During the mid-late 90s and the early 2000s, there seemed to be a Numan renaissance. Tons of new (or nu!) Numan product were released: new albums, re-issues, remastered editions, tribute albums and remixes. The latter is where Numan's comeback really kicked in with a whole host of djs from around the world started tinkering with the Numan back catalogue (although often it was still usually "Cars"!). 1998's The Mix is one such collection but with a difference. This collection - aimed at the US market - mainly seems to rehash the vocals Numan provided for the earlier Techno Army album. It's no bad thing. Most of the tracks on here are excellent with two really great techno remixes of "We Are Glass" along with "I Die You Die", "We Are So Fragile", "A Question Of Faith" and "She's Got Claws", amongst others. Oh, yes, and of course the collection wouldn't be complete without numerous versions of "Cars" and "Are Friends Electric?"...! The Mix is a must-own for fellow Numanoids.
GARY NUMAN - THE MIX
1998
320 kbps
129 mb
Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.
Swans Way (or Swansway - whatever the preference) were an excellent but very short-lived Brummie trio from the early 80s with their own distinctive sound comprising of dance, lounge, synth-pop with a slight twist of avant-garde Art Of Noise/Propaganda-esque off-kilter experimentalist pop. This 1997 "best of" album is basically their one and only album The Fugitive Kind from 1984 - boosted up with some bonus tracks. Their best song and biggest hit "Soul Train" - featured here in album and extended 12" versions is, in my opinion, a one-of-a-kind masterpiece and worth getting for that alone (but the rest of the album is also rather good). After the band split in 1984, two of the members - Rick P. Jones and Maggie De Monde - went on to form the equally excellent Scarlet Fantastic (who released the classic and often-played radio fave "No Memory" - remember?).
SWANS WAY - THE BEST OF SWANS WAY
1997
320 kbps
126 mb
Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.
Linientreu are - or were - an obscure German electro-pop band from the early 2000s who I predicted were going to be "the next big thing" but instead seemed to go nowhere. They released two excellent singles which garnered much radio play at the time and one great album which barely anyone took notice of. Those two singles are on this album: The storming "Wir Leben Für Immer" and "Sind Freunde Elektrisch?" - a very good German language cover of the Gary Numan classic "Are Friends Electric?". This album I'm sharing is a very rare non-retail 10-track promo edition from 2000 called Sternenkinder. For reasons unknown to myself, the retail version was released the following year with the title changed to Sind Freunde Elektrisch?.
LINIENTREU - STERNENKINDER (PROMO)
2000
320 kbps
106 mb
Ripped & encoded by The Glass Humanoid.
