Pop. 1280 - Way Station

The Guardian 80

(Weyrd Son)
The Brooklyn outfit evoke a powerful mood with their pummelling drum machines, wailing synths and snarling vocals

The Proustian rush is perhaps not what Brooklyn’s Pop. 1280, who took their name from a Jim Thompson novel, are trying to summon. One would bet that despair, dislocation and terror are their bag. Their debut album was called The Horror. Nevertheless, older listeners coming to them fresh will find themselves transported directly back to the mid-80s, and the voice of John Peel announcing that he’s got something new on the Blast First label that he thinks you’re going to like. There are primitively pummelling drum machines, guitars that screech and wail, droning synths and a singer, Chris Bug, whose voice is all sneers and yowls and snarls.