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Rating: Thomas Morgan Robertson soon earned the nickname "Dolby" due to his passion for recording techniques.
Currently, Dolby is the owner of Beatnik, a company that deals with audio techniques and has recently signed prestigious collaborations with major international giants.
But this ingenious Englishman also had a past as a synth-pop composer. He debuted in 1982 with this album featuring an unusual cover, which looks like a sci-fi movie poster (even the graphics of his future works will pick up this penchant).
Dolby shuts himself at home with his arsenal of synthesizers and forges a danceable electronic-funk, with a taste for hyper-careful arrangements, and with a distinctive flavor due to a melodicism that is sometimes epic, sometimes futuristic. In particular, Dolby seems to draw from the tradition of B-movie soundtracks and TV cartoon themes. In short, a "mad scientist" flavor that is immediately savored once the record starts spinning.
"She Blinded Me With Science" was the single that earned him a fair amount of popularity, with its funk spiced with electronic orientalisms. But already the power-pop of "Radio Silence" highlights the playful aspect of his work, complete with short-circuiting robot voices. The slow "Airwaves" sees him instead in the role of the atmospheric singer-songwriter, while the following "Flying North" rises on a frenetic beat of drum-machine that accompanies Dolby's echo-laden voice, engaged in a duet with an immediately catchy keyboard riff. Undoubtedly, this is well-architected dance music, meticulously polished and refined, with a "plastic" sound typical of many '80s productions.
The irresistible dance of "Europa And The Pirate Twins" seems like a less serious version of John Foxx's Metamatic, while the highly filtered distant voice introducing "One Of Our Submarines" welcomes a crepuscular and oblique melody, always driven by a techno-pop rhythm.
Surrounded by esteemed collaborators like Lene Lovich and Andy Partridge of XTC, Dolby managed with "The Golden Age Of Wireless" to free synth-pop from the glossy groups often created at the desk, reviving the figure of the "at home" composer that would find great fortune in the nineties, both in the house scene (think of Homework by Daft Punk) and in the American low-fi scene.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Commercial Breakup (04:15)
Night so bright - transmission smooth
I take my head and I stuff it in the tube
I find something I can use
But there's no credit where credit is due
It cost me ten dollars
And in thirty seconds it's so clear
And I adhere - I'm only humanoid
Oh man - they're waving from the street again
"Hey Franz!" they're calling up to me
"We're living, we're living through the breakup,
commercial breakup, here it comes again."
Well just today you told me,
You told me 'bout the way it is
I walk on out and make me a few small purchases.
What was that name you called me?
What was that grin you grinned?
An expression so uncertain
that breaks a line so thin?
Now that 2D beckons - the colour is high
it seems so ripe - don't touch the line hold
Something has dropped me in the heat again
"Hey Franz!" they're calling up to me
"We're living, we're living through the breakup,
commercial breakup, here it comes again."
03 Weightless (03:45)
Some nights he's weightless
he has to travel
his mouth is gravel
and there's an empty feeling within his heart...
Eye on the fuelguage
Westchester Thruway
and triple octane
won't contain the empty feeling in Dolby's heart.
Same old insecurity strap him in his carseat
and a sump started leaking all over New Jersey
gas stations everywhere -
not one drop to fill me
Big hunk of carrot cake
Blueberry milkshake
fistful of coldrex
won't fix the empty feeling in Lizzy's heart...
So she flicks on the TV
takes in a movie
but all those memories
won't erase the empty feeling from in her heart...
Then a dog woke inside her head to watch the explosion
and a pipe started leaking as she bent to the basin
fruit juice everywhere -
not one drop to fill me
'You could have been the one' she whispered
'listen - love is all you've ever wanted
all you'll ever need'
End of our summer
your body weightless in condensation
my heart learned to swim
and the feeling was gone again.
04 Europa and the Pirate Twins (03:18)
I was fourteen
She was twelve
Father traveled � her's as well � Europa...
Down the beaches
Hand in hand
Twelfth of never on the sand
We swore a vow that day:
We'll be the Pirate Twins again, Europa
Oh my country, Europa
I'll stand beside you in the rain, Europa
Ta r�publique...
