NASA: Remembering The Future

Nasa

Remembering The Future

© 2000 Ninthwave Records (692863007120)

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Swedish electronic pop at its best.

tracks

1 The Road to Newtopia
2 Back to Square One
3 Cloudcontrol
4 Expansion
5 Remembering the Future
6 Nexterday
7 Xenophobic
8 Tell Me,woman (generator)
9 It's About Time
10 They Call Her Love
11 Looking Foward to the Past

notes

The whole way NASA's new album, "Remembering the Future" came was fairly random. They were basically defunct for most of the 90s, then suddenly an up-and-coming Swedish label, Memento Materia, asked the band to put together a history for a compilation of bands 80s hits.

Now most Americans at this point are scratching their heads. 80s ?

NASA actually started back in 1983 when they had their first Swedish ten "Paula." (Actually they started several years before that, to be precise!). Although the band had little success outside of Sweden (a planned US album was recorded, but then shelved by Columbia Records), they continued to have numerous hit singles in the country.

Which brings us to the best-of. The label asked if that band wanted to do a new song for the album. By this time, what had been the main core of the band, Patrik Henzel and Martin Thors, were busy in their second careers. Patrik had become a respected composer of music for commercials. So the idea of just doing one song didn't appeal that much to the two. Why not an album? they asked.

Both the label and the band's management thought that would be a great idea. The best-of came out about a year later; the brand new album, Remembering the Future, followed. It was the pair's first new release in 11 years.

"We knew it wasn't going to be a big hit, we can't compete with boy-bands. But I had always wanted to do the best synthpop album ever. And now, years later, I had the know-how and the technology to do it," Patrik told me one day via phone from his studio in Sweden. "We don't have a proper musical education between the two of us, but I have learned a lot from all these years of doing music for commercials. My songwriting has gotten much better. I wanted to make a synthpop album, with a capital "S."

The result is the pop masterpiece, Remembering the Future. And that is Pop with a capital "P".

"Every time I sat down to write a song, the pop side of Patrik just kicked in, so it was easy to just let it run wild. I think, this could be a single, so I write as if it is."

Once the album was finished they called in favors from their commercial work and got a video made for the first single. "Back To Square One." The result is as slick as anything on MTV, and much more inventive.

"We did the whole thing for very little money. Really it is a simple idea, but it was inventive how Mats Sternberg, the director, got everything to move at once."

Since finishing the album the band has been hard at work on other projects. Henzel and Thors were behind last years Scandinavian success of one DJ Mendez, whose Latin-flavored hit they produced, as well as most of the follow-up album. The two have also been working on Thors' solo album.

"We want to do an adult pop record, there is a real void in that kind of music in Sweden right now. It will be in Swedish, just for this country. Right now we are recycling "The Road to Newtopia" from the NASA album for this project. We slowed the tempo down and wrote all new lyrics. It works very well."

So, it seems that the two have little time to remember the future, as they are too busy creating it.

reviews

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  • New Wave
    author: Mark D.

    Synth Pop is ok, but these days a bad paraody of the New Wave that we really loved. This leans more to a classic New Wave sound than just synth pop. Simply the best New Wave album since the mid 80s when it sadly fell from popularity. The songs are just so well written and have that vibe. It's not just a matter of 'synths'. Some great New Wave had very little synth work (think early REM or early U2). That spirit, the hooks, and a singer who sings well, vs. a bunch of guys who sound like they are holding their noses when they sing in an endless vocal immitation of a Soft Cell or OMD nasal sound.

  • 80% New Musik, 20% Adolphson-Falk, 100% fabulous synth pop!
    author: Mark W.

    This is by far the closest to New Musik (the best synth pop group ever -- sorry Telex, Yello, YMO, Logic System, Art of Noise, China Crisis et al ;-) I've ever heard! It sounds just like Tony Mansfield would have produced this album with old 80s synths, but in a '00 studio environment... Lyrics and song structure are also slightly reminiscent of Adolphson-Falk (a duo well known to every Swedish synth pop aficionado...).

  • Vocoder heaven
    author: MDMPHD

    I can very much place this in the 80s - coupla tracks are really fab, especially Xenophobic, and the catchy tell me,woman and nexterday. It's a little out of place in today's pop (it was made in 2000) but it's an interesting bridge between New Wave 80s and a more modern pop sensibility.

  • Great pop that revisits old school synthpop while sounding anything but dated!
    author: Steven LeBeau

    Here's the deal: This is possibly the best "modern synthpop" album, period. The synthesizer programming is superb, the production inventive, and the songs are loaded with memorable hooks and very clever lyrics (think Chris Difford or Andy Partridge-clever, folks). This album also owes a HUGE debt to Tony Mansfield and New Musik (much of the programming is remeniscent of that band's "Warp" album, but with more focused songs).

  • Great synth-pop sci-fi album!
    author: Donna Vito

    I found this band by typing Level 42 in the search bar at the CDBaby site. No, they aren't Level 42, but they sound great! This is an interesting mixture of pop and voice synthesizer. What's even better is all the science fiction references (if you like science fiction, which I do). "Remembering the future, looking forward to the past." What a great line! Xenophobic is about the poor space alien being held captive in Area 54. Back To Square One would make a great single and dance tune. I can listen to this album over and over. So if you like 80's pop synth music, this album is awesome.

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