If I could only take two mutant synthpop releases from the early 80s to a desert island, they may just be Snowy Red's The Right To Die album and Lisfrank's Man Mask EP. They are very similar, both in quality, invention and looseness - no machine robotiks here - and with the human element very much to the fore.
Man Mask has that indefinable Italian extra added ingredient, dark/coldwave perhaps but with a warm tinge to the angst; Carmody, Neon and Chromagain also possess it but for me Lisfrank is the pick of the bunch. Live drums mix with electronic percussion, giving a less quantized feel to the beat, and the tracks evolve in their own way rather than obeying verse/chorus/verse structure. Sheer genius, and the usual travesty that music such as this remained so inaccessible to the majority through lack of airplay.
