The Arms of Someone New: Susan Sleepwalking (CD)

Product Description

Please note that there is a saw/drill through the spine on one side. These came back from our distributor this way. Don’t worry, though, the band still receives full royalty on these sales!!

Now available on LP, as well!

Imagine it’s 1985 again, when listening to progressive alternative music meant hearing bands like New Order, OMD and Depeche Mode. Moody synth-pop groups dominated the imports from Europe, and in the American midwest a relatively unknown band was traversing the same territory. Quietly following their own course of musical exploration, The Arms Of Someone New created music that was mellowly melodic, somewhere between pop/rock and New Romantic. Equipped with simple synths, drum machines, guitars and vocals, The Arms Of Someone New provided an American take on what we now fondly look back on as the classic “eighties” sound – a sound undergoing renewed interest and resurgence.

The Arms Of Someone New’s primary member, Steve Jones, was also a founding member of the Chamapign/Urbana, IL, based-band Area (which has four successful reissues on Projekt: Archive)

A review from StarVox.net

I have a deep unfillable void in my heart that only vintage Gothic rock and the early music of 4AD can fill. I was very young when all this stuff originally surfaced, but thankfully, the music is still available for a latter generation to appreciate. The Projekt Archive, a subsidiary of Projekt Records as you could guess is responsible for re-issuing back-catalogue releases from bands such as Attrition and Area, and their latest restoration project is for the mid-eighties band The Arms Of Someone New.

The band formed as a duo and the two members Mel Eberle and Steve Jones collaborated from Boston to Champaign, IL respectively. Other contributors of the band were Lynn Canfield and Henry Frayme, who with Jones went on to form Area. So its all rather interesting how the two bands overlapped. But the Arms Of Someone New never really broke and were left on the backburner as the members focused on Area and other outlets and projects. The master tapes were left undisturbed until now, and the band’s collective material has at last seen the light of day.

The Arms Of Someone New: That easily wins the award for most striking and unusual moniker, and the music without a doubt lives up to be as avant-garde and introspective as expected. In the arms of a new lover, you find something daring and unexplored, yet something recognizable and comforting, as love is essential to us all. There is a similar effect with this kind of music for me, as I have discovered something ‘new’ to my ears and in that embrace waits a familiar sound that I utterly adore.

The music is comparable to the traditional Xymox 4AD sound and the earliest recordings like “Ceremony” and “In A Lonely Place” by New Order. Incidentally, New Order’s album title “Power Corruption & Lies” was punned by AOSN with their release Love, Power & Justice. Their minimalist soundscapes are comprised of reverberated male vocals, tight simplistic drum programs, vintage synths and strummed guitar doodles that definitely overwhelm the listener with the long disappeared yet passionately revered “cult” sound of Goth’s early days. Projekt has re-issued two CDs, the first of which is the band’s debut ten song full-length, entitled Susan Sleepwalking, which also contains eight additional tracks taken from their Burying The Carnival EP and the “Holy Dance” single. The Susan Sleepwalking CD is primarily more mellow and reserved, with a greater focus on synth drenched ambiance. The second reissue Love, Power, & Justice is probably the better of the two to start with, as it is more upbeat and has a stronger rhythmic presence.

Regardless, both CDs are incredibly worthwhile collections. Here is a band that could have lost the battle to history and remained in 4-track purgatory, haunting the closets ofthe busy musicians who never had the opportunity to solicit their work appropriately. But thankfully, their music has been made accessible again for a new generation to discover, and I highly recommend these two CDs to fans of 4AD, vintage alternative, and Goth rock.