Ausgezeichnet! A brand new Kraftwerk realese!

[JussiK]

Despite the confusing packaging the new "Tour De France Soundtracks" by Kraftwerk is a totally new 2003 recording, not a collection of remixes of the old Tour De France hit. And the new record is worth the long wait! We get the robotic rumblings, washes of electronic sound, repeated progressions and throbbing bleepy noises we all love. Most of the tracks have a steady pulse and seque smoothly into the next one creating an ambient soundscape of Elektro Kardiograms, Titanium Forms and Aero Dynamiks. I've been listening to this non-stop in the car and advise you do the same. Of course on a bike it all would sound even more perfect.

I've also been digging "Privé" by Alan Chamfort, a 1977 disco track penned by the one and only Serge Gainsbourg, and the b-side of Sugar's "Manhattan Fever" called "Ocho Rios", a zipping instrumental with huge strings.

[QUINNY]

That Sugar 12" refuses to be beaten. Any info on it Jussi as you're the only real Europhile around here. Was it a name change from Roundtree just for the UK or Europe wide?

[SandraDee]

I thought Sugar/Roundtree was totally a Kenny Lehman project until I noticed that he neither wrote nor produced the Ocho Rios track.

[BrunoRepublic]

I thought Sugar/Roundtree was totally a Kenny Lehman project until I noticed that he neither wrote nor produced the Ocho Rios track.

It's the exception to the rule. The rest of the "Roller Disco" album was produced by Lehman, and he also co-wrote most of the material.

Ocho Rios really is an odd one here... the fact that it's mono adds to the strangeness...

[JussiK]

We here had the 12" out in regular stores on British Power Exhange label and the album - as Roundtree - on original US Island label. How these things worked I have no clear idea. However we were always hoping for Swedish pressings as those were recorded far clearer and especially louder than all the rest from Germany, US or Britain. The French pressings were sometimes quite okay, sometimes total crap.