Information Society

  • Information Society
  • Information Society (Tommy Boy/Reprise) 1988 
  • Hack (Tommy Boy/Reprise) 1990 

A chilling illustration of the danger of technology falling into the wrong hands, the Minneapolis-bred Information Society dresses up inane techno-disco tunes in post-industrialist clichés, funk/hip-hop pretensions and found-sound actualities. On the Fred Maher-produced first album, the quartet plays shallow and poorly sung electro-pop — a lighter variation on Ministry’s early records — that takes its cues from Kraftwerk, OMD, Giorgio Moroder and the Human League. (The CD is graphics- encoded.)

With singer Amanda Kramer gone from the group, the remaining three — Kurt Valaquen, Paul Robb and James Cassidy — go seriously over the top on Hack, a sonic collage that attempts to make some statement about modern techno-culture by surrounding (and invades) ten remarkably stupid (and melodically similar) songs with scratched-in cut-ups, TV bites, phone calls, instrumentals and other trivia. As the cover art warns, Hack isn’t art — merely the noise of boys with toys.

[Ira Robbins]

See also: Golden Palominos