Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) – ‘History of Modern’ limited edition Greek CD/DVD boxed set (Undo / Blue Noise / EMI CDUN25B, 2010)

VersionCrazy has previously covered the full limited edition LP/2xCD/DVD boxed set edition of ‘History of Modern’ in some detail (well, visually anyway) – but did you know that there was a smaller scale boxed edition of the album released in Greece as well?

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) - 'History of Modern' limited edition CD/DVD boxed set - front case
^ Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) – ‘History of Modern’ limited edition CD/DVD boxed set – front case.

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‘Peter Saville Estate 1-127’ book

It’s not a great surprise I imagine, given my musical tastes as documented on VersionCrazy, to realise that I like much of the design work by Peter Saville. ‘Estate 1-127’ is the second book solely dedicated to his work that I bought, the first being ‘Designed by Peter Saville’. That had coincided with a retrospective exhibition at London’s Design Museum in 2003, ‘The Peter Saville Show’.

Peter Saville 'Estate 1-127' exhibition catalogue front cover
^ Peter Saville ‘Estate 1-127’ exhibition catalogue front cover

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The Golden Hour of The Future – Recordings by The Future and The Human League

Released in 2002, this CD finally shone official light of day on to early material by The Human League and immediate forerunners The Future that had been circulating in bootleg form for 20+ years. Hurrah!!! A compilation of this type had been mooted for official release long before – back in late 1981, Heaven 17’s ‘Penthouse and Pavement’ album inner sleeve advertised ‘The Future Tapes’ as a forthcoming release, for example.

The background story is even more involved than I was aware of and adds to the enjoyment of listening to this release now, albeit in some cases that is a pretty lo-fi experience, to be fair.

The Golden Hour of the Future - front cover design
^ The Golden Hour of the Future – front cover design

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John Foxx – ‘Burning Car’ UK 7″ single (Metal Beat/Virgin VS360, 1980)

Near enough to the day (11th July 1980), forty years have passed since the impeccably eerie synthetic ‘less is more’ dynamic of ‘Burning Car’ appeared. As Spring moved into Summer of 1980 it was exciting times for music for me. Spring had brought Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark with ‘Messages’ and The Human League with ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’ to my ears and Gary Numan had released the exciting ‘We Are Glass’ single. New Musik and The Cure had also kept my cassette recorder busy, taped from the top 40 show. I had read about the forthcoming release of this latest Foxx single mid June in Smash Hits. It had competition from former band mates Ultravox, who had reactivated and were releasing the first notes with Midge Ure in the shape of ‘Sleepwalk’ – and would be an earlier release than Foxx’s latest.

John Foxx - 'Burning Car' UK 7
^ John Foxx – ‘Burning Car’ UK 7″ single picture sleeve front

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Gary Numan ’80/81′ Box Set – Discs 3, 4 and 5: ‘Living Ornaments 81’

In the first part of this look at the ’80/81′ box set, the focus was on discs one and two, which spread the ‘Telekon’ studio album across a couple of individually packaged LPs. The remainder of the box finds the 1981 Wembley ‘farewell concerts’ documented by way of the ‘Living Ornaments 81’ album – its only appearance on vinyl to date.


Those 1981 farewell shows are a well established part of the Numan folklore of course. I was still too young to have attended any concerts back in 1981. Instead, it was all lived vicariously through the pages of the music press and the likes of the Numan-sympathetic one-off SynRock fanzine, as well as the immediately preceding ‘Living Ornaments 79 and 80’ box set, which I lavished no small amount of several weeks pocket money on. A few months later came the airing on BBC1 TV (Sunday 6th September 1981) of some highlights from the video recording of the show. Despite being condensed down to only 40 minutes in length, this was A Very Big Deal Indeed for me, in an era of only three television channels airing in the UK. Having to compete with the rest of the family and their viewing pleasures – and with no video recorder yet – was no mean feat. The complete show would be released in full form in 1982 on the oddly named ‘Micromusic’ home video cassette and from which this live recording is derived.

Gary Numan '80/81' Box Set - Disc 3 - 'Living Ornaments 81' sleeve front cover
^ Gary Numan ’80/81′ Box Set – Disc 3 – ‘Living Ornaments 81’ sleeve front cover

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