1980@40: TRAVELOGUE - THE HUMAN LEAGUE

As the '70s turned into the '80s electronic bands were rare enough to be easily identifiable from each other and then as a group from forebears like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream. One of the things that became a signature for each was how it approached percussion. Tubeway Army used a conventional drum kit. Spandau Ballet favoured a clean drum machine. Human League's second album begins with a statement of independence from this with a bravura explosion of percussion from keyboards to distorted real drums and solid synthesiser rhythms that verge from harmonic to outright sawing crashes. This, above all, is not the sound of rock.

Phil Oakey's sub operatic tenor provides the melody with clipped diction and soaring lines as the storm rages around him. The Black Hit of Space with its aggressive electronics and robotic singing could tick all the boxes needed for a parody song. In fact, the song is often thought to be a dig at the success of Gary Numan which, if true, is telling: not only giving them a handy us against them stance but doing so with a groovy opener. The video mixes a mash of contemporary news footage with the band miming the song in a studio setting. No one moves more than their performative requirements. There is no drum kit or any rock instrumentation. The band look more like laboratory staff. Oakey is quietly freakish with the one side short one side long hair cut. He glares into the lens. This is not the sci-fi of Replicas or Architecture and Morality. As with their first, Reproduction, The Human League favoured a future is now look and sound.

Mick Ronson's Only After Dark perhaps began the odd trend of synth acts to come who would reset older standards or rock songs in electronica. Again the percussion borders on tonal rhythm and it is difficult to distinguish the two. Oakey's vocal gymnastics provide a warmer centre than the previous track.

Life Kills slams into gear from the off with a pumping electric kick, snatches of buzzing keyboard and even brass section sounding garnishes. Oakey's multitracked vocals approach the the football chant of the band's version of Rock and Roll. It's a brilliant tidy example of what electronic pop could be.

Dreams of Leaving sets a cinematic stage with harsh explosive noise over a pretty sequence and a kind of bagpipe melody. Oakey's vocal is breathy and rushed as he relates a first person tale of escaping the oppression of South Africa. This fades into a a kind of sample and hold pool of beeps with dark echoey waves behind it before a vigorous metallic rhythm. The epic setting returns with a verse telling of the difficulties of the new land as the swell of synthesisers rises, thickens and swirls around him.

Toyota City is an instrumental of marimba like patterns, distant whistling and a kind of Celtic tonality. A Crow and a Baby is the closest thing to a rock song on the album with metallic riffing and clear verses and choruses. A dark Aesop fable for today. The Touchables is positively accessible with sweet riffs and big choruses, presaging not only New Order and the Human League of Dare but the general feel of synthpop in the two years to follow.

Gordon's Gin begins as an eerie instrumental but develops into a thickly electronic version of the drink's tv jingle. This is Youtube-able and is already synth heavy and disco thumping. This one adds a little harshness, like the throat burn of a straight shot.

Being Boiled splashes straight into a mix of electronics and big string section riffage before settling into a strident rockist onslaught with sharp synths and synthesised handclaps. Oakey's vocal is strong as he rails against sericulture, the making of silk which involves the death by boiling of the silk forming larvae of the silkworms. The rhythm track of this number is a clear indication of how synth pop could readily provide a form of disco that could be dark and free of dags. It's pretty where disco went until, emerging from the cocoon of the rest of the '80s, it emerged as techno. The closing track WXJL Tonight plays as a conventional pop epic about radio stations turning robotic with automation and the erosion of the humanity they are meant to be serving. Oakey ends with a larynx stretching high chorus that rises from some beautiful vocoder vocals.

A perfectly repeatable platter, Travelogue makes up with increased arranging skill what it misses in intrigue and drama so rich on Reproduction. The band would split down the middle just after its release. While Heaven 17 proceeded to charge into politics and the tougher side of the sound and garner a respectable string of hits, the remaining Human League were about to fully embrace some of the tightest and joyous synthpop of their era. The next album under their name was the incomparable Dare, a thing of bright fashion lighting on the cover art and massive pop anthems on the disc. The darkness of the first two LPs almost completely erased.

But before that happened this was recorded as the next statement of a musical act intent on exploring the possibilities of post-rock sound, embracing the cinematic and literary shadows they found. There were acts much harsher along these lines like Throbbing Gristle but The Human League sought an accessible path to a more interesting kind of pop. That they ended up being two distinct sides of that as two different bands is perhaps unfortunate but in a culture that was absorbing the old rebellion of punk and once again awarding mass success to the stronger competitors this division was probably inevitable. Until that happened some of the most durably interesting music of the time was made. This is part of that.