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By the turn of the 80s, the impact of David Bowie's groundbreaking Berlin recordings - the synths, the alienation, the
drily futuristic production - was being felt on music across
Europe. What's more, the records being made were reflecting
back and influencing Bowie's own work - 1979's "Lodger" and
1980's "Scary Monsters" owed a debt to strands of German
kosmische (Holger Czukay), new electronica (Patrick Cowley,
Harald Grosskopf), and the latest works from old friends and
rivals like Robert Fripp, Peter Gabriel and Scott Walker, all of
whom had been re-energised by the fizz of 1977.
" Compiled by Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley and the BFI's Jason
Wood, "Fantastic Voyage" is the companion album to their
hugely successful "Caf Exil" collection, which imagined the
soundtrack to David Bowie and Iggy Pop's trans-European
train journeys in the mid-to-late seventies. "Fantastic Voyage"
is what happened next.
" Bowie's influences and Bowie's own influence were
rebounding off each other as the 70s ended and the 80s began,
notably in the emergent synthpop and new romantic scenes as
well as through the music of enigmatic acts like the Associates
and post-punk pioneers such as Cabaret Voltaire.
" Like "Low" and "Heroes", some of the tracks on "Fantastic
Voyage" are spiked with tension (Grauzone's 'Eisb r') while
some share those albums' sense of travel (Simple Minds'
'Theme for Great Cities', Ryuichi Sakamoto's 'Riot in Lagos')
and others find common ground with "Lodger's" dark, subtle
humour (Thomas Leer's 'Tight as a Drum', Fripp's 'Exposure').
" This is the thrilling, adventurous sound of European music
before the watershed moment when Bowie would abandon artpop for America and the emerging world of MTV with "Let's
Dance" in 1983. "Fantastic Voyage" soundtracks the few brief
years when the echo chamber of Bowie, his inspirations, and
his followers created an exciting, borderless music that was
ready to challenge Anglo American influences.