The timeline of Synthpop music may be divided into decades. The first wave covers its birth or development in the mid-’70s to its ascent in the mid-’80s, while the second wave may refer to its mainstream peak in the mid-’80s to its inevitable commercial decline in the mid-’90s, when Glam Metal, Grunge, and Britpop took their respective turns in the spotlight. Yes, Synthpop may have lost its sheen in the 1990s, but it never really died; it simply took a backseat in the sidelights of the commercial radar only to resurface again in the recent years.
And while pioneers such as Kraftwerk (“Airwaves”), Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (“Electricity”), Depeche Mode (“Just Can’t Get Enough”), and Pet Shop Boys (“Love Comes Quickly”) unarguably led the First Wave of Synthpop, the ensuing period was certainly dominated by equally flamboyant and ebullient bands such as Camouflage (“Strangers Thoughts”), Kon Kan (“I Beg Your Pardon”), Red Flag (“Russian Radio”), and of course, Information Society, which may be regarded as the forerunner of the batch.
Formed in 1982 in Minnesota, Information Society broke through commercially in 1988, after six years of waiting, with the release of its self-titled album. Information Society contained the band’s most popular hits—the absolutely electrifying dance-floor lodestone “What’s on Your Mind (Pure Energy),” the crystalline and melodic mid-tempo song “Tomorrow,” as well as the bouncy and subtly dark “Walking Away.”
The strengths of the album also included the telegraphic-beat-charged “Over the Sea,” and the funky James Bond soundtrack-worthy “Something in the Air,” among others. In the ensuing decade, Information Society braved the shifting musical landscape with three follow-up albums that remained rooted in the band’s synthesizer-based electronic dance music: 1990’s Hack (“Move Out”), which follows closely the synthpop styling of its predecessor; 1992’s guitar-glazed techno rave offering Peace and Love Inc. (“Where the I Divides”); and 1997’s ominous, industrial-heavy Don’t Be Afraid (“SEEK300””), which was practically lead vocalist Kurt Harland Larson’s solo efforts using the band’s moniker.
Soon after, Information Society went on a hiatus, returning with Synthesizer (“Run Away”) after a full decade, albeit this time without Larson, who was temporarily replaced with Christopher Anton. The sound of the new album harked to the familiar Synthop sensibilities of the band’s debut, more affined with some of the Pop-oriented pioneers of the genre such as Soft Cell (“Tainted Love”) and Pet Shop Boys (“Did you see me coming?”) as well as second-wave and third-wave forerunners like Anything Box (“Living in Oblivion”) and Joy Electric (“Burgundy Years”). This certain vibe owes to the more melody-based songwriting of Information Society’s co-founding member Paul Robb as well as to the distinguishably silkier voice of Anton, in contrast with Larson’s icier, lower-register vocal styling.
The rest of the 2000s was relatively uneventful aside from a number of low-key shows. And then in 2014, the band consisting of its classic lineup – Larson, Robb (synthesizer), and James Cassidy (bass, keyboards) – released its sixth oeuvre, _hello world (“Above and Below”), a slightly orchestrated affair that faintly echoes a 1990s-era Depeche Mode (“Policy of Truth”). The reinvigorated trio immediately followed the album up with this year’s Orders of Magnitude, which may be regarded as a different kind of beast for, instead of riding on the coattails of the current purveyors of Pop music, it took a backward and inward yet braver and more impressive turn.
Released on March 11, 2016, Information Society’s latest work, Orders of Magnitude, is an all-covers album. And before one accuses that it is an attempt by the band to gain easy recognition, one needs to listen to the album, to realize that the majority of the songs are actually more of the obscure type than the commercially familiar. Orders of Magnitude opens with a fuller and fuzzier rendition of the Gary Numan–penned Tubeway Army single “Praying to the Aliens.” Gone is the robotic, deadpan singing approach of Numan, replaced with the more urgent Larson-treated vocal delivery and coupled with female vocals that made the song more dynamic. Next is a more rhythmic version of Heaven 17’s “(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang,” which has been sprinkled with Information Society’s pure-energy beats and punches. The Winnie-the-Pooh ditty “Heffalumps and Woozles” (originally performed by The Mellomen) as well as the Steve Zuckerman-penned Sesame Street classic animated song “I In The Sky” (re-titled “Capital I”) have been both transformed into full-on dancefloor Techno tunes.
The band’s strobe-light take on a quadrumvirate of influential songs – “State of the Nation” by Fad Gadget, “Dominion” by the goth rockers The Sisters of Mercy, the sexy Disco-flavored 1978 Soft Rock song “Kiss You All Over” by Exile, and the Devo song “Beautiful World,” which features vocals by Devo’s Gerald V. Casale himself, may be considered the album’s highlights.
And then there is also a rendition of The Human League’s beloved single “Don’t You Want Me,” which is served on a rhythmic foundation of EDM styling. The album then closes in this sweat-drenched, hair-lashing sonic mood, with the succession of Snakefinger’s originally Reggae-rooted “Man in the Dark Sedan” and the intensely pulsating “Me and My Rhythm Box,” a song written by the Russian director Slava Tsukerman for his 1982 Science-Fiction movie Liquid Sky.
Orders of Magnitude is indeed oozing with adventure and a sense of aural magnitude that the brains behind Information Society have always been known to exude, not only on their records but more so during live performances. It also proves that the band’s flair for the technicalities of synthesizer music is as potent as ever and shows the depth of the musical roots of the members and their willingness, humility, and pride to pay homage to some of the musical elders that influenced and inspired them to make their own music, even throwing a couple of their childhood cartoon memories into the mix. CrypticRock gives Information Society’s Orders of Magnitude 4 out of 5 stars.
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