333) Propaganda - A Secret Wish

We used to drink in the same pub there was about ten of us, we had been friends at school all had got jobs and or gone to university but although we all met new people we still wanted to hang around together and forty years later, we still do.

Thursday night a few pints, Friday night a load of pints and Saturday questions were asked if you were not there by six at the latest and Sunday out for the football then stay out as Dave Boy the DJ was always on Sunday night.

It got to the stage whereas you approached Dave with your request he would give you a thumbs up as he knew what you were going to ask for. My request was Duel by Propaganda.

The classy piano intro then the wonderful vocals of Claudia Brucken lead into one of the most joyful choruses of the eighties. I must have asked for that song every Sunday for about a year, and my mates would say you can ask for something else but would admit it was a belter of a tune, it was, and it is.

Brucken takes a back seat for the opener Dream Within a Dream a lone trumpet leads us and the bass and synths entice with Susanne Freytag spoken word recital of an Edgar Allan Poe poem, this is nine minutes of enticing synth pop and then we have Brucken stepping in for The Murder of Love and Steve Howe from Yes pops up with a guitar solo that just works, never thought I’d mention Yes on here.

Jewel is Duel’s evil twin sister all industrial aggression, more jarring and does not have the pop sheen of Duel, but then it’s not meant to.

P:Machinery should have followed Duel into the top forty ZTT bands were often deemed art projects but quite simply it’s just an excellent piece of pop music as is the band’s first single that closes the record Dr Mabuse (The Last Word) and have I mentioned Frozen Faces where Freytag’ spoken word vocals and Brucken’s vocal work over rhythms and pan pipes (from synths and percussion provided throughout by Ralf Dorper and Michael Mertens) to perfection.  

It all fell apart quite quickly for them sadly and I never understood what the hell Paul Morley’s writings for ZTT were about, but he could have easily have just written, “this is bloody great, give it a listen,”

8.5/10

GIVE IT A STREAM: Duel