hawkwind, Gong, and German Kosmische artists such as Tangerine Dream, Harmonia, and Cluster, and inspired by the DIY ethos of punk, a quiet revolution took place across the UK in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The rise of the microchip and the advent of affordable synthesisers enabled countless artists for whom guitars, drums, and bass had become old hat.

In grubby bedsits, unremarkable living rooms, and art school halls across the British Isles, UK electronica was born.

The underground, fuelled by cassette exchanges, co-operative vinyl compilations, and a thriving mail order network, quickly began to stretch the boundaries of sonic experimentation.

Close To The Noise Floor explores every corner of this fascinating and often overlooked chapter in our musical history.

For proto synth-pop look no further than "100% Manmade Fibre" and "Spoon Fazer," whilst "British Standard Unit" and "Five Times Of Dust" lay out techno templates which wouldn't take full form until many years later.

Elsewhere, the synthesiser-laden ambient music of "Zorch" and the found sound collages of "A Tent" sit comfortably alongside early forays by familiar names - Blancmange, The Human League, OMD, and Throbbing Gristle - in over four hours of futurist, entirely modern music.

And who better to tell this story than the artists themselves.... Close To The Noise Floor features forty-eight pages of artist-written sleeve notes, unseen photographs, and extracts from Dave Henderson's legendary 1983 Wild Planet overview of the entire scene.