Keyser Söze Alert: Iko – Iko ’83 LP (1982)
Virtually Nothing is known about this Montréal (?) group, but I’ve deduced what is going on here:
Iko was an android trio from the future that traveled back in time to 1982 in order to learn what it meant to be human in the decades just preceding the merger of man and machine. Archetypal and powerful nerd music.
Only 500 copies of this LP sold. So if you account for DJ/radio promos, maybe 1,000 were even pressed, making this gem truly obscure. The $100+ price tag for this album is one of the deals of the century.
’83 is presented here in its entirety, ripped from my mint copy at 24bit/96kHz and converted to MP3 at 196 kbps for optimal sound quality. I also found and posted two unreleased tracks (9 & 10) for posterity.
SCHEMATIC: MP3s, album review and cover artwork…
Presenting neither a robotic dystopia nor a sci-fi fantasy, instead ‘83 reveals our own robotic inclinations and highlights the struggle of the human soul to escape mechanization. The album envelops its listeners in a blanket of meditative synthesis, instructive beats, poignant lyrics and strangely syncopated accents reminiscent of the abstract music created from DNA sequences.
The coldly humanoid vocals are sung in both French and English. Iko must have spent considerable time in Montréal to pick up that distinctive Quebecois accent in both languages. But then again, their speech recognition and simulation circuitry was probably quite advanced.
Thank you DAX (synthesized harmonies & melodies, voice), U-GEN (triggered & synthesized melodies, voice) and ZAO (computed rhytm & bass, voice), whenever you are.
A1) Elevator
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A2
A2) Gonadotropic Synthesis
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A2
A3) Subway 49
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A2
A4) Communication Off
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A2
B1) Approach on Tokyo
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A2
B2) Digital Delight
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A2
B3) Model Type A
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A2
B4) Radioactive Mist
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A2
*** Military Service (non-album track)
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A2
*** Surrender to the Dream (non-album track)
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