TOMEK
FAIRLIGHT AND FUNK (GREEN VINYL) - LP

UPC: 090771827418
Label: MODERN HARMONIC (SUNDAZED)
Format: LP
Release Date: May 26, 2023
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• First ever reissues of Tomek’s post Model Citizen’s celebration of the Fairlight CMI Synthesizer!
• Includes unissued material from the same freshly baked ‘83 session tapes!
• LP cut by Kevin Gray at Cohearent Audio and pressed in the US at Citizen Vinyl on monochrome monitor green vinyl!
• Features liner notes by Jim Allen in conversation with Tomek.

An expanded view of Tomek’s 1983 no wave punk funk celebration of the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument), recorded in the home of Stones producer Jimmy Miller, from the freshly baked original tapes!

Funk is a key element of Lamprecht’s musical makeup and the common denominator on “Contract,” “Prelude,” and the previously unreleased “Kill” and “Things Will Come and Pass Like Magic.” “I was paying attention to it and learning from it quite a bit,” he says. “Part of my drumming on the record was a reference to the early funk stuff. I was totally into it.”

Punk funk was one of the most vital sounds of the early ‘80s NYC underground, exemplified by bands like Liquid Liquid, ESG, Bush Tetras, Defunkt, and Model Citizens offshoot The Dance.

After a deceptively spacey intro that could have fallen out the back window of Pink Floyd’s tour bus, opening track “Reminder” lays down a minimalist groove somewhere between the urban grit of NYC No Wave and the post-punk abjection of Joy Division. Lamprecht’s lyrics set out a series of contradictions as the atmosphere grows increasingly disorienting and nightmarish, as if a French New Wave film were slowly morphing into a sci-fi B movie.

The full-length version of “Jingle,” heard on this package for the first time, was represented only by an 18-second excerpt on the original record. A gloriously goofy, sample-happy sonic carnival including a barking dog, shouting, coughing, car horns, crashes, whistles, and more, it sounds like The Marx Brothers set loose at an Art of Noise session.

Recorded at RPM Studio by The man who oversaw classics like Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, and Exile on Main St. It was decked out with cutting-edge equipment, including the revolutionary Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument), one of the first samplers. It literally cost as much as a house at the time.

The original 1983 Tomek record contained only six tracks, two of them under a minute long. “I wanted it to be an album,” says Lamprecht, “but everything got compressed and it ended up being an EP.” Four decades later, the full fruits of those sessions are here at last. Lamprecht’s lifelong opposition to virtuosity may have kept him out of the conservatory, but it freed his mind to move in ways we’re only just now finding out about in full.

(excerpts from the Jim Allen liner notes)

Includes:

Reminder (6:24) • Ok What (Jingle Alternate) (previously unissued) (1:52) • Contract (4:05) • Prelude (6:10) • Talking (0:44) • Love Music (3:32) • Kill (previously unissued) (2:48) • Things Will Come And Pass Like Magic (previously unissued) (4:06) • Jingle (0:18)