Traces. Tracks.

Satisfact Demonstration

from their self-titled album.



Satisfact - Demonstration.mp3

Satisfact was a pre-Mocket band fronted by cherub-cheeked Matt Steinke, who went on to self-made robot-programming with Tassy Zimmerman in Octant. Modest Mouse-r Jeremiah Green handled the drums on this, their debut album, and Dave Schneider of Love As Laughter joined for following albums, The Third Meeting At The Third Counter and The Unwanted Sounds of Satisfact. This is the second track on the album, an upbeat track with those heavily affected vocals, familiar Juno-synth stabs, and great bass work.

Now this stuff seems a bit old-hat - new-wave revival stuff, but when Satisfact and Radio Berlin started, people weren't as keen on Gang of 4 re-issues as they would be a couple years later, and certainly not very much in the Pacific Northwest.

Radio Berlin Aftermath from Glass

Radio Berlin - Aftermath.mp3

I'm sure I've written about Radio Berlin before, Vancouver's oft-o'erlooked new-wave band. They're still around, though members are involved in a
variety of other projects - Jack plays with Primes, Chris is in dream-poppers Book of Lists, Lindsay's a busy, busy filmmaker, and ex-FuckMeUSAer Brad's in Bakelite. Previous members of the group have included Joshua Wells, who's now in Black Mountain, and Warren Hill, who's living in Montreal, DJs old soul and R&b and found a little acetate record that's piqued a bit of interest. The old Black Halos drummer had a brief stint with the group as well.

This is the sixth track from the album, and one of the strongest, starting out strong with Frey's recognizable bass-playing, a memorable synth-lead, and Frey's lyrics all melancholic and regret-filled - far more humanity and less posturing than most of the bands who crowd the genre. And damn, listen to Wells' drumming!

Radio Berlin deserves a lot more substantial of a summary than I'm up to delivering right now, but as they're on hiatus (re-tooling the band, this has happened to great effect before - usually prior to each album's release), I'll put it on hold and come back to assess what their previous releases in light of what they've come up with now. Maybe some of those early demo tape tracks? (Keeners might note that frequent Goldkixx comment-leaver Steven Balogh's mug can be spotted on the back of the Glass album booklet...)


Some gossip: Flaxxen-haired Norwegian sugah-pop sensation Annie will be doing a couple of select DJ gigs in the States (Chicago, Boston, LA, and 2 in New York) to promote her new record Anniemal, which just dropped today. Rumours abound that she might show up in Montreal later this summer, performing, with a backing band...