Systems of Romance

Today’s band is a synthpunk classic, an ephemeral act who released little, but recorded a string of stellar tracks throughout their tenure.

Upon the demise of similar synthpunk unit Dow Jones and The Industrials, guitarist and vocalist Greg Horn would relocate to Arizona and kick off a band called Tone Set along with fellow KAET coworker Galen Herod. The two piece band would record a series of tracks which would compromise the 1982 cassette Cal’s Ranch. Their sound was a minimal blend of synthpunk, mostly relying on tape loops, various keyboards, and vocal samples; some tracks cold and experimental and others a bit more lighthearted. None of these songs featured lyrics, aside from a handful of lines in “Wigglin Around In Middletown.”

After a few compilation appearances, the band would shift in a more vocal direction for their 1983 record Calibrate, both members splitting vocal duties on the A-side. Despite a bit of underground buzz for their single ‘Life Is Busy’ (including high praise from Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, who voted for the band in an early MTv competition) Tone Set would split up soon after as both Greg and Galen would go their separate ways, each releasing a series of solo records over the next decade.

The following two tracks come from their two releases. The first, ‘Life Is Busy’ is the lead-off single from 1983’s Calibrate and the second, a previous recording of ‘What Good’s a Hit Song’ from 1982’s Cal’s Ranch cassette.

download Tone Set- ‘Life is Busy’
download Tone Set- ‘What Good’s a Hit Song’

No videos or links today, ladies and gentlemen- for I’m almost positive their work is out of print and their video for ‘Life is Busy’ is long-lost. If anyone does have said links, feel free to drop them below!

This entry was posted on October 1, 2007 at 4:03 pm and is filed under 1980s, arizona, minimal, synth, synthpunk, tone set . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.