Now this title brought back a flood of memories. Not that I ever heard of Skinner Box before. But the style - and the label / backdrop - that's where the memories came in. There was a time roughly between 1992 and 1995 that I had a fondness for the "4AD sound". Now we have terms like Darkwave, Ethereal Wave, Ambient Pop, Dream Pop, and so on. I doubt I could tell you the difference from one to the other. In any case, my favorite band of the style back then - probably like everyone else - was Dead Can Dance. It's a sound I associate my early Colorado living experience with. I even went to a Lisa Gerrard concert in Boulder in 1995. And then... I just stopped. No particular reason really, just went back to my comfort zone of progressive rock. This music and scene was like a different side of me that I had buttoned up and stuck in the attic. Until now.
As for the label, Bobok were part of a larger collective known as Toxic Shock. This was the pre-internet age, and grassroots music labels were sprouting everywhere. To get the message out about what they were issuing, albums often times had newspapers (or flyers) included with detailed descriptions of other releases. I remember when Cuneiform did this, and they were very much similar during these years. These detailed description would often times take a quote from the leading underground DIY magazine of the day: Option. If you were looking for something new to hear - whether it be on cassette or LP (CDs were still considered too expensive for startups), Option was the go-to source. They had no particular genres they specialized in - but just about every underground band from the US found their way to Option. It was how I discovered Black Sun Ensemble for example.
Black Sun Ensemble ties us back to the origin of Toxic Shock - that is, Tucson Arizona. This fine southern Arizona town, not too far from the Mexican border, is also the home of the University of Arizona. Universities - in particular back then - were the hot spots for new sounds and styles. While of course there was a lot of repetitiveness, genuine exploratory music was being created. And since social media didn't exist, much of it happened in local silos. This is how something could be the "Seattle Sound" with grunge or the "Tampa Bay Sound" with death metal. It was an exciting time, one that is not likely to be repeated again. As an aside, Toxic Shock also had a brick and mortar store - that I visited in 1994, in the middle of this period.
As for Skinner Box, they perform the style of music in question quite well. The angelic female voices, the percussion and bells, the synthesized sound, flute, and even some psychedelic guitar - all of it transported me back to that time of my life. I wouldn't mind finding other albums like this again. Good times.
great article, can't wait to hear them!
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