There’s something very early-80s UK about 'Europe In The Year Zero'; a snapshot of a moment when synth-pop hadn’t fully hardened into chart formula yet and still felt like a loose network of experiments, small labels and odd collaborations. This record came out in 1982 on the tiny S/Phonograph imprint. It’s a five-track compilation 12" with two cuts by Colour Me Pop, two by Sudeten Crèche, and a crucial early track by Yazoo. Only around 8,000 copies were pressed, which already tells you the scale: this wasn’t aimed at mainstream radio, it was more like a document of a scene in motion.
What really gives the release its weight is the Yazoo connection. They were barely getting started at the time -Vince Clarke had just left Depeche Mode and teamed up with Alison Moyet in early 1982. Their track “Goodbye 70’s” appears here in a unique version, and this EP is often considered their first official appearance on vinyl, predating the full impact of 'Upstairs at Eric’s'. So you’ve got this odd situation where a soon-to-be massive act is sitting alongside much more obscure names.
One of those obscure names is Sudeten Creche, who basically orbit the whole project. They formed around 1980 as a kind of conceptual, semi–art-school experiment driven by Yvette Döll and Paul Carlin. Their tracks “Are Kisses Out of Fashion?” and “Dance” land right in that minimal wave zone: cold, sparse, slightly detached. That EP is actually their debut, and it also doubles as a launchpad for Yazoo, which says a lot about how blurred the lines were between projects at the time.
Then there’s Colour Me Pop, a short-lived act that had previously gone under the name Watch With Mother. Their tracks (“When Sex Was Fun” and “Bikini Trauma”) bring a more playful, slightly tongue-in-cheek new wave energy, but still sit comfortably in that DIY synth scene. They never reached the visibility of Yazoo, and even compared to Sudeten Crèche they feel more like a side branch than a core node, which makes their presence here even more tied to the label’s curatorial vibe.
S/Phonograph itself is part of that story. It wasn’t a major player; more like a small, almost one-off vehicle connected to Illuminating Music and distributed through indie channels. The EP even had a loose political angle, with references to anti-nuclear sentiment (“No Nukes” appears in the notes), which fits with the early-80s UK underground where music, art and activism often overlapped.
Put it all together and the record feels less like a traditional release and more like a junction point. You’ve got the future chart success of Yazoo just beginning to surface, the minimal synth underground represented by Sudeten Crèche, and a fringe pop act like Colour Me Pop filling out the edges. It captures that narrow window where synth-pop hadn’t yet split into mainstream and underground lanes, and everything was still happening in the same small ecosystem.
Label:
S/Phonograph – SPH1
Format:
Vinyl, 12", 45 RPM, Compilation
Country:
UK
Released:
Aug 1982
Style:
New Wave, Synth-pop, Minimal, Minimal Synth, Post-Punk
Tracklist:
A1 Colour Me Pop – When Sex Was Fun
A2 Colour Me Pop – Bikini Trauma
AA1 Yazoo – Goodbye 70's
AA2 Sudeten Creche – Are Kisses Out Of Fashion?
AA3 Sudeten Creche – Dance!
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