Back catalogue: Coldwave/Synth

Review: Gavin Friday's Ecce Homo marks his return with a bold, sonorous expression after a 13-year hiatus. The album, produced by Dave Ball (Soft Cell), Michael Heffernan, and Riccardo Mulhall, showcases Friday's evolution as an artist, blending rebellion, anger, and introspection into a deeply personal exploration of identity and societal disillusionment. Known as the former frontman of the Irish post-punk band Virgin Prunes, Friday crafts Ecce Homo with a striking mix of emotional vulnerability and defiance, tackling themes like religion, power, and self-liberation. The title track's haunting yet euphoric sound, paired with an AI-generated video, sets the tone for an album that breaks genre conventions while maintaining a sense of triumph. Ecce Homo is a work of fearless self-expression, building on the reflective grief of 2011's Catholic while celebrating the strength found in independence. This album affirms Gavin Friday's enduring artistic presence.

Review: The Love Invention is the debut solo album by Alison Goldfrapp, the singer of the longtime electronic duo Goldfrapp. Striking out on her own here, it contains 11 tracks in her usual cross-section of house, dance-pop, and nu-disco, but this time around they were co-produced with the likes of Richard X and James Greenwood (aka Ghost Culture) instead. A rallying cry for freedom and cleaving out a space for one's own, the album also deals with subjects such as falsity and authenticity, and takes a lot after the former Goldfrapp project Head First.

Review: In 1984, Gary Numan launched Numa Records and started a new phase in his career with the release of Berserker. This album introduced a harder-edged digital sound into his canon while maintaining the analogue textures of his earlier work. It's a testament to the fact that Numan's creative evolution never stopped and blends both personal and fictional narratives into haunting tracks like 'My Dying Machine,' 'This Is New Love' and 'Berserker.' The remastered double vinyl edition includes the original album with bonus tracks that add extra perspective to this pivotal period in his career.

Review: Alan Vega & Marty Rev's career as Suicide spanned an incredible four decades. During those years, they rarely if ever got much credit for their work but as is often the way, once time passed they started to get deserving plaudits and an ever growing status amongst fans and critics. Now said to be one of the most inspirational outfits of the 70s, they influenced everyone from Depeche Mode to Soft Cell. This brand new, remastered collection takes in tunes from all across the band's career and has plenty of big, raw, energetic and eclectic sounds with track from their first album in 1977 and most recent in 2002.

Review: Heads will know Suicide as the pioneering duo of electronic music and proto-punk from New York City, consisting of vocalist Alan Vega and instrumentalist Martin Rev. Fewer will know anything more beyond the pale of their debut album, though. 'A Way of Life', their third studio album released in 1988 via Wax Trax!, heard them escape the noise - exploring a more hypnotic, minimalistic synthpop sound. That being said, stonkers like 'Surrender', 'Jukebox Baby 96', and 'Dominic Christ' all still captured the doomy New York zeitgeist. This remastered edition contains a full remaster from its original tapes, as well as a brand new, never-heard-before live Bruce Springseen cover no less.

Review: Originally released in 1982, Upstairs At Eric's marked the arrival of a duo as timeless as they were era defining, capable of capturing the very essence of an emerging, tech-driven music scene while also writing tracks that still sound incredible today. Many of which have been repurposed, sampled and remixed to the ends of the Earth and we're still not bored. Produced by the two band members, Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke, alongside Daniel Miller, boss of Mute Records, the legendary British label that first carried this, we shouldn't need to namedrop tracks here - Upstairs At Eric's is, frankly, the landmark synth-pop record. Just in case, though, think 'Don't Go', 'Goodbye 70s', and 'Only You'. And that's before we get into the lesser radio-played gems.