Systems of Romance

Today’s post features hard-edged French coldwave act Babel 17, who officially formed in 1989. Members of the band had been playing together under various names since 1983, scrapping, rewriting, and experimenting with songs and ideas before settling upon their official name and sound. The first incarnation’s drummer would go on to join Little Nemo, who helped the newly formed Babel 17 land a record contract with the prestigious Lively Art label.

The band released two albums and a series of singles before splitting in 1993, just as their peers were folding and Lively Art closed its doors. The band was rumored to have a third album all ready for release before Lively Art folded. However, though the band has the tracklisting and a few songs up on their official page, I’ve been unable to track it down in any medium. Instead, I’ve uploaded the band’s seminal sophomore record, 1991’s Shades for your listening pleasure, complete with CD only bonus tracks. I believe this release was originally upgraded from an EP, though both shared the same name. The details:

Babel 17- Shades LP
1. Shades of a Dream
2. XVI – XVII – XVIII
3. La Curee
4. Bittersweetness
5. Nohm-Bo
6. Madness Strides Along
7. Lo-Hi
8. A Prayer
9. Bittermixness
10. In Distress

*download link removed—-> album re-released on Infrastition in 2009! see below for links for purchase*

Here’s a clip of the band performing the title track live in 1990:

Last but not least, here’s some further information on Babel 17, including a link to purchase their first record, 1990’s Celeano Fragments through Infrastition.com:

Babel 17 official page
Infrastition.com

This entry was posted on April 3, 2008 at 4:08 pm and is filed under 1990s, 1991, babel 17, coldwave, france . 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.