The Weeknd
After Hours

Le Cliché - 7' single on clear vinyl on Polytechnic Youth Records, London.250 copies.Second of this June’s PY releases as another absolute gem; a killer double A side 45 on clear wax, again released as an edition of 250. This time from the mighty LE Cliché. “Production Line” with its (aptly timed) homage to Kraftwerk, and it’s flip, “Vicarious Life”, a tribute to the best of early 80’s minimal synth DIY cassette culture, (so revered and key to PY’s existence in the first place). Le Cliché is Barcelona-based, Limerick-born, Gerard Ryan; who studies consumers by day as professor of marketing at the Rovira & Virgili University, and writes music about consumer behaviour by night. Ryan released his first LP on Seattle’s finest independent label, Medical Records, in 2014. He followed that with a collaborations album on Barcelona's Cold Beats Records, which saw him work with some of his cult synth heroes such as Gay Cat Park, Mick Milk, Moss Garten, Mark Lane and Effetto Joule. After two further albums of songs about observations on consumers and academic life (“The Product is You” and “Look at my Powerpoint”), a support slot for Wolfgang Flür, a conference on the future of electric music- and a warm up for Andy McCluskey (omd), the Le Cliché sound evolved from clear crisp synth pop to more obscure, lo-fi, minimal synth. In 2018 he released “Nothing is Original” on Berlin’s Detriti Records, followed by 2019’s Post Plagiarism on Belfast’s Tonn Records. Ryan is also notable for his artwork, in particular the lavish limited editions he prepares of his music releases. In 2019 some of his work appeared in a V&A Museum exhibition at the National Museum in Belfast on 'The art of selling songs'. This new single on Polytechnic Youth places both sides of Le Cliché back to back, with the clean electronic, Kraftwerkian melodies of “Production Line” on one side and the colder, experimental, minimal synth of “Vicarious Life” on the flip.

Whilst a certain Parisian electronic duo were still (probably impossibly chic) toddlers, French band/production Space had worked out that making lots of hooky synth disco and wearing Space suits in public at all times were a potent pop combination, one that enabled them to sell 12 million records across 4 albums from 1977-81, before imploding in the time honoured fashion of lawsuits and bitter recrimination all round.Space was the brain child of French producer JP Iliescuo. He assembled a crack band of French session musicians for (at the time) a previously unheard cosmic-disco-synth combination. The unforgettable melodies came from talented young composer Didier Marouani (also known as Ecama). The musicianship from Roland Romanelli and Jannick Top, Joe Hammer and Madeline Bell.Fast forward over 4 decades and for our debut release we at Array Recordings are proud to present our first release which captures the essence of those 4 albums, and the breadth and diversity of their sound in one 14 track extravaganza. All remastered to present a new sonic experience."Magic Fly" sounds as fresh and other-worldly now as it did then with it's irresistible hookline, whilst at another end of the spectrum, "Carry On Turn Me On" remains Space's most genuine contribution to the disco pantheon, with it's orgasmic vocals and floor destroying, organic groove."Running In the City" and "Air Force" is the sound of forgotten futures past, "Flying Nightmare" a cosmic funk odyssey. "Deliverance" remains one of the few Disco tracks to feature a full male voice choir and "Deeper Zone" ushers in the sound of the 80's.The band were not short on conventional pop moments, "Save Your Love For Me", an epic, over blown euro-synth pad belter, full of genuinely synthetic emotion. "Symphony" is grand, positive and catchy as. The band also knew how to preserve (and intensify) the emotion at the slower tempos. "Just Blue" is a gradual funk odyssey and a perfectly plastic soul. The haunting, dystopic "Velvet Rape" draws the work to an menacing closeThe compilation is a fitting tribute to one of Europe's great forgotten innovators.