Me, a latecomer to the music of British Electric Foundation (also called B.E.F.), a 1980s UK thing whose records I never bought or heard at the time, so useful for me to receive Music For Stowaways (COLD SPRING RECORDS CSR310CD), which was originally released on cassette in 1981.
I was prepared for this 1981 cassette to be a self-released DIY photocopied-cover item, but it was in fact quite over-ground – released by Virgin UK in an edition of 10,000 copies. British Electric Foundation were Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh from The Human League, joined by Adi Newton of Clock DVA and John Wilson from Heaven 17. The well-rehearsed narrative about Human League is that the first two albums Travelogue (1979) and Reproduction (1980) expressed the truly experimental-electronics aspect of this Sheffield band – Ware and Marsh were co-founders – but after the 1981 split, Phil Oakey took things in a much more poppy / vocal direction with ‘Love Action’ and ‘Don’t You Want Me’, aiming at the top 20 charts (and succeeding).
I’d like to explore more of this moment in UK music history – so far Music For Stowaways feels like something we could file alongside Robert Rental, Cabaret Voltaire, The Normal, and more obscure names like Vice Versa and their Music 4 EP from 1979. But even here B.E.F. are already dabbling in the minimal avant-funk-beat line of enquiry on ‘Honeymoon in New York’ and particularly on ‘Groove Thang’, the latter of which would later evolve into the first single by Heaven 17, and lead to the Penthouse and Pavement LP so beloved of NME writers at the time (as I recall it), writers who had an agenda to present evidence of a successful melding of UK post-punk edginess with dance music, pop, and soul, one primo example of which would be the Scritti Politti album Songs to Remember. However, most of Music For Stowaways is instrumental electronic tunes, very inventive, simple and concise, evidently making ingenious use of the available technology (which now would probably be considered primitive, but here sounds juicy and rich and packed with analogue goodiness). I like the slightly rough edges, the less-then-perfect joins, compared with the polish and perfectionism of those endless tinkerers, Kraftwerk.
Ware and Marsh’s gift seems to have been mainly about discovering and deploying new sounds, less about song construction or structure; even with the tight arrangements here, none of the tunes really seem to develop very much or take us anywhere, but while we’re here in this semi-futuristic world of urban planning, moving sidewalks, and brutalist architecture, it’s a very interesting tourist ride in a bus for 7 mins or 4 mins or 3 mins. One especially successful instance of their craft is ‘Decline of The West’, simultaneously grim and an unflinching look at the perils of modern town design, yet also an ironic celebration of same. I’d say the same about ‘Uptown Apocalypse’, except that the bass playing of Stephen James Turner indicates that he imagines he’s at a dank sweaty disco while the rest of the band are attempting to paint a sonic portrait of a decaying block of flats. There’s also the ‘B.E.F. Ident’ jingle (by Malcolm Veal) which opens and closes the album, clearly a strong influence on certain more recent Ghost Box records.
For once, I give credence to the press release hype which claims this music was an influence on “many aspiring electronic artists”, and can see why it’s regarded by many as a lost or over-looked classic of its kind. From 9 May 2023.