Suzanne Ciani / LOGO PRESENTATION REELS 1985​/​OCTABRED

Quite possibly one of our most requested releases on any format and one of Finders Keepers proudest vault digging moments to date, the limited release repackaging of Suzanne Ciani’s original cassette portfolio of electronic advertisement music harboured some of her most radical and uninhibited experiments – unconsciously redefining synth pop and electro from behind American TV screens whilst totally evading the radar of the record industry. These commissions originally made for companies such as Atari, a major power tool firm, soft drinks companies and printed publications, provided a new canvas and challenging directive for Suzanne who would deploy her maverick expertise with some of the most experimental electronic instruments and forward thinking visual/sound artists. As one of the only female composers in the global advertising industry Ciani’s results represented a small sound revolution in the world of production music forging deep nostalgic memories of the would-be electronic-music generation in its wide-eyed infancy.

Finally for their precious Disposable Music series, Finders Keepers are now able to present these originally truncated TV and radio recordings in their full-length forms mastered from original tapes including much coveted instrumental versions. Including 15 tracks in total these original recordings are presented here in a new wider musical context as pieces of early synth based pop music, designed specifically for widespread commercial consumption whilst retaining veritable maverick integrity an attribute that quickly diminished at the hand of less adventurous, less sensitive and more complacent production music composers.

Finding a perfect bedfellow on this early synthesiser based Disposable Music edition and adding weight to one of our most exciting musical partnerships of recent years these newly excavated early 1980s recordings from the Alaska based Clone synthesiser collective (see Harmonitalk CACHE04) are the results of the group’s wide library of weekly synth jam sessions primarily recorded for band leader (and electronic harmonica soloist) Gary Sloan’s weekly radio show The Import Hour ,which specialised in playing the earliest slim pickings of global new wave and electronic music to the station’s Anchorage fan base. Relying on the very records and tapes that actually made it over to Alaska in 1980, Gary and Clone would compose and create their own music to fill the gaps providing us with a long archival shelf of C60 and C90 masters to cement their legacy of perhaps the only dedicated synthesiser initiative to exist in this extreme North American state.
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