Howard Jones at the BBC is a new five-CD box set that features a wealth of BBC Sessions and live concert broadcasts that focuses on the classic, early part of Jones’ career.

Combining synth-pop and goth rock, Canada's Psyche built a solid fan base in Europe and a cult following in the rest of the world with their marriage of drama and melody. Initially surfacing as a minimal synth act with a bizarre, confrontational stage show, their work gradually became more pop-minded while maintaining a dark, brooding atmosphere. By the end of the '90s, Psyche had fully embraced their danceable side, asserting their status as godfathers of the EBM/futurepop scene.
Following the success of Insomnia Theatre (1985) and Unveiling the Secret (1986), Psyche turned to a classic wave sound on their third and most polished album, Mystery Hotel. While the industrial influence heard on earlier material is less pronounced, Mystery Hotel is in many ways the darkest Psyche album…

Smarting from Dazzle Ships' commercial failure, the band had a bit of a rethink when it came to their fifth album - happily, the end result showed that the group was still firing on all fours. While very much a pop-oriented album and a clear retreat from the exploratory reaches of previous work, Junk Culture was no sacrifice of ideals in pursuit of cash. In comparison to the group's late-'80s work, when it seemed commercial success was all that mattered, Junk Culture exhibits all the best qualities of OMD at their most accessible - instantly memorable melodies and McCluskey's distinct singing voice, clever but emotional lyrics, and fine playing all around…

The Pacific Age is the last OMD album to feature founding member Paul Humphreys (although The Best of OMD does collect a pair of subsequent singles). With producer Stephen Hague returning and guests Graham and Neil Weir elevated to full-time members, OMD aggressively targets the American pop market cultivated with Crush and the Top Ten single "If You Leave." With the Weirs' horns and a trio of female backing vocalists, the music on The Pacific Age sounds larger than life (the opening "Stay" in particular), a trait common to popular music in the mid-'80s. The added production value and better material represent an improvement over Crush, despite the opinion of some that The Pacific Age is a bland sellout. It's true that tracks like "(Forever) Live and Die," "Shame," and "Goddess of Love" are more style than substance, but it's a style that plays to OMD's mastery of melody and mood…

With the split between McCluskey and the rest of the band resolved by the former's decision to carry on with the band's name on his own, the question before Sugar Tax's appearance was whether the change would spark a new era of success for someone who clearly could balance artistic and commercial impulses in a winning fashion. The answer, based on the album - not entirely. The era of Architecture and Morality wouldn't be revisited anyway, for better or for worse, but instead of delightful confections with subtle heft like "Enola Gay" and "Tesla Girls," on Sugar Tax McCluskey is comfortably settled into a less-spectacular range of songs that only occasionally connect…

If OMD's debut album showed the band could succeed just as well on full-length efforts as singles, Organisation upped the ante even further, situating the band in the enviable position of at once being creative innovators and radio-friendly pop giants. That was shown as much by the astounding lead track and sole single from the album, "Enola Gay." Not merely a great showcase for new member Holmes, whose live-wire drumming took the core electronic beat as a launching point and easily outdid it, "Enola Gay" is a flat-out pop classic - clever, heartfelt, thrilling, and confident, not to mention catchy and arranged brilliantly. The outrageous use of the atomic bomb scenario - especially striking given the era's nuclear war fears - informs the seemingly giddy song with a cut-to-the-quick fear and melancholy, and the result is captivating…

Compiled by noted Australian music writer and historian David Nichols, ‘Closed Circuits’ looks at what happened in Australia when the machines started taking over in the wake of punk in the late 70s.

The synthesized love child of fellow French musicians Cerrone and Jean-Michel Jarre, Space made their mark in 1977 with "Magic Fly" not long after Jarre blasted to worldwide acclaim with his own "Oxygene." With their classic combination of lush instrumentation and electro-tweak, Space looked set to dominate the Euro-disco wave. Two years on, however, the band was still trying to recapture that glory with the release of Just Blue, and occasionally coming very close. Star-crossed with moments that touch on the sounds of both Giorgio Moroder and Meco, Space managed to churn out some eminently enjoyable if not brilliant electro-pop. Cohesively stronger on the first side (but just as enjoyable on the flip), Just Blue opens powerfully with the title track, a light disco foray complete with vocal orchestration. The beginning of "Secret Dreams," meanwhile, wouldn't have been at all out of place on an early-'70s prog album…

The NOW team continue to re-release the original compilations and have announced that Now That’s What I Call Music 10 is to be reissued across two CDs, next month.

Recorded in London and Paris in 1977, this conceptual, mostly instrumental LP employs a lot of futuristic sci-fi imagery and is quite high-tech for its time. Synthesizer-dominated instrumentals like "Air Force" and "Running in the City" give the impression that Jean-Philippe Iliesco, the album's producer, had been paying close attention to German innovators like Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder-and yet, Deliverance has a high-tech energy of its own. In the U.S., this record was ignored by radio programmers, but European dance clubs found that the album's faster material was great for moving bodies. At times, Deliverance ends up sounding like European movie music and fades into the background. But when Space hits its mark, Deliverance is both interesting and infectious.

The remarkable train of events set in motion by a catchy Seventies disco hit took even its composer by surprise. But a major part of the success was due to his own imagination, enthusiasm and perseverance. Didier, the composer and keyboard player who formed his group Space in 1977, was surprised when an experimental demo recording evolved into an international chart topper. He had grown up in a showbiz family, but even he wasn’t prepared for the dramatic events that followed in the wake of overnight stardom.
But it was a strange kind of celebrity, because the composer was hidden underneath a space helmet when the first promotional video was made and Space was really a studio concept rather than a touring band. Nevertheless, "Magic Fly" gave birth to the French synthesizer disco boom…