VARIOUS – Vorsicht! Digital Themes From The Arcadia Library – 10” LP – White Vinyl [JAN 31]

LP – Limited Edition 10” White Vinyl:

12 track 10″ white vinyl LP
4 panel wraparound sleeve
A6 postcard
Arcadia business card

Proceed with caution into the high-tension, high-voltage sound world of the mysterious Arcadia library.

PLEASE NOTE: these are genuine electronic library cues from the 1980s.

“a dusty box, a mysterious name and the sound of machines from another time”
– Mediakonverter

Featuring waves of neon synths, pristine machine funk, scorched ambient drones, gnarled bass lines, playful radiophonics & industrial percussion, this thrilling selection of obscure 1980’s electronica is compiled by Zyklus (Alan Gubby / Revbjelde) and presented on 10″ white vinyl.

“On a teaching placement during the pandemic, I found a dusty cupboard above our college theatre holding 200+ library music CDs. Most of the discs were from the Arcadia Cosmos library, a prolific production house active during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

I spent the next few weeks working through the discs and found several interesting electronic pieces although, pseudonym or not, I didn’t recognise any of the composers involved. Further research kept leading to dead ends with Arcadia’s owners having long vacated their last known address and web links either broken or abandoned. So more questions than answers remain about the library’s provenance.

For instance, who was / is the brilliantly named David Beast? Did Kraftwerk engage trans-european lawyers after hearing Endurance Test? Was Sylvia Sommer deliberately channelling vintage 1960’s radiophonics by John Baker? What studio gear was used to create the distinctive Arcadia sound? And, for what appears to have been a UK-based company, why are so many of the album titles, tracks and composer names distinctly Germanic? If anyone has the answers please get in touch.”
– Zyklus / Winter 2024

“an excellent compilation proving yet again that library music is a vast parallel universe with plenty of still-uncharted territories” – Markey Funk

“an outstanding collection of vintage library music with lots of styles & layers”
– X Minus One

“a superb selection – David Beast’s Racial Riots has a great Tangerine Dream feel”
– Keith Seatman

“atmospheric synthwave, cosmic spaciousness & meditative tones – a cohesive collection of sophisticated electronic music” – Regen Mag

Tracklist:

A1. Danger By Klaus Back + Tini Beier
A2. Electrolysis By Eric Stone
A3. Endurance Test By David Beast
A4. Industrial Espionage By Peter Hunt
A5. Interferences By Klaus Back + Tini Beier
A6. Koan By Louis Reede

B1. Middle Ages By Peter Janda + Fritz Koberl
B2. Powers Of Darkness By David Beast
B3. Racial Riots By David Beast
B4. Resonances By Louis Reede
B5. Submerged Cultures By Klaus Back + Tini Beier
B6. Tinguely By Silvia Sommer