Issue 90

ABC's 'The Lexicon Of Love' is 40 years old this month and we're thrilled to have frontman Martin Fry on the cover of the new Electronic Sound to mark the occasion. We have a superb ABC seven-inch – pressed on gold vinyl to match Martin's suit – to accompany the issue too.

A glorious mix of intoxicating pop tunes, slick and funky rhythms, head-swirling strings and super-smart lyrics, ‘The Lexicon Of Love’ still sounds great to this day. No wonder the album entered the UK charts at Number One and stayed in the Top 100 for an entire year. Our cover feature tells the inside story of the record, with Martin Fry taking us back to ABC's roots in the underground synth group Vice Versa. His memories of the early 1980s, a period he describes as "a whirlwind", make for a fascinating article. It starts with him recalling the day he stuffed his gold suit down the toilet in a Tokyo hotel...

We have lots more great features inside, including Dubstar, 23 Skidoo, Zombie Zombie, 700 Bliss, Mark Reeder, The Sound Of Science and, most notably, the last-ever UK interview with krautrock pioneer Klaus Schulze. A member of both Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel but best known for a prolific solo career spanning five decades, Klaus completed a lengthy email interview with our writer Jeremy Allen just a few days before he died in April. "Life has a way of surprising us all," he told Jeremy. "One thing is sure – nothing is sure."

We have something a bit special to accompany this month's magazine too – an exclusive gold vinyl seven-inch offering two superb ABC tracks, neither of which has ever been released in a physical format before. The A-side is the uplifting and extremely catchy 'Look Good Tonite', which Martin describes as "a love song, of sorts". We're certainly talking classic ABC here. The track was issued as a lockdown download on the group's website in 2020, but just for 24 hours. Flip the disc over for the orchestral and gently funky 'Sixty Seconds Later', which is both previously unreleased and previously unheard. We think we might be spoiling you with this record!

As with all of our music releases, this seven-inch is strictly limited and is only available to readers of Electronic Sound, so make sure you get your copy right away.