Attack Time by Zeus B. HeldWith Attack Time by sound tinkerer Zeus B. Held, Bureau B is re-releasing one of the most exciting records of the original experimental kraut-pop period. After various stints, including prog band Birth Control and underground dance tipple Gina X Performance, he also put out a string of solo releases. Attack Time, originally released on Aladin in 1981, gave Zeus B. Held the opportunity to experiment sonically outside the mainstream and subversively undermine the hegemonic MTV sound of the early 1980s. Unfortunately, the album was a commercial failure at the time. So, it's all the nicer that it's now being brought out into the world again with all its supposed contradictions between enraptured new wave, cosmic electronics and weird rock grooves."Zeus B. Held's origin story begins behind the keyboards of progressive powerhouse Birth Control, a six-year stint which saw his technique toughened in the crucible of hundreds of all night performances. After a brief pause in Paris to session for those space-age cyborgs Rockets, he came back to Köln in '78 and swapped commune living for a spot in the city. Soon he was picking up session work at the local Sound Experience studio and indulging his electronic obsession on a couple of solo LPs, Zeus' Amusement and Europium. In league with like-minded studio owner Martin Hömberg and art scene savant Gina Kikoine, Zeus took his new sound even further with a trio of icy electropop LPs as Gina X Performance. Their combination of queer culture, disco rhythms, and synthesizer sleaze captured the underground dancefloor, influencing Human League and Martin Gore, and making a splash at Arista, who were looking for someone to handle production duties on Fashion's sophomore album. Relocating to London in '82, Zeus spent a decade behind the desk for the likes of John Foxx, Dead Or Alive, and Pete Wylie, cementing his position among the pantheon of studio greats, where he's remained ever since . . . Recorded in '80 and '81 after the third GXP album wrapped, Attack Time is Zeus on the loose in Sound Experience, spending late nights alone learning how to play the studio as an instrument. Pre-MIDI and prior to the sampling revolution of the Fairlight, the ten tracks are awash with analogue techniques -- snip tapes and Revox time dilation, the pulsing PPG modular, groan tubes and eerie collages from the studio dustbin...
