Danish duo Laid Back -- responsible for the massive, underground dance track "White Horse" that crossed over onto the American pop charts in 1983 -- have announced the forthcoming release of Cosyland on May 22nd, a collection of reworked old tracks, and lost recordings from the famed sessions that put them on the map. But, of course, there's more to the Laid Back story. Back in the seventies, Tim Stahl and John Guldberg met in a band called The Starbox Band and soon found out that there was a special chemistry between them. They were always the ones left that kept on jamming when band rehearsals ended. After a disaster of a support gig for The Kinks in Copenhagen, people walked out on them... and the band split up. New technology then came: multi-track tape recorders, rhythm boxes and synthesizers, etc. In a backyard downtown Copenhagen, John had set up a small studio where they began jamming together and creating tape recordings. They soon realized that they had created a new sound, a new way of making music. The debut album Laid Back contained their first #1 hit “Maybe I'm Crazy,” and was released in 1981. The next single, “Sunshine Reggae”, was the summer hit of 1982 in Denmark. In the USA, the focus was however on another song, “White Horse”, which became a #1 Dance track and trendsetter with an influence that is still felt today. When their US record company told them “don't come, people think you are black”, Tim and John saw it as the biggest acknowledgement a musician could ever get and stayed away... and now today, “White Horse” is known for being a benchmark cornerstone of the electronic music-making in the Eighties, having been sampled over and over again and becoming a true classic.
Absolute rarities are unearthed on Cosyland, taken from original multi-track archive tapes. Recordings at the source of it all were done in 1981 with brand-new equipment such as a Roland TR-808 rhythm box, a SH-101, a Pro-One monophonic synthesizer and a GR-500 guitar controller-and-synth. Relevant tapes copied from analogue to digital have just an added drumbeat, bass and vocal ahead of mixes. All recordings were improvised for their own pleasure while experimenting with a new technology. Besides, they were mere newcomers and beginners in this context, not knowing to later end up defining a new type of trademark sound. It is something of an archaeology excavation trip, so welcome aboard on a journey to Cosyland.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 6 March 2012 21:07 (twelve years ago) link