The Tears of Technology

Early 80s synthpop and synth-informed rock had increasingly become a subject of fascination, reissues and new appreciation as the 21st century went forward, with an increasingly plugged-in and online music world newly reconsidering what both the possibilities and limitations of its generation of keyboards resulted in. The UK-focused The Tears of Technology, another compilation effort by the stalwart duo of Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, was per Stanley’s liner notes aiming to consider that general approach through the lens of gentle melancholy and contemplation, where even something seemingly peppy like the obscure single “Grey Skies” by Turquoise Days had a serene sorrow playing out. Plenty of famed names take bows with some of their most austerely beautiful songs, as with Soft Cell and “Youth,” O.M.D.’s “Sealand” and Chris and Cosey’s “October (Love Song).” But some of the best treasures result from the more unknown acts, such as Illustration’s nervously elegant “Tidal Flow,” the nervous pace of the Electronic Circus’s “Direct Lines” and Patrik Fitzgerald’s Bowiesque poetry on “Personal Loss.”