Serious music fans usually pour scorn upon compilation albums as being “selective” or “unrepresentative” of a band’s discography as they tend to focus on well known tracks and avoid deep cuts. However, a well thought out retrospective can make an ideal gateway into a band’s back catalogue, and that’s precisely the function The House Is Burning: The Best Of Vivabeat 1979-1986 serves. Founded in 1978, Vivabeat’s unique brand of techno-pop still sounds futuristic and forward-facing, while the band’s constant musical evolution makes it difficult for the novice to know quite where to enter their discography. So this 16 track compendium curates the Vivabeat story into one easily digestible album that’s perfect for new fans to check things out and older heads to rediscover the band’s magic.

When music journalist (and Vivabeat vocalist) Marina Muhlfriedel handed Peter Gabriel a copy of Vivabeat’s demo tape it set a chain of dominoes in motion that found the band signed to UK label Charisma Records (and in turn a song on that tape, ‘Man From China’, would later inspire Gabriel’s ‘Games Without Frontiers’). It seems that Charisma was the perfect fit for Vivabeat; although the band originated in the sun-kissed soil of Los Angeles, their sound was more in tune with the rain-soaked streets of Sheffield. Drawing inspiration from the new romantic and glam rock scenes, Vivabeat formulated an original sound that existed somewhere between Roxy Music and Visage. With an unorthodox approach to music that found lines intersecting at impossible angles, ‘The House Is Burning (But There’s No One Home)’ is spiky and angular and makes for an arresting opener. As with most of the songs on this collection, on the surface it shouldn’t be so god-damn catchy, yet it soon crawls under the skin like a bad case of formication and will haunt your cranium like a friendly spectre. Or take the whistling refrain of the aforementioned ‘Man From China’, it’s so catchy it should be illegal and it’s really no surprise Mr. Gabriel “borrowed” from it.

With an abstract lyrical bent that’s just as obtuse as the music, songs such as ‘Gray, Gray, Gray’ have an otherworldly feel, as if performed by extraterrestrials from some distant intergalactic bar. While much of the music from the era which this disc pertains (1979-1986) sounds firmly rooted in time, the surrealism found on ‘Napalm Springs’ suggests it could have been released at any point in the last fifty years. Even the rudimentary keyboards, perhaps the easiest way to date music, give no clue as to when these songs were recorded.

In addition to the core group, Vivabeat attracted some stellar musicians into their orbit and look no further than Clem Burke (Blondie) adding a nifty beat to ‘Blue Guitars’. Yet, even within the ranks of the band there was a constant flux, and I guess it was this desire for musical exploration from which Vivabeat derived their timelessness. Yet, despite the years and different personnel that separate these tracks, they hang together as a cohesive whole, and in spite of the 70-minute running time, this is a collection that can be consumed in one sitting and without your attention flagging. It’s best exemplified by closer ‘2000 Light Years From Home’, a cover of The Rolling Stones’ classic which Vivabeat mould into their own shape (which is exactly how all covers should be handled). One listen is never enough to mine its depths and various facets and that’s what will keep you returning to The House Is Burning time and time (and time) again.

Vive le Vivabeat!

• The House Is Burning: The Best Of Vivabeat 1979-1986 is released via Liberation Hall and is available now (from here).

Track List:

1. The House Is Burning (But There’s No One Home)
2. Tents
3. Gray, Gray, Gray
4. Shine
5. Napalm Springs
6. Blue Guitars
7. Man From China
8. The Wonder Of It All *
9. The Last White Man
10. Angry Red Planet
11. City Of Industry *
12. The Girl The Wind Goes Through *
13. Henry James
14. What We Talk About (When We Talk About Love)
15. Dreaming Of Tigers
16. 2000 Light Years From Home

* Previously Unreleased