WAS's Awesome New Wave Song Of The Week #14: Ad Infinitum - Telstar

This weeks’ Awesome Song is a first on Marc’s Blog...  That’s right, after 200+ songs we have not yet seen … an instrumental !   The honor of the first vocal-free track was a real toss-up.  I was going to go with “DNA" by Flock of Seagulls, which is fantastic but the Flock is already well-represented and well positioned.  Another favorite is of course the B-52s' extended instrumental mix of “Party Out of Bounds” which was used as backing music by new wave radio stations everywhere.   But I wanted a song that was not just a voiceless mix but an original instrumental … and being first, it also had to have some gravitas.  

So we go back to 1984 when a band very briefly known as Ad Infinitum put out their one and only release called “Telstar”.  That’s right, they were not a one-hit wonder … they were a one-song wonder!  Released by New Order’s production firm Factory Records, and with Peter Hook on bass, Ad Infinitum made just a single song (the B-side being a piano version of the same).  It was named after the Telstar 1 communications satellite launched in 1962 and popularized the same year by a group called The Tornadoes.  The Tornadoes released it at the height of the ‘space race’ of the time and it rocketed to #1 on the charts.  I especially like that the 1962 original includes some very nice synth-work (on a prehistoric doohickey known as a “keyboard”) while some of the remake’s actual synths almost sound like french horns.  Ad Infinitum never did anything else but their 1984 version of ‘Telstar’ was a great one-and-done release.  And it was also the first record ever released with a holographic cover… now that’s gravitas!   Telstar 1 the satellite is non-functional but still orbits the earth today.  And like new wave, the brand is timeless … Telstar 18V will launch later this year.

Here's the original from 1962!

-WAS