Thomas Leer - Letter from America

Leer got his start releasing the single Private Plane/International on his own label, Oblique, and helped Robert Rental release his first single. Leer then teamed up with Rental and recorded The Bridge, which came out on Throbbing Gristle's Industrial Records. Half of it is home-recorded sort of low-fi industrial rock similar to Leer and Rentals singles, maybe Cabaret Voltaire, Fad Gadget, etc. The other half is more ambient industrial noise-scapes. It's really beautiful at times, and is available on CD.

He then moved to Cherry Red for releases like Letter From America, Four Movements and Contradictions, in which the music got more and more funky but in a weird electro-acoustic vibe that's maybe a cross between Cabaret Voltaire and Heaven 17? This was followed by his smoothest release yet, the All About You 12" on Cherry Red, who's b-side instrumental version, Saving Grace, became a Cosmic classic. Almost all of the solo stuff so far, the first 7", the eps, All About You are all on the Cherry Red compilation Contradictions, which goes in and out of print but is seriously worth getting. And that first single, one of the first self-recorded, self-released 7"s of the UK New Wave, is really a gem.

At some point he met up with Matt Johnson who was a fan and he helped produce and play on The The's Soul Mining.

By his next records, he signed to Arista, got a bigger budge and access to a Fairlight. The music wasn't as obviously experimental as the early stuff, and the sounds are distinctively 80s, but in the same way that people are more and more into those sounds for what they are. The lyrics are still pretty subversive and the production suprisingly bizarre at times, at least in the context of what is on the surface, super glossy pop music. Most of this stuff, including some of the extended versions, are available on the CD The Scale of Ten on BMG records, with liners by Matt Johnson.

After this he joined up with Claudia Brucken of Propaganda to form Act, to be the glossiest, glitziest, suavest pop act they can be, making ABC look like gutter dwellars. I've read perhaps that Leer and producer Trevor Horn didn't see eye to eye, which is a shame. Personally, as much as I admire Horn, judging from The Scale of Ten, Leer didn't need any help producing wonderful fairlight pop/dance music. Act's stuff has all been reissued, I even bought the 3 CD version which has every snippet ever. Unfortunately, I think it dated worse then the Scale of Ten, but the few songs that I really like, like Absolutely Immune and Snobbery and Decay are pretty great.

After yet again failing to dominate the charts, he got quiet for some time, only emerging a few years ago with some laptop produced ethnic influenced instrumental music, and now some new material and new releases. You can check some of that stuff out on his Myspace page.

A really unique figure with a pretty fascinating history, if you ask me.

http://www.myspace.com/futurehistoric

I actually almost interviewed Leer for Stylus last year after his last record came out (reviewed here and a bit of a disappointment, really), but it never came together. Shame — as Dan's piece shows, Leer's possibly the most important figure in the whole transgressive DIY/Post-punk/electronic scene that no one has ever heard of.

Because James Nice would be out of a job.

The Bridge and Scale of Ten and Act CDs are all still in print, and Contradictions goes in and out of print, maybe at the whim of Cherry Red? I don't know.

Fact is, most of the vinyl is pretty easy to find and pretty cheap. Especially the 80s Arista stuff. They pressed tons of it.

Ha, almost everything on eBay is cheap except a copy of All About You which is tagged with "Cosmic"!!!! 2 years ago before anyone knew what "cosmic" was that wasn't a 35 dollar record.

Please also note he recorded 2 songs called International and they have nothing to do with each other and are both wonderful. The first is the b-side to Private Plane and is low-fi 4-track pop genius with an outro that sounds like syd's floyd and the other is a slow glossy song about smuggling drugs around the world to sell to children and is the centerpiece of the 80s stuff. You can get a 7" real cheap, or a 12" for less then 10 bucks.

And Scott. I do plan on re-releasing everything...unfortunately for some, they are going to be download only, as we're going to stop releasing CDs soon.

And Ned, I have nothing on Mr. Nice...I'm just picking up the crumbs from his table!

I kid. Ike Yard live on WFMU monday night.

Except to me, since I am wonderful. (I should note I'm not sure how the AMG is handling download-only releases at this point, but Andy K could say more.)

and for the record. Naive Teen Idol, I assume, learned about Thomas Leer from our boss at the college record store, one Dave Toddarello. When I was a freshman or sophomore I'd go to the store which had listening stations, and since I was "cool", I'd say "turn me onto something" and Dave would go out into the stacks and grab CDs, mostly by bands I'd never heard of. CDs like Thomas Leer's Contradictions, This Heat's Deceit, Metal Urbain's L'Age D'or among others.

Seriously, tho, it was Dave — all Dave, about 3 or 4 years ago. Everything I have, I got from him. But you knew that already. Dude knows his stuff — esp. when it comes to pop role players who fell through the cracks.

Great idea w/ the download-only releases, btw...

The first side is ruined by the vocals. This applies to all other TLeer records

Best TLeer record is "The Bridge" w/ Bob Rental. Side 2 anyway. Nice fridges.

The first side is ruined by the vocals. This applies to all other TLeer records

Just got Contradictions here and this is possibly the wrongest thing ever said by anyone. "Letter From America," "Hear What I Say," "Mr Nobody"... god damn is this brilliant stuff.

yup. Not to mention, especially on Hear What I Say, the best synth-horn playing this side of Heaven 17.

ok so finally got the chance to check out a singles collection, contradictions, and his album with robert rental... it's all so damn good. this thread should really be about 5 times this size.

he's such a perfect bridge between colder, more nihilistic type synth-wave and the artier, ultraproduced 80s pop stuff discussed in the 'sounds like late period roxy music' thread. eating this stuff up atm

the live record with the normal is rly good

(w robert rental that is)

thomas leer is great too obviously

"Don't" is the jam

Listening now to From Sci-Fi to Barfly -- which is closer in spirit to his popper stuff, and has vocals. I'm kind of enjoying this.

Scale Of Ten is amazing. there are too many songs on it and all sounds a bit rushed, also dated but amazing all the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anvXNfZq4_c

Good winter track

https://futurehistoric.bandcamp.com/

Currently on bandcamp with some amazing things from the archives.

1979, "Recorded in 1979. This was my very first explorations into the world of electronics." proto Private Plane/The Bridge
1982, "Series of tracks for unreleased album Circa 1982" Sounds like All About You/Saving Grace electro/synth-pop.
Fairlight EP '83, "First set of demos emerging from week-long Fairlight sessions, 1983" proto-Scale of Ten?

Plust"Songs from a Sensual Revolution", a 1993 album "inspired by New York club music" and Conversation Peace from the mid/late 90s.

Gotta check those out. Thx for the heads up, Dan.