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Mute: A Visual Document From 1978 - Tomorrow
Mute is one of the most revered and influential indie labels of all time. Through the music of its tight-knit community of artists—ranging from Cabaret Voltaire, Nick Cave’s The Birthday Party and Moby to Depeche Mode, Erasure, and Goldfrapp—it has had an incalculable impact on popular music for forty years.
Daniel Miller created Mute to release his debut single (“Warm Leatherette”/ “T.V.O.D.”), a pioneering electronic sound with a defiantly DIY punk attitude. Mute quickly established a reputation for cultivating the experimental, releasing cutting-edge industrial sounds, and chart-topping electronic music by the likes of Depeche Mode and Yazoo. The label was equally at home with the savage punk of Nick Cave’s The Birthday Party and—to critical acclaim—his next outfit, The Bad Seeds. It also proved to be an Internet pioneer, launching the online site Mute Liberation Technologies in 1994.
Mute features stunning artwork and photography—much of it previously unseen—and revelatory behind-the-scenes insights from the vibrant cast who have worked with the label.
Daniel Miller created Mute to release his debut single (“Warm Leatherette”/ “T.V.O.D.”), a pioneering electronic sound with a defiantly DIY punk attitude. Mute quickly established a reputation for cultivating the experimental, releasing cutting-edge industrial sounds, and chart-topping electronic music by the likes of Depeche Mode and Yazoo. The label was equally at home with the savage punk of Nick Cave’s The Birthday Party and—to critical acclaim—his next outfit, The Bad Seeds. It also proved to be an Internet pioneer, launching the online site Mute Liberation Technologies in 1994.
Mute features stunning artwork and photography—much of it previously unseen—and revelatory behind-the-scenes insights from the vibrant cast who have worked with the label.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published December 5, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 10, 2018
Ein wunderschönes Buch, eine faszinierende Reise in die Archive von Mute, eine Vertiefung in Musik und Experiment. "Mute: A Visual Document From 1978 - Tomorrow" ist nicht nur eine durchgekaute Label-Geschichte, sondern ein wahres Fest an Bildern, Dokumenten und Entwürfen.
Weiteres dazu in meiner Rezension für ARTNOIR.
Unbedingt kaufen!
Weiteres dazu in meiner Rezension für ARTNOIR.
Unbedingt kaufen!
April 15, 2018
Liked this very much. Beautiful color images of all the singles and albums. This will become a lost art as music becomes more digital. Lots of juicy tidbits from Daniel Miller and the bands.
December 27, 2017
Mute Records is my favorite record label of all time. It's not even close. The goodreads title for this is wrong, the actual title of this book is MUTE: A VISUAL DOCUMENT FROM 1979 TO TOMORROW and that describes this history--it focuses more on the visual side of the band--art, photos, 7" and 12" covers--as it has the rich history of this influential label. In the mid to late 1980s, when I was an obsessed fan of English music, particularly synthesizer music, I bought everything that Mute released. Depeche Mode, The Normal, Yazoo, Erasure, I Start Counting, Fortron 5, Fad Gadget, Wire, Frank Tovey, Komputer, Goldfrapp, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Moby, Non, D.A.F., Nitzer Ebb, Recoil, The Assembly, Laibach, Diamanda Galas, Crime and the City Solution, Einsturzende Neubauten, Holger Hiller, Balanescu Quartet, Silicon Teens, He Said, Mark Stewart, Liars, Lost Under Heaven, Ben Frost, Maps, Add N to (X)....these are some of the people whose records I have purchased...some of them were key influences on my life! No joke.
The two coolest things about this is all of the comments made by Mute's founder and owner Daniel Miller [who was The Normal, Silicon Teens and Depeche Mode's producer all the way through "Black Celebration"] as he writes about some of the bands on the label. To me, Miller is one of the great musical visionaries and I revere the man. So anything he says, I want to read. Also loved seeing the design process for some of the "classic" Mute artwork--particularly the 1980s Depeche Mode stuff. That decade they were way more graphic design orientated than they are now and I eat that stuff up. So to see how A Broken Frame evolved...love it.
Long live Mute Records!
[Review written whilst listening to He Said's classic 1986 release Hail...check it or any of the above bands out if you don't know them!]
The two coolest things about this is all of the comments made by Mute's founder and owner Daniel Miller [who was The Normal, Silicon Teens and Depeche Mode's producer all the way through "Black Celebration"] as he writes about some of the bands on the label. To me, Miller is one of the great musical visionaries and I revere the man. So anything he says, I want to read. Also loved seeing the design process for some of the "classic" Mute artwork--particularly the 1980s Depeche Mode stuff. That decade they were way more graphic design orientated than they are now and I eat that stuff up. So to see how A Broken Frame evolved...love it.
Long live Mute Records!
[Review written whilst listening to He Said's classic 1986 release Hail...check it or any of the above bands out if you don't know them!]
February 24, 2018
As a fan of the Mute label early on, it was great seeing the cover art and reading the stories behind some of the recordings. It does make you appreciate their originality and the entire music scene of the late 70s and early 80s.
February 12, 2018
Would have liked some larger pictures of some of the art, but a lot of the context and writing was nice.
May 4, 2020
A one-of-a-kind volume, a beautiful object and also a comprehensive history of one of my favourite ever record labels.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews