As anticipated on my "Inner most folds" review, Mark Lane has released for his 25th music anniversary a double CD set that contains tracks of his 1981-1985 period. THE ANTI-TECH TESTAMENT 1981-1985 contains 24 tracks coming from his early releases. Just to go a little deeply on the tracklist you can find 3 out of 6 tracks coming from "Misselijkheid ist niet intellectualistisch" a 6 song 7" EP, 1 out of 3 from "Love is so aggravating", a 3 song 7" vinyl EP, 1 out of 2 from "The reflection" a 2 song 9" opaque blue flexi-disc, 5 out of 5 from "Who's really listening?", a 5 song 12" mini-LP, 1 out of 1 from "Pleasure heist", a 1 song 7"vinyl picture-disc. The remaining 13 tracks are rare ones and some of them found already place on "Kill joy", a 17 song CD-R album released by Spider-Disc Int. on year 2000 and on "Who's really listening?+", a 12 song CD released by MetaWave Classix/Germany on year 2001, at the same period of the "Creepy a la weepy" MCD. Listening to the CDs I realized that Mark was sons of his times as the early songs sound like cold wave experiments that had a lot to share with the likes of Cabaret Voltaire, Fad Gadget and Bauhaus and a lot of other bands that grew with the sounds of Bowie, Roxy Music and punk in their ears and that lived on their flesh the new sounds and ideas of the post punk movement. Even if coming from the U.S., Mark had a lot of contacts in Europe where he released a bunch of his records and where he shared some gigs with Klinik. By listening to THE ANTI-TECH TESTAMENT 1981-1985 it's difficult for me to explain what you can find inside because I like it so much: I can hear so many influences that have been re-processed that I can't name other bands without underlining that Mark succeeded into giving his own print on all the tracks. Some of them are synth based rough melodic songs while some others like "Il pluet a Bruxelles" sound like little post punk gems and if the minimal approach of"3rd party" can catch your attention, the hypnotic "Tsar" will be able to stick its almost theatrical vocal lines into your memory. The pity is that the double set contains only less than 90 minutes of music, while it could contain all the whole first releases which aren't that easy to find. I hope that Mark will reissue all his stuff but without waiting other 25 years! Wait for an interview to Mark Lane on Chain D.L.K. anytime soon...