Stuart Leath (Emotional Rescue)

Not content to focus on one area of the label industry, self-confessed record addict Stuart Leath aka Chuggy is the man behind both Emotional Rescue and Emotional Response, the former his brilliant reissue imprint dedicated in part to the best in obscure ’80s synth pop, the latter his outlet for exciting new music pushing things forwards in the same vein.

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Kraftwerk

Numbers

(Warner Bros., 1981)

Listen / Buy

I was going to say ‘The Model’ because of how it blew my mind as an 11 year old sitting at home watching TOTP as the video was beamed direct to my forming mind and how profound in a way it was for teenagers to be collecting such music as many kids at the time did, but actually my personal favourite has to be ‘Numbers’. Not because what it meant for Electro, I was never a lino person, but simply as a piece of music. It’s so pure. It has the essential elements of Kraftwerk with its seemingly endless introductory interplay between the percussion and vocals, however it’s the break with it’s infamous ‘falling’ keyboard line that really blows me away. When that comes in the world seems to open. Even today when I hear I stop what I’m doing and listen for it. Perfection.

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