Needle Time

  The Bridge - What Does It Take To Make You Love Me? [FST 122 DEU 2016 24-Bit FLAC] Here is the last of the two compilations featuring all those unreleased tracks by lost eighties indie-popsters, The Bridge. There was a time when I would have lapped up this stuff and these guys certainly deserved a worthy career in music - I would have been raving about them in 1986, I didn't, therefore I am raving about them in 2021. The opening salvo of Summertime has indie hit single written all over it and I can only guess that the band split before it was considered for a proper release (these are all demos), or the band were hoping for a major deal rather than release it themselves. This album takes its title from the opening line and all the tracks here follow a similar vein - jangly guitars, prominent bass, washy synths and catchy choruses - a bit like Aztec Camera meets The Railway Children with a bit of Prefab. All those bands were contemporaries rather than influences and I'd bet ...

  The Bridge - Face Down Everybody Looks The Same [FST 099 DEU 2015 24-Bit FLAC] As expected, my re-rip of The Bridge's Industrial Love Dance has proved to be one of the biggest Needle Time attractions of recent years - maybe somebody cross-posted it to social media? I mentioned that the band released some of their original demos and sessions via the German indie reissue label, Firestation Records in 2015. No sooner had I mentioned that and I received a generous donation from a blog follower, who wishes to remain anonymous, with the explicit instruction to acquire said album, rip it to high res flac and share for all blog followers. So here you are.... The Bridge's notoriety came from a misperception by many that they were New Order in disguise. This was not the case, as you will hear from these tracks. Rains Run Free , Believe In Love and Light Fades each have a New Order feel to them but they are not mimicking our favourite Mancunian pop-pickers. What is clear that origina...

  The Bridge - Industrial Love Dance [SV 12003 UK 1984 24-Bit FLAC] If there is one single with the highest number of re-post requests in all my ten+ years of blogging, then it is Industrial Love Dance by Middlesex indie-pop band The Bridge. Take a Fairlight CMI synth, an Oberheim DMX drum machine, an Emulator, a highly strung bass, and (wait for it) a Melodica, then add a few melancholy vocals ....and what do you get? It's a New Order single. Except that it is not New Order, but they had some people fooled, even Discogs credits Peter Hook with the bass. The Bridge were something to do with Zerra One, but this single (in three mixes) was miles better than anything Zerra One could ever muster. The remainder of the bands recordings fit between early The Beloved and Prefab Sprout (is there such a place?) and I will feature some of their other recordings when I return from a break with blogging in about ten days. So, feel free to talk among yourselves, or dig through all my blog ...