Album Review
Continental Liaison
Three Minutes, Three Chords
(Ltd edition Cassette / DL)
Released 27 Sept 2024
An acute sense of injustice and the 10 year anniversary of their first single has prompted a reappraisal of their early hard to find single and EP tracks, written and recorded as Continental Liaison exploded onto the electro post punk scene, brimming with ideas. The success of their Analogue Heart album was followed six months later by the death of frontman Bam meaning this collection is an important sonic memorial that will always fizz with electricity, ideas and enthusiasm.
There is a jokey t-shirt with the slogan ‘I Prefer Their Early Stuff’ which someone will probably get me for Christmas. I have always said a bands early work or first album is their best material. It seems obvious to me: they spend a year or however long, writing, rehearsing, and have that hunger, that love of it, that passion so the first recordings are gonna (hopefully) capture that energy and enthusiasm and freshness. And it is rarely bettered.
Consequently, true to form, I prefer this, Three Minutes, Three Chords compilation to Analogue Heart, the debut album proper. Maybe because it is potential hit single after hit single with the balance of punkish energy and electronic discipline weighing heavier in favour of the former.
Continental Liaison cropped up on Louder Than War reviews of local compilation albums where they always stood out from the pack. City Walls 2 – ‘elements of Devo and Suicide’ and Taking Liberties ” sounds like an electronic Billy Childish jamming with Suicide and their song Red Mist features the line If anger is an energy, you could power towns off me”
Drawn to the ‘noir’ side of life their pop songs carry a sense of threat/dread. They strive to create music that can be danced to or thought about…experimental fun you can take seriously…smart tunes for sharp people. Fiercely independent & resolutely open-minded.
One track is an Advert for the debut single – but works as a fabulous piece on its own merits (even if it does pinch ideas from The Revolution Will Not Be Televised).
Action Time! steals three-quarters of its title from an Alternative TV song but it’s chorus provides the compilations title.
The opening track and probably one of the first the band wrote is to my mind their absolute pinnacle in its musical simplicity and directness: Called – A Series of Events – ‘A life lived by accident’. It’s punk rock with a hammering electro pulse.
It was the sound of a band giving birth to itself and realising they could do this! For the next ten years they would refine and replicate and reassemble electronica and post-punk music in accordance with their own vision. A red and black cyborg punk world of their own making. Within it they enacted the conflict between guitar and synthesized music. The traditional versus the technological was played out and the battleground was the Alternative Disco dancefloor.
The results, remixed and remastered on this collection are the beautiful outcome. Man and machine in unison. Six strings made to sound synthetic and keyboards that imitate the bass-guitar. The three-finger tunefulness of Depeche Mode wrapped up in the adrenochrome drive of Sisters of Mercy, with an Age of Chance-like planifesto to have an impact.
If only Continental Liaison were the Android Rebel Punk Machine they seemed to be… they wouldn’t’ve been stopped in their tracks by the Grim Reaper.
Eleven songs, thirty-six minutes, Three Chords, Three Minutes is JG Ballard taking to the dancefloor and making an atrocious exhibition of himself to distract us from the fact the world is falling apart…
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All words Ged Babey
CONTINENTAL LIAISON the future…?
(Ged Babey spoke to Ryan from the band) I appreciate it must be very hard for you…. losing Bam. Can I ask, are you planning new music? Will you keep the name Continental Liaison ? Are you looking for another singer?
Yeah, it’s been a tough 8 months. We are planning new music, we have had some rehearsals with me & G alternating on vocals like an early New Order experiment. Bam wanted us to continue & we like the idea of celebrating his words by keeping them alive. More recently we have been rehearsing with Serena on vocals. She contributed vocals to our album & by the end was considered a de facto member so is a good fit for us.
We have demo-ed one ‘new’ song that we rehearsed with Bam with me on vocals (again, a Joy Division/New Order ‘Ceremony’ situation) & we have some more new songs to work on. We also have some demos with Bam that we’d like to finish properly retaining his vocals. I wouldn’t rule out using some of his vocals live.
We’ve tentatively talked about some gigs & have a tribute night to Bam planned early in 2025. (Ryan).
I’m sure all their friends and followers join me in wishing them every success. x (GB)
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