Nine years after, who'd I see
On the cover of a magazine? Europa...
Buy her singles and see all her films
Paste her pictures on my windowsill
But that's not quite the same � It isn't, is it?
Europa my old friend...
We'll be the Pirate Twins again, Europa
Oh my country, Europa
I'll stand beside you in the rain, Europa
Ta r�publique...
Blew in from the hoverport
She was back in London
Pushed past the papermen
Calling her nam
She smiled for the cameras
As the bodyguard grabbed me
Then her eyes were gone forever
As she drove her away...
We'll be the Pirate Twins again, Europa
Oh my country, Europa
I'll stand beside you in the rain, Europa
Ta r�publique...
05 Windpower (04:20)
Switch off the mind and let the heart decide
who you were meant to be
Flick to remote and let the body glide
There is no enemy !
Etch out a future of your own design
Well tailored to your needs
Then fan the flame and keep the dream alive
Of a continent
A continent a continent a continent a -
There is no enemy !
Switch of the mind and let the heart decide
We're a continent
A continent a continent a continent a -
Shatter the lens and grind it into sand
One measured exposure
Scatter the seed and furrow in our land
The future is roses! Roses!
Switch off the mind and let the heart decide
There is no enemy!
Lift up the hearts of this your only tribe
We're a continent
A continent a continent a continent a
07 Airwaves (05:12)
Strange how the scale forms In tiny patterns On my atenna and The Five O'Clock Show, hello hello ... Brooklyn is crawling with famous people I turn my vehicle beneath the river, west from south Through the airwaves- people never read the airwaves Do we only feed the airwaves I really should have seen through the airwaves Electric fences line our new freeway Here in the half-light, the motorhomes leave Knee-deep in water under a pylon How slow my heartbeat How thin the air I'm breathing in Through the airwaves - People never read the airwaves do we only feed the airwaves Or stamp them out at street level ? Airwaves - the dampness of the wind The airwaves - the tension of the skin The airwaves Be in my broadcast when this is over Give me your shoulder, I need a place To wait for morning No it was nothing - some car backfiring - Please don't ask questions I itch all over Let me sleep Through the airwaves - People never read the airwaves Do we only feed the airwaves Or stamp them out at street level ? Airwaves - the dampness of the wind The airwaves - the tension of the skin The airwaves I really should have seen through ...
08 Radio Silence (03:43)
Caroline
Makes the final adjustments
in her rear-view mirror
she's nervous and tense
but she's thinking it over
with logic and sense
she'll overcome her phobia...
oh to paint her eyes so red and her lips so blue
carve her legend on the bow - Caroline four-five-two
when they come to call for her I will be there too...
Observe Radio Silence observe
Radio Silence observe Radio Silence
maintain Radio Silence thoughout
...Now where can he be?
What's wrong with the parking meter? What's happening to me?
she'll burst a blood vessel if he doesn't show
she's caught up in traffic
and I'm on her radio...
oh to paint her eyes so red and her lips so blue
raise her likeness on the mast - Caroline four-five-two
when they come to call for her, I will be there too...
She tune in till the tune suits her right
she tune in till the dial come alright
she tune the dial till the needles-'s in the white
tune in tonight
tune in tonight
tune in tonight...
try to think of nothing
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09 Cloudburst at Shingle Street (05:45)
We climb the cliffs
and hang from trees
wrap the rocks and the beach
state of shock at flick of switch
(mindless) into the cloudburst overhead
I wanna get my face wet
been buried in the sand for years
(headlong) into the cloudburst naked
there's really no escaping it
there's gonna be a cloudburst here.
Come out of your shell
and look at the sea
it may be just as well
you stayed here with me
private hell at turn of a key
(blindly) into the cloudburst overhead
I wanna get my face wet
been buried in these hands for years
(mindless) into the cloudburst naked
there's really no escaping it
there's gonna be a cloudburst here
and it's dawning on me
I've been a cork in the ocean, been bobbing in the North Sea
then take this vest of plaster, these boots of concrete
and make them down as surplus, return to Mulberry...
Cloudburst at Shingle Street
Cloudburst at Shingle Street
Cloudburst at Shingle Street
When I was small I was in love in love with everything
now there's only you
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