Damarge (aka Malceeurse Damarge) was a short-lived 4-piece Cold Wave Electro band from Southend-on-Sea, Essex, UK active from 1981 to January 1985. The music here was recorded between 1981 to 1984 and collects all their usable recordings: professionally restored and remastered at Big Noise Studios, Rochford, Essex. Damarge had a large and loyal following in their day, but they never fully capitalized on their popularity. Their one and only attempt at recording a single ended in farce. The band consisted of Kirt Tempest (aka Bill Bailey): synthesizer, piano, string synth, tapes, drum machine; Oaf (aka Iain Weir): Bass (Fender Precision through an 8x12 Marshall Stack); Cliff (aka Clifford Gee): Vocals; Snowboy (aka Mark Cotgrove): Latin percussion.

Listening to Damarge brought back a flood of memories, even though I had never seen or heard of them. This is music of a certain time, a time I knew very, very well. Being intimately acquainted with New York's No Wave scene, and then the New Wave scene, I knew the band, the musicians, the music, not just from a critical perspective but also from a performer’s perspective. 1981-1986 were the halcyon years of my own synthpop band, Chemistry Set. Like Damarge, our attempt at recording a single produced less than stellar (commercial) results, and all the big $$$ we sunk into a video were for naught when MTV told us they wouldn't play it because we had a (prop) gun in it (that wasn't even fired). So I know what it's like to put your heart, soul and $$ into a band and get nowhere. But to have a record of your work such as this- it's absolutely frickin' amazing!

At the time of Damarge, electro and synth pop were coming alive 158 miles away in Sheffield with ABC, the Human league, Heaven 17, Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA and others. Closer to home for Damarge, Depeche Mode (Basildon, Essex) were on their way to becoming international synthpop stars. Plenty of others were on the rise too for varying degrees of success - Soft Cell, Blancmange, OMD...the list goes on and on. The one thing audiences were hungering for at this time was something different with lots of enthusiasm. Plenty of bands using primarily synthesizers offered something enthusiastically different, even if they didn't have the chops to play their instruments well. (Where would Kraftwerk be without sequencers?) That's not the case with Damarge though. These guys were very, very adept on their instruments at a time when being able to play a few chords and a string of notes without the aid of a computer was considered quite competent.

The audio CD consists of 16 track running about 77 minutes, which is plenty to not only give you an idea of what the band was about, but also what the time was about. There is a good amount of experimentalism on '1981 to 1984' which makes sense because we were just kids fooling around with synthesizers and sound back then, but Damarge manage to sculpt it into a vibrant musical vehicle with a Cyber-Punk attitude. Bill Bailey may have had a real penchant for knob-twiddling but he was an astute keyboardist with the kind of chops I would have wanted in my band. Cliff's vocals were just right for the time and style of music- more exclaimed than sung, more rapped than melodic (well one song is extended rap, but is somewhat amusing) and Iaian's bass and Mark's percussion provided the kind of killer rhythm section you just can't get with only a drum machine.

There are a lot of cool tracks on '1981 to 1984' but I especially liked "The Awakening" with its Steve Miller "Fly Like an Eagle" bubbly synth opening and heedlessly relentless rhythm; and the even more relentless "Body Rock" (Parts 1 & 2) with a cool descending bass line, percolatin' percussion, lots of lead-synth madness and slick lyrics (..."The Roxy in New York is the place to be, 'cause the kid is hot, he's the one to see..."). Yeah, I saw a few acts at the Roxy...just can't remember exactly who...


This deluxe package also comes with a live performance DVD, but I wasn't able to get it to play in my computer or Blu-Ray player. I did find an 18 minute video of Damarge live 1983 at Cliff's Palace on YouTube, so if that was it, I saw it. It was kind of dark and the sound quality not as good as the audio CD, so you may not be missing much. Also in this deluxe package are signed cardstock picture cards of all the individual band members, so there's that too. There is also a 32-page booklet chronicling the band's career including song and equipment particulars, with an anecdotal diary aspect on the scene at the time that really brought the nostalgia back home. As a document, 'Damarge 1981-1984' is an important artifact of the time and place, and one helluva enjoyable listen. Recommended!