Poeme Electronique - the Echoes Fade Album

Poeme Electronique was an English new wave/electropop quartet formed in 1980 by Dave Hewson, his brother Les, and their cousins Julie and Sharon on vocals. In 1982, the group released one vinyl single—“The Echoes Fade” backed with “Voice”—in a limited pressing of 400 for Carrere Records. Then Poeme Electronique recorded an album’s worth of material that never surfaced; the band vanished into obscurity. Jump to 2007, when a fan encouraged Hewson to dig up those old recordings, some of which were found on nearly decayed Ampex analog tape. Through a heat-baking process, the songs were saved, produced, and released on The Echoes Fade Album. It opens with the original 1982 mix of the spooky, synth-heavy title track and the more upbeat “Voice,” before “Rendezvous” pipes in sounding like a more dystopian version of the L.A. new wave band Berlin. Hewson has since become a composer for the BBC; the production value here is exquisite, especially on the salient “She’s an Image,” which plays like Gary Numan and Devo. At long last, an album that should have been a genre staple has arrived